Hi everyone, @awillbrown here - let's explore where exhibitions and programs can take us and how Steemit can be a major force in creating new content and supporting ideas. My blogging will start with some history of the exhibition, at least through the last few hundred years, and continue with interesting examples of projects and exhibitions happening today.
Birthday Bash, Five Years in the Building
Two weekends ago on October 6th and 7th, MOCA Cleveland celebrated our 5th anniversary in our new Farshid Moussavi designed building, which we think is quite a beauty! The weekend also included the openings our our Fall exhibitions, which I discussed in my last post, and our benefit gala. This post will focus on the birthday celebration, and the next will give a close up look at the benefit gala and art auction. As I mentioned, fundraising is difficult, period. It is especially difficult in the current environment in which grant funding from both local and national organizations is getting harder and harder to come by. Additionally, many granting institutions no longer want to fund 'general operations' (salaries, facility costs, maintenance, etc), which is what most places need funding for the most! Granting institutions want to see more specific initiatives with 'socially beneficial' or measurable outcomes. For many institutions like MOCA these types of outcomes are already built into what we do everyday, but adding more programs and exhibitions just to get grant funding in these new conditions is, well, a bit counter intuitive. But, we are making great new programs and projects, the margins are just getting slimmer.
On to the birthday bash! On Saturday, October 7, members of the local and international art community attended MOCA's 5th Anniversary Party including artists Doug Ashford, Iman Issa, Liu Wei, Oscar Murillo,Tariku Shiferaw, Mario Garcia Torres, and Emanuel Tovar. Special thanks to an especially engaged Gala Committee, who helped us raise over $400,000 toward MOCA's exhibition and educational programming. More about this in my next post.
On October 7, more than 1,000 members of our treasured community joined us to celebrate this milestone and the opening of our fall exhibitions including Akron Movement Family Parkour Trio and Recess Cleveland, added to the fun, with more than a dozen exciting programs happening throughout the day. The parkour group leaped and flipped through our building - up and down the monumental stairs - to create quite the spectacle.
There were special tours and games, as well as a host of art making and interactive activities led by our fantastic education and engagement team. During a panel discussion the exhibiting artists shared insights into their practice and some of the important ideas of our time. Later, Doug Ashford led an incredible talk about his artwork and the state of our current society. It was truly inspiring and not to be missed.
There were performances, and many moments of fun including a concert in the evening and music throughout the day. Also, we kicked off the beginning of MOCA Cleveland's new admission policy, inviting anyone 18 or under to visit MOCA for free, which hopefully will lead to a free admission policy in the future.
While it was an incredibly long day for me, and most of our staff (I took a nap in a closet!) we were all so thankful to our community, partners, friends, and the artists and creatives whose work we celebrate at our institution.
Stay tuned for my next post, which will feature more information about our Benefit Gala and art auction, which took place on the 7th of October.
