American curator, artist, and writer (born 1970)
Andrea Grover (born July 1970) is an American curator, artist, and writer. She founded the Aurora Picture Show film center in her front room in 1998.
Biography.
Grover graduated from Syracuse University and has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She moved to Houston, Texas in 1995. She was a Core Fellow in residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from 1995-1997. In 2010, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Curatorial Fellowship, at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University, to study artists working in science, technology and engineering. In 2013, she was awarded a Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellowship.
In 2011, she became Associate Curator of the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York. At the Parrish, Grover initiated the ongoing exhibition series, "Platform", and the offsite nomadic exhibition program, "Parrish Road Show". In 2015, the Century Arts Foundation underwrote a multi-year named position, Curator of Special Projects, for Grover.
On July 14, 2016 it was announced that she will be taking over as executive director of Guild Hall of East Hampton, effective September 1, 2016.
Aurora Picture Show.
In 1997 Grover purchased an old church in Sunset Heights, Houston, converting the rear into living accommodation. In 1998, Grover founded Aurora Picture Show, a non-profit organization that screens non-commercial films, in the church building. Its first showing attracted a standing-room only crowd of 100. The "microcinema," as it is described, is now located near Kirby in Houston, Texas. According to the website, "Aurora has hosted over 400 visiting artists and presented over 4000 films and videos" including the U. premieres of Isaac Julien's "True North" in 2007, and Laurie Anderson's film, "Hidden Inside Mountains".
Crowdsourcing.
Grover is known as a supporter for crowdsourcing in art. In an interview with Leah DeVun for Wired Magazine, Grover explains that her interest in crowdsourcing formed out of her "fondness" for "early video collectives like Top Value Television, Videofreex, and Raindance." Her interest in creating "non-commodity-based artwork" led her to crowdsourcing. In another interview, Grover claims that crowdsourcing is growing rapidly, because "we're experiencing a moment in time where technology is allowing for people to cooperate in large numbers on all sorts of things."
In 2007 Grover stated that the original term for "crowd sourcing" was "relational art." While it would seem that crowdsourcing is a relatively new phenomenon, Grover claims that is only "a new term to describe something that already existed before the term was in common use." In the interview for Wired, Grover explained that crowdsourcing eliminates a financial barrier that prohibits most people from participating in art, as "Internet real estate is essentially free." Grover finds that the primary appeal of crowdsourcing is the satisfaction that is obtained through working with a community.
In Fall 2007, Grover offered a class at the University of Houston, called Participation Art. The course presented a history of participation art since the 1960s, while also allowing students to create crowdsourced art.
References.
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