Art & Ideas 2007 is the launch of a new issue-based art festival series which explores a specific theme through visual, performing and literary arts. The goal is for the theme to ignite a broad discourse and provide multiple perspectives that are both innovative and timely, as well as artistically and intellectually resonant to a diverse audience and a changing world. 

October 2007 marks the inaugural year of Art & Ideas.   Building on the model created by previous city-wide festivals, Radical Past in 1999, The Universe in 2001 (www.pasadena-universe.org), and in 2004, The Tender Land (www.tenderland.org), Art & Ideas is a collaborative effort of large, mid-sized and smaller arts, culture, and science institutions in the city of Pasadena.  This year’s festival theme, “SKIN” involves twenty-two festival partners who are creating programs which interpret the theme according to their institutional focus. 

Presented for 22 days at 26 different venues throughout Pasadena, Art & Ideas 2007 offers 243 opportunities to attend performances (many of them world premieres), explore exhibitions, and engage in public conversations.  

The Pasadena Arts Council is the organizing partner for Art & Ideas.  The festival has received support from the City of Pasadena, local businesses, foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Festival Catalogue

A full-color program catalogue is being produced, featuring three essays on the themes of skin in art, the biology of skin, and skin from the perspective of race and cultural identity.  These essays have been commissioned from noted writers in their respective fields. 

The essays are: 

COLOR STRUCK
by Erin Aubry Kaplan

OUR REMARKABLE SKIN
by David Baltimore

SURFACE TENSIONS:  THE SKIN OF ART
by Doug Harvey

The second section of the catalogue includes images and program descriptions from all participating festival partners.  The catalogue will be available for sale in early October.