ABOUT WELL AND GOOD
AGENTS OF NOW
Steve Ferrara and Lisa Martin are mavericks in the artworld: they are dedicated supporters of that which is not easily defined and not easily monetized. Their passion is for those artists and creators who refuse to be contained, those who share their vision of our many and diverse artworlds as having permeable membranes, those who remain open to the cross-pollination of ideologies and praxis despite the many roadblocks presented by those who fear change to established orthodoxies.
Ferrara and Martin currently reside in Toronto, but their philosophical and philanthropic spirit extends beyond borders: they are the nerve centre in a shifting and malleable constellation of 21st century creators and art makers. While they have worked and continue to work at promoting and selling the work of emerging talents they are not agents, but rather provide agency for those who are ordinarily positioned at the margins of a so-called polite society, the movers and shakers of a new avant-garde. They expend their considerable energies in disseminating the work of those who align themselves with a contemporary new-wave and multi-hyphenate practice of making art.
Their passion for what they do is tangible, their conversations filled with the confidence that conclusions lead to beginnings, that it’s always the end but it’s never the end, that anything and everything is possible, that there is no need for the new because the new is a perpetual acknowledgement of the now. It is always now, it is always new, and it is always a moment to be open to what will be. It may be old-fashioned to speak of love, but one need only spend an hour in their presence to feel the love that is implicit both in their personal relationship and their relationship to what they do and what they believe.
Together Ferrara and Martin have built a matrixial space of possibilities, an extraordinary space that provides a framework for communication, a space that is porous but never fragile, that is vibrant, alive and exciting and which exists in support of those who are of a similarly open mindset. I am delighted to have this opportunity to introduce them as the progenitors of a project which will serve to facilitate the broadening of a network of similarly minded multi-hyphenates who are themselves dedicated practitioners carving out visionary spaces. Introductions abound: look at what these individuals do, listen to what they say, dispense with the traditional need-to-know in order to envision potential for change in our own views of what might be possible. Collectively, Ferrara and Martin and those they are poised to introduce are fully engaged in the possibilities inherent in being agents of now. Pay attention. Take notes. Dare yourself to fall in love.
December 2010
