The Cultivation of Site-Specific Artwork
An artist, perhaps a faculty member at Free Columbia or someone participating in an ART / Capital Residency, may offer to work with an institution in order to create a work of art that fits their organizational mission and their working space.
There is a discussion between the artist and members of the institution about what is needed. The artist is left free to create something new and the institution is free to make a contribution to Free Columbia. In November, 2018, Zoltán Döbröntei, a painter from Budapest, Hungary, created site-specific work for the Community Hospice in Catskill, NY; the Rudolf Steiner Library in Hudson, NY; and the new High Falls Theater in Philmont, NY, as part of the ART / Capital Residency.
As a part of the Art / Capital Residency, the painter Zoltán Döbröntei was hosted by Lightforms and Free Columbia for one month to paint three site-specific pieces. Video by Caleb Buchbinder.
ART / Capital Residency (2018)
A Free Columbia / Lightforms Collaboration
“Money and capital cannot be an economic value, capital is human dignity and creativity. And so, in keeping with this, we need to develop a concept of money that allows creativity, or art, so to speak, to be capital. Art is capital.”
- Joseph Beuys
The ART / Capital residencies served as free cultural events. Artists were supported to create, and part of the residency included making the art available to the community at large. As with all activities at Free Columbia, donations are continually invited and accepted and will go toward supporting future projects. The intention is that creativity is placed in community context as a goal, as expressed in the new concept of capital referred to in the Beuys quote above.