tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4482132613810670352024-03-05T02:50:03.867-08:00zingchatRachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05777122113671792079noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-38374650352824258472011-09-29T12:08:00.001-07:002011-09-29T12:08:50.594-07:00INTERVIEW: Harrison Haynes<div class="content"> <div class="Section1"> <div align="center"> <img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/01_Lump_Install_Rug.jpg" width="575" /></div> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">Untitled (Drum Rug), 2010, archival pigment print, 62 x 39 inches, installation view</span></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.harrisonhaynes.com/"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Harrison Haynes</span></strong></a><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> is a North Carolina-based visual artist, drummer for Les Savy Fav, and contributor to <a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/issue19/haynes.html"><strong><em>zing</em></strong></a> <a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/issue19/haynes.html"><strong> #19</strong></a>.<span> </span>Raised in the rural outskirts of North Carolina Piedmont, he grew up among “DIY redneck-hippies: welders and carpenters that listened to ZZ Top and burned big vanilla scented candles in their outhouses” who “hosted demolition derbies, volleyball parties, big oyster roasts every fall, and homemade fireworks displays on the Fourth of July.”<span> </span>After spending time in Providence and New York, Haynes returned to North Carolina and cofounded with his wife, Chloe Seymore, the now-closed </span><a href="http://www.branchgallery.com/"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Branch Gallery</span></strong></a><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> in Durham, NC.<span> </span>He is currently enrolled in the Bard College MFA program.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Interview by Brandon Johnson</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">My entry point for your work is your watercolor series in <em>zingmagazine </em>#19.<span> </span>These have a very homey, Southern feel.<span> </span>Vignettes of Southern life – trucks, woods, beards, wood paneling.<span> </span>I really enjoyed the TV piece – it creates that quintessential TV light in a memory of warm brown furniture.<span> </span>Where are these scenes from?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The watercolors are based on my own snapshots. Mostly pictures I took up until about high school. I started using a camera at an early age, like 5 or 6. My dad gave me one of those 110mm little black rectangles. Later he gave me an SX-70 Polaroid Land Camera. It was primarily a social activity for me. I documented the schoolyard, trips I went on and had friends pose. I enjoyed the social aspect of taking pictures. The product, the prints and the sharing or subsequent display of those images, was secondary or even non-existent for me until much later. I wasn't sure what to do with all the shiny pieces of paper once they got picked up from the pharmacy*. (*Isn't the drug-store/amateur photography connection a funny anachronism?) While I was always interested in art, I never identified as a Photographer. I carried the photos around in cardboard boxes and looked at them from time to time. Later on in art school I studied painting. It never occurred to me to use the pictures as subject matter. I drew some imaginary line between the kind of photos I had been taking and what I regarded as 'Art'. But I still had the boxes sitting around and continued to take pictures in the same way, now with a point and shoot 35mm. After finishing at RISD I was living back in North Carolina. I was sharing a house with my best friend since childhood, living next to the exact expanse of woods that we used to run around in as kids. He was working at the Center for Documentary Studies/Doubletake Magazine. Through him and the resource of the CDS, I got exposed to a whole new set of artists, people that hadn't been on my radar at RISD; photographers like William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Mitch Epstein, Thomas Roma and William Christenberry. Naturally, I started to reassess the snapshot, the everyday, banality and the validity of those notions in art, the role they played in my own artistic sensibility. At the time I was working for a married couple that were comic book artists. They had hired me as an assistant colorist. Their process back then (another anachronism) was to fill-in xeroxed copies of the inked pages using watercolor. Then a digital colorist would translate those mockups for print. I had to adapt to a very utilitarian technique with the watercolor and in that way I became quite good at it. I discovered the more nuanced procedures through mistakes. The subtlety that's achievable with watercolor lends itself nicely to transitions of light and shadow, gradual chromatic shifts, a certain evenness of surface. Those were the characteristics that lead me to view it as an appropriate medium for translating the snapshots. There was also a connection in the substrate: paper to paper. The thing started as pretty simple way to carry the photographic images into another state, to see what they meant, to me, to others, having gone through that shift. I selected a dozen or so photos based on impulses not quite articulated at the time. In retrospect I think I gravitated toward pictures that had a certain openness where familiarity could be a point of departure into something more ambiguous. In executing the watercolors I set out to reproduce the images to the best of my ability. But there's a push and pull between reproduction and materiality, the border between photo-realism and more direct applications. Like that blob of moisture on the edge of TV screen in the piece you referenced above. I might have said, 'Ah Fuck!' when my overloaded brush hit the paper there. But that blur contributes to autonomy in the piece. The Southernness wasn't really something that I considered until I had moved to NYC. I realized that I was making something about where I was from, about North Carolina, about the post-hippie scene I had grown up in there. Perhaps the 500 miles allowed a productive kind of cerebral distance. I started thinking about my childhood and the kind of places and people I was around and again I was struck by this idea that there was a good amount of compelling subject matter sitting right under my nose. I wrote a short blurb for the bio section of that zingmagazine which indicates some of those ideas. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Lately it seems like you’re focusing more on collage and photography.<span> </span>In the <em>Disruptive Patterns</em> series you retain some of the Southern subject matter mentioned above, but frame them as clusters of photographed objects or in uncanny, borderline surrealistic, juxtaposition.<span> </span>Was there a point of transition from painting to this type of work, or have you always worked in multiple mediums? </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The transition was the impulse to deal with those same photographs head-on. I had been skirting around the actual photos, working FROM them in a variety of ways. It felt like it was time to physically address them. The first time I cut into one of the prints there was a great relinquishment of preciousness. I just started hacking them all up with scissors, hundreds of photos, culling individual objects and areas from within each photo for later use. I made big piles of the bits and then sorted them according to size, theme, color, light source, etc. I have permanent callouses on my knuckles from all the scissor-use. It wasn't an abandonment of painting, but it was the beginning of an acknowledgment that I can work in multiple mediums at the same time. I think this move also paralleled an impulse to eschew overtly personal subject matter, to move towards a more open or fragmented narrative. Also at this time, I started more actively engaging in photography as a tool for the gleaning of images that would later appear in the collages. I'm also a drummer in a band that travels a lot. For about 5 years I took a Canon Demi 35mm half-frame camera with me on countless tours and shot landscapes, found objects, highways, people, cars, incidental things, peripheral things. I so wasn't interested in documenting the rock 'n roll part of it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> <br /></span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">In other series, you introduce more layers, complicating the idea of photography and collage further.<span> </span>One of my favorites is <em>Featuring</em>, where you create these text-based, geometric objects using a section of printed material and a mirrored corner, forming 3D situations from 2D objects.<span> </span>Where did the idea for this series come from?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">In 2009 I was accepted into the Bard College MFA program and I set out to tackle photography more deliberately. Featuring is a series I did in between my first and second year at Bard (I'll finish up at Bard next summer, 2012). They're at the intersection of a few things going on in my head at the time. I was thinking about collage, but looking for ways to execute it sculpturally, or as a still life, and then to make a photograph of that so that the photo would be the final work. I saw the Czech Photographic Avant-Garde exhibition at the Phillips Collection in DC that year and it really floored me. I got excited by the idea that a photo could be a document of another work, even something ephemeral, so that the photo becomes the thing, becomes autonomous. I'm getting another dose of this notion today (almost 80 years after the fact. Ha!) reading Walter Benjamin's 'Little History of Photography'. He's describing the academy's initial reluctance to accept photography as art at the exact same time that photography was beginning to supplant art-viewership through the universal acceptance of graphic reproduction: art-as-photography vs. photography-as-art. Anyway, at the time of this work, I was looking at a lot of records, LPs. Along with 6 other artists, I had been asked to curate a crate of 20 albums for the exhibition, 'The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl'. I was digging through my own collection and spending lots of time online looking for specific albums whose cover art used mirror images, refraction or reflections. I had also used mirrors as still-life elements in an earlier series of photographs. The source material here are those little promotional emblems you'd see on album covers in the 60's and 70's indicating the hit songs included on that LP or some other message of advertisement. I photographed them and then manipulated the images by placing those photos at the intersection of two mirrors creating a cyclical pattern. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">In your series <em>Practice Space</em>, you’re incorporating another major part of your creative output - music and its ephemera. <span> </span>Prints of these ephemera – rugs, cymbals, foam - are remade as trompe-l’oeil objects. This exposes a sculptural side of photography – prints acting as an installation of relics.<span> </span>Can you explain how you arrived here? </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Practice Space</span></em><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> deals with the objects that are found in a band's rehearsal space. I started delving into the arbitrarily rigid dichotomy between music and art in my life, how divergently I regarded the two practices despite their obvious overlap and mutual influence. I had been in bands as long as I had been making visual art but I wore the hats separately, and seldom identified with one pursuit while in the midst of another. At Bard I was immersed in an interdisciplinary environment and so I began to think about ways to remove the divide. The cymbal occurred to me as an object that I had a very functional but in-depth relationship with. Taking a picture of it and then cutting it out removed it from its everyday context and I suddenly saw it in a very formal way and that was really exciting. Other objects followed: the rug that lies under the drum set, the convoluted foam that gets stapled to the wall to deaden sound. There's an additional play with materiality and even sculpture in the cockeyed analog between the new cut out photo and its parent. The new 'rug', a 40" x 50" archival inkjet print, flopped around just as unwieldily as an actual carpet. For a long while, without a good place to store it, it was slumped over a chair in my studio and was regarded by visitors as an actual rug pending further scrutiny. Tromp-l'oeil was not my first intention although it was an inarguable result. I was more interested in an object that passed through many states of being and had returned as a cockeyed version of itself. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">You are in an upcoming exhibition at <a href="http://www.pafa.org/Museum/Exhibitions/Upcoming-Exhibitions/Here/1027/">Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts </a> called <em>Here</em> based on the role of “place” in art that contests the idea of regionalism. What will you be showing? And in a broader sense, how does North Carolina influence your work?<span> </span></span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">For the PAFA show I'll be focusing on a performance work called LRLL RLRR that I started doing in 2008 in which another drummer and I play the same drum beat in unison for 74 minutes. I'm also producing a two-channel video based on the performance which will exhibited for the first time. The performance grew out of the same impulse that lead to <em>Practice Space</em>, drawing on my experience as a musician as subject matter for visual art. But here it's more direct. Each time I've staged the piece it's in cooperation with another drummer, someone from whichever city we're in. So for the PAFA show my collaborator will be a Philadelphian. The collaborative aspect is indicative of the communities that I've come to be a part of through touring. During the mid 1980's, when I was first discovering underground music culture, regionalism was intrinsic. Every city had a scene and group of bands that sprung out of that. On show flyers, each band's name was followed by a parenthetical indication of where they were from. Certain areas had certain sounds, aesthetics. By the time I was playing in a band and touring nationally, regionalism and categorization had begun to dissipate. Bands were bound less by aural similarity and more by an overall DIY methodology. Now of course it's all upside-down.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">What are you working on now? Anything to look forward to?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Right now I am really focusing on expanding the LRLL RLRR project for the PAFA show. I shot the video footage last week and now will begin the editing process. It's a new medium for me. The considerations and procedures are related to photography but the chronology of the process is so different. I'm used to photographing inanimate objects and this was dealing with moving, human subjects, so there were all sorts of new imperatives. Time becomes crucial since you can't expect people to sit in under the lights forever and ever. Plus I was dealing with sound recording, mic placement, etc. It's all very energizing, actually.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Also, as an object accompaniment to the video, and to future performances of LRLL RLRR, I'm publishing the musical score: over 2000 measures of the same drum beat written out as notation along with a mirrored accompaniment to indicate the two drum sets. It's a ridiculous kind of 'drawing' of the performance that people can take home with them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Something to look forward to is this: my band, Les Savy Fav, along with the bands Battles and Caribou, are curating an entire weekend of programming at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in the UK in December. Each Band gets a full day/night to stock with music, DJs, films, whatever. It's a pretty huge honor, to the point where we've sort of done like a Dungeons & Dragons-type fantasy game about in the past. But the selection process ended up being a lot harder than we thought. Not everyone we wanted was available, or alive. And we had some unexpected obstructions of consensus (turns out not all of us were into getting Kris Kross back together). One thing we were pretty quick to agree on was a desire to get Archers of Loaf to play. They had started playing shows again recently and so it ended up being possible. I've been delving back into all their LPs lately and I'm still entranced by their singular mannerism: odd chords, odd structures, odd lyrics that somehow coalesce to form rock music that is often very relatable. I saw them play last week here in NC and they were harnessing the same unselfconscious, ecstatic energy that the songs were first born out of. And they played the most obscure songs with as much fervor as the sing-alongs. Although with the show taking place in the bull's eye of their first wave, every song was a sing-along, a somewhat distracting thing if you happened to be standing next to someone with a loud, bad singing voice. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Anyway, here's the link that tells about ATP: <a href="http://www.atpfestival.com/events/nightmare2011/lineup.php"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">http://www.atpfestival.com/events/nightmare2011/lineup.php</span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Other than that the future is revolving, counterclockwise, hurricane-like, around my last year at Bard MFA, next summer. I'll be concentrating on my thesis, the actual work and the written part, over the next 9 months. LRLL RLRR along with other work happening now, and some nascent ideas, will funnel into the project, probably get puréed a few times, then congealed, sliced and served up. I have a show at UNC-Greensboro in January where I'll be able to look at how some of these things can relate in one space.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> </div> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">September 2011</div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-14583045522096744442011-09-29T12:07:00.001-07:002011-09-29T12:07:57.067-07:00INTERVIEW: Kelly Richardson<div class="content"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/image-2.jpg" width="575" /> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">LEVIATHAN</span></span></em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">, 2011, three-channel high definition video, 20 minute loop. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">Originally commissioned by Artpace, San Antonio</span></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">In the aftermath of a week with both a hurricane and an earthquake on the East Coast of US, and year in which, Japan has been devastated by an earthquake, a tsunami, and its Nuclear aftermath, and with a year of the most devastating oil spill in history, </span><a href="http://www.kellyrichardson.net/"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Kelly Richardson’s</span></strong></a> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span> <strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;"> work has the relevancy and chilly methodology to wreak havoc on the otherwise still perceptions of her subject matter. She embraces a 19</span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">th</span></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;"> century axiom—“The Apocalyptic Sublime”, with the precision that George Lucas first explored in his “THX 1138” or the clever tautology of Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner”. Her work captures fear, anxiety, resolution, beauty, mystery, omnipotence, awe, and desolation people feel in the presence of the unknown both in nature and in life. I had the pleasure of sharing a residency with Kelly Richardson at<strong> <a href="http://artpace.org/">Artpace</a> </strong>in San Antonio, curated by <strong>Heather Pesanti</strong>, and was initiated into the weird and luxurious sensation her video installations evoke. And now I have begun to look at the world through some different viewfinders, and like with all good art, wine, hallucinogens, or sex—after experiencing it—the world seems a little different, a little more fragile, and yet, a little more epic. What follows is our emailed Q&A, or “Come on Irene [Sic]”.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">Interview by Devon Dikeou</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">Terra Nullius, landscape work not touched by humans would seem to have a strange relationship to you and your work. You live in the UK—the ultimate non Terra Nullius landscape—it has been centuries being sullied, sculpted, terrorized, or tamed. And yet you try to find landscapes that might have any or all of these qualities in both hidden and obvious ways, and then you digitally create some effect—in effect a super Terra Nullius. Can you speak about this . . . </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">I’d say it’s increasingly true that the work focuses more and more on locations without signs of human interference. Occasionally, there are works which use manmade structures of some kind, but many of the ideas dictate using the Terra Nullius landscape. Most often, unplanned indicators of civilization inform the work in ways which don’t support what I’m after. If elements of sullied landscapes are present in anything I make, it’s deliberate; either it has been inserted digitally or selectively left in the shot to support the idea.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">While majestic and beautiful, the work should also have an eerie, if not terrifying quality. If they function properly, the viewers feel consumed by the landscape, losing themselves in the work. If there are signs of a tamed landscape, the threat of the un-urbanised wild isn’t present which prevents fear of the potentially unknown. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">Let’s talk about what Woody Allen calls, “Your early funny work”, and your early work is really funny, literally. Like the “Ferman Drive”, or “The Sequel”, much less the “Wagons Roll” . . . Humor, what are the advantages and disadvantages . . . </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">I used humor in the past as a way of inviting people into the work. From there I was hoping they would unpack it and end up feeling all sorts of other, often conflicting sensations. At some point though, I guess it was 2006, I decided that humor was far too specific. I’ve always tried to make ambiguous works where the viewer is unsure how to feel about it; it may be beautiful but at the same time unnerving (as above) and while humor is a great entry point, it ran of the risk of overshadowing what I was really after, the conflation of numerous ideas and interests which inspire a kind of contemporary sublime.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/image2.jpg" width="575" /> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;"><em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">The Erudition</span></span></em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">, 2010, three-channel high definition video, 20 minute loop</span></span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">This movement that you introduced me to, the “Apocalyptic Sublime”, pretty much sums up Edmund Burke’s idea of the sublime, “fearful joy”. But it really has some fascinating history and amazing relation to your work. Will you say something in relation to this.</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">The manifestation of apocalyptic art and its popularity came about during a period of domestic unrest, foreign wars and quite significantly–as it pertains to its relation to my work–anxieties towards major societal and environmental upheaval caused by the birth of the Industrial Revolution, which came to fruition around the same time. During the 18<sup>th</sup> century, interest in the Apocalyptic Sublime was expressed through what would have been ‘popular culture’ for the time: writing, poetry and art. Similarly, with widespread predictions of impending environmental meltdown as a direct result of the Industrial Revolution, during the last decade we’ve witnessed a return to imagery and stories depicting the Apocalypse with the film industry producing an unprecedented 50+ films illustrating various apocalyptic themes, many of which contain scenes which use similar techniques used by the painters in the 18<sup>th</sup> century to inspire the sublime. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">Artists who were associated with the Apocalyptic Sublime envisioned catastrophic outcomes of this era, looking forward to what may be a result of the Industrial Revolution.<span> </span>We’re now sitting on the other side, facing its effect on the planet and ourselves. By way of the film industry, the Apocalyptic Sublime, or at least the popularity for consuming imagery depicting a catastrophe-ravaged planet has returned, almost certainly reflecting a like, collective anxiety towards a very uncertain future. My work plays into this, along with a number of other ideas and influences. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">Ok the Creature From the Black Lagoon . . . it looooms in “Leviathan”. What is your worst nightmare?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">I’ll share two actual nightmares that I’ve had which were equally terrifying. The first depicted the end of the world by way of an electrical storm. I was on a space station of some description, with the perfect vantage point to witness our planet being zapped with a wild web of blue electrical currents. The second, along a similar vein, involved the sun which ‘didn’t rise’. It was surprisingly peaceful and calm for a world which understood that it had hours left to live. