I think all the students, graduates and friends can agree that to describe Raúl Miyar -Director of the Fine Arts Department at The Altos de Chavón School of Art and Design – with words is just not enough to explain the lessons, passion and love that we have received from him everyday for the past 13 years since he arrived in the Dominican Republic.
With that in mind, I’ll jump straight ahead to tell you about his wonderful Talk about Contemporary Art in the Altos de Chavón Art Gallery – one of the activities celebrated as part of the Art Chavón 2013 event to raise much-needed funds for the Altos de Chavón Cultural Center Foundation hosted at The Gallery in Altos de Chavón. A major part of the fundraising effort came through the sale of student work – more than US$30,000 was sold during the opening cocktail – and the exhibition will remain open until Sunday the 31st of March – so don’t miss your opportunity to add a new piece to your art collection and contribute to this great cause!
On March the 7th 2013, Casa de Campo villa owners and friends shared an intimate moment with Raúl, discussing what’s going on right now in the art world, who are the most known artists and of course, the big question: is THAT art?
Two of the big names that came up during his talk were Marina Abramovic and Damien Hirst. Marina is a performance artist that’s constantly exploring the relationship between performer and audience and Damien is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists. Both artists are internationally renowned.
One of the reasons Raúl chose these big names for his presentation was to let the audience wonder what made them so big and this wonderment always leads to big arguments and contradictions between people, so while Raúl was showing and describing their work to us, we all started to think more about it, to doubt, to be sure and then to be confused again, to reject, to accept… Which is without a doubt, what artists in general want to achieve through art: to open our minds.
The Talk ended with everybody questioning their own opinions (bravo!)
We all hope there’s another Talk about Contemporary Art pretty soon! Thank you Raúl, The School and all the Casa de Campo community! It was a lovely evening!
Peter & Renata Winterstein with Raul and Monica & Michael Belancourt
Spanish
