Conversation

Sustainability has been a buzzword recently. Slovenian artist and architect Marjetica Potrc has applied and investigated this concept for many years in artworks, museum exhibitions and on-site interventions around the world. In an intimate conversation, the renowned curator Carlos Basualdointroduces the artistic oeuvre of Potrc, a newly appointed Vera List Center Fellow, with whom he has collaborated on several projects.

The focus of their conversation is Potrc’s new research project on the use of water: during her current residency with the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans, the artist is conducting on-site examinations into sustainable water-use practices that have developed in New Orleans since Katrina, such as the reclamation of wetlands, and will draw comparisons to New York City.

As is her characteristic, Potrc has taken up residence in a site of political turmoil and social transformation and, after extensive scientific and cultural research, will insert into the contested situation her work, possibly an architectural installation or simply a conversation, in order to provide clarity and new solutions.

Participants
Carlos Basualdo, Curator of Contemporary Art, The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Marjetica Potrc, artist and 2007/2008 Vera List Center Fellow

Marjetica Potrc is the 2007/2008 Vera List Center Fellow, and an artist and architect based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the Americas in exhibitions such as The Sao Paulo Biennial (1996 and 2006), Skulptur: Projekte in Muenster (1997), and The Venice Biennial, (2003. The Hugo Boss Award recipient in 2000, she has had solo exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and at Max Protetch Gallery (2002 and 2005), the Nordenhake Gallery in Berlin (2003 and 2007), the PBICA in Lake Worth, Florida (2003), the List Visual Arts Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2004), the De Appel Foundation for Contemporary Art in Amsterdam (2004), the Portikus, Frankfurt am Main (2006), and The Curve, Barbican Art Galleries in London (2007). She has also created many on-site installations, including Balcony with Wind Turbine (at the Liverpool Biennial, 2004) and Genesis (2005), which is on permanent display at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo.

Carlos Basualdo is an art historian and curator of contemporary art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and an adjunct professor at the University IUAV in Venice, Italy, where he teaches a course on the history of exhibitions. He has curated exhibitions of contemporary art at major museums in Latin America, North America and Europe, and was a co-curator of Documenta XI. He is a member of the Vera List Center’s advisory committee.