In the studio with Naomi Safran-Hon.

The nominations from the community offered a remarkably broad range of artists and practices. We were struck by the different art worlds represented by the nominated artists. Although painting prevailed, we saw work representing a range of media styles, and subjects. We also appreciated that the artists ranged from the self-taught to the academically trained, and that some are full-time artists while others create their art alongside other careers.

Our challenge was to take this array of options and to think about the show as an entity, including its cohesiveness and scale. We wanted to select a group of artists who would represent the range of those nominated, and the artistic spectrum of those working in Brooklyn. Ultimately we strove to present a strong cohesive exhibition that reflected the artistic choices that reflected the democratic process of GO.

As we deliberated and strategized, we recognized that difficult choices needed to be made. We decided to chose a group of artists that represented the breadth of practices we had seen in the studios and a selection of several works by each artist to convey a sense of depth. Given the size of the mezzanine gallery we had at our disposal, this meant that the group of 10 nominees had to be pared down to fewer finalists.

Curators taking a look at the work of Naomi Safran-Hon during the installation of GO in the Brooklyn Museum mezzanine gallery.

As with all exhibitions initially everything seems possible until the moment for difficult decisions arrives. We hope that everyone who has engaged in this project will come to see the final exhibition. As we install the show this week, we will begin to see the relationship between the individual works by each artist as well as the conversation between the different artistic voices in the gallery. The distinctive space of the mezzanine gallery presents unique opportunities for the installation and exhibition design, including the placement of informational texts and the inclusion of a community component to reflect the open studio weekend and the tremendous activity that led us to this installation.

Over the past year and a half, we discussed many ways to approach the exhibition, including whether or not the exhibition was necessary. In the process, we considered various models. For instance, we have already mentioned the inspiration provided by ArtPrize and our interest in modifying their framework to see work within the context of the studio and to require voters to nominate fewer artists. We also looked at the Walker Art Center’s 50/50: Audience and Experts Curate the Paper Collection, an exhibition that invited the public to vote on a selection of images on a kiosk at the museum and online, while their chief curator chose works by artists represented in depth in the museum collection. The resulting selections were hung in two sections, sparking “a range of questions about the dynamics between ‘audience’ and ‘expert,’ or between curatorial practice and so-called ‘mass taste.’” By contrast, the Hammer’s new Mohn Prize awardee was chosen by public vote from the museum’s Made in L.A. biennial exhibition. The experts, a jury of curators, winnowed the pool from the 60 exhibiting artists to 5 before inviting the public to vote. This model shifts the weight of decision making toward the experts. We also considered our own past projects, particularly Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition. While Click!, a great success, has served as a model for many subsequent projects elsewhere, it focused on using the internet as a tool and the photographs, though Brooklyn-themed, were judged online and in isolation.  During GO, we wanted to shift the focus more toward seeing a body of work in the studio with the artist present while creating an awareness of the art-making taking place in various communities throughout Brooklyn.

Installation of GO started on Monday in our Mezzanine gallery on the second floor of the Museum.

Since the main objective of GO was to connect the community with the vast number of artists working in their neighborhoods, the process included meeting and talking to artists face-to-face as well as scores of opportunities to encounter art in the flesh, so to speak. We invited the public into artists’ studios and asked it to nominate artists, creating the shortlist of artists for me and Eugenie Tsai to visit and select for the show, creating a collaboration between members of the community and the museum curators.

As always, practical issues arise. With exhibitions, the issue is always one of available space during the preferred period of time. We wanted the exhibition to follow the open studio weekend as quickly as possible and estimated that the entire process would take about three months, putting the opening in early December. We also felt strongly that unveiling the show on a First Saturday would be in keeping with the community-spirited character of the show. We felt now was the right time with Brooklyn experiencing such a great renaissance and with such widespread enthusiasm for the incredible creativity in the borough.

More to come this week!