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">The Group of Seven. This is a hugely influential Canadian art group from the 1920s created what I imagine is a pretty hard body of work to deal with for a Contemporary Canadian artist working in what is seemingly the “landscape” genre. But you reference them quite naturally, or as a juxtaposition, unnaturally. Give us a clue into your thoughts on this . . . </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">As a Canadian artist it’s impossible to make work using landscapes without being part of that history. One of the interesting objectives of the Group of Seven was to showcase the beauty of the rugged, untamed Canadian landscape. I feel like I’m approaching things from the other side, after landscape–where I’m fabricating the wild, in a sense, to create a sensation of the sublime, which from my perspective has largely disappeared from the natural world. While I’m representing beautiful vistas like the Group of Seven, I’m also incorporating ideas about our experience and understanding of our highly mediated world where fact and fiction are barely decipherable and how we can no longer view landscape without being aware of how much we’ve drastically altered it, both physically and digitally. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/image3.jpg" width="575" /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">Exiles of the Shattered Star</span></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">, 2006, single channel high definition video, 30 minute loop</span></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">As a youngster from Colorado, of course I was privy to some of the most absolutely exquisite views in nature. In fact, one of those views, that of the Maroon Bells is perhaps one of the most downloaded screen savers in the world. So in fact, most people’s view of the famed mountain landscape is not a natural experience of the mountains, but a virtual one, that appears onscreen when activity on a computer has ceased. And according to Baudrillard “Simulacra” in a way means that the virtual experience at least equals, maybe excels, and perhaps exceeds the actual human experience. Do you think of your work as a critique of this or do you embrace it as a way of creating landscape terroristically, with our only tool left, digital manipulation?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">I embrace digital manipulation as a tool to allude to the multiple, hybridized and seemingly un-navigable “realities” we now exist in. It’s not so much of a critique as it is acceptance. This is the world we live in; now what? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">Which brings me to my last question. Often times when you make a piece, there is some type of Pilgrimage involved, like the Pilgrimage described in Michael Kimmelman’s <em>Accidental Masterpiece </em>chapter, “The Art of the Pilgrimage” in which the meaning of the Pilgrimage from Colmar to Marfa is elucidated upon. For you, traveling to places like Uncertain, Texas is just the beginning. You share the Pilgrimage with the viewer—a generous move as opposed artists whose work a viewer must/need to physically travel to, to see/view—like Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty”, Di Maria’s “Lighting Field”, or Judd’s “100 Aluminum Boxes”. How do you feel about bringing the Pilgrimage to the viewer as opposed to requiring the viewers’ dedication of time and effort in order to see the artwork/landscape in actuality. . .</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">That’s an interesting question. Most of the time I seem to be messing with pristine views which physically, I would never want to mess with. Working digitally also means that I can create impossible or improbable scenarios. I couldn’t transform the Lake District in England with raining meteorites, I don’t have the means of installing a vast field of holographic trees and with the most recent piece commissioned by Artpace<em>, Leviathan</em>, the phosphorescent life form in the water doesn’t exist. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">Also, by removing location and all of the information associated with it which grounds perspective and understanding means that I can bring viewers into unfamiliar territory. I can transport people to another time, into possible futures or the distant past. In contrast to these strange, alternate spaces, I can ultimately make visible our current environment with some measure of hindsight.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;"> </span></p> <p> <strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;">Kelly Richardson’s</span></strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext;"> work is currently on view in ‘The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image’, Part 1: Dreams at <strong><a href="http://www.barcelona.com/barcelona_city_guide/museums_barcelona/caixaforum">Caixaforum</a></strong>, Barcelona, curated and organised by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (through September 4, 2011) and ‘Videosphere: A New Generation’ at the <strong><a href="http://www.albrightknox.org/">Albright-Knox Art Gallery</a></strong> (through October 9, 2011). Please visit her website at <a href="http://www.kellyrichardson.net/">www.kellyrichardson.net</a> for further information on her work and upcoming exhibitions.</span></p> <p> </p> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">September 2011</div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-84401961736261291562011-09-29T12:06:00.001-07:002011-09-29T12:06:45.259-07:00INTERVIEW: William E. Jones<div class="content"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/Tearoom03.jpg" height="425" /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">Still from <em>Tearoom</em>, 16 mm film transferred to video, color, silent, 56 minutes, 1962/2007</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><a href="http://www.williamejones.com/">William E Jones</a></span></strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> was born and raised in Ohio, but is now one of LA’s leading independent filmmakers. I recently caught up with him about his highly emotive body of work, which predominantly deals with the deconstruction of artifice and façade in found footage; this has included gay pornography from post-Soviet states (<em>The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography</em>), homophobic police training footage (<em>Tearoom</em>), and Cold War propaganda (<em>Berlin Flash Frames</em>). He recently exhibited in The Sculpture Center in Queens, and his work has otherwise been shown at museums and film festivals worldwide – including the Musée de Louvre, MoMA, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Sundance Film Festival, and was the subject of a retrospective at Tate Modern. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Interview by Ashitha Nagesh</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Just to begin, I’d like to say that I really love your work; it’s striking, without being explicit. Could you tell us a bit about your influences? What is your particular attraction to old war footage and gay pornography, two things that wouldn’t necessarily usually go together?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">In the present era, war and pornography have more in common than may at first appear to be the case.<span> </span>US military personnel in the current theaters of war spend enormous amounts of time in isolated places where fraternization is very unlikely.<span> </span>Watching porn is a major pastime, and as the notorious photographs from Abu Ghraib revealed, there is some production of porn going on, too.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Since 1973, the US armed forces have not resorted to conscription, which, while scary for individual men during the Vietnam War, had the virtue of bringing together a range of classes in one social unit.<span> </span>Now the military is perceived as a vehicle of upward mobility for working class people, a perception that often proves to be illusory, or at best, immensely risky.<span> </span>This bitter reality seems to trouble those governing the United States (or at least their most hawkish elements) very little.<span> </span>They behave as though American working people are expendable, though perhaps not as expendable as the foreigners they are sent to bomb.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">I suppose there was a time when pornography offered the promise of becoming a star, which is its own peculiar type of upward mobility.<span> </span>With the recent rise of bareback and amateur porn, and the virtual collapse of profitability of the adult video industry, pornography has become the realm of disposable people.<span> </span>Their bodies entertain us fleetingly; their fates generally do not concern us.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;">The act of repetition simultaneously fetishises and desensitizes the material for the viewer, and this can be seen in <em>Film Montages (for Peter Roehr)</em>, and in <em>Industry</em>. What drew you to repetition? Do you feel that the act of repetition makes the non-explicit footage somehow explicit, in the Freudian sense of <em>uncanny</em>? </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Strict repetition is a strategy almost alien to the cinema.<span> </span>It is absolutely fundamental to music (without it, there would be no rhythm) and rather common in modern art (as in Warhol, minimalism), yet seeing exactly the same thing over and over would never happen in a narrative film, which, we must acknowledge, is the dominant form of cinema.<span> </span>Peter Roehr appeals to me because he took up repetition with complete consistency, and applied it to his movies without moderating it or “cheating.”<span> </span>This bracing disregard for the rules of how to make a movie, at the risk of engaging in a kind of sadism, suggests one of the ways that film and art are still distinct as media.<span> </span>Filmmakers care that their works are watchable, because if spectators don’t stay in the theater for their movies, they won’t get to make any more of them.<span> </span>Artists tend to take a position of indifference on this question.<span> </span>Few have seen <em>Empire</em> in its entirety, but this hasn’t harmed Warhol’s status as an artist; it may actually have enhanced it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;">This idea is especially poignant in your work <em>The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography</em> – given that it seems to be about something far more personal than new capitalism and the commodification of sex. In fact, what I took from <em>The Fall…</em> was that it was particularly haunting, not only because of its recent cultural relevance, but because it evokes that feeling of strangeness, of finding one’s way in a completely new environment, navigating the unknown and being taken advantage of – which I think are feelings that most people can, at least partially, relate to. So, I found it interesting how this work was so personal, whilst also speaking of a wider political context. What was your thought process whilst working on this film?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">From my own personal point of view, one poignant aspect of <em>The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography</em> was that I had no money when I made it.<span> </span>I consider the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe the most important political event of our lifetimes.<span> </span>At the time it happened, I was living thousands of miles away and was not capable of recording anything directly.<span> </span>Yet the transformation of the way people lived was so profound that evidence was everywhere (as it still is, I would argue).<span> </span>It was just a matter of me finding this evidence and placing it in the proper context.<span> </span>Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to realize that I needed to look no further than the neighborhood video store.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Despite the efforts of a century of narrative cinema to make us believe otherwise, individuals rarely make history.<span> </span>We generally experience historical change as dislocation and confusion.<span> </span>This is the pathos of modernity: no matter how smart or secure we feel ourselves to be, our consciousness has trouble reckoning with new forms of domination and the latest crimes committed by managers of capital.<span> </span>At certain moments, the rules of the game are laid bare.<span> </span>I think <em>The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography</em> contains a few of them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;">In your recent work, <em>Eyelines</em>, you present found film footage of advertisements from the 60s and 70s and compile them, in order to distort and confuse the original intention of the images. The footage has naturally faded to various shades of red, and your contribution to this is mostly in the act of compilation. Similarly, when discussing <em>Tearoom</em> you have said that you ‘didn’t want to obscure the actions of the police by imposing your own decisions on the material’; how do you explain this move towards less-appropriated and more found footage? </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Eyelines</span></em><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> dismantles one of the fundamental figures of narrative filmmaking (a holdover from figurative painting), the eyeline, by looping very brief shots and alternating them in intervals so quick that the effect is stroboscopic.<span> </span>The work is reminiscent of the “structural” avant-garde films that analyzed the formal aspects of cinema, often at a microscopic level.<span> </span><em>Eyelines</em> also has a mathematical, or perhaps musical, structure, as many of my works do, though this is rarely obvious.<span> </span>Every single permutation, that is to say every combination of individual frames, is exhausted over the course of <em>Eyelines</em>’ 1 hour and 51 minute length.<span> </span>Though the frames are not altered at all, I wouldn’t exactly call <em>Eyelines</em> a “found footage film.”<span> </span>For one thing, the total length of the source material is only approximately 30 seconds.<span> </span>The visual effects are achieved through montage, and as the piece plays out, the multitude of combinations invite spectators’ eyes to play tricks on them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span> </span></span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;">I had the pleasure of seeing <em>Berlin Flash Frames </em>at The Sculpture Center’s (NYC) recent exhibition ‘Time Again’. At the beginning of the film, the images are fast and obscure, before eventually slowing down to show more clearly the collapse of the actors’ and civilians’ assumed ‘camera face’ identities. What interests you about this? Why did you choose a slow revelation over an immediate one?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Immediate revelations are better suited to billboards and abstract paintings than to moving image works, which must unfold in time and have the possibility of justifying their duration.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;">There’s also a theme of disguise and acting, and the undoing of this, in your works that is prominent in <em>The Fall…</em>, <em>Berlin Flash Frames</em>, and even <em>Tearoom</em>. You seem to be fascinated by this idea of letting one’s guard down, captured in accidental footage of people caught in deeply intimate, unstaged and personal moments – it was therefore fitting to see you refer to <em>Tearoom</em> as ‘an historical artifact’. So, in light of this and of your work with old wartime footage, such as with <em>Berlin Flash Frames </em>and <em>War Planes</em>, is the preservation and, perhaps, redefinition of history important to you? How do you view the relationship between documentary and propaganda - what in particular draws you to working with, and the deconstructing of, docustyle propaganda film footage, such as <em>Berlin Flash Frames</em> or <em>Tearoom</em>?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Propaganda films exploit the rhetoric of traditional documentary forms in order to commit a fraud.<span> </span>Documentary is not a style, but an ethical position the person representing takes toward the represented.<span> </span>In propaganda, ethics are of little concern.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">The original material of <em>Berlin Flash Frames</em> interests me because it exhibits a diversity of approaches to filmmaking.<span> </span>Outright falsification employing actors on sets exists side by side with surveillance footage of the construction of the Berlin Wall, and there are other sequences that appear to be documentary footage, though they are not exactly that.<span> </span>An actor from the fictional scenes circulates among crowds of people waiting in line at government offices in West Berlin.<span> </span>Most of them were aware that they were being filmed, but there wasn’t much they could do about it, besides looking away (which preserved their anonymity) or looking directly into the camera (which ruined the take).<span> </span>I can extrapolate from this footage that every resident of West Berlin was a (willing or unwilling) extra in one giant Cold War movie.</span></p> <p> <em><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Tearoom</span></em><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> presents a different range of contradictions.<span> </span>The police force of Mansfield, Ohio (and the vigilantes that supported them) deemed it necessary to record surveillance footage of men having sex in the center of their city.<span> </span>The film was not shot automatically by a machine alone.<span> </span>A police officer had to stand for hours in a closet behind a two-way mirror watching men go in and out of a public toilet.<span> </span>He chose what to shoot: he turned the camera on and off, and within certain physical restrictions, he moved the camera.<span> </span>What was intended as an “objective” document of deviant sexual activity has come to seem transparently subjective.<span> </span>When an attractive young man enters the space, the camera moves frenetically, as though it cannot get enough of him.<span> </span>In the early 1960s, public opinion held the men in the film to be perverts and those who commissioned, shot, and used the film as evidence in court to be fine, upstanding citizens.<span> </span>Today, spectators are likely to form another opinion.<span> </span><em>Tearoom</em> allows an audience to reflect upon this historical transformation.</span></p> <p> </p> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">August 2011</div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-21125964822485340122011-09-29T12:05:00.000-07:002011-09-29T12:06:03.435-07:00INTERVIEW: J. Parker Valentine<div class="content"> <div class="Section1"> <div align="center"> <img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/IMG_1624.jpg" width="500" /></div> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">Untitled with Paperweights, </span></span></em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">2011, mixed media, dimensions variable</span></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><a href="http://www.jparkervalentine.com/">J Parker Valentine's</a> </span></strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">work whispers: but her whispers exude cackles of thunder. Installations made of drawings negotiate a special place between the practices of both traditional works on paper and works of installation and object making. And in doing so they challenge the way these practices support and reinforce each other. The "drawings" are unrolled, cover one another, lean, are attached and weighed down, rest on other objects including tables—walls themselves are surfaces to be reckoned with, and drawings are even regenerated from other projects. These drawings<em> in situ</em> create assemblages of much larger presences that envelope, engross, charge, and frequent the space they inhabit—installing themselves in and around the viewer and the space. This flurry of quiet activity challenges gravity, loudly announcing a <span style="color: black;">different language while demurely allowing for a different voice.</span><span style="color: red;"> </span>We exchanged emails. . . Here is what transpired.<strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Interview by Devon Dikeou</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Frank Stella’s <em>On Painting</em> makes a case that his “literal painting” is “pictorial”—that the physicality of the work has little to do with anything but the sum of its “pictorial” existence. Whether these aims are achieved in his work or not, I think it a useful way to approach your work. You make drawings that “literally” invade the realms of sculpture and installation, even performance. Will you speak about this . . .</span></strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">I do see what he’s claiming as one way to perceive something. I’m also working in this intersection between physical form and image. For me it is often between drawn lines and the physical linear forms created by simple planar structures—for example the curve or bend in a piece of paper, or the angle of a panel. However, I’m trying to bring attention to the opposite of his case—that the physicality can’t be ignored, and a sculptural experience can and often does coincide with an image-based one. In my work, the three-dimensionality typically arises out of the process of making the drawings, more than as a point to be made. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Speaking of performance, one thing I find most interesting in your work is what you don’t show, the drawings that are hidden, the installations that seem interrupted, the gestures the viewer has to guess at, and those edited and not shown. How does this kind of perfomative improvisation process come about, studio to exhibition?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">In the same way that frames are edited out of a film, some of my drawings are hidden. The difference is—you can see that I am hiding something from you—this is a sculptural property that creates a performative relationship between us. In the same way that I use erasure in my drawings to create an image, the blatant covering of an image with another creates yet another image. There is a recurrent push and pull of additive and subtractive processes.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">The end product is often a palimpsest that reveals the evidence of time and action. Everything is improvised because the structure is based on discovery.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/19.jpg" width="500" /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">Untitled</span></span></em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">, 2010, metal, graphite, chalk, MDF</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The materials themselves are often mined from previous works of yours and/or are recycled. This practice in turn creates a funny Nietzschian “eternal recurrence” in your work, each work exists as part of several works, both past and future. Will you speak about recurrence, eternal or otherwise, and the use of recycling as a strategy and a medium . . .</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">As I approach an art object as a problem, there are often many potential solutions to resolve that problem. If the artist has anything, it is the authority to make a decision on the resolution/non-resolution of a work. I am very interested in the poignancy of this decision. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">When something leaves my hands, it’s finished and it’s frozen in time in its determined orientation, but if it has not yet left, I can continue to look for alternative solutions. This can be by combining it with something else. This might give the work an unfinished character—an openness to resolve, hence my interest in abstraction, which by nature, is open.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">As I work on drawings, I photograph them. I collect these images in a folder on my laptop whether the works are finished or not. There is no apparent organization to this—something might be photographed once or many times in it’s process and nothing is labeled. There is really no delineation between separate works, there is no “right way up,” and the hierarchy is obscured between “good” and “bad.” This is not to say that I don’t choose particular successful drawings out of many to exhibit, but looking back at these photos and seeing how they relate from one to the next helps me to learn what a successful drawing might be. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">I’m A-OK with fate. There is nothing precious with how I treat my objects. If my cat bites into a sculpture, fantastic. I often travel with a tube of rolled drawings. The edges do not stay clean, they don’t lay flat, the drawings have rubbed off onto each other and this is usually how I display them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(51, 51, 153);"> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The way Mondrian used black & white as color—because of the sharp juxtaposition to the primary colors in his compositions—or how Impressionist palette was based on the juxtaposition of one color playing off the presence of another—is useful to think about in relation to your use of color. You use the intrinsic materials’ colors and juxtapose slight differences and nuances between and among them to create and achieve similar color connections/juxtapositions. What is the role or how do they, materials and color assemble, create, and dance through your compositions/installations?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Limiting myself to the intrinsic colors of materials allows for less “work” and thus more immediacy. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">In certain ways, I think about image and color along the same lines. For example a found image of, say, a sunset, is similar to found piece of yellow fabric in the way that I do not need to draw or recreate that sunset or paint the color yellow, because they already exist. For me, drawing is not about recreating something, it is about finding something. The use of a particular image or color would most likely be due to the fact that I found it (or photographed it myself), kept it around me for a while, re-looking at it over time, and finding an importance in it, and thus a juxtaposition most likely to something I have drawn. