Week 5 - Curiosity with Babak Golkar

Curiosity - it is a simple word that also conveys a large aspect of creativity integral to art making.
In our workshop with artist Babak Golkar, we explored the meaning of this word through discussion and considered several artists, including Francis Alÿs.

Here, in "Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing"
Alÿs takes curiosity to the streets by pushing a block of ice through Mexico city; the length of the performance is determined by the time it takes the ice to melt (approximately 9 hours in this instance).  Through this simple everyday gesture,  he expands our understanding of those objects and the spaces they occupy. 

Curiosity also allows us to dissolve the categories we artificially set-up around definitions of art. We spoke about drawing as an act of mark making, not limited to pencil on paper.  As Babak spoke, we were encouraged to doodle and free associate.

From these drawings we focused on two ideas of our choice (two things we were curious about) which we then translated into clay.  The body, imprinted in the clay, could also be seen as a form of "drawing," as a record of an action.

Thank you to Babak and everyone for a stimulating conversation.