Hi, I'm Sarah Urist Green.
And I'm John Green.
Lots of people pointed out in our previous collab
that I interrupted you a lot and I just
want to take this opportunity to apologize.
Thank you.
Apology accepted.
Today we're going to answer some of your questions
and we're going to start out with this really hard-hitting
one from [INAUDIBLE].
How are you?
Good.
You?
Pretty good.
Josh asks, how do you find slash choose
the artist you're working with?
They come from a lot of places.
It's my job as the curator of this program
to select the artists and to ask them
to create assignments for you.
Some of the artists are people I knew before or have
worked with before.
Some of them were recommended to me
by friends, curators, other artists.
And other people are just people I ran into online who I think
would be good for the show.
We really want this show to display
the diversity of contemporary art practice
and that means going to lots of places
but it also means working with artists
who have vastly different ways of making art.
The PageMaster asks, will you guys
be doing some Art Assignments as the season finale?
I think that's a good idea.
I like that, PageMaster.
We will be doing some.
It will be February.
Woah.
So it'll be nice and cold.
It will, so we'll want to be inside.
Sure, we'll do that.
Yeah, we're going to be in the middle of this office.
Evin asks, I'm hungry.
What kind of sandwich should I make?
Turkey.
Christine asks, will we ever get an Art Assignment directly
from Sarah?
Probably not.
BrilliantBreezyDay asks, do we have
to follow the Art Assignments or if we get a cool idea from it
can we just run with it?
Run with it.
[INAUDIBLE] asks, what is not art?
Not much.
Sense and education asked, where is
the rug I started for Art Assignment 10?
It's lost.
I'm pretty sure it's in your dirty clothes hamper.
Technically it is dirty clothes.
Whoa.
NakedTrust asks, is there a point in comparing
classical art, e.g.
Michelangelo, with modern art, e.g., Malevich's Black Circle?
I think that there is because I think that art history goes all
the way back to the beginning of art history, to cave paintings.
And I think that it's not-- obviously
it's not a linear thing.
It's not a progression.
To interrupt you, the past informs the present.
So yes, I think it's not like comparing it,
because it is comparing it like apples and oranges,
but it's interesting to talk about them in relationship
to each other.
--[INAUDIBLE] asks, what did Sarah write about for her
thesis?
I wrote about self-portrait as strategy
and the work of Jean Kwan, Nikki S. Lee, and Yinka Shonibare.
That makes it sound kind of boring, but it was awesome.
It was about like nontraditional self-portraiture.
Yeah, it was good.
You were one of four readers.
And I loved it.
Riveting.
Husseins asks, how important is the artist's intention
in a piece of art?
When I'm writing a book and also when I'm reading one,
I can't deny that the author is a character in the novel.
But I do think that the author is in many ways
the least important character.
Like the author's intention isn't totally irrelevant
as much as maybe I wish it were, but I
do think that it's very close to irrelevant.
When you're dealing with contemporary artists
or authors, they're still alive.
They're being interviewed by the press
and so like a lot of attention tends to be,
oh, you made this book or you made this painting.
What did you mean to say by it?
The more time that passes, the less important that becomes.
Does it stand on its own?
Are we still interested in it?
Is it still good?
That said, we continue to be fascinated
by the private and personal lives of artists even who
lived hundreds or thousands of years ago.
We talk a lot about van Gogh, and a lot
of the reason that van Gogh is famous is because of the life
that he led.
It's one part of the story, but it's not the whole story.
JGDrawings asks, I'm very curious to know
how the Art Assignment chooses which
completed Assignments to post to the Art Assignment Tumblr.
So the Art Assignment Tumblr is news, announcements,
and particular Art Assignment responses
that I think are really interesting.
Which brings us to the Art Assignment's new Tumblr,
link below, where you can find all the Art Assignments.
All of the Art Assignments that people do
will be re-blogged there.
So if you're a really big fan and you
want to see what everybody's doing,
follow our secondary Tumblr.
And if you just want to be alerted every once in a while
if we have a new video or if there's
a particularly good response, just follow our primary.
Or follow both.
Follow both.
And many people wrote in to say that it's increasingly
clear to them that the Art Assignment isn't just
a YouTube show.
It exists on many platforms.
And they wanted us to talk about that.
Right.
There are the videos posted on YouTube.
Sometimes they're Assignments and sometimes they're this.
Then there are the two Tumblrs.
And then there's Twitter.
You know, where we have a-- it's like a Twitter.
Yeah.
And then there's Instagram, where
I post pictures when I travel and film
for the Art Assignment.
And then when I'm not traveling, I don't post.
Yeah.
You should really post all the time.
I should.
I'll work on it.
And we have a Facebook where you
can learn about new episodes or post your Assignment responses.
And then there's you, the members of the Art Assignment
community.
It's important to remember that there are many ways
to be part of this community.
You don't have to do the Assignments.
I mean, we want you to do the Assignments
but you don't have to.
You can look at things that come in, you can comment on them.
We want to hear from you.
Or maybe you do want to make things, in which case
please do make Art Assignment responses
and then upload them to Tumblr or Twitter
using the hashtag theartassignment.
And maybe you think you don't want to make things
but you keep watching and then all of a sudden a really cool
Assignment comes up and then you can jump in the game.
Or maybe you're not an artist but you like to talk about art.
That's what we do in comments and through the Art Assignment
book club.
Or maybe you don't fit into any of these categories.
Maybe you're divergent.
[LAUGHS]
And then there's all the stuff that happens offline.
Wait, was is offline?
[LAUGHS]
Well, it's the things that you do when you're not
looking at a screen, which is really
important to this project-- what you look at, what you make,
what you go do.
That all informs what you see and how you comment.
So the Art Assignment is all of these things together.
It's a complex vortex of people and videos and commenting,
and we're OK with that complexity.
No, we like that complexity.
Thank you for all your questions,
and please be sure to follow our new blog as well
as our original blog if you weren't already.
And thanks for making all those Art Assignment responses.
Please keep them coming.