The video, which you can watch above, shows Ai dancing with colleagues at his Beijing studio. He called the video “Grass-Mud Horse Style,” which refers to a fictional creature used to symbolize anti-censorship in China and has been an ongoing theme in his work. Since 2009, Ai has become known for his political activism and use of the internet and social media as a platform to address social and political issues. This activity resulted in his detention in 2011 for 81 days by Chinese authorities. Most recently, he was unable to attend the opening of his retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden because his passport is being held by authorities. Ai produced this video as a reminder that freedom of speech and creative expression should be allowed to all.

Like PSY’s version, Ai’s video quickly went viral, but was removed from Chinese websites. In response, artist Anish Kapoor invited hundreds of friends to his London studio to create their own video as a sign of support. He also asked individuals and institutions around the globe to participate. The resulting video was released late last week with clips from many museums including ours. Anish Kapoor explained in the press release: “Our film aims to make a serious point about freedom of speech and freedom of expression. It is our hope that this gesture of support for Ai Weiwei and all prisoners of conscience will be wide-ranging and will help to emphasize how important these freedoms are to us all.”

The short clip in Kapoor’s video featuring the Brooklyn Museum is part of a full version we produced, which includes a cameo from our Director, Arnold Lehman, and our staff.

Ai Weiwei’s retrospective, Ai Weiwei: According to What?, is on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden until February 24, 2013, before it travels to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Miami Art Museum. We’ll be the final venue of the North American tour; the exhibition will open here in April 2014.

• Adrian Coleman, Fort Greene, painting
• Oliver Jeffers, Boerum Hill, painting, illustration, and drawing
• Naomi Safran-Hon, Prospect Heights, painting
• Gabrielle Watson, Crown Heights, painting
• Yeon Ji Yoo, Red Hook, mixed media sculpture

We will be discussing our choices, challenges with the show, and the installation process more in the next couple of weeks. For now, we have been focused on compiling the checklist and working with our designer, registrar, and editorial staff to plan the exhibition, gather the works, and prepare the written materials to accompany the show.

We hope you’ll continue to join us as we move towards the exhibition, which opens December 1 as a celebration of not only these artists, but all the artists and participants that made GO such a great success.

In alphabetical order:

• Aleksander Betko, Cobble Hill, painting and drawing
• Jonathan Blum, Park Slope, painting and printmaking
• Adrian Coleman, Fort Greene, painting
• Oliver Jeffers, Boerum Hill, painting, illustration, and drawing
• Kerry Law, Greenpoint, painting
• Prune Nourry, Boerum Hill, photography, video/film/sound, and sculpture
• Eric Pesso, Ditmas Park, sculpture
• Naomi Safran-Hon, Prospect Heights, painting
• Gabrielle Watson, Crown Heights, painting
• Yeon Ji Yoo, Red Hook, mixed media sculpture

We are pleased to have such a mix of artists represented in this group, including painters, illustrators, sculptors, and installation artists. Painting clearly ruled with seven of the ten artists being self-identified painters. At the same time, we note the absence of design, fashion, and textile arts, and also that photography, video, and performance are represented only in Nourry’s work.

The results were also a bit surprising in terms of the weekend activity, as was hinted at in Shelley’s post on unexpected traffic patterns. Nine neighborhoods are represented, but they are not the neighborhoods that most people were predicting to be the hot spots. Shelley will be delving into these results to show how visitation may have shaped nominations, so stay tuned as we report on this more.

As we have discussed along the way, this project aimed not only to bring artists and their communities closer together, but also to open up the curatorial process. While most of our exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum have the standard model of being curator conceived and organized, we recognize the value in considering other models. Most recently, our Raw/Cooked series features under-the-radar Brooklyn artists nominated by an artist advisory committee and then selected by Eugenie Tsai, our Curator of Contemporary Art.

With GO, we established a collaborative process where we invited the public to visit studios and then nominate artists before Museum curators would visit the top artists and make the determination of those to be featured in the exhibition, and the work to be included. This will undoubtedly be a difficult task, particularly given the great range of work and the strong support for these artists. Nonetheless, we are committed to creating the best exhibition possible within these parameters, and that will mean making some tough choices.

Over the next month, we will visit these ten artists’ studios and begin highlighting them one by one on our website. By November 15th we will announce the featured artists for the exhibition, which will open on December 1, 2012 during our Target First Saturday evening.

