The Problem Solvers/Cine va Rezolva Problemele?
In an age when all the sources of capital conspire to provide us with solutions to problems we didn't know we had, medicines for illness we didn't know existed, machines to do things we didn't know need to be done, why are artists turning to problems as a source of creativity? Have they merely run out of challenges and become the engineers, technocrats and administrators of the impossible? Omagiu presents four young American artists, Emily Katrencik, Patrick Killoran, Galya Rosenfeld, and Seth Weiner, whose ingenuity and craftsmanship do not obscure their critique of our solution-driven society. They came of age when "innovation" and "creativity" were the buzzwords of the business world, and, they work in a time when the art world is too busy to notice its failure to circumvent the existing solutions we know as markets, systems, and institutions. Though dedicated to perfecting their craft, they present us with streamlined solutions to invented, trivial, and absurd problems, and that ultimately demand that we reconsider the context of the problems themselves and the solutions that have become too quotidian.
in OMaGiu, Fall 2006