You are the public relations firm for Sony and are launching their latest and hippest new product: an MP3 player-robot that moves with the music. What do you do? Write a press release? Arrange a photo shoot? It's 2008. Think Internet. Think social networking.
This past spring, Gala Knörr, was contacted out of the blue by the public relations firm for Sony Europe. A recent graduate of Parsons School of Art and Design, Gala was living the bohemian life of a young artist in Paris, which included putting up online galleries, and making the most of the type of worldwide exposure achievable on the Internet. A public relations agent for Sony had seen Gala's work on MySpace and invited her to make a video of Rolly, the musical robot.
"They sent me a video camera with the robot, and I was ecstatic to get the camera. At the time, I was recording the music of Sylvia Konchinski '02, and I had this idea of a little robot that hangs out with an eccentric bohemian artists' group in Paris, so I took him along to film. During the week most of the footage was taken at the recording session in Vincennes, but Sony Rolly went with me everywhere. Everybody was amazing by the little guy and its powerful speakers. The robot is programmed to dance to the music and it's really funny. Most of the other videos submitted were very commercial; some were filmed on just a plain white background. I took it a bit further and shot in black and white and use the music of my friends, which gives a hypnotic feel. I thought my piece was too dark and maybe a bit too goth, but they loved it and are going to use it in their promotional campaign."
Now, back in Spain and living in Marbella, Gala is finding that exhibiting her work online is the best way for a young artist to get a foot in the door of the art world, notorious for its competitive and sometimes disheartening attitudes. "My friends and I were bad at selling our work," says Gala. "We're shy. Often when you go into galleries to see if they'll look at your stuff, people are rude and tell you that they don't have any time, then you have to walk out feeling ashamed."
A self-described 'impatient person", Gala decided to try making headway with her work on the web and started an online photography collective. She and a friend scoured the photo sharing site Flickr for promising artists, sent out invitations, and formed Team Lofi, a group of young artists using vintage or toy cameras. The result? The photography exhibition, Personal Space, which opened at the Contemporary Architecture Centre in Budapest this September.
"It's so important when you're a young artist to have your own website," Gala says, now from experience. "You get invitations to take part in festivals and shows. Earlier this year I got an email from Baltimore asking me to send along some work to be considered to be part of a show. They took almost four months to get back to me, and in the end they chose one of my illustrations to exhibit along with 100 other artists in the States." The show Penned opened at the Maryland Institute College of Art's Pinkard Gallery in Baltimore and will travel for the next year to the Ellipse Arts Center in Arlington, Virginia and Lump Gallery in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Fascinated by subcultures and social revolutionary groups of the twentieth century - beatniks, the Civil Rights movement, Parisian youth of 1968, and even hippies - Gala derives inspiration from past movements driven by the passion for social change through art and literature. Her current project is a series of pen and ink drawings of the Venice Beach skateboarders, who made their mark in the seventies. The crouching skateboarders suspended in air reflect the colors that now surround her in Spain: "I see myself as a painter first. I am guided by color - whatever surrounds me, I use in my everyday work - color, line, shape, everything."
Collected, digital, and accessible, Gala is today's version of the young artist: leveraging online tools to fulfil her goal of living her life as an artist.
Written by Maura Power. This article first appeared in the TASIS England Today magazine, Autumn 2008 issue.