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">I’m very attracted to color brown of the mdf panels I use and the richness of graphite against it. Graphite is reflective and depending on the light or from what angle you look at a panel, it can look black against the brown, or silver and hard to </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">see. The dichotomy between image and material is one of many in my work—the archetype being that I constantly look for form, while at the same time avoiding it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">It is as if you undertake drawing, and its intrinsic limits, and screw with all the Big Wigs that began to screw with drawing in the first place. Serra, Twombly, Tuttle make drawings by way of their final product, be it sculpture, painting, or installation, and in doing so, dismantle our traditional notion of what drawing holds. You make drawing scenarios—sculptures, installations—that use the implicit practices that drawing encompasses. At the same time you negate the essential rules associated with drawing and in the process create a new definition of drawing by way of installation and sculpture. Please give us your thoughts about this . . .</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Yes, I think I do make drawing scenarios. In art school, I had no real interest in any prescribed issues, so I decided to create my own. I found that I needed constraints to work off of, and I found these in the intrinsic limits of drawing and drawing materials. Also, I have a strong interest in time-based media but wasn’t content solely dealing with the consistent technical problems of film and video and looked for more basic materials that could allow me to explore a shifting image with more flexibility.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">My drawings naturally moved into the realm of sculpture when I started drawing on MDF panels. The panels had to be constantly moved around, cut down, and stacked particularly for a lack of space. The activity was physical and so were the materials. There is a sculptural property to the way I make the drawings (adding and subtracting), to the drawn images themselves, and furthermore in the presentation of them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/07-1.jpg" width="500" /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"> </div> <div style="text-align: center;"><em>Untitled</em>, 2010, detail of installation view, Supportico Lopez, Berlin </div> <p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The use of found objects, like the paper weights in your work (Untitled with Paperweights) at AMOA . . . they both function literally holding down drawings and visually becoming reflective mirror orbs, compounding the space and the visual and literal implications by their presence. Luis Barragan, the Mexican architect, used mirrored orbs in a similar way. What are the architectonics of your installations and especially the found objects, like the orbs? </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">My structures are set up to create intersections and associations between drawings. Their relation to the architecture of the room is primarily one of support, but also to create an active viewer that necessarily has to move to see things. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">The reflective mirrored paperweights acted in the same way a body of water might act in a landscape, expanding and manipulating the visual space and drawn environment. But I also chose to use them for the contrast between the near perfect reflective forms and the povera-type materials.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(51, 51, 153);"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">You also use gravity to express the architectonics, in the way you lean an MDF Board against a wall (Untitled 2010) or balance drawings on work horses (Untitled with Paperweights 2011). Can you speak about the role of gravity in your work?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I use gravity as an intrinsic material, like others that you mention earlier. It always works perfectly, its symmetrical. It’s the glue of our world. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">What’s on the horizon?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Right now I’m working on a book of drawings in collaboration with Peep-Hole Milan to be published by Mousse Publishing, and a solo show next spring at Lisa Cooley. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> </div> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">August 2011</div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-59567227322033064672011-09-29T12:04:00.000-07:002011-09-29T12:05:05.248-07:00INTERVIEW: Sara Veglahn<p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/veglahnZing.jpg" height="550" /><br /> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Sara Veglahn</span></strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> is the author of <em>Another Random Heart</em> (Letter Machine Editions, 2009), <em>Closed Histories</em> (Noemi Press, 2008), and <em>Falling Forward</em> (Braincase, 2003). She has taught creative writing and literature at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, the University of Denver, and Naropa University, and currently lives in Denver, Colorado. </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Interview by Rachel Cole Dalamangas</span></strong></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">In a couple of your works, I’ve noticed the recurrent theme of drowning and I think when I saw you read at Burnt Toast in Boulder a couple years ago, you mentioned something about the narrator of a prose you were working on being obsessed with “deep water.” It seems water is frequently mesmerizing, but dangerous when it appears in your proses. Given the ghostly selves that haunt the words, I can’t help but think of Narcissus. But the narrators also aren’t self-obsessive; if anything they’re masochistic, absenting, breathy - sort of like if Narcissus and Echo had had water obsessed phantom children together. How does water relate to subjectivity as this tension occurs in your work? Why the obsession with drowning?</span></strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">My obsession with drowning and deep water and rivers is borne directly out of my experience growing up near the upper Mississippi River—a dangerous, swirling, mysterious, muddy place that was always claiming people. The frequency of people falling into the river and drowning, and the rather nonplussed attitude of everyone about it (“oh, someone drowned…well, anyway…”) was always so strange and troubling to me. Plus, there was the added element of my own lack of swimming skills and a very early experience in a swimming pool where I had to be rescued by the lifeguard. And I am obsessed with rivers—that river in particular, but all rivers, too. They move, <span class="GramE">They</span> have a place to go, they don’t have a choice, they’re traversed. You have to know how to read a river in order to stay out of trouble on a boat. Currents and the way the weeds flow and wing dams and so much that’s hidden. There are people who know that part of the river as well as they know their own family—and they do use the term “read” but I suspect they may not think of it as analogus to language or fiction. It’s all very real. Especially if you end up stuck on a sandbar in a storm. On a more metaphorical and psychological level, I suppose the obsession with water, and the element of danger that is inherent in a deep, muddy river, is related to the unknown, uncertainty, all that’s hidden, and how we make sense of the unknown. </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">One thing that I find extremely pleasurable about reading your work is how nice the paragraphs always look on the page. They’re given all this breathing room. They’re like slices of charm cake. They contain these constellations of disparate <span class="GramE">things :</span> peacocks, zoos, swimming pools, maps, ladies. How do paragraphs operate for you? I would say your prose feels like it goes sentence to sentence, but it’s the field of the paragraph I always remember afterward. </span></strong></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">My unit of composition is definitely the sentence, but I’m glad to know my paragraphs offer <span class="GramE">a completeness</span>. </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">You’ve done some <span class="GramE">collaborations</span> with poets and I may be mistaken, but I believe your focus was poetry at Amherst, where you did your MFA. Why the switch to prose at DU? It’s always sort of a silly question, but one I am forever intrigued by because it doesn’t really have an answer that can be universally applied. What’s the difference, for you, between poetry and prose? </span></strong></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Yes, I did focus on poetry at UMass—and though I did make my attempts with lineation, the majority of the poetry I wrote during that time was prose poetry. So I was always working <span class="GramE">with</span> and interested in the sentence. Studying and writing poetry gave me a good training in the use of juxtaposition and understatement and image and musicality, something I may have been reluctant to try in fiction had I not had the experience of working with all of those elements when making poems. For a long time I avoided prose and narrative because I thought I couldn’t do it. I only realized I could when it became clear that it didn’t have to resemble something else, and it could (and probably should) look different than, say, a <em>New Yorker</em> story. </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Because of my background in the poetic realm, my work tends to often be classified as poetry, although I don’t think of it as such. I’m often asked to defend why what I write is fiction (‘what makes this fiction?’ many have asked me, often with a tone of ire). <span> </span>And while there are certainly fundamental differences between poetry and prose, I think the focus on genre tends to limit one’s reading of a work. It can be dangerous, too, to declare something fiction or nonfiction or poetry—if it doesn’t adhere to the traditional tenets of the genres, then readers tend to dismiss it as weird or difficult. And then, of course, there’s the “experimental” label, which can also be a limiting description—especially as “experiment” implies something unfinished or tossed off, something that certainly can’t or shouldn’t be taken seriously. Yet, it’s the most convenient and encompassing term—a sort of short hand—so I understand why it’s used. But it does ghettoize the work, diminishes it in way. It seems odd to me that a lot of readers resist the idea that a text arrives at the form it needs. I suppose it’s the fear of the unfamiliar. I’m not sure the other arts have this conundrum or difficulty. Perhaps it’s because the material is language as opposed to paint or notes or light. I suppose language is hard to separate as a material because we also use it to survive in the world. </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> <br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">There’s a lot of musicality to the prose. It’s not eccentric rhythmically; but the words echo against each other, the placement of syllables seems deliberate. The thoughts don’t always transition in content, but almost always flow euphonically. Do you have any background in music? What sort of music do you listen to and does it impact how you play with language?</span></strong></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I do have a background in music, albeit a limited one. Even though I studied classical music throughout my early schooling and also briefly in college, I never felt I could become good at it. But it did give me a technical background into rhythm and, I think, maybe, how one might approach simultaneity via language (an impossible task, but one I keep trying to accomplish anyway). I think I may always be subconsciously trying to evoke the kind of fleeting emotion that only music can provide—it’s so fleeting, but it’s also so imbedded (for example, I almost always wake up with a song or melody in my head). And I love all kinds of music—classical and punk and opera and old country and and strange sound collages. I tend to listen to a lot of different things, but I also can be obsessive and will listen to a particular album or song over and over. But I need complete silence to write. I am too easily distracted by melody and lyrics. </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">There’s a razor-sharp clarity to your work. I notice that the texture in your proses seem to do some things that are very much major aspects of realism genre and just as often, things that are the total inverse of realism. For example, like realism, there’s this extreme precision at work; and unlike realism, there’s no attempt to be naturalist or fulfill expectations about representation. Where do these worlds you write come from? Are they dreamt? Meditated? Whispered? Listened into? Do you know them before you write them? </span></strong></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I never know the world before it arrives. Some are dreamed, I know, but they get transformed in the telling and in the combining, so I can’t say I lift them directly from something known, so to speak. That said, dream logic is very important and I privilege the way a remarkable event in a dream is experienced as commonplace—every thing makes sense in a dream while we’re dreaming it—it’s only upon thinking about it or telling someone else where it becomes strange, unreal, and, also, it’s when we begin to forget it. I think I’m always trying to work with that element of fleetingness and the many versions of reality we all create, dreamed or not. </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">So much of your work is about dreaming or dying or dreaming after dying and about a state of consciousness that is transfixed, absorbent, mid-reverie. But the prose does the opposite to me when I <span class="GramE">read :</span> it keeps me aware that I am reading. Every word is so important. The gaps between the sentences are like precipices between thoughts. My consciousness has to stay focused. So there’s this exciting tension there of watching a dream unfold while having to keep one’s mind en pointe. Where would you place the state of consciousness that is reading? It’s not really like watching a movie, though prose narrative and film are frequently compared. Do you think of reading as being hypnotized? <span class="GramE">As dreaming?</span> </span></strong></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">To me, reading and writing are so similar—there’s a level of action and agency involved with both. But reading, of course, is more something that one takes in, where writing, I think, is something that one gives out. The pulling together of ideas and images, though seems quite similar on both sides. </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> <br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The temporality of your works is always very strange. It’s atemporal work, I think. Or rather, there is temporality, but it’s over and gone in a fragment of a sentence. Whole histories happen in a few words. Things disappear. <span class="GramE">There’s</span> vanishing points and things following a longing into the distance. Then it takes whole stretches of a paragraph to look through a window, to follow the flight of a wreaking ball. But there’s always a voice that is leftover that keeps interrogating, describing, cataloguing. There’s both this posture of repose and yet, when I really follow things, there is the suggestion of a terrifying idea of how the universe is arranged. What is your fascination with disappearance? </span></strong></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I suppose this fascination with disappearance is related, again, to the river and deep water, but also to the way in which everyone’s existence is so tenuous. The cataloguing and interrogative elements are a way to keep track, to claim space, to say, “I was here.” And time is just strange! An hour can seem like a minute or like an entire day, depending. All of this is quite terrifying to me, and I think, again, the element of organizing and keeping a space for small things that might not seem important helps to assuage the horror of the chaos of life (which I realize sounds a bit dramatic…). </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> <br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">What other work from you do we have to look forward to?</span></strong></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I recently finished a novel, The Mayflies, which has had the privilege of being excerpted in some wonderful journals. And I’m currently working on a new novel, The Ladies. While not a sequel per se, it is a related book as The Ladies were characters in the previous novel. There have also been some excerpts of this work in progress published in some wonderful places as well. </span></p> <p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Read an excerpt from Sara’s <em>The Ladies</em> here: <a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/VeglahnTheLadiesExcerpt.pdf">http://www.zingmagazine.com/VeglahnTheLadiesExcerpt.pdf</a> </span></strong></p>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-37255029061321358562011-09-29T11:57:00.000-07:002011-09-29T12:00:53.953-07:00INTERVIEW: Diana Shpungin<div class="content"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/013.jpg" height="400" /> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">1664 Sundays, </span></span></em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;">Diana Shpungin, 2011</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;font-size:78%;">photograph by Etienne Frossard </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://dianashpungin.blogspot.com/"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: blue;">Diana Shpungin</span></span></strong></a> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> was born in Riga, Latvia, in what was then the Soviet Union, but has since lived in Moscow, Vienna, Rome and New York City, her current location. I caught up with her about her latest exhibition, <em>(Untitled) Portrait of Dad</em> (<strong><a href="http://www.stephanstoyanovgallery.com/"><span style="color: blue;">Stephan Stoyanov Gallery</span></a></strong>, May 22 – July 3 2011) – a show that was simultaneously a memorial to her deceased father, and a wider, metaphysical exploration of death.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Interview by Ashitha Nagesh</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> <br /></span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The title of your recent exhibition, <em>(Untitled) Portrait of Dad</em>, refers unambiguously to the portraiture work of the late Félix González-Torres. How strong would you say his influence has been upon your work?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Yes indeed, the reference was a consciously direct one to one of my favorite works, Félix González-Torres’s “<em>Untitled (Portrait of Dad)”. </em>I changed the placement of the parenthesis, shifting the emphasis to read “(<em>Untitled) Portrait of Dad”. </em>The titles of the specific works in the exhibition are all so very particular that I wanted the overarching title of the show to be more general and open ended, but also making my admiration for González-Torres known. The title, as general as it is, encompassed everything I wanted to say and reference.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The show of course is influenced by the work, life, death and “after death” of my father, but I also look at it as a respectful nod to the life and work of González-Torres. While my father had a profound influence on me personally, González-Torres had a profound affect on how I look at and approach artmaking. In a way, this show was the first time I allowed myself to really explore that correlation so directly.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I have always been an enthusiast of minimalism but González-Torres took it to a new place and fused it with the personal. He was able, with a small thoughtful gesture and with seemingly flawless decision-making, to key into a sublime something so powerful and significant. An artwork (an inanimate object) that is able to communicate a gesture that resonates with myself and so many others. His work is both personal and political, but it does not scream at you, it speaks softly, it can engage you deeply if you give it the time. It is in the subtlety of the poetic gesture where I think the strength in his work lies and brings out an empathetic quality in me that few works have before or since. It is that elusive feeling I am after with my works, that sensation, that intangible something...</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">This quote by Félix González-Torres has always resonated with me, and I often cite it when I asked why I am an artist, I especially like the “good purpose” part:</span></p> <p style="line-height: 15pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(38, 38, 38);">"Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that's why I made works of art. "<span> </span>— </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Félix González-Torres</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Your entire body of works, from your earlier video piece <em>from the end of the earth to bring you my love</em> to your most recent pieces in <em>(Untitled),</em> seem to be preoccupied with time and the inevitable limitations of it. González-Torres once said, “Time is something that scares me…”. How would you describe your own relationship with time? Is it something that scares or inspires you? Or both?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I am not absolutely sure if “time scares me.” Existence sometimes confuses me, but perhaps that is a comparable thing? Time is necessary, time is a given and time is enigmatic, that much I know. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">But I also think time is relevant, sometimes events seem to go by so fast, other times they last what seems to be forever. I suppose when we fear something time creeps up on us more quickly. The notion of time being both so ambiguous and finite is definitely scary (especially if you think about it for too long). I think whenever you are surrounded by illness and the possibility of death; time is certainly at its scariest. This perhaps in varied ways González-Torres and I have in common.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The limitations of time stem in our great desire yet failed ability to pause and control it at our whim.<span> </span>I certainly have not found a way to pause time yet (other than in my work) so perhaps that is one reason why I make art and in that sense time inspires me. The work is the only place where I can at least metaphorically fuck with time. Whether that be by conceptual reference, physical process or merging time and space as video can so often poignantly do.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Your pieces explore the relationship between time and distance –focusing both on the finite and infinite aspects of both. In <em>from the end of the earth to bring you my love</em>, distance is a tangible, measurable thing – ‘the end of the earth’ being a physical place on the map – whilst time seems to be on a constant loop, sunrise – sunset – sunrise – sunset, and so on, all over the world. In contrast, your more recent works seem to invert this; <em>I Especially Love You When You Are Sleeping </em>and<em> A Fixed Space Reserved for the Haunting</em>, for example, highlight the limited nature of our time, along with the immeasurable possibilities of space – metaphysically speaking. What influenced this inversion? Was there a change in perspective for you?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Absolutely, the work surely encompasses time and space in varied ways; concrete physical remoteness, emotional detachment, and the intangible metaphysical void. There was no change in perspective or specific inversion between the pieces - more specifically the methods used relate to the specific conceptual content and subjects tackled within each of the works. Both are about types of longing and intangibilities, loss vs. love, the dead vs. the living etc...<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">From an ongoing series entitled <em>“The Geographic Fates”,</em> the dual channel video work “<em>From The End Of The Earth To Bring You My Love” </em>is about communication, human relationships, love, desire and the enormity of what we know and experience. I wanted to take the conventionally beautiful symbol of the sunset/sunrise and find a kind of truth in it. Two people being in two precise points, as far away as achievable from one another on earth, would still be able to communicate by ways of our natural world without the interference of technology - a sort of grand, yet simple gesture if you will.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The works in “(<em>Untitled) Portrait of Dad” </em>also<em> </em>relate to time and distance but in this instance examining ideas of death, mourning and memory. The intangibility of death is often explained by means of religion in various cultures and death is often depicted in war films or in the media as remote and impersonal, in horror films as gloomy, morose or campy. I wanted to explore this without delving into the specificity of religion, or focusing on the cold, morbid or stereotypically “dark” depictions we are familiar with and I did not want to avoid the known reality of death, glazing it over to make myself or the viewer comfortable. Instead I utilized personal familiarity, cultural mores and taboos, with a dash of the supernatural and superstitious. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The sculpture <em>“I Especially Love You When You Are Sleeping” </em>relates to a phrase my father spoke to me on many occasions, however I chose the phrase for the work because in an ironic manner it speaks of our inability to speak ill of the dead due to cultural appropriateness. <em>When you are “sleeping”</em> (or dead) <em>I especially love you</em> - a life is glamorized, we speak only of the good times, obituaries and eulogies seldom contain a disapproving word. We often have a selective memory of those we lose.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I am interested in what encompasses our “known” time on earth. And with the understanding that I probably will not find out more than the average human, my work is counter-productively trying to attain this knowledge anyway.