What challenges, expectations, and new possibilities does digital culture and social media present to contemporary art institutions? Barcelona-based curatorial office Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna) continues its ongoing #OpenCurating series with a conversation about culture and connectivity with former Rhizome director and current New Museum curator Lauren Cornell.

“Culturally, I’m a cold-hearted colonialist,” says Andy Messerschmidt, whose work borrows ideas from world religions, from Buddhist mandalas to Indonesian shamanistic rituals to American holidays, in his art. The tendency is on display in his new Walker commission, which he says explores the “compression of loaded symbols of divinity and how they work in moire to create a meta-symbol of the divine.”

“When an object is discarded by a person, it’s valueless,” says Abraham Cruzvillegas. “For autoconstrucción, it could be seen as prime matter.” The Mexico City-based artist gives such “dead” objects a new use by “revealing instead of hiding their nature.” Here Cruzvillegas discusses how this idea of “self-construction” underpins his artistic practice and offers a metaphor for the creation of his own identity.

The resolute materiality of painting continues to attract artists, says Painter Painter co-curator Eric Crosby. “It’s a vivid contrast with our daily routine, where we experience so many images by using a cursor. Painting resists this kind of experience,” he adds. “A lot of artists today embrace that notion, going where the materials take them, not where the history of painting tells them to go.”