They say that necessity is the mother of invention, but art does not always yield to necessity. Art can emerge from absolute scarcity, spontaneous impulse, or an empty space. It can assign profound value to the ordinary, or strip meaning from the grand. Art can be nothing and art can be everything.
KArtsCon 2027 invites creatives, scholars, critics and those simply interested to explore the mechanics of artistic creation and perception.
- Can art be created or exist in a vacuum? What drives someone to transform something into something else? Can raw or non-materials be transformed into meaning?
- What makes people see value in that transformation? Who decides when an everyday object becomes a masterpiece? Can centuries-old soldier graffiti become art history or historical art? In Yasmina Reza’s play ‘Art’, a man pays for an expensive blank canvas to the chagrin of his art-loving friends. Maurizio Cattelan duct-taped a banana to a wall and sells it for millions, and then it gets eaten. Where does ‘art’ reside? In the object, the context, or the viewer?
- What motivates artists to turn absence into presence? An empty wall becomes a canvas for Banksy’s ideologies. Audiences have to step into increasingly narrower openings in another installation. A woman physicalises a tree throughout the 4 seasons for 45 minutes. Is it the space or medium which shapes creation?
Join us at KArtsCon 2027 to share your ideas, debate questions and challenge established definitions. Or, showcase your own interpretation of Something from Nothing.