Our nomination period ended on Tuesday night. We received 9,457 nominations over seven days. Of the eligible voters, 78% of them took the next step to recommend artists. While we allowed visitors to select up to three artists, many chose fewer—23% nominated 1 artist; 10% nominated 2 artists; and 67% nominated 3 artists.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this phase, however, has been that many visitors also took the time to leave provide comments and feedback. Using the virtual guest book feature on the website, visitors left a total of 2,289 comments for artists, ranging from short notes such as “great work” to longer, detailed ones about experiences in the artists’ studios. We have also received 361 responses via “Share Your Story.” These have run the gamut from surprises and disappointments to troubles with technology and the MTA, but almost always offering advice if we repeat the project. We will be releasing this feedback in its entirety on the website, but in the meantime, we are highlighting selected stories on the homepage.

So, what happens next?

We will announce the names of the top ten nominated artists on or about September 25. We are looking at the results with a careful eye (and some fancy programming) to ensure that each artist who has been nominated is eligible according to our terms. I will then visit those artists’ studios along with a curatorial colleague and select the work for the exhibition. The featured artists will come from those nominated by the community, but the focus and structure of the show (particularly what themes may emerge from conversations with the artists as well as how many artists will be included) is all up for grabs.

Click to see the full map and zoom in. During the GO open studio weekend, registered voters checked in to studios using unique numbers assigned to each artist; this heatmap visually represents these check-ins. Within these statistics we are finding many surprises; stay tuned in the coming weeks for more detailed reporting on voter traffic patterns.

In the meantime, our web team has also been analyzing the statistics from the weekend to better understand the activity. As a bit of a teaser, we have added a heat map to the homepage, which beautifully visualizes the overall activity over the weekend.

Stay tuned.

Our team—including 2 organizers, 1 project coordinator, 21 neighborhood coordinators, many volunteers, staff across Museum departments, and our registered artists—have spent innumerable hours gearing up for this weekend. Even though Museum staff members are ineligible to nominate artists, we’ll be out in force visiting studios and offering support at our information spots. Shelley and I aim to see as many studios as possible, and we also know that our Director Arnold Lehman, Chief Curator Kevin Stayton, and many members of our curatorial team and other departments will be visiting artists as well.

Brooklyn Museum staff will be out seeing as many studios as possible during the open studio weekend.

While it might be a bit overwhelming with approximately 1800 artists from which to chose your visits, but remember, you only need to visit at least five studios to nominate artists for the exhibition. If you are a voter strategizing how to make the most of the weekend, one tip would be to visit the artists in your own neighborhood and then choose another neighborhood to discover. Consider starting at our main meet point at Borough Hall, which will be open from 11am to 7pm on both days, or pick up a map at one of the 30 info spots throughout Brooklyn (hours vary) or, simply, just start at an artist’s studio when you see a sign on the door. If you want to get started in advance, you can create an itinerary online and/or download our iPhone app.

All of the hard work that has gone into GO has really been about this weekend. The personal exchange between artists and neighbors is what counts here. While we do have a check-in and nomination process as a way to bring all of the excitement and energy of the open studio weekend into the Museum for a group exhibition, this project is first and foremost about art and community. If a visitor goes to studios, but never checks in or nominates artists, we still consider that a great success.

Whether you register in advance or not, the most important thing is to GO.

During our visits to open studio events in Brooklyn, we found that the basic element of an open studio event—experiencing art where it is created—creates an exchange with many benefits. Artists open their doors and invite neighbors and other visitors into what otherwise might be a private and personal workspace in order to elicit feedback on their work and gain broader exposure that might lead to other opportunities. Community members, in turn, get access to the creative process happening right next door and also gain entry into spaces that they might not otherwise see. These events, often held over a weekend, encourage personal interaction between artists and their communities with benefits to both sides. Inspired by these examples, we imagined a Brooklyn-wide event that would benefit artists and community members alike by bringing them closer together.

Participants discuss work at a recent open studio event in Brooklyn.