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I found <em>1664 Sundays</em> very interesting; it highlights the relative shortness, and the limitations of our shared experiences. Considering the personal nature of the subject, how did you feel whilst constructing this work?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The title <em>“1664 Sundays” </em>refers to the amount of Sundays my father and I lived in common, from my date of birth to his death. When I calculated the days, it certainly seemed like an alarmingly short amount of time.<span> </span>So yes, by summing it up in a succinct figure, the lack of time we have alive and/or together with another person is relatively limited, are days literally numbered. Our experiences with people can be fleeting. The memory is all that can be sustained, although that can be fractured, selective or relatively hazy. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">In<em> “1664 Sundays”</em> the viewers receiving of the recipe bag and taking of potatoes referenced González-Torres piles and stacks. With González-Torres it is like taking from the body itself, with <em>“1664 Sundays”</em> the potato pile references more of a burial mound, but of living things that keep growing and have the possibility of survival. The pile becomes a memorial to a story, a shared overlap of time and experience and a particular place in history. And if one so chooses they can take the potatoes home with them and cook my father’s recipe - again counter-productively reliving an experience in a secluded intangible way. The work always maintains this peculiar condition of longing.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><em><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">1664 Sundays</span></em></strong><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> both reduces this shared experience of time to something mundane and everyday, and simultaneously invests this ordinary object (the potato) with a deeply personal significance. In a way, it is attempting to physically represent something that goes beyond human visualization – time spent with loved ones. What does the potato signify for you? Is it a purely personal symbol of your father’s potato recipe and potato-selling on the USSR black market, or is it a wider comment on Soviet culture and its own subsequent death?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Much of my work can have varied layered, cyclical, dualistic and serendipitous connotations. I love how one object can hold several meanings, some even contradictory, some seemingly non-connected but actually linked by way of an odd coincidence or fate if you will. In this case, the personal, the art historical and the politically and geographically historical. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">That being said, the potato is emblematic of a number of functions. The potato was a bonding symbol between my father and I, by way of his potato recipe he cooked for me both as a child and when I would visit him as an adult. It was the only thing I would eat that he prepared, and it was how we found common ground. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The potato also relates to my father’s story-telling (a dying act in itself) of the “old country” and of his trading fifteen tons of potatoes for his first car, a Soviet made Volga. The potato behaves as an icon of that time period of black market culture, my father used the potato akin to currency, the story indicative of a time and place far away, only directly familiar to a relative few left among the living. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">And lastly, the potato had strong significance in not just Soviet times, but to this day in Russian (and much of Eastern European) culture. A diet staple often referred to as “second bread”, it has sustained many people during grain shortages in very difficult times.<span> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Being born in a country under Soviet Rule, it was difficult to grasp the enormity of what that life was like then because of my young age. My family immigrated to the United States when I was about four years old so my memories are really based in my fathers story telling, family albums and old books we had around the home. The linkage of ideas goes through a type of hand me down translation. Again, it took me utilizing the potato recipe (a very personal ordinary thing) to get down to the inherent political significance in that common food source.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Could you explain the meaning of the chair in <em>A Fixed Space Reserved for the Haunting</em>? Does it have personal significance, or a wider<em> </em>symbolism?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">I really consider my work to have both </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">personal significance and a wider symbolism. O<span>f course much of my work comes from deeply personal themes, but these themes are also very universal. I translate my experiences visually by finding formal elements and signifiers that may have more open ended and relatable content to others.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Regarding the personal, I am really interested in what we as a culture or society deem to be “personal” or even “too personal”. I always find it hard to really delve into a subject unless it becomes real and tangible for me. For example, I, as many, could easily glaze over and become numb to the convention within media, like the monotonous repetition of a newscast, a tragedy summed up in a CNN news crawl for example. Until a story is told in a personal empathetic way it is hard to grasp the reality of a situation. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Regarding the sculpture “<em>A Fixed Space Reserved For The Haunting”</em>,<span style="color: black;"> my father was a physician and would repair items around the home with the means of his profession, --domestic objects like chairs, tables, lamps, rugs, walls and also trees in the garden. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">This chair is left empty and with one leg broken signifying the lack of repair due a person’s loss. So the chair is not repaired or “fixed” as the title suggests, but rather “fixed” in space awaiting an implausible return. </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">The chair no longer functions for the living - one would fall if they sat down and would be stained by the graphite pencil which is methodically hand coated over the entire surface. The use of graphite pencil in my work functions a bit like a ghost in itself, an impermanent medium, the prospect of erasure always evident. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Importantly, the sculpture and the title </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">stem from one of many family superstitions of having a guest or loved one sit briefly in a chair before departing a home so they will surely return safely again. My father had me do this whenever I would visit his house. After doing some recent research I found the superstition has gone through many varied/morphed versions, but all are rooted in Eastern European culture from Pre-Christian times. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">In <em>A Fixed Space…,</em> by blanking out the personal details from the obituaries you generalize death, which seems to contradict the rest of the exhibition, which is a very personal and specific exploration of grief. Was this your intention? Could you tell us a bit more about why you chose to do this?</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Yes, underneath the chair sits a stack of New York Times obituaries with pertinent information methodically censored; -all names, dates, places etc. have been blacked out, the stack wrapped akin to a cast relating to my fathers methods in medicine. The stack although formally looks like it might be holding up the chair, is not upon closer inspection (another way of suggesting longing through the formal tension).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">With the partial concealment of the obituaries, what you end up getting is this very generic, humdrum commemoration that can apply to almost anyone. Once more, yes the show is rooted in the personal, but it all speaks of the cultural ways we do or do not handle death. The chair in </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">“<em>A Fixed Space Reserved For The Haunting”</em> <span style="color: black;">was metaphorically made for my father, but it could certainly be related to anyone whom has passed.</span></span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Much like<em> “I Especially Love You When You Are Sleeping”, a</em><span style="color: black;">nother aspect of </span>“<em>A Fixed Space Reserved For The Haunting”</em> <span style="color: black;">is the notion of selective memory (or maybe just selective public sharing) when it comes to death and separation. It was worthy of noting that in all of the many hundreds if not thousands of obituaries I read, not a one had a negative word to say about any of the deceased. As a whole, I was not interested in presenting an all-out sentimental memorial of my father with this exhibition, rather simply using my experience with his death as the catalyst to getting a minute bit closer to understanding what it is that mortality and memory really is and how it functions.</span></span></p> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">August 2011</div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-1105545319685243432011-07-13T10:34:00.001-07:002011-07-13T10:34:48.474-07:00INTERVIEW: Joanna Howard<div class="content"><p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/JOANNAHOWARDPIC.jpg" height="468" width="351" /> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Joanna Howard</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> is the author of <em>On the Winding Stair </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">(Boa editions, 2009) and <em>In the Colorless Round,</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> a chapbook with artwork by Rikki Ducornet (Noemi Press). Her work has appeared in <em>Conjunctions</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, <em>Chicago Review</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, <em>Unsaid</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, <em>Quarterly West</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, <em>American Letters & Commentary</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, <em>Fourteen Hills</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, <em>Western Humanities Review</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, <em>Salt Hill</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, <em>Tarpaulin Sky</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> and elsewhere. Her stories have been anthologized in <em>PP/FF: An Anthology</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, <em>Writing Online</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, and <em>New Standards</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">: <em>The First Decade of Fiction at Fourteen Hills. </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">She has also co-translated, with Brian Evenson, <em>Walls </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">by Marcel Cohen (Black Square, 2009) and, with Nick Bredie, also co-translated <em>Cows</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> by Frederic Boyer (Noemi, forthcoming 2011). She lives in Providence and teaches at Brown University.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Interview by Rachel Cole Dalamangas</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>A fair amount of your book, On the Winding Stair, is absorbed by a world of ghosts that overlays and is not-totally-invisible to the living world. Like a transparency placed on a picture. First things first: do you actually believe in ghosts and have you ever had experiences with specters and haunted houses?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I do believe in ghosts, but they fail to appear to me.<span> </span>I am seeking the ones I know, but they just won’t give me the time of day.<span> </span>Much like how the person you like the most ignores you to the bitter end.<span> </span>I’m much more likely to haunt than be haunted, and to wonder if I’m being seen.<span> </span>Also, I believe in ghosts in the way someone who is out of your life returns in another guise, or how someone who is literally dead seems to be replicated in another person who is living, in their mannerisms and gestures, even sometimes in their way of dress.<span> </span>These are the most powerful encounters I’ve had with ghosts, especially since the living individual does not know he is being inhabited.<span> </span>So it is like a private secret.<span> </span><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>I try to avoid what gets said on the backs of books, no matter how exciting because I want an unadulterated experience of a book. In this case, I failed because I very much like the three authors who had nice things to say on the back of your book. Gary Lutz comments on your tendency toward ghosts and says something about how your characters sort themselves between the haunters and the haunted. I think this is keen for a number of reasons, one of which, is that "haunted and haunters" describes a border, or ravine separating realities in many of the stories. What or where is the border for you between a reader's imagination and the text?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Because narrative clarity is so tenuous in my work, the reader’s imagination is pretty vital to sort out things like progression, movement, even things that probably should be pretty straight-forward such as character or location.<span> </span>I often think that my characters are wandering in a shifting landscape, one that is recognizable if the reader is familiar with it, but which is also dissolving in a mist.<span> </span>I spend a lot of time thinking about projection, how much of our lives we spend trying to make some meaningful narrative of connection out of the very few details the people around us are willing to give up.<span> </span>I can create an elaborate fantasy out of very little information, so it is perhaps not surprising that my fiction ends up asking the same of a reader.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>A big part of the pleasure of On the Winding Stair for me is how object-heavy they are and how unusual (and often outdated as technologies) objects that appear are. There's a hurdy-gurdy, a tartan blanket, an Irish mail handcar, a caravan, doubloons, a mussel trestle, a cloissonne earring in the shape of a fish, vaudeville stage acts, pyracantha, epaulets, a poster bed veil, scrims, olive linen, a cider ruin, a pink mutt, a gourd helmet and something spectacularly called a, "misery salad." In these rich worlds, there's a stark relation to absence and poverty -- evoked in addition to ghosts -- captives, bastards and "pale, hungry girls." There's also a damagedness, ruined beaches, suicidal Spanish gypsies. The combined imagery makes me contemplate the beauty of decay and disintegration. Are these tensions a comment or meditation on beauty for you? </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I think I am often obsessed with an object which I see as distinct in its genre, much as I like a character who is both a type and an absolute aberration of said type.<span> </span>In the absence of an understanding of what constitutes identity, one substitutes the material details of identity: we are marked by our material trappings in so many ways.<span> </span>To instill objects (or even locations) with this much burden is begging for disappointment, as objects are inevitably lost, damaged or ruined, and so these objects invoke a kind of anxiety.<span> </span>To fixate on a type, a boxer for instance—as in the piece I am currently working on—creates a similar problem for inevitably he can’t remain totally as such (injuries are inevitable, boxers retire young), and because I am romantic, I like to dwell as much on the former thing, the former boxer.<span> </span>His damage is his aberration and distinction, in this case, and it calls so much critical attention to his origins.<span> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>In addition to the beauty of ruin and decadence, I can't ignore the possibility of a social commentary that particularly reminds me of Virginia Woolf's association in A Room of One's Own with poverty and nourishment to the imagination (or lack thereof). In a world and an economy where most of us have to spend most of our time working (and one's attention in what time for entertainment is leftover is often drawn to TV or the web), what time is there for reading? I admit, that's bit dramatic of me. But, there have been periods of my life in which I didn't have time to read or if I did, I was too exhausted to focus my attention. To ask the question more broadly: this collection seems concerned with how imagination survives in impoverishment, so how does imagination survive in a world that doesn't value imagination for imagination's sake (and instead prefers imagination applied to productivity, technological ingenuity, etc...)?</strong><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">This issue is of genuine concern to me, and I think it comes literally from growing up poor and filling in for material lack with imagination of material decadence, hence the obsession in my work with baroque décor and artisanal niceties. I think imagination is rarely valued for anyone other than children because it is seen as impractical or naïve, but I don’t feel this way.<span> </span>Perhaps because I tend toward cynicism and misanthropy, I use imagination to combat these things and to draw myself back into positive contact with individuals.<span> </span>These days if someone tells me I have a great imagination, I assume that they are raising one eyebrow.<span> </span>Imagination is connected with magical thinking and psychological projection, two things that breed awkwardness in a cocktail conversation. Beyond this, imagination is attached to enthusiasm, which is doubly awkward. For all that we dismiss things that don’t earn us money, at this cultural moment, I think the fear of having an awkward moment is much more damaging.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> <br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Just as this collection is fascinated by the object world, it is also fascinated by technology (though old technology, rather than new), I think. I think too of, "The Dynamo and the Virgin," and the world's fascination with technology at the World Exhibition in Paris, 1900. Our (real) world is one that is perpetually fascinated by technology. And while I would most definitely not classify this work "steampunk" because it's not much science fiction, I would suggest it grapples with a fascination with the old/vintage/antiqued and the development of technologies. How do you think the material object of "the book" will or will not change in response to technology? Is the book soon to be antique? </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I am so tremendously flattered to have anything in my book labeled steampunk, I can barely focus on the question.<span> </span>I love obsolete technologies, for the same reason that I like former objects, and former character types.<span> </span>The book to me is always already antique, in the way that commercials are as well, because the marketing is worked into the design as artifact.<span> </span>Often, it seeks to trigger a past moment, and sell through nostalgia.<span> </span>I become nostalgic for the Old Spice commercials from the 70’s, and lo and behold, someone is already producing new retro versions of these before I even recognize the desire.<span> </span>Right now, there are so many book presses using retro comic or cartoon imagery, nostalgic photography, and antiqued fonts; these books are designed to look antique because it triggers our desire to own the object that is like the object from our past.<span> </span>It’s hard for me to imagine a movement entirely away from the book object, because there will always be those among us, no matter how reliant we become on the current technologies, who will still fetishize objects and want to possess them as such.<span> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>It seems to me too that your worlds are only possible because they're literary -- could only exist as fictions constructed of bizarre and beautiful vocabularies, although they don't physically and logically operate too far from the margins of what we might identify as reality. There are creatures of dubious existence like mermaids and ghosts, and moreover paradoxical, ethereal events occur, as in, "Her missing eyes watched us move," but none of this is "absurd" in the sense that these fictional worlds are unstable. To the contrary, they seem to develop an immediate internal logic and are rather disciplined in staying true to whatever that internal logic may be. There's a dream at work, but I am continually made aware that it is language and not experience. How important to you is it that the reader is made aware of the fact that he or she is reading, or made aware of the materiality of language?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Again, this is quite a conscious desire for me.<span> </span>I do believe that as writers we have chosen our medium, which is language, and should get to know it in its fluidity, its elasticity.<span> </span>The idea that I would try to create something in language that could be done better in film or in a visual artwork is nutz to me, although I have so many students that are going for that sort of thing. “I’m trying to write this like Frank Miller’s <em>Sin City</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">” they say, and they may get the flavor of the text of that work, but they fail to realize that the images of the model text were vital.<span> </span>I think it is fine to say I want to make something that has the effect of a graphic novel, but in language, especially if you intend to see just how to make the language do the work of image in its own right, but even that it is strange to me.<span> </span>I’ve just always been interested in the texture of the medium I’ve chosen.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>I can never predict where a story in On the Winding Stair will end up and after reading the entire collection the stories are couched in my mind kaleidoscopically: I can't keep them distinct, they form and reform in different patterns in my memory and I can't locate their beginnings and endings, only their twists and tangibilities, because these stories of yours <em>wind</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>. Some of them seem to be able to keep going infinitely and others stop abruptly. In your writing process, how do you know when to "stop," that is, how do you know when a story has arrive at an "ending"? What, exactly, for you, is an "ending"?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Finding an ending is the most difficult part of the writing process.<span> </span>For me, at this point, two things dictate endings: culmination of image, or dissipation of obsessive thought.<span> </span>It’s intuitive and always comes from the language. Bottom line, if I have been working with an image across a piece and it starts to feel sufficiently layered or labored, I feel I am coming to the end of something.<span> </span>Or, if I have had an obsessive idea or thought across the text, and it is starting to ease up, I feel I am coming to the end of something.<span> </span>For instance, I have an end line in which is a girl is described as “severed and refitted.”<span> </span>When I thought of this language, I was obsessed with it, and I wanted to find a narrative that explained to me why a girl would seem first severed, then refitted.<span> </span>When I had the story in mind, I worked toward the end line.<span> </span>Often, these obsessions of language recur later when I’m working on a new piece, and I might realize that I needed to go further in something that I’d already completed, but I am not one to go back and rework old love affairs.<span> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Not unlike the overarching story structures, your sentences wind in a disturbing way. From the first story, "Light Carried on Air Moves Less,": "In the center of that plain, where parched pasture grass muled, low and reedy, and sucked the humid thickness from the air till it was pinched and light and porous, a loose-ended portion of train track sat on its chalky rock pile, plank ribbed, veined with dark steel rails." Like the warped dichotomy haunted / haunter, it seems the relationship between subject and object is mostly intact, but disturbed some. Passive objects are active (and even a bit aggressive, even if beautiful -- the grass that sucks the air until it pinches), and subjects are sort of fragile, as if the train tracks are dependent and subservient to the rock pile that holds them up. What is your interest in the form of sentences?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Again, this is as much intuitive as anything.<span> </span>I spend a lot of time thinking about how to say something without really saying it, like trying to phrase a request to someone in which their acceptance is inevitable because it is worked into the assumptions of the language of the request, and because ultimately, I really want them to do what I want them to do.<span> </span>Manipulation through the medium of language.<span> </span>In a story like the one described above, I just wanted to overemphasize how languid and still everything was, and yet how much desire was present even in the inanimate objects, the desire to possess.<span> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>There's a romance as well as a sense of nostalgia or grief (and even danger?) to the epigraph that gives the name to the collection: "On the winding stair / your dress rustles. / Candle burning quietly / In the dark room--- / A silver hand / snuffs it out" (Georg Trakl, translated by Keith Waldrop). Trakl, himself -- disturbed, Bohemian, tragic, youthful -- , would not be out of place in the work. Did you write the collection with the Trakl poem in mind, or did you discover it later as a possible title? Given that your sentences seem to slip into the edges of poetry, how influenced or not were you by working with Trakl's (or Keith's?) structures?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I was hugely influenced by Trakl, especially the way a single line of his poems would often contain an entire narrative, with rich gothic elements, asylumns and castles, and these poems inevitably lead to despair and grief.<span> </span>I am a hopeless romantic.<span> </span>I was seeking a title for the collection, and kept striking out.<span> </span>At the time, fortunately, Keith Waldrop gave me some of his Trakl translations knowing I was a fan (of his and of Trakl).<span> </span>I had read an earlier version of this epigraph poem which had been translated to say “on the spiral staircase”.<span> </span>Of course, when I saw what Keith had done with it, I realized there was something so sophisticated and yet clear, the stair becomes active rather than the passive recipient of a common descriptor, and suddenly it said everything I wanted to say in the book. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>What forthcoming works do we have to look forward to?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I’m working with an artist called Chemlawn to do something for the Kidney Press, an artist’s book in limited edition.<span> </span>Chemlawn does the artwork for <em>Birkensnake </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">magazine, and she is phenomenal, very, very strange, so I am excited to be working with her. That text is about my fixation with boxing and/or a visit to a refuge for exotic birds.<span> </span>I’m also trying to finish a novel, about a female filmmaker and her stable of strange actors.<span> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Read Joanna’s <em>Assemblage</em></span></strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong> here:</strong> <a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/joannahoward.pdf">http://www.zingmagazine.com/joannahoward.pdf </a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="location"></div> <div class="year">February 2011</div></div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-41102527947876633142011-07-13T10:32:00.000-07:002012-06-15T07:21:51.872-07:00INTERVIEW: Jeronimus van Pelt and Daan Samson<div class="content">
