Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | RSS | Click here to join mailing list
Kate Mothes is the founder of Young Space, an independent online and nomadic curatorial platform emphasizing contemporary art by emerging, early-career, and student artists. She is also Curator of the Lawton Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Mothes is interested in alternative modes of art exhibition, education, and experience, with an emphasis on artist-run initiatives.She has produced a number of local pop-up exhibitions and has collaborated with artists, curators, and organizers nationally and internationally. She earned her Bachelors in Art History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Masters in the History of Art, Theory and Display from Edinburgh College of Art. She currently lives in Northeast Wisconsin, in an artists’ cooperative in a former village police station, which also regularly doubles as an exhibition and performance space.
The NYC Call for art she mentioned in the interview is HERE. Learn more about Young Space on Instagram.
The book she mentioned was, After Dark by Haruki Murakami.
[…] Kate Mothes is a curator also based in Wisconsin. She is currently working on an independent online curatorial platform called Young Space as well as being the curator of the Lawton Gallery at University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. Young Space began four years ago while Mothes was in graduate school at the University of Edinburgh. While studying Art History she realized she felt a bit alienated by the solemn atmosphere surrounding the subject. Mothes began blogging in order to reconnect with Art History. When it comes to curating, Mothes says serendipity played a role in her finding a way into the field. The hands-on aspect appeals to her nature and she has been self-taught in some ways having not studied the discipline in any formal way. Mothes describes Wisconsin as having a vibrant arts scene if you’re willing to drive a bit. Being outside a major art hub city means fewer resources at her immediate disposal, but having left for school it was her choice to return in part for the ability to work across a larger space. Mothes says it’s also beneficial to work outside the bubble of a particular hub. In this way, she is able to see with fresh eyes rather than subscribing to the particular trends and mindsets of a particular city. Many artists return to Wisconsin for the affordability which allows them to create studio space on a scale that would be impossible in major cities. Many of the shows Mothes curates happen quite organically. Conversation or email brings her together with artists and through the course of correspondence or discussion a plan is hatched. Mothes will be curating a show in Green Point, Brooklyn during the summer of 2018 for which there is an open call. For details read the Opportunities / Open Call section below. […]