Once we identified the open studio model as what we wanted to pursue for GO, we wanted to consult with organizers in the borough who have become wonderfully adept at orchestrating these complex events with so many moving parts. We met with more than twenty people to discuss our initial ideas and the potential challenges we would face, and everyone was incredibly generous in offering their time and guidance. Shelley and I had some initial concerns that our idea might be met with some apprehension if it was perceived as competing with pre-existing neighborhood events. We were thrilled to find that everyone felt that more open studio opportunities would be welcomed by artists and, as a result, so many individuals graciously lent their advice and assistance. In fact, some went so far as to coordinate events to coincide with the GO weekend. In other cases, we saw the organizers of Bushwick Open Studios and SONYA Studio Stroll help us to promote GO during their own events. Some of the organizers have even become directly involved in GO as neighborhood coordinators. This spirit of collaboration is one we hope will continue to carry over to other stages of the project.

What did we learn from our conversations with neighborhood event organizers? We were immediately prompted to check the calendar of the Borough President’s Office. (We went through many possibilities and have avoided conflicts with major events like the Brooklyn Book Festival, Atlantic Antic, the Barclay Center opening, and the Dumbo Arts Festival.) We were told that consistent hours were absolutely necessary. (GO hours are 11am to 7pm Saturday and Sunday.) We were instructed to get as much information from artists about accessibility options and special instructions for their buildings, particularly since so many studio buildings can be difficult to navigate. (Artist profiles indicate if a studio is on the ground floor or has an elevator; is wheelchair accessible; has child-friendly art; is pet friendly; welcomes strollers; or requires other special instructions.) We were regaled with many stories of lessons learned the hard way about the importance of clear and consistent signage. (We have spent countless hours with our designer and editor devising our materials and conducting user testing.) We also heard loud and clear that even if we were developing an iPhone app with lots of bells and whistles, a printed map was a must. (The GO map is headed to the printer as I write.)

Clear signage is a must given the busyness of the urban landscape and buildings that may be difficult to find or navigate.

By melding the ArtPrize concept with the open studio model, we want to offer a unique experience—one that complements the local open studio tradition. Our aim is to highlight the great diversity of Brooklyn’s artists and neighborhoods, and to encourage as much exchange between the two as possible. This is also why we decided to deviate from ArtPrize model by asking participants to visit multiple studios, and by asking them to view work in progress and within the context of the workplace rather than in isolation. We hope this will encourage dialogue between artists and their public, and provide viewers with new opportunities to become integrated into the vibrant artistic communities located in their own neighborhoods and throughout the borough. GO is about art, artists, and community, and we cannot wait to see how a borough-wide open studio weekend brings these together.

Imagine the energy of September 8^th and 9^th—artists will open their doors from Coney Island to Bay Ridge and Greenpoint to Bed-Stuy and beyond, and the community will be able to see the tremendous work being created in their neighborhoods and elsewhere. Yes, we ask that visitors nominate up to three artists whose work they saw over the weekend, and then we will select the art for the exhibition from the ten artists who receive the most nominations. That said, we hope that the participating artists do not look at GO as a contest or competition, but rather as an opportunity. Of course, we would love to harness all of the great activity happening in the borough and bring it back to the Museum, but limitations of space and schedule make that impossible (we now have over 1200 artists who have started the registration process!). Instead, we want to open up the curatorial process and to invite the community to be part of it. We’ve worked hard to design a nomination method that encourages thoughtful art viewing rather than a popularity contest. GO has inspired and challenged my work as a museum curator, and I hope it will be equally exciting for you.

In the end, I hope that artists will be open to the range of possibilities in this project—including, but not limited to, the museum exhibition. For that reason, I created this list (with some input from artists):

• It’s an opportunity to connect with your neighbors.
• It’s an opportunity to be part of something that is bigger than you, your building, and your artist network.
• It’s an opportunity to share your work, process, and vision with thousands of website visitors as well as those who visit your studio and get feedback from a wide ranging audience, including not only artists, curators, and critics, but also general art enthusiasts.
• It’s an opportunity to be part of the Brooklyn Museum community.
• It’s an opportunity to give back to your community by supporting arts and culture initiatives that in turn support you.

Artist registration is open now, but ends this Friday.  Visit www.gobrooklynart.org to get started.