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<b>JantineWijnja </b><br />
Curator and artist <br />
Amsterdam (NL)<b><br /></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">Some time back photographer <b><a href="http://www.jeronimusvanpelt.nl/">Jeronimus van Pelt</a></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"> contacted us about a project he was doing with welfare artist <b><a href="http://www.daansamson.nl/">Daan Samson</a></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"> featuring women working in the artworld framed within a sexualized context. The photographic series features eight female curators, theorists, artists, critics, museum directors, and others who agreed to participate, working with stylist <b><a href="http://www.margreetholsthoorn.nl/">Margreeth Olsthoorn</a></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"> to stage the scenes. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R3bxY11tLs"><b>"Art Babes" </b></a> debuts today as part of <b><a href="http://www.torchgallery.com/exhibitions/Art-Babes.html">Torch Gallery’s</a></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"> booth at <b><a href="http://www.artrotterdam.nl/">Art Rotterdam 2011</a>.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Interview by Brandon Johnson</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>How did your collaboration come about?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Jeronimus van Pelt: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">A few years ago, I visited Daan Samson's exhibition entitled “Showing One's Colours” in TENT, the Rotterdam art centre. Almost excusing my enthusiasm, I mailed him that his work made me feel cheerful. I felt a kind of ‘direction’ in his otherwise unsettling art projects. The self-proclaimed art celebrity turned out to be surprisingly simple to approach. Almost immediately he was prepared to make an appointment in a museum in my hometown of The Hague. In the museum restaurant we ate cheese croquets with toast.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Daan Samson: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">There, in that restaurant, I met a photographer with an artist’s soul. Jeronimus showed me portraits of top civil servants, patricians, close friends and ministers. His shots were all characterized by splendid, sophisticated lighting. He talked comprehensively about the way in which, during his shoots, he establishes contact with the personalities in front of his camera. His stories and photos do indeed show that he manages to ‘disarm’ people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Jeronimus: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">After a while, Daan raised the concept of the Art Babes. He invited me to collaborate on a photographic series within which we would give professional artistic women the opportunity to immortalize themselves as ‘sexy creatures’. </span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>How exactly did you select your subjects?</b></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><b></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Daan: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">What followed was an extensive search through the realms of emancipated art fields. We approached attractive artistic women at <i>vernissages </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">and art receptions. We sought models in all layers of our domain. I looked not only for artists and influential exhibition-makers, but also for vital art restorers, reviewers, and even cloakroom girls in museums. Websites such as Facebook are also very suitable channels to check photos and backgrounds. Correspondence with the potential Babes was often followed by a meeting with the artistic women in question. We spoke about sexuality, liberation, looks and lingerie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Jeronimus: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">Daan regularly sent me profiles of artistic women who had agreed to give a glimpse of their most sexy side. After that I, too, sought contact with the Art Babes. Within this kind of photo project, it is important that the model and the photographer manage to get on the same wavelength before the photo shoot. I wanted to hear the voices of all the participants, in order to gauge the way in which they approached the theme.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Daan: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">Jeronimus is a person who relies on emotions. During the project I observed that he wished to reach some sort of communal trance. For example, in the preparatory discussions he tests the degree to which a kind of energy could be released during the shoots. During those discussions, he promotes a situation that structures this eventual trance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Did you have to approach many women to find participants, or were your candidates generally open to the idea?</b></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Daan:</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"> We live in confusing times. Concepts such as ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’ seem to have become unstuck. As a result, the self-image that women have has also undergone a paradigm shift. Therefore it was not very difficult to find participants. To the Art Babes, our request probably just came at the right moment. Often the artistic girls had to admit, albeit coyly, that they found it quite flattering to be seen purely and simply as a sexy chick. Other women indicated that they were furious after reading the very first e-mail. Nevertheless, they too wished to participate, even if it was only to come to terms, once and for all, with the feminism of their youth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Jeronimus: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">The Art Babe concept gives provocative commentary on our times. To me personally, it was not a goal to supply a specific male view of the concepts of sexuality and beauty. I often spoke with the models about a kind of softness that we could reveal. This softness has little to do with eroticism, it is more about a sort of energy – the softness of female energy. Recently I read an interview with the singer Antony Hegarty and I was rather impressed. I would like to explore with him, in a photographic context, what he calls the ‘softness of the cross-gender principle’. It is not clear whether Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa with the aid of a male or female model. I experience a deep source of inspiration in this idea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Daan: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">Nevertheless, the Art Babe photo series has a certain macho character. We show influential artistic women within the context of sexist role models. And it is fine that present-day women apparently have the spirit to display some of those traits now and again. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Jeronimus: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">Sexual clichés versus 'lipstick feminism'... it is a curious and interesting mix of impossibilities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Is this a reaction to what can sometimes be a dogmatic intellectual insistence on political correctness, especially in the world of contemporary art?</b></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><b></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Daan: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">Yes, I believe so. The masks can be dropped now, even within the world of the arts. The concept of ‘shame’ is now only for those who are actually ashamed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Jeronimus: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">Both Daan and I are post-hippie children. Perhaps the Art Babe project is also a personal means of reflecting upon the feminism with which we were raised in the seventies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Daan:</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"> And our fathers and mothers can be proud of us. We have created, with love, an attractive environment in which the Art Babes could break out of their culture-driven straitjacket. Stripped of intellectually representative expectations, the girls could emerge as seductive sex kittens. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Jeronimus: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">Women liberators … that is what we are.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Daan:</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"> Hahaha. Princess Máxima Zorreguieta will be delighted to hear that. Didn’t you make a portrait of her recently?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>I’m enjoying the settings of the portraits – particularly those that suggest the artworld – Jantine surrounded by cocktails littered about at an opening, Anne sitting on crates presumably containing works of art, Eva among foam and bubble wrap in a storage setting. It’s disconcerting to see these banal work scenes become sexualized. How were these scenes selected?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Jeronimus: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">After pioneering work with the first two photos, we reached the conclusion that we did not want to offer true anecdotes. The energy that I like to experience in a photo is released when you offer a model the comfort of leaning upon both the fictional and the real. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Daan: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">With our photos we expose the true ambitions within the art scene. We allow dreamed aspirations to run wild in front of the camera. In the choice of locations and ambiences, we occasionally pounded hard on the loud pedal. And the women showed themselves to be seemingly at their ease within our décor of top hotels, smooth vodka and tasteful lofts. Fashion guru Margreeth Olsthoorn dressed all the Art Babes in creations of international fashion designers, such as Martin Margiela, Hussein Chalayan and Veronique Branquinho.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Jeronimus: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">Whereas I seek the power of a photo in a kind of immaterial intensity, Daan is more initiated into the world of luxury and comfort. Within his artistic calling, he pleads for a revaluation of the material. In contrast to many other artists he will not sneer at earthly possessions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>These photographs are like pin-ups to art dealers – a fantasy specific to the industry. Who is the audience for this work?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"><b>Daan: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">First of all, photo-lovers will be delighted by such marvellous images. Jeronimus has shot amazingly refined pictures. And the more general art collectors will also be astonished, not only by the scintillating photos but also by the Art Babes we have liberated. And finally, the less involved citizen is also welcome. We realize that there is a gap between the artworld and society. However, with this photo series we offer a hand of friendship. The most seductive Art Babes are presented on a platter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;">On view at <b><a href="http://www.artrotterdam.nl/">Art Rotterdam</a></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;"> February 10-13, 2011</span> </div>
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</div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-45485350966402259262011-01-07T14:09:00.001-08:002011-07-13T10:28:00.674-07:00INTERVIEW: Nils Folke Anderson<div class="content"><div align="center"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/Untitledphotogrid.jpg" height="415" width="580" /></span></div> <div align="left"><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">With a foundation in painting, <strong>Nils Folke Anderson</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> now works in large-scale sculpture.<span> </span>His most recent works feature repeated interlocking geometric pieces that can be shifted into different formations and left to pose like the kids game of “statues.”<span> </span>At first glance, it’s Sol LeWitt meeting minimalist sculpture.<span> </span>But looking a bit harder, Anderson is going the opposite way on the same road, doing the two-finger wave as they pass.<span> </span>I visited Nils Folke Anderson’s expansive Sunset Park warehouse studio on a wet September Tuesday.<span> </span>Across the hall from Marian Spore, and with a view onto New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty vague in the fog, it was well worth the shlep from Bushwick.<span> </span>The studio itself contained a large iron sculpture of interlocking bent rectangles with more yet-to-be-assembled pieces stacked on the floor, their scaled models lined up in a row.<span> </span>After a quick survey of these works, we headed up a floor to a smaller studio to discuss his work.<span> </span>Afterwards, we went looking for avocado milkshakes while talking trash about Blockbuster only to end up with a Vietnamese feast in Sunset Park Chinatown.<span> </span>Not bad at all.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Interview by Brandon Johnson</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Let’s start at the foundation of what informs your sculpture: the concept of “reciprocal linkage.”<span> </span>Can you explain it in your own words along with its importance to your work?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I borrowed the term reciprocal linkage from internet terminology, where it's used to describe how multiple websites are linked to each other.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">In my work reciprocal linkage is the term I use to describe a basic principle of interrelation, in which a number of elements that are essentially empty frames all link through one another. Together they create a dynamic, formless unity in which each individual element bears the same relation to the whole as any of the other elements.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Because all of the frame elements are made alike (same dimensions, material, etc.), a situation is created in which they are totally interchangeable, but also confined by this specific kind of linkage. I work in the openness of this space, interacting with a reciprocally linked object until I arrive at a stopping point, in which the elements make an interdependent stasis, all leaning on one another to form a configuration. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>When we spoke at your studio, you related this concept to complex relational systems like economics, politics, with each piece affecting the great whole so as to shape the entirety.<span> </span>I like the idea of how this formation is alive in a way, and then reaches a point when you leave it to pose.<span> </span>This is a departure from more rational systems, like algorithms, used to create work.<span> </span>As the artist, you are directly involved in the aesthetic decision of how the piece will be arranged.<span> </span>How would you compare your sculptural work to someone like Sol LeWitt and why have you chosen to take the positioning away from either chance or systematic rationality and literally into your own hands?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Sol LeWitt's means were logical and rational, but the results are also poetic and humorous and beautiful. I admire how his work manages to be rigorous and light at the same time. </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">In my work I am interested in a direct, tactile engagement, the kind of subjective, physical, and psychological engagement that LeWitt in some ways rejected. When I am configuring a reciprocally linked sculpture, I move it until it stands up on its own. Along the way there are things it will and will not do, depending on its size, material, shape, location, etc. The sculpture has a specific character, and the interaction that occurs engages an immediate, physical intelligence. The moment of resolution happens in an instant-- everything is in play, and a moment later everything snaps into place and I am released. The sculpture and myself are separated. I assess the result and decide whether or not to reengage. </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I am interested by the density of concerns that come into play at that moment, by the challenge of making the right decision when there is no right decision to be made.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>That is the conundrum – when to let go.<span> </span>Especially when there is “no right decision to be made.”<span> </span>Instead of logic, physics – gravity and friction – plays a role in determining the final form, among the density of concerns.<span> </span>We talked about this having a more ab-ex attitude.<span> </span>You said instead of repetition like LeWitt, there is “recursion.”<span> </span>How does this term fit in?</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Recursion occurs when a thing is in relation to itself. It is the basic mechanism of deconstruction-- that in placing the self-same in relation to itself something radically different might precipitate. Through recursion a novel face can arise from what had seemed stable and well understood. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">In the case of reciprocal linkage, an indeterminate, liquid character emerges from what are completely self-equivalent square frames, simply by the act of joining them together according to a particular organizing principle. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Robert Smithson wrote a great piece contrasting "liquid" and "crystalline" thought, in which he advises the reader suffering from a liquid mind to make a mud pool and watch it segment as it dries. But I'm interested in the whole event he describes, the muck and the cracked polygons of dry clay, and what occurs along the way. I'm pursuing a continuum that absorbs it all.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>You mentioned the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark as a primary influence.<span> </span>How does she fit into the picture?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(6, 6, 6);">Lygia Clark made a body of work called <em>Bichos</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(6, 6, 6);"> in the early 60's, which she built by hinging together metal plates. These sculptures are meant to be manipulated by the viewer into various forms. "Bicho" means beast, or animal, or bug, and the basic proposition is to create a tactile/visual dialogue between a person and this object, an object that-- through the interaction-- takes on a kind of internal life based on the nature of its construction. There's a tension between the will of the object and the will of the person touching it, and a decision to be made regarding when and why and how to disengage. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(6, 6, 6);">These sculptures also continuously empty themselves-- they are the opposite of a palimpsest, because there's no trace of what forms they have previously taken. Every movement simultaneously creates a new form and destroys the prior form. </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(6, 6, 6);"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(6, 6, 6);">I once recreated a <em>Bicho</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(6, 6, 6);">, in steel rather than aluminum, and I was struck by the conundrum of the stopping point that this work presents. I still am.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(6, 6, 6);"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(6, 6, 6);"><strong>I find it interesting for a painter to move into sculpture.<span> </span>How did you decide to begin working in sculpture?<span> </span>How would you say your background in painting has influenced your sculpture practice?</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I've built things all my life, and because my art making was oriented towards painting for a long time, I had the benefit of making objects without thinking about them as artworks. I taught carpentry, built mud houses, worked in construction, made my own furniture, never thinking about art exactly. I'm making steel sculpture now, but my education in steel came from helping my brother build domination equipment for S&M dungeons. Later I worked in the wood shop of a framer and found a book on Japanese joinery and immersed myself in that world. All of this was a respite from art, and I developed a facility with materials and structure along the way that is now central to my art.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">It was my engagement with color that provided the bridge between painting and sculpture, specifically the understanding of color as something that has three dimensions (light/dark value, hue and saturation). Color interaction happens within a three dimensional color space, it happens densely and all at once, and something analogous happens in reciprocal linkage.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I made the jump from painting to sculpture because I sensed that possibility. I had also recently become a father, and the tactility and vividness of holding this little living being gave an urgency to this transition to sculpture. It was a good moment for change.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Going back to Lygia Clark, she was bothered by the non-presence of the backside of paintings. She folded that empty space into her Bichos. She didn't eliminate that void, but rather turned it into an active element of the work. That image-- of contemplating the reverse side of the painting-- also instigated me towards sculpture.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Wow, so your sculpture truly has a solid foundation in craft too.<span> </span>The S&M thing is quite funny considering Robert Morris’s famed poster in all the gear, but also something I would never have guessed you had done.<span> </span>At the studio I got a sense of the reciprocal linkage emerging, with your Peter Halley-like paintings demonstrating a degree of inter-linkage already.<span> </span>The transition to sculpture seemed quite natural, especially now that I’ve learned your experience in building and craft.<span> </span>Good deal.<span> </span>So, what do you have coming up we can look forward to?<span> </span>I know you just opened a group show at Nathan A. Bernstein & Co. (sorry I didn’t make it – had tickets for Peewee on Broadway).<span> </span>Tell me more about this and other upcoming projects / events.</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I'm working on several outdoor sculptures, including my first permanent public commission. And I'm painting again, after a hiatus of several years, preparing for a show next year that will have both painting and sculpture.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The show at Nathan Bernstein is a group show of light art, with Dan Flavin, Keith Sonnier, Anthony McCall, Jenny Holzer, among others, beautifully curated by Nicole Berry. I have a reciprocally linked neon piece in it, my first neon sculpture with multiple colors. The neon sculptures have these discrete elements in them, like my other linked work, but with one continuous electrical series running through them, and one continuous field of light.</span> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><br /></span></p> </div> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">November 2010</div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-88165793253389300532011-01-07T14:08:00.000-08:002011-07-13T10:29:19.368-07:00INTERVIEW: SLEEPIES<div class="content"><p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><br /><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/sleepies_front_back.jpg" height="289" width="578" /> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong><a href="http://www.myspace.com/herecomethesleepies">SLEEPIES</a> </strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">are a Brooklyn nice-kid-freak-punk three-piece composed of: “Josh (bum/bum/bum/croon), Max (bang/boom/bat/bat/yell), and Thomas (plunk/jangle/jangle/bark).”