The present. A project where our artist in residence, Norberto Rodriguez shares his life with the public as art from the box located in our lobby. Sign up online at norber.to/thepresent for a documented, 1 hour conversation with the artist inside the Box + don't forget to bring an object you wish to have transformed into an art piece during your session which you get to keep along with a drawing + signed certificate of authenticity for the work. A STATEMENT OF INTENT I’ve always had trouble trying to explain what I do because everyday, I have some new epiphany that seems to open up other ways of seeing what I do which, makes it infinitely harder to explain. Because I’m 99% certain I’m a very dumb + very stubborn person, I will continue trying to explain, probably until I’m dead from trying to explain. I lost my virginity when I was 18 to a total stranger, that I had married as an art piece for a whole year. I’ve since been buried in the ground standing straight up like a tree all day in museum sculpture gardens. At the Whitney Museum in NY, I made a seamless white cube designed on the inside to mimic a therapist’s office, where participants ended up actually sharing their most guarded secrets + deepest desires. I've hired private eyes to follow me + members of my family around. I've given free public foot massages + have performed with my parents making food + building walls, in galleries + museums all over the world. And a thousand other things, all in the name of art. Currently, I’m opening my entire life to the public for the second time, as a living museum called the Museum of Meaning. I'm developing an academy called A School of Thought, a company called IP Division + touring the world with my newest project, The present. I’m working towards expanding my practice beyond traditional fine art to include stand up + illusionism + am the subject of a feature length documentary which is due to come out never or any day now called Making Sh*t Up. Lately I’ve been thinking that my work is kind of like data collection. But, because it’s art, it’s less math and more abstract + emotional. Sometimes I translate that data (by making traditional art “things”) but, most of the time I just share the raw data as documentation. It seems like what I’ve been doing through my work is take bits of life or moments in time + frame them as art in order to think about it differently. Like using a microscope to look deeper into something but, I’m the microscope + life is what’s under it. It’s also like I’m making history’s largest self-portrait. Which I’m “sculpting" from everything in + around me, improvising as I go + sharing it however I can. Also, because it’s art, it’s all for sale, including me. Maybe there’s a chance I’m learning something meaningful about life that might benefit us all to know. I’m 99% sure I am but I’ll probably never really know for sure. Unless the matrix is real + by doing all of this, the robots will let me chill with them inside the internet singularity so I can continue my work forever. You can follow my journey on digital media @norbertoinc. PLEASE RSVP AT THE BELOW LINK: https://www.norber.to/calendar