Monday 11 August 2008

World of Art Game

This was a great diagram I discovered that helps understand/simplify some of the complexities of the art world in an excellantly designed visualisation.

Adelheid Mers subverts this diagrma of rather than being just a diagram he would transform it into a game, with players following the artists.

Start life at college, finish with a clear mind. It has excellant pictographic symbols of people/places with clean, soft contrasts/graduation of monochromatic colours.

'ABOUT WORLD OF ART: Curator Mary Jane Jacob had seen the diagrams after Lakoffat the Chicago Open Studio, and commissioned me to create a poster for a workshop symposium she was organizing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago:

"Setting Up Your Art and Your Life - Strategies for a Sustained Practice".

The idea was to create a diagram of an artist, not based on a book, but on my own expertise. Conjuring up elements I wished to include, it first became apparent how crowded the world of art is (artists, audiences, curators, juries, dealers, students, critics, historians etc.), then how many locations are involved, and then, in discussion with Mary Jane, it became very clear that how we value the players and the locales varies greatly as well.

As the task was not to diagram my personal belief system, two design possibilities presented themselves: to indicate all possible varieties, or to make a game in which all possibilities are evoked. The game seemed to be appropriate, and it was printed on the rear of the poster that announced the symposium, as a treat of sorts. Later I also printed a larger version and made game pieces to go along with it'.

found: http://thediagram.com/5_1/mers.html

link featured: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davegray/355002597/

high res: http://thediagram.com/5_1/mers_woa.pdf

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