<span> </span>They semi-recently put out a self-titled full length LP (<strong><a href="http://sleepies.bigcartel.com/">available here</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">) and have been thrashing it up all over town.<span> </span>On top of that, they are three nice guys, cool cats, and interesting fellows.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Interview by Brandon Johnson</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>So, I know all three of you, Thomas and Max through separate sources, and Josh through the two of you, but tell me how you met, and how did SLEEPIES form?</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;"><strong><br /></strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Max: </strong>Thomas was one of the first people I met at NYU; he was my neighbor, and I believe we started talking because he was wearing a Blood Brothers t-shirt and it turned out we were both from the Bay Area. I met Josh through a friend from class, Rachel Coleman, who now books shows under the name Pop Jew and won a reality TV competition in her spare time – she’s really quite something!</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p> <p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Anyway, the three of us tried to do two bands before Sleepies, one of which was a dance band – it was 2003, everyone was doing it! – and the other was more lo-fi indie stuff. As they say: the third time’s the charm.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Who are your biggest influences musically and non-musically? </strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;"></span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Max:</strong> Even musicians tend to influence me in both musical and non-musical ways, so I’ll go with the old reliables, in the order in which they became significant to me: Green Day, Nirvana, Bikini Kill, Billy Bragg, Hickey.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Outside of music, I reserve most of my admiration for Donna Haraway and Valerie Solanas.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Josh:</strong> I’ll follow Max’s lead and also list them chronologically: Nirvana ,Weezer, Pixies, Fugazi, Sleater-Kinney, Wipers. In general, I’m drawn to simplicity. A perfectly executed pop song is surprisingly difficult to put together and I value that a great deal but it’s also nice to be weirded out once and a while.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">I don’t know really know about non musical influences other than my friends. I learn way more from them than I do from anybody famous.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Thomas: </strong>Josh and Max pretty much covered all the really crucial stuff, but I'll add The Urinals, The Feelies and Young Marble Giants. Recently I've been all about Beck's album One Foot in the Grave and The Gun Club's Fire of Love. One thing that I love about our band is that we all grew up on the same foundation of bands (Green Day, Nirvana, Weezer, etc...), but our tastes diverge in a lot of idiosyncratic ways that I think really help our songwriting.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Your new self titled LP, </strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"><strong><a href="http://sleepies.bigcartel.com/"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">SLEEPIES</span></a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>, is available in both a 200 copy, hand-screened version and as a digital download. Who made the art for the album?</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;"><strong><br /></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Max:</strong> The art was pilfered from the plaque designed by Carl and Linda Salzman Sagan to accompany the Pioneer space shuttle and indicate to any alien life what we were about as a species. I first saw it last spring in a course reader for a class I was teaching, where queer theorist Michael Warner presented it as an example of American society’s pervasive heteronormativity – and it is, all respect to Carl Sagan, unfortunate that the picture he wanted to paint of human life on Earth was heterosexual, white, able-bodied and hairless. In a bit of serendipity, we played a show at Brooklyn house-show venue Dead Herring a few weeks later only to find the same image pasted to their bathroom door.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"></span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Josh:</strong> I’ve always found it particularly appropriate considering we feel like aliens most of the time. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Thomas:</strong> Ditto</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>With digitalilty entering the field of book and magazine publishing, things are getting more polarized – on one end the limited edition, object-oriented collectibles and on the other de-materialized forms purely for readership. But I guess this has been going on in the recording industry for a while. Care to comment on how the new LP fits into this scenario? Will someone be filthy rich down the line if they buy one of the 200 print records now and sell it on Ebay in 20 years?</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;"><br /><strong><br /></strong> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Max:</strong> I certainly hope not! I was always made uneasy by vinyl fetishists. To be straightforward, the LP/digital download scenario was merely a way to split the difference between what we all grew up with (i.e. buying physical LPs and CDs) and the reality of how people primarily find out about bands these days (via 1s and 0s, in the ether-cloud). Given my nonchalance here, it may seem somewhat hypocritical that the LPs are individually numbered. That to me, though, has more to do with preserving something amateurish about the whole operation – that we did this ourselves, in the most expedient way possible! That said, if anyone wants to re-release it as 2 one-sided 180 gram LPs in a gatefold sleeve, call us.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"></span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Josh: </strong>While I’m still totally thrilled that anybody would listen to our music in any format, I also wanted to give people a reason to buy the physical copy. It was really important to us to make something that we felt was special so we spent a month in my living room screen printing the jackets, designing the insert, stamping the LPs, etc while watching the entirety of our modest DVD collection Hand numbering the records was a small badge of accomplishment for doing it completely on our own and I think it’s really cool that we get to share that with anybody who buys the record. It doesn’t really matter to me how much money it ever makes (but that also doesn’t mean I’d be apposed to 2 one-sided 180 gram LPs, either).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Thomas:</strong> Hand made objects are so rare in our lives these days, so I think it's really meaningful when people take the time to make something themselves. I think anyone who buys records --- especially people who buy albums from small local bands that will never become collectors items --- appreciate having something handmade, and really value having a relationship to the music they own that goes beyond a 99 cent download or 2 gigs of records they found on Captain Crawl. It's great that we have our music available online, but it's also kinda cool that acquiring a physical copy requires some sort of interaction with us: you're either coming up to talk after a show, or emailing us personally about getting a copy. One amazing thing about a small-ish music scene is that it creates these mini economies that work on a very human, person to person scale. Just like in the olden times!!</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>What do you like about New York, music scene and otherwise, and what do you hate about it?</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"><strong><br /></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Max: </strong>I like that every touring band comes through here, and I like that there’s a shit-ton of DIY, all-ages spaces. I could do without the city’s overarching aesthetic sensibility. It always seemed to me to be an a priori truth that the best music comes – unless you’re Bruce Springsteen or the Birthday Party – from the tension between anthemic, fist-pumping shit and weirdo experimentation (see: Hickey, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, The Raincoats, et. al.). New York, for all its hundreds of thousands of earnest and well-intentioned band-things, almost exclusively deals in one or the other side of that equation: you either get retread indie-pop/rock gestures, or insufferable yelping with occasional electronic farts. Only a few bands/artists seem interested in aiming for that sweet spot.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"><br /><strong><br /></strong> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Josh:</strong> The signal to noise ratio here is pretty bad. There are a million bands, a million places to see live music, and a whole slue of bullshit hierarchies which make it really difficult to get anyone to listen to you. However, despite the countless awful shows we’ve played to empty rooms in some of the lamest bars in New York, we’ve also met some amazingly wonderful people and played the sorts of shows that I dreamed about playing when I first got into punk rock. With all the nonsense that we have to endure being in bands in New York, the weirdos all seem to find each other and the result is really fun. It’s nice to fall in love with bands not because we “fit together” but because we are genuinely excited about what they are doing. I’d always prefer to see a show with bands that share the same enthusiasm rather than simply sharing the same reverb pedal. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Thomas:</strong> I'm always really inspired by all the people who are doing DIY projects to help create a welcoming music/art community in Brooklyn. In a city with so much red tape and so much indifference, it's cool so many people are dedicated to do things on their own terms. DBA, Showpaper, Dead Herring, Market Hotel, Famous Accountants Gallery in Bushwick and Newtown Radio are just a few examples.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">What do I hate? I hate that the Charleston no longer serves free pizza, and that the $1.25 place on the corner of North 7th and Bedford charges $2.00 for their slices after 8pm Fri-Sun. For the record: that pizza is balls and barely worth the $1.25 to begin with. </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 12pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">In general, Brooklyn is pretty great. Most of my gripes have to do with pizza.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 12pt;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 12pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>I happen to know a couple of you have other things happening on the side. Care to speak about art, philosophy, etc. and how that fits in with your music?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Max: </strong>You have outed me as a philosophy PhD student, which I understand is truly one of the most despicable things a person can be. But let me try to persuade you! I became interested in philosophy, I think, because I was so in love with and fascinated by punk rock that I wanted to understand it, that I felt like I needed to read about questions of collectivity and oppositional subculture. While my interests now trend towards the more arid – what, no one wants to talk about the transcendental unity of apperception? – I try to keep all of this in mind. Hell, Bikini Kill is a huge reason I ended up pursuing feminist philosophy as my primary field of study!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">I tend not to overthink the influence of my academic work on punk or music in general, because that generally only leads to blowhards making grandiose proclamations about how their atonal improvised noise band is a perfect example of Deleuzian deterritorialization. These people are, I think self-evidently, clowns and charlatans, and are not to be trusted. I will say that my continued involvement in punk has kept alive an appreciation for its utter ridiculousness – which people forget at the risk of succumbing to a fate worse than crust bands. I see a lot of that same ridiculousness in the academic study of philosophy – seriously, we’re getting professional training to teach people about this nonsense? – and it helps me not take myself, I think, too seriously.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Josh: </strong>I used to do a lot of drawing but became disenchanted with it after studying animation in college (you think you like drawing until you draw 1000 nearly identical pictures for 2 minutes of footage that still looks like shit). Helping make our LPs, shirts, flyers, etc. has let me continue to make art in a way in which I can really enjoy it again as well as try out new techniques. If not for our first run of t-shirts, I wouldn’t know how to screen print. Next I’m going to think of a band related reason to learn voodoo.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Thomas:</strong> I also have a bit of a background in visual art, so things like album covers and t-shirts are always things we think a lot about. I think because of our backgrounds and other interests we're a very self aware band. Not like we're self-conscious or are trying to please a particular group, but in the sense that we always spend a lot of time thinking about how things will come across and how they will be read. Ultimately, we're a punk band, so the most important thing for us is playing music that is fun to play and not taking anything too seriously. But, there is definitely a very analytic side to our writing process that is probably a product of sitting through too many critiques and lectures about "isms."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Post links of your favorite YouTube videos below.</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"><strong><br /></strong></span><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Max: </span></strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"></span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">The Best Band Ever:</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYaiQr5k0Tc"><span style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(0, 0, 204);">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYaiQr5k0Tc</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"></span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Rex Ryan, Sleepies Head Coach:</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCr93ZCsAxE"><span style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCr93ZCsAxE</span></a><br /><strong><br /></strong> </span><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Josh:</span></strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Times;"></span></p> <p> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VKw6BZUZts"><span style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VKw6BZUZts</span></a><br /><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhVi4Z6CjZk"><span style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(0, 0, 204);">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhVi4Z6CjZk</span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Thomas:</span></strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvbL_5rH1QQ"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvbL_5rH1QQ</span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8P1TzqWEgY"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8P1TzqWEgY</span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8OA"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8OA</span></a></span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><br /></span></p> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">November 2010</div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-57865857014065266422010-10-15T10:39:00.001-07:002010-10-15T10:39:50.996-07:00INTERVIEW: Serge Onnen<div class="content"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/break2big.jpg" height="457" width="574" /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center">still from <span style="font-style: italic;">Break</span>, 2004 at the Dikeou Collection </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Serge Onnen</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> is a French/Dutch artist, trumpeter in the band <strong><a href="http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Eariealt/oorbeek/index.html">Oorbeek</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, and longtime friend of <strong>zingmagazine</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">.<span> </span>He has had a project in <strong><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/zing17/serge.html">#17</a> </strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">of utopian trees, a zingbook of face drawings titled <strong><em><a href="http://www.sergeonnen.com/books.htm">Volume O</a></em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, and video work and wallpaper in the <strong><a href="http://www.dikeoucollection.org/onnen.html">Dikeou Collection</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">.<span> </span>Serge’s new book coming out with J & L Press is called <strong><em><a href="http://www.sergeonnen.com/books.htm">Drawings on Hands</a></em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">.<span> </span>He will also be in the upcoming issue of zing, #22.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Interview by Brandon Johnson</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Your new book, <em>Drawings on Hands</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>, is very obviously about the drawing of hands in their various positions and actions.<span> </span>Can you tell me more about it?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Each of the books has a very simple starting point: heads, horizon, writing, and now hands. This book is more or less 50% found, unknown drawings and 50% artists’ material. The goal is each time to make an intelligent book about something simple without the use of text. I want the viewer of the book to wander around, without too much distraction.<span> </span>There's very little information in the books.<span> </span>So when I pick something as general as drawings of hands, I first have to make all sorts of categories: tarot, sign language, manuals, religion, medical, magic-tricks, etc, etc. And of course collecting the artists’ material. I research all fields until I find drawings that are interesting and not too obvious.<span> </span>The collecting and shifting takes a long time.<span> </span>Stacks of hand drawings become smaller and smaller.<span> </span>I start making connections, story lines, jokes.<span> </span>It's all very precise.<span> </span>There's something anonymous in the design, a stack of paper with an elastic cord around it. And also many of the drawings I pick have this anonymous quality that manuals have.<span> </span>But at the same time, drawing is a very expressive medium, so that remains, even if it's a blown up lousy jpg.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I didn’t realize you had done all these thematic books in the same way.<span> </span>I was familiar with the heads book as we published it along with </span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/zing16/index.html"><span style="font-family: Verdana; color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">zingmagazine #16</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, but haven’t seen the horizon or writing books.<span> </span>In fact, there are a few hands that appear in the heads book.<span> </span>It seems to be a mark of distinction – a level of achievement – to be able to draw hands well.<span> </span>As an artist who does a lot of drawing, what is your particular interest in hands?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">There's a website that comes with each issue, check them out: </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><a href="http://www.drawingsonwriting.org/">www.drawingsonwriting.org</a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><a href="http://www.jandlbooks.org/geology_info/toc.htm">www.jandlbooks.org/geology_info/toc.htm</a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">But it's really all about the books and their design.<span> </span>Drawings on paper, not drawings on screens.<span> </span>I personally think feet are harder to draw, but it's true that I draw lots of hands. But I don't really notice it anymore.<span> </span>Your hands are always there.<span> </span>Available.<span> </span>It's the part of your body you have the most eye contact with.<span> </span>They are very flexible, more so than a face.<span> </span>You can put every expression you want in a hand and it will still keep a certain anonymity, gender is irrelevant.<span> </span>And of course the idea of “hand made”.<span> </span>I like art to be made by a human; that's a very powerful aspect of art-making to me.<span> </span>But, it's never about “hands,” I guess.<span> </span>Nor in my book or my work.<span> </span>I find hand studies as a topic boring.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>On the back cover of the book, you have a description: </strong></span></p> <p style="margin-left: 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>A left hand draws a self-portrait on a sheet of paper. The hand leaves the room. Another hand picks up the drawing and looks at it. "Why can't I do this?" This is an extremely jealous hand, and he crushes the drawing. Then he walks toward a hand mirror, opens himself and pushes very hard against his cold reflection. He takes a few steps back and stares at the print made by his heat until it slowly vanishes.</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>So, are you saying it’s more about the actions of the hands and their expressive quality and less about the drawing process of the hand itself?<span> </span>Is it the manipulation of the hand rather than the depiction?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Yes, just drawings of hands won't do. Everybody knows how that book will look.<span> </span>I guess I'm not so interested in amazingly well drawn hands.<span> </span>Two of my favorite drawings in the book are of the Japanese tegata drawings. This is an old Japanese tradition where sumo wrestlers ink the palm of their hand to make prints and then give these to their fans.<span> </span>There is one 18th-century drawing where a sumo wrestler makes such a print. It's still in use today and these prints are collectible.<span> </span>I've been trying to get one.<span> </span>A human print as an artifact.<span> </span>Not as a piece of evidence as it means in western culture - very different to the Hollywood Blvd tradition of hands in the pavement (wonder where that idea comes from, because when I think about actors, their hands are not the first thing that comes to my mind…).<span> </span>But there are also some drawings from an old manual for magicians; Yes! Here the hands are real actors. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Actually, that’s funny you bring up the Hollywood handprints.<span> </span>Devon [Dikeou, artist and editor of<em> zingmagazine</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>] did a piece called Norma Taldmadge’s Chinese Theatre based on the origin of that tradition.<span> </span>The actress Norma Talmadge accidentally stepped onto wet concrete in front of Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, starting the tradition.</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>But moving forward, you have a project in the upcoming issue of <em>zingmagazine</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong> called “Insurance Value Drawings” featuring catastrophic collisions of insurable objects – a grand piano dropped onto a crushed palette of iMacs – along with cost of the products destroyed.<span> </span>Where did the idea for this series come from?<span> </span></strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">So, the handprints started as an accident?<span> </span>Well, you could say the insurance value drawings started like that too; when you have a show in an institution or museum you’re always asked about the insurance value of the work and that is always something much lower than the market value.<span> </span>So, art has many different prices; as destroyed, so to speak, “dead;” or as “art”, so to speak, eternal.<span> </span>In the past, I’ve had pieces that were not sold and I wished had been destroyed.<span> </span>I destroy work constantly without ever getting paid.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">It's another value dilemma. Like everything in our world.<span> </span>There's not one thing that can't be priced - this idea is still puzzling to me.<span> </span>But there is also something else; with the goods in the drawings (most items are on pallets), I also thought of the meanings these objects have; so when you drop a Steinway on a pallet of iMacs you will not only get a great sound, but also some kind of conflict, revenge; old vs. new (well, the iMac is old today, but was quite new when the drawing was made! so that's also interesting, the meaning has shifted). Also, the long tradition of dropping grand pianos in art and slapstick.<span> </span>I like objects destroying each other.<span> </span>A fallen tree on a car, fallen book-shelves, stuff like that.<span> </span>It's melancholic—it’s not the violence of hurting.<span> </span>Each insurance drawing is also a composition: a motorcycle & olive oil, a motorcycle & Nespresso, telescope & M&M's, lingerie & crude oil.<span> </span>In that way it's not a real accident—they're sketches for beautiful swindles.<span> </span>There are a lot of musical instruments among the insurance drawings.<span> </span>Music & violence is a good match.<span> </span>Guitars also have this powerful meaning when crashed, but when it's crashing into cans of Nivea for Men, it becomes as ridiculous as most rock and roll bands that will smash a guitar nowadays. The Gretsch guitars vs. Jack Daniel's is more the idea of two delicate brands.