Interview with Megan Horn

ART, WHATEVER IT TAKES

Since the early pandemic in 2020, Rome Art Program has conducted a series of interviews, “Art, Whatever It Takes.”
Artists, Art Critics, and Art Historians living in Italy, the U.S., and U.K., share their insights during these powerful times.

Megan Horn is an emerging curator and art historian. She has been the Curatorial Assistant at the Newport Art Museum since 2020 where she has curated and co-curated exhibitions and contributed to Museum catalogues. She most recently co-curated “Social Fabric: Textiles and Contemporary Issues” (2022-23) with Dr. Francine Weiss and is curating “Dress Code” (2023).

Photo by Shane Godfrey

RAP: What is your definition of “art” today?

Megan Horn: Art doesn’t have a singular, all-encompassing definition. For me, art is the product of creativity, it transforms the inarticulable, the mundane and the beautiful into experiences that allow us to more intensely and curiously examine those aspects our own and others’ experiences and our place in the world.

RAP: Art is dynamic and regenerates itself… how does it change, and how did it change us?

MH: Art keeps apace with our own world as it changes both reflecting those as well as responding or imagining futures from our present. As for us, contemporary art helps us learn to look and to recognize and probe the complexity of ourselves and the time in which we live.

RAP: When (and how) did you understand that art was becoming very important in your life?

MH: I can’t fathom a moment when art didn’t hold some importance for me either as a means of self-expression or as something to inspire childlike wonder. It wasn’t until my studies at Vassar College that I recognized that that curiosity inspired by close-looking combined with art historical research can lead to better understandings of the nuances of human thought and experiences that inspired my continuing relationship and engagement with arts.

RAP: What role does art play today? What are the “great figures” who have recently changed it? Do you feel close to any of these figures?

MH: I think art can be an incubator for ideas and a conduit for engaging with complex and contradicting truths of today. Artists who are continually producing challenging and exciting work are really the ones doing the work of pushing what art is and what it means today.

RAP: Are there still traditional figures such as collectors, muses, mecenate and patrons, in today’s art and society interaction model?

MH: The collectors, muses, mecenate and patrons are there and most certainly impact the landscape of art. Despite our increasingly digital and image-based world, I do like to think that our opportunities to interact with art or at least transmit and share ideas about it have expanded with social media and created more shared experiences and or at least broadened the ways beyond the old models that more audiences can engage with art.

RAP: How have new technologies and media culture changed art today– improving or worsening it? What do you feel are your biggest challenges?

MH: Media culture and technology are pervasive and have been evolving rapidly for quite a while, but I think what is most interesting is to see how artists respond to those conditions. Our relationship with technology is complicated to say the least, but artists can allow us to at least pause and interrogate our techno-mediated experiences outside the accelerated time of rapidly developing technology and media cycles.

RAP: Art as a mirror of man, in this moment of emergency seems to be shattered …what do these fragments reflect now?… Shadow or light of the moment?

MH: Most recently I’ve been thinking and writing about the work of contemporary textiles artists and how they respond to crises from the American carceral system to environmental challenges and everything in between while curating “Social Fabric: Textiles and Contemporary Issues” with Dr. Francine Weiss. The most resounding takeaway from each artist’s responses were the invitations to look closely and try to understand each other’s experiences while offering tangible models for building collaboration, empathy, and calls to action. I think we’re seeing both reflected as well as are being offered ideas and paths forward.

RAP: Understanding, interpreting, and then possibly judging the work of art; which is the right path when we are in front of a piece of art?

MH: None of these approaches are right or wrong. My personal path when encountering a work of art is observing what I can describe about the work, what jumps out to me, and then what questions I have about the work or what feelings it brings up. By taking note of these initial observations I often find myself engaging in some mixture of all three.

RAP: Which is the real role of Academies and Art schools today? What can artists learn from these institutions today?

MH: With the disclaimer that I have not attended art school, but from artists I’ve worked with I think it can be an incubator for exploring a practice and offers a focused environment to develop new work. I also think it builds in opportunities to build connections and a network with other artists.

RAP: Art too has undergone a complex process of globalization; can having an authentic and genuine style be an advantage or a drag for an artist?

MH: I can’t speak as much to the art markets, but I would say why not have an authentic and genuine style? The art world is always going to be tough and competitive. Why not make things that are true to you?

RAP: How do Art Galleries and Museums position themselves today, and, in your opinion, how should they?

MH: At least in art museums, I think an important shift is happening today. From the curatorial side, we’re not trying to write as the authority on the work we present in the way Museums were understood to in the past. We’re thinking about how we can spotlight how artists are thinking about their work, what discussions can we help to open up and the types of public programming that could accompany shows. It’s exciting to be relatively early in my career in museum work during this time.

RAP: “Figuration” vs “Abstraction”. Which of the two is better descriptive of the period we live in? Which one will have a better future?

MH: I don’t think one is better than the other as a means of expression and both a have a lot to offer and reflect on.

RAP: Today we often speak of “emerging artists”; what advice based on your experience do you feel you can give to young artists?

MH: Connect with other artists, curators, or others in your arts community. Building meaningful connections with those in the arts around you is not only priceless in finding collaborators but can be key in finding and hearing about opportunities down the line.

RAP: Art as a lens for reading the present, can it modify the space and time we pass through? …will art save us?

MH: Art and artists play an important role in offering a means to engage in complicated ideas, and in exploring possible futurities. I think art continues to allow us to connect to the qualities essential to our humanity and recognizing that of others and I think that has and will remain important.