The cast of "Art" and director, Kate Kuen
My first class at NYU was called Writing the Essay: The World through Art. One of the first discussions we inevitably had, being a private liberal arts school, was “What is art?” One girl raised her hand and said “Everything is beautiful, and everything that’s beautiful is art.” I asked “If I pissed on your shoe right now, would that be art?” You can tie yourself in knots trying to objectively talk about something as naturally subjective as art. And it’s both these persuasions of personality and environment of opinions that enable and disable so much of our lives, most importantly, our friendships. I have been incredibly lucky to help showcase a small buffet of our community’s artistic talents in this coproduction with the NOMA from performing arts of not just 3 but 6 talented actors to visual arts of Sarah Zoghbi’s delicate Antrios to Byron Asher’s original score for our show, recorded in NOMA’s Great Hall itself. With a special thanks to my team of women, Ashley, Christina and Kyle for keeping me sane.
I am humbled by this world through art, and I hope you enjoy our story. x
–Kate Kuen
Director of “Art,” The NOLA Project