<span> </span>You can crash as many Fender Stratocasters as you like but don't dare touch the Gretsch!<span> </span>Two brands that play with “classic rock” & “good taste and connoisseurship” and being “exclusive.”<span> </span>And all that crap.<span> </span>I'm not saying these aren't good products, that's not my point.<span> </span>Originality has nothing to do with exclusivity. But all these brands try to make you believe it's the same thing.<span> </span>They will only gain originality when damaged. Oh, something very funny happened with the motorcycle & Nespresso drawing; a few months after I made that drawing, George Clooney got into a motorcycle accident! In Europe he is Mr. Nespresso. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>You mention the lack of violence in objects destroying each other.<span> </span>There’s a similar theme of crashing and smashing in your video piece at the Dikeou Collection called <em>Break</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong> in which two hands slap together to smash things, like a beer mug.<span> </span>In your statement for this piece, you say that violence in animation doesn’t hurt.<span> </span>Is the fictional aspect of drawing important to you?<span> </span>Does is provide a sort of outlet for violence in the world?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">In that animation two hands crash objects against each other but are gentle to each other.<span> </span>I think I always had a fictional attitude toward drawing; as I child I made sounds while drawing and the characters had voices. <span> </span>Very often they were fighting, that's true.<span> </span>When I draw I need to get inside the world I'm creating.<span> </span>Then I can try to rule it and believe it's good or not.<span> </span>It hasn't chanced so much, only the worlds I draw have changed.<span> </span>So when I started to work with animation and studied its history, I noticed how violent it has always been. In an animation you can transform anything.<span> </span>Violence is, of course, transformation.<span> </span>Animation always plays with these ideas.<span> </span>It means something else and that is always interesting. You just take that violence for granted, even if it's not funny.<span> </span>It's fun to drop a anvil on someone's head in an animation, but in a movie that will become a splatter scene.<span> </span>I don't enjoy violence in movies. But I do in music, drawing, etc.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>On the other hand, your project in zingmagazine #17, “Sanitary Park,” looks at a “place where everything is clean and perfect.<span> </span>A man-made park where no human is allowed.”<span> </span>There are drawings of trees, interconnected page to page, with ends that are amputated stumps.<span> </span>They are abstract, organic, a “pure environment.”<span> </span>This is in stark contrast with the messing smashing and crashing of “Insurance Value Drawings” and <em>Break</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>.<span> </span>Can you tell me how this project relates to the rest of your work?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Holland, where I live most of the time, is totally man made, as you may know. It's the 17<sup>th</sup>-century's Dubai.<span> </span>All the work I did about 10 years ago for "Sanitary Park," around a hundred drawings and a show in Holland's biggest hospital, was about creating a park out of drawings. A safe and secure zone; like one finds also in a bathroom or hospital.<span> </span>These places must be very clean, sterile.<span> </span>Industrial and organic.<span> </span>Places where one thinks it's safe to take off ones clothes.<span> </span>The zing drawings are the extreme version of that idea, amputated, no humans allowed. It's also a lot about the idea in the urban brain that nature is pure.<span> </span>That is the way it's being represented: "purity is a invention of the police" like one of my heroes Roland Topor said.<span> </span>I need to go back to the work I did before Sanitary Park to explain how one thing leads to another.<span> </span>Those drawings were “heavy bags.”<span> </span>People in and with bags.<span> </span>You never know if they're vagabonds, hikers, homeless people, refugees.<span> </span>Leaving things behind and going into the wild voluntarily or non-voluntarily.<span> </span>The romantic and the dramatic version hand-in-hand.<span> </span>So, there's often a 'better world' fantasy in my work I guess, playing with those ideas of rejecting society or being rejected by it.<span> </span>The violence only came in when I started to work with animation.<span> </span>But always object-related violence and also always repetitive, rhythmical, in the drawings, animations and also in a wallpaper I designed.<span> </span>I did a wallpaper where champagne-glasses are being toasted very cheerfully and violently. <span> </span>I call that “violent choreography.”<span> </span>It's a composition, like the insurance drawings.<span> </span>I like objects that have something dangerous and something human in them.<span> </span>Like a fork is a little hand-prosthesis.<span> </span>Or a pair of scissors that looks in many ways like eyes: they blink, have two eyes, and will always keep their elegance.<span> </span>Beautiful.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>It’s great to hear about your past work in zing and how it relates to your body of work as a whole.<span> </span>Besides your upcoming project in <em>zingmagazine</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong> #22 and <em>Drawings on Hands</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>, is there anything else coming up that you’d like to mention?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Yes, you develop and change ideas over the years and it's good to reconnect with it using language.<span> </span>I can recommend to any zingchat readers going upstate to DIA:Beacon by<span> </span>train, get out of the train in Peekskill and check out my kaleidoscope sculpture “monetariumplanetrarium” on the waterfront, part of the Hudson Valley Art Centre. It's a piece I'm real proud of!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong><a href="http://www.sergeonnen.com/">http://www.sergeonnen.com</a></strong></span> </p> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">October 2010</div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-84057821215485576272010-09-29T08:03:00.000-07:002011-07-13T10:29:51.501-07:00INTERVIEW: James Belflower<div class="content"><div align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/P1360560.jpg" height="425" width="580" /></div> <div align="center"> Hand-written manuscript of <em>Commuter</em></div> <div align="center"> </div> <div align="left"><br /><div class="Section1"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1176761.James_Belflower">James Belflower</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> is the author of <em>Commuter</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> (Instance Press) and <em>And Also a Fountain</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">, (NeOpepper Press) a collaborative echap with Anne Heide and J. Michael Martinez. Commuter was recently voted 2009’s “Best Book Length Long Poem/Sequence” by ColdFront magazine. His work appears, or is forthcoming in: EOAGH, Denver Quarterly, Apostrophe Cast & Greatcoat among others. He curates <strong><a href="http://www.potlatchpoetry.org/">PotLatchpoetry.org</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">, a website dedicated to the gifting & exchange of poetry resources.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">Interview by Rachel Cole Dalamangas</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong><br /></strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>ZING: Your collection, <em>Commuter</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong> is a poetry of urban disaster, or more specifically, the detonation of a terrorist bomb – essentially, the poetry of an event. What do you think is the influence of 9/11 and the “War on Terrorism” and methods of contemporary warfare on language? On art’s concerns with consciousness? Do you think violence changes how we shape our questions about beauty?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>James Belflower: </strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I like your description of <em>Commuter </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">as “a poetry of an event.” I wonder if it might be even more accurate to describe it as a poetry <em>of</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> event. In this case, the event is the dissolution, dislocation and withdrawal—coexistent with the rethinking, rewriting and (re)witnessing of a rapidly changing sense of what constitutes relation and to a broader extent, community. <em>Commuter </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">attempts to (as you suggest below in some cases “aggressively”), enact an event of discourse and relation in this intersection. A discourse that resists the logic that results in the community of death created by and around suicide bombing. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I think this logic is very common though, and in many instances a symptom of the practice of poetry of witness (and arguably of poetry in general). So, the other primary concern was refusing this thinking. In many cases poetry of witness, and especially poetry of secondary witness, presumes to be a vehicle for the unspeakable, the testimony of those who are silenced. Yet, this logic is a means to an end, almost always that end is the “project,” the communion with another, the making meaning out of what I believe is ultimately utterly meaningless: death. In instrumentalizing another’s death, a text entertains a conception of community similar to that of suicide bombing, both constituted on the value of another’s death: the justification, defense, and potential of death. In one case metaphoric, in another martyrdom. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">These logic systems center an understanding of communal structures in an originary essentialist past that only needs to be reconstituted through fusion with another for success. They suggest community as a product. As such, these systems no longer contain the possibility for the “eventness” necessitated by the limit(s) that a community <em>is</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">. Expanding on Maurice Blanchot, Jean Luc-Nancy calls it an “unworking” of community. I’ll quote him so I don’t botch it too badly, “that community, in its infinite resistance to everything that would bring it to completion signifies an irrepressible political exigency, and that this exigency in its turn demands something of ‘literature,’ the inscription of our infinite resistance.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">To make a long answer longer, but hopefully to answer your question, this exigency and “infinite resistance” <em>must</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> reshape our questions about beauty. In the pressurized space of a tradition that attempts to situate the beautiful (especially in poetry of witness) on an “authentic” subjectivity, the space for a rearticulation of beauty, much less of trauma is very limited. I personally have a very fraught relationship to beauty, in many cases finding it to be a default aesthetic mode for much poetic witness: when the trauma gets tough, the trauma turns beautiful. It seems that poetry of witness generally doesn’t interrogate the implications of beautifying atrocity very often, usually relying instead on an empathetic response that has strong affinities with the sentimental tradition. This understanding of beauty is unable to account for the unnerving experience of such works as Charles Reznikoff’s <em>Holocaust, </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">Charlotte Delbo’s trilogy <em>Auschwitz and After, </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">M. NourbeSe Philip’s <em>Zong!,</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> Rachel Zolf’s <em>The Neighbour Procedure </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">or Vanessa Place’s, <em>The Guilt Project</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">, much less the events that these texts strive to express.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">So a main question for me became, how to think/write with the full awareness of my own complicity in all of these issues, what Nancy calls a “literary communism.” I like the emphasis he places on the idea of offering texts to communication, a certain manner of sharing that the text enters. What is important to this idea is abandonment. In offering something, you abandon it at the same time. <em>Commuter</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> seeks to populate this limit. In some sense this extends to a certain description of thinking as care for another: the offering/abandonment of a text in/as an uncrossable threshold, where the text becomes, not exactly a common ground, but a meeting place nonetheless. And the process of the work changes then, it <em>commutes</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">, (especially in the sense of a traveler, and the alteration of a period of imprisonment) a discourse as part of a communal formation: it is preoccupied with the unending travel(er) of/on communication.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>ZING: The Prologue locates us in the chaos, panic and fragmentation of a destroyed urban space. There are people “combing hospitals,” architecture goes rickety, time is being counted and noted – these elements of “a walk through the city,” architecture, and time are all hallmarks of surrealism and the New York schools of poetry. How influenced are you by surrealist poets and/or NY school poets? </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>JB:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> Well, you caught me; I do absolutely love Frank O’Hara. That being said, my concern about reading the book as surrealist would be surrealism's emphasis on irrationality, or nonrationality that seem like a less than rigorous response to the horrors that took place in reality, and their eventness in <em>Commuter.</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> As I mentioned above, emulating purely rational thinking also doesn’t seem to be the answer. Perhaps there are alternatives? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">As I think your question indicates, surrealist logic on one level could account for <em>Commuter</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> in some ways, and they both use similar techniques. It is, in a certain sense about someone shooting a revolver into a crowd. However, in response to the seeming irrationality, or dream like quality of the events there is a care for the reader and victim, an attempt to come alongside, to meet him or her in the event(s) of witnessing writing/trauma that is ongoing.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">This question comes to a head in the work on page 73 where I insist that these events were not hallucinations and ask the reader to write paragraphs containing certain words having to do with dream narrative and such. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">My other concern was a refusal of the solipsistic and ironic positions that preoccupy much of the pseudo-surrealist poetry that has been very popular for awhile now.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">It may be a more helpful framework to consider these themes through the context of the Situationist International, specifically their ideas of psychogeography and the <em>dérive. </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">Debord’s description of the <em>dérive </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">is a very accurate description of <em>Commuter</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">: “a technique of rapid passages through varied ambiences.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>ZING: The work slips between what sounds like journalistic reporting and broken, breathy poetry. What is the relationship between poetry and “reporting” on the world?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>JB:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> “Breathy,” hmm… I can see where you could say that. I was thinking more of an out-of-breathness, rather than breathy poetry, since you mention its brokenness also. I was reading Kenneth Patchen’s <em>Panels for the Walls of Heaven </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">recently and was struck by his long, long, extended and barreling lines that forced the reader to alter his/her breathing. It was as if Patchen’s thought accumulated at a different speed than the readers breathing rhythm. As a result, I could no longer breath where I wanted to. This became integral to the project because, for me, the extension, or overextension of the breath mimicked the incommunicability of many of the traumatic events in the work. Altering your breathing pattern causes you to become immediately conscious of it. As awareness of breathing enters thought, it becomes irregular: how many times have you tripped over your breathing the moment you thought about it? In some sense, this is comparable to the way that you become conscious of another person. There is a sensing of patterns, which at the same time, disrupts those patterns. He/she has been there all the time but an alteration on your part causes you to listen differently. I think the differences you've pointed to speak to this very well. It is about the passage between very different conversations, in this case poetry and reporting, that (like the breath) only interrupt our awareness when they are disrupted. Considering their proximity on the page, it becomes necessary to continue that interruption/passage, rather than end its relationship.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">M. NourbeSe Philip’s <em>Zong! </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">is an amazing example of this (dis)embodiment, showing the limits of the breath. She splits words across the page, but maintains a narrative, so that as you’re reading, your sense-making is completely at odds with your breathing and is spaced very differently than you’re accustomed to. It’s a wonderful technique and complicates a simplistic embodiment of the work. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>ZING: Given that this work places a heavy emphasis on the materiality of the page as well as how the work is performed/experienced, where/when do you locate the “event of poetry” itself? </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>JB:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> Primarily in interruption and failure. I think poetry has the capacity to interrupt first its own mythologies/ideologies and to a broader extent, the mythologies/ideologies that govern much language usage and thinking today.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I view <em>Commuter</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> first and foremost as a process, but this process is one of perpetual interruption: of itself, of events, of thought process, of reader expectation and writing. In this case, it is an interruption of a signifying practice that locates the possibility of the representation of trauma through language, especially one based on an “empathetic” stance that attempts to understand the other through a recognition of similar experience: you’re human, I’m human, therefore I understand what you’re going through.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">However, something I consistently grapple with is how to relate motile process to what seems to be the utter stasis of death. Is there relation of a different sort here, and if so, how can one write this relation? In some sense, it returns to the question of community. If our access to the other is through death, then what manner of access is this? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">As far as failure is concerned the book purposely foregrounds its failure to “represent” trauma and all its effects through language. However, it is this failure, or the continuous contention with this failure, that generates and supports the community I’m suggesting and places a large responsibility on the reader as a member of this community. To be more specific, the book’s response to atrocity is to precisely fail to reconcile it metaphorically or otherwise, (and therefore reduce) a certain usage of trauma by language: a (re)production of trauma through a certain logic of expression. I’m always hesitant to suggest that trauma can be cast into (a) language, or should be for that matter, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be written.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">The book practices a thinking that envisions witnessing as an awareness of singular events in contact, not in communion: whether these events are love, atrocity or anything in between. In some sense a thinking in contradictions, rather than through them. I don’t mean to suggest that relation isn’t happening but it is a relation supported only by this incessant “communication.” And this communication is in the form of an interruption of the assumption that we are fully sharing, to the point of knowing, another’s experience. In some sense it is a contact with the limit that is/is not another’s singularity. This is why I keep insisting on the importance of the reader to <em>Commuter</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">. He/she is vital to the social process that <em>is</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> the work. The reader is the 3<sup>rd </sup>“witness.” In that sense, if a reader is contacted, perhaps the work fails very differently!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>ZING: After the prologue – which sounds more journalistic than poetic – <em>Commuter</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong> opens with a poem that is essentially instructions for constructing a bomb, and thus the poem becomes not “the event” but the <em>ignition </em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>of an event. There are many things I could say about the idea of a poem-as-bomb but I’d like to start with a metaphysical question about the relationship between events and language: to your mind, does language “call” events and organized chaos into being or into our awareness of being? Or is language simply a naming system to describe what already is? Is this tension a major concern of your poetry?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>JB:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> I love your distinction between the poem as event and the poem as <em>ignition</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> of an event. I think that this difference is very important for <em>Commuter.</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">The short answer is yes; this tension is a major concern. I would have to say that I think language names, or more precisely delimits—the unnamable, or for language in general the first order, or to use a risky word, the unconscious. For me, language exposes a threshold. It (de)limits, or chalks communication. In <em>Commuter</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> the relational abundance of “it” speaks to your question. As I’m sure you noticed “it” refers to and can be substituted for any number of referents, signs/signifiers. “It” is a person, a helicopter, a currency etc. So this “name” at once, “calls” events into occurrence and at the same time serves as a threshold, or chalk line, albeit a loose (and in this case jarred loose) one, for event(s). These aren’t necessarily traumatic events but trauma usually communicates these limits more clearly than other discourses. But here is the challenge: part of the project was to activate, or as you put it, ignite this abundance, to write in a way that precisely emphasized the potential of the word, prior to its manifestation as a threshold. What I was in part, trying to touch upon was what Deleuze calls “order-words.” Words that relate to and ignite implicit presuppositions in the reader. In some sense, this confronted the impossibility of communicating my own, and another’s mortality through this precise failure to situate, or name, in the sense of commune with, understand, or essentialize identities within the poem. The radically provisional quality of these order words, whether they are more associated with discourses of trauma, another person, a lover, or quotidian life, also abundantly “name” various other events for the author, victim and reader. This abundance necessitates similar event of the crises of naming on the part of the reader.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">MacLow’s idea of “controlled hysteria” is important here also. He mentions the features of this hysteria as barely controlled emotional outbursts, sometimes appearing aggressive or angry. What is most important to <em>Commuter </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">though is his last feature, suspense. In an analogy to the order word, the reader senses that this outburst is almost uncontrollable, it appears at its limit of containment, it’s suspended, or as we said above, it delimits the event. Interestingly enough he calls it a very “theatrical” experience. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>ZING: The language of <em>Commuter</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong> is both expressive of empathy for those who are victims of terrorism and is highly descriptive of violence – balancing both extremes while managing to produce quite beautiful phrasing. When writing <em>Commuter</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>, did you have ethical concerns about working the event of trauma into the texture of poetic beauty? </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>JB: </strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I’m hoping that this question is in part answered by your question about rethinking beauty. But to expand on it more, yes, absolutely I have ethical concerns. One of the biggest challenges for me is the risk and implications involved in secondary witnessing. Although I’m as unsure as I am convinced that it is necessary, it is an incredibly provisional practice. One idea that bothered me was that in the context of witnessing, received semiotic use becomes especially problematic in the representation of another. That is the reason for many of the crossed out words, which also equate this problematic mythology/ideology of beauty with the equally problematic mythology/ideology associated with the romanticization of the femme fatale. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I’ll return to this idea of infinite resistance also. As far as an ethics of this text is concerned, I would argue that this resistance translates to the reader through the author. First in the reader’s experience of the author’s fragmentary responses, and secondly in his initial inclination (and the author’s) to combine or fuse these events. Both of these events are results of a reader’s reading habits, especially combined with the expectations of poetry that deals with atrocity. So this infinite resistance begins in the text and continues into the reader, who as a 3<sup>rd</sup> party, is asked to participate in the writing of the text itself. Though the reader’s relationship to the text changes, the suspension of his/her ability to connect or link events in the text becomes the primary mode of relation within the text. Sometimes forcefully, the reader is asked to share, to communicate (in) this suspension, to both found and be complicit in this “community.” He or she is asked to be unsuitable to “witness” the author’s inability to witness/commune with these events, to come alongside him and to distribute these events in an unsuitable semantic system.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>ZING: In addition to gaps in the page, gaps between words, partially erased words, lines stricken-through, there is a “brokenness” or disjoint or strangeness between how subjects and objects relate in the post-bomb language of <em>Commuter</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>. For example, on page 60 are the lines, “clearer to / frame you / behind the reason / I fisted a door?” I’m not sure whether “fisted a door” is just an odd , condensed way to say something synonymous along the lines of, “I put my fist through a door,” as in anger, or whether it’s intended to reference the extreme sexual practice of “fisting” (which would be surrealist – essentially, sadomasochistic sex with architecture – which is sort of incredible as imagery of terrorism). I interpret that it is the double-entendre that is important here as if shards of phrasing and syntax are re-coming together to make a new, odd, off-ish sense of each other. Why does the fragmentary, disoriented (but still precise) language of trauma belong in the realm of poetry for you? </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>JB:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> I think it’s Kristeva who says it and her description applies very well here. She says that process as practice is always an extreme moment. Language is/as a form of violence… Blanchot even suggests that it is a form of terrorism. I’m not sure these are answers to your questions but I think they provide a framework for the phrase you excerpted. I’ll also have to refer to the interruption, or disruption we talked about earlier.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I like your reading of this very much and yes, as a short answer it is about that odd-offish sense. Part of the strangeness of this figuration comes from thinking of the practice of poetry of witness as a masochistic act, understood as very different from a sadomasochistic one. I’m working on a paper now that analogizes the process of poetry of witness with a masochistic relationship: it relies on a certain power dynamic between pain and/or trauma to the author: specifically on the generally expunged element of desire combined with the illusion of the (author’s) powerlessness, in the aesthetization of traumatic events. But this recognition of the power structures in a masochistic relation also provides great potential for rethinking identity formation, community and sexual politics.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>ZING: The work is aggressive, most obviously in the directions to the performer that are scattered through the pages. I admit I felt even a bit uncomfortable when I encountered the list of immediate family and close friends on page 40 with the footnote instructing the reader to cross-out those names and replace with others. How much is this about subjecting the reader to a kind of objectification or about making the reader complicit in the activity of the poetry? </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>JB: </strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I’m so excited you felt uncomfortable! What a huge compliment! I also hoping that you felt invited, to be a part of the text, to perform it. I would say it is both of these things: complicity, which we discussed beforehand, extends to the author as well as the performer. I’ve called them the reader in this interview but you bring up the very important distinction <em>Commuter </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">makes: that of the “performer” as reader. At a very basic level I think this contributes to both the feelings of aggressivity and complicity you noticed, since a reader is not usually accustomed to thinking of the public connotations of him/herself performing a text, in both public and private. </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I think to a degree a feeling of objectification is a helpful response to the piece and may indicate the tension within an artwork that Adorno speaks to. However, though objectification may initially be a part of it, I would hope that the extensive questions and invitations to perform, both sustain and recombinate this feeling of objectification with others. Part of that feeling as you said earlier, is that subject/object distinctions seemed to be rather difficult to pinpoint. Agamben in <em>Remnants of Auschwitz</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> discusses the etymology of the word <em>witness</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> and describes one definition as a figure in the position of a 3<sup>rd</sup> party, someone who for other reasons than trauma, also cannot bear witness. This is where the possibility of secondary or proxy witness appears although it is a highly unstable position.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">The juxtapositional quality of the text places the reader in this third position. So, in effect, the reader “witnesses” or <em>dérives </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">the process of both secondary and firsthand witnessing. So to feel uncomfortable here, I think, is a very warranted initial response. Hopefully, as the book encourages relation (as you’ve pointed to), it also initiates other involvement on the part of the reader, namely the ethical tension that their rotating position of witness, secondary witness and objectified other, elicits. Since these positions do not tend toward reconciliation within or outside of the work the reader must persistently contend with them all.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">Blazer’s comment about making the poem into “a necessary function of the real, not something added to it” is very important for this involvement.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>ZING: When I saw you read at the Dikeou Collection a couple summers ago, you used a white noise machine in the background of your reading. Does poetic language ride the white noise? Or rise out of the white noise? Or, as a poet, do you listen into the white noise? </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>JB: </strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I love drone/noise music, Spaceman 3, Noveller, Skullflower, E.A.R., Kites, Steve Roach, William Basinski, etc. For that project, tentatively titled <em>The Poster of Contour,</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> or <em>0, </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">(Zero comma) I am experimenting with noise, or more specifically drone, as a platform for the performance of the piece. The work takes vacuums/vacuuming/vacuity and fluid dynamics as primary themes and so the idea of a droned tone as a vacuum, or fluidity allows for a certain affirmative quality to the historically abhorred natural “vacuum.” The idea in part stems from Berio’s Oboe Sequenza. What amazed me about the piece was the droned B that, as the piece progressed, and the oboe counterpointed against the drone, it began to both collapse the piece into an imaginary horizontal line that extended out from its source, and yet at the same time, it filled the room to the point of almost a visual throbbing. It seemed that a vacuum of sorts was created, but one that was fully empty. The oboe counterpoint became a sort of supplement, to this absence, like the language of the poem around a certain immaterial space. Many of Varese’s pieces have a similar visual/auditory effect on me. I guess it is similar to Scriabin’s synesthesia. Is there a specific name for that? The sequenza is fantastic, especially performed live. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">In answer to your question, I think it’s both; language both rides and rises out of noise. It’s information theory at it’s most basic, noise coexists with language, music etc. For that performance, I also “listened into” the noise: the tone that droned through the piece was my normal speaking voice, which happens to be approximately an F#. I tried to keep that pitch for many of the sections dealing with vacuums.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>ZING: What forthcoming projects do we have to look forward to?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"><strong>JB:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> At this point, I have two main projects I’m working on, besides my dissertation. One, <em>Friend of Mies Van der Rohe</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> rethinks Heidegger’s concept of dwelling through Philip Johnson’s Glass House. The other, tentatively titled <em>The Posture of Contour, </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">or <em>0,</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(26, 26, 26);"> (Zero Comma) explores those strange registers between the performance qualities of a lecture, a poem and conversation in a David Antin style. There are some wonderful expectations to be disrupted in the contrasts of these genres. <strong><br /></strong></span></p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">September 2010</div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-53040379429897651032010-09-16T13:34:00.001-07:002010-09-16T13:34:32.954-07:00<div class="node node-content_zingchat "> <h2 class="title"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/node/1309">INTERVIEW: Is it Art or Fart?</a></h2> <div class="content"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/image-1.jpg" height="573" width="573" /> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center">"Christo" from IS IT ART OR FART? blog </p> <p style="text-align: center;" class="MsoNormal" align="center"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Times;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Anonymously authored blog-to-book <strong><em><a href="http://isitartorfart.blogspot.com/">Is is Art or Fart?</a></em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> features snapshots of everyday objects that, in the eyes of the authors, resemble works by contemporary artists. Nobody is safe, even their recognized forefather – Duchamp (posted Sept. 8, 2010). <em>Is it Art or Fart? </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">sends up contemporary art – or does it?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Interview by Brandon Johnson</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>In the prologue to <em>Is it Art of Fart</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>, “fart” is described as “coincidental moments in everyday life that, when isolated and named by artist, bear uncanny resemblance to art seen in museums and galleries around the globe.<span> </span>Why is it called “fart”?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Art has aura. <em>Farts</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, as we like to call them, do not. From certain angles or upon first glance, <em>farts</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> might appear auric—but this false or temporary aura quickly dissipates like a passing gas.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Lifted from Wikipedia: In parapsychology and many forms of spiritual practice, an aura is a field of subtle, luminous radiation supposedly surrounding a person or object (like the halo or aureola in religious art). The depiction of such an aura often connotes a person of particular power or holiness.”<span> </span>What do <em>you</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong> mean by “aura”?<span> </span>Is art “holy”?<span> </span>Is fart “profane? (Side-note “In Iran the aura is known as farr or ‘glory’”)</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Yes, art objects are often treated and revered as special, valuable, holy objects.<span> </span>This is a property of Art that the Roman Catholic Church, the forces of Modernism, and the Contemporary Art Market have all, at different points in Western Art History, desired and worked to uphold.<span> </span>Fart is not art.<span> </span>It’s not profane, nor is it pagan; It is simply a part of regular, everyday, pedestrian life.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong> </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>I was trying to figure out how this book fits into the grand scheme.<span> </span>At first I thought along the lines of artists as brands, a somewhat cynical/critical approach, but didn’t really see that edge after a second look.<span> </span>Now, I’ve decided it’s more linguistic – a rhyming of objects.<span> </span>The photographed images rhyme with the work they are being identified with in the same way as “fart” rhymes with “art”.<span> </span>What do you think of this theory?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Well, certainly rhyming has something to do with pop music—and pop music is readily accessible and gaseous ether that circulates through contemporary urban life. What we mean to say is that the book is about art-in-popular-life. We are truly indebted to the enduring power of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades—those dramatic gestures that bridged the gap between art and everyday life.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Are there special Duchampian glasses one can wear to gain “fart” vision? </strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">No, not really. Recognizing <em>farts</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> is an uncontrollable phenomenon. It just happens. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Does this book “stick it to” the art world?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">There are so many art worlds. The book likely stinks to some of them. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Have any artists voiced offense at this book?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Actually, a few very well-known artists have mentioned their disappointment over not being included! </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Blog: </strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><a href="http://isitartorfart.blogspot.com/">http://isitartorfart.blogspot.com/</a></span><br /><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"></span></p> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">September 2010</div> </div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-21864416655324622512010-09-16T13:32:00.001-07:002010-09-16T13:32:27.601-07:00<div class="node node-content_zingchat "> <h2 class="title"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/node/1296">INTERVIEW: Laird Hunt</a></h2> <div class="content"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/LAIRD.jpg" height="430" width="575" /> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong><a href="http://www.lairdhunt.net/">Laird Hunt’s</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> fiction is some of the best stuff around. Weird, lyrical, mysterious, funny, gritty, and more, it’s the type of work that makes you want to devote your life to literature. His fourth book, <a href="http://www.lairdhunt.net/books/ray-of-the-star/"><strong><em>Ray of the Star</em></strong></a> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><a href="http://www.lairdhunt.net/books/ray-of-the-star/"><strong> </strong></a> (Coffee House Press 2009), follows in the line of his previous brilliant noiresque novels <a href="http://lairdhunt.net/books/the-exquisite/"><strong><em>The Exquisite</em></strong></a> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> and <a href="http://lairdhunt.net/books/the-impossibly/"><strong><em>The Impossibly</em></strong></a> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, but also integrates the haunting memory-based emotional depth found in <a href="http://lairdhunt.net/books/indiana-indiana/"><strong><em>Indiana, Indiana</em></strong></a> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">. <em>Ray of the Star</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> follows grief-addled Harry Tichborne in a vacant escape from an unnamed family tragedy to a European city on the sea very much like Barcelona. His life proceeds to delve into a series of strange events involving a large yellow papier mache submarine, </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">talking shoes, </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">a silver painted love-interest, lectures on death by ghosts, and a trio of sinister old men called the Connoisseurs as the mood of the novel sways from interminable grief to light slapstick, dense mystery to vague horror. As a former student of Laird’s at the University of Denver, I am extremely pleased to have the opportunity to interview him. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Interview by Brandon Johnson</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING: Your new novel, <em>Ray of the Star</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>, again falls on the side of noir.<span> </span>What draws you to this genre?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Laird Hunt:</strong> I actually wrote it thinking I was more involved with ghosts and ghost stories than noir, but I certainly know what you mean.<span> </span>Maybe what I’m interested in in the kind of off-noir or noiresque that I’ve practiced over the years is the possibility of genre blending.<span> </span>Noir in this case (and maybe in the case of <em>The Impossibly)</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> blended with the fantastic.<span> </span>If you agree with Brian McHale and others that detective stories and spy novels are epistemological beasts, in which knowing – both what and how we know -- is key, and that fantasy and science fiction are ontological animals, in which being rather than knowing gets center stage, then an effective blending of the two genres results in the kind of knowing/being combine that might, it seems to me, actually rhyme with the universe as we experience (rather than tend to represent) it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING: Each chapter consists of a single sentence.<span> </span>What made you decide to use this constraint?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>LH:</strong> Friedrich Dürrenmatt uses this constraint in his novel <em>The Assignment</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">.<span> </span>I came across it and was interested in how energetically he applied his mechanism and in how appropriate it was for the murder mystery he was developing.<span> </span>I put his book down after a few chapters (sentences) and filed the device away.<span> </span>Then I had this thought of writing about someone trapped in almost inconceivable grief.<span> </span>Ordinary length sentences didn’t seem long enough.<span> </span>I needed the sentence to be longer, but not languorous, not ambling, agglutinative things.<span> </span>So I thought again of Dürrenmatt and brought what I remembered of the way he made his long sentences rush to the work I was envisaging.<span> </span>Being stuck in long sentences, one after the other, is a nightmare.<span> </span>Harry is like some underwater swimmer who can only come up for breath momentarily for fear that bullets or arrows will hit him.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING: This novel deals with trauma and making sense of death.<span> </span>Senor Rubinski’s explanation of “drippings” reminded me of Flann O’Brien characterization of death in The Third Policeman as absurdity explained rationally.<span> </span>Do you feel that there is a certain absurdity to conceptualizing death that can be exemplified in literature?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>LH:</strong> This makes me think of the image of the semiotic square – that nifty diagram that proposes that when we assert something (white) we invoke its opposite (black), but also all the things it isn’t (not white) and all the things its opposite isn’t (not black).<span> </span>So that when I wrote “knowing/being” above, “not knowing/not being” came into the room.<span> </span>Writing is rather mediocre at describing or representing death but I think it can be extraordinarily powerful in evoking it.<span> </span>Or, to borrow the word you use above, exemplifying it.<span> </span>We’re just starting to tackle the concept of dark matter in science.<span> </span>I think writers have been working with it for centuries.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING: Not to choose favorites, but my favorites were the Connoisseurs.<span> </span>They were menacing yet funny.<span> </span>I had a laugh reading various labels placed on them by reviewers such as “wise-ass noir goons” by James Gibbons in Bookforum.<span> </span>Could you share your feelings on them?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>LH:</strong> Ah, yes, those guys.<span> </span>I had tremendous fun trying to keep them under control as I wrote because of course they want everything, all of it.<span> </span>Why, they kept seeming to ask, is this Harry’s story at all: tell our story: make us the center of it: etc.<span> </span>They were so insistent, in fact, that after having been two for a long time, they became three.<span> </span>Three points to the infinite better than two, it seems to me.<span> </span>Perhaps in the way that, as Borges liked to say, 1001 (nights) points at the infinite better than 1000.<span> </span>They were definitely a handful.<span> </span>You don’t want to try to argue with them.<span> </span>Or, for that matter, have them emerging from your head.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING: Something I’ve noticed in more than one of your novels is the presence of food.<span> </span>Characters eat and what they eat is particular and described; in the case of <em>Ray of the Star</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>, large amounts of sparkling water and various sea-born delicacies.<span> </span>Why all the eating?</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>LH:</strong> This really started with <em>The Impossibly</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">.<span> </span>My first impulse in answering this is that my younger self was doing something more or less unconscious with all those comestibles that Hemingway describes in his stories and novels (once upon a time I read them all).<span> </span>Warping and troubling that desire, as he somewhere described it, to make the world seem more real in fiction than it seems outside of it (I’m currently seeing one of his famous glasses of beer, sitting next to a pretzel and sweating in the dim light of an inn in Europe somewhere).<span> </span>Maybe there is something to that.<span> </span>I’m not at all a “foodie” in the popular sense of it.<span> </span>To be honest I’m a little grossed out by food culture.<span> </span>And of course my characters eat odd foods (octopus porridge) or obsess over minor details (the glaze on a pastry) or relatively banal ones.<span> </span>But we’re all slung between one meal and the next.<span> </span>Food is the thing, isn’t it?<span> </span>I know my cats think so.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING: Each of the three sections of the novel includes a quote: I: “Now you must learn how to last”; II. “The past, since it does not exist, is hard to erase.<span> </span>Tears and the gnashing of teeth.”; III. “In the places / only the dead dream, I will look for our reflections.” Can you disclose the sources of these quotes?<span> </span>Care to release further thoughts on them?</strong></span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>LH:</strong> The quote sources are cited on the copyright page.<span> </span>You will, I think, recognize at least one of the names: Bin Ramke.<span> </span>And may have run across Christina Mengert during your time at DU.<span> </span>Perec wrote the first one.<span> </span>I wanted to have it both ways with these epigraphs – to have text from elsewhere brought into the mix, but also to have a disconnect between attribution and the language I was borrowing.<span> </span>Put otherwise, I didn’t want people to completely leave the dream of the book as it was unfolding – to turn their thoughts both to the substance of the quote and to its author.<span> </span>At the same time I wanted to point people toward important writers (hence the attribution on the copyright page).</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong><em>Ray of the Star</em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> was recently made a finalist for the Pen USA Literary Award for Fiction.<span> </span>Hunt has more books on the horizon: his first book, <strong><em><a href="http://marick-press.blogspot.com/">The Paris Stories</a></em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, will be reissued by Marick Press in the Fall, Counterpath Press will be publishing his translation of Oliver Rohe’s <em>Terrain Vague</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> under the title <strong><em><a href="http://www.counterpathpress.org/aupgs/rohe/rohe.html">Vacant Lot</a></em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, and Actes Sud will be releasing <strong><em><a href="http://www.actes-sud.fr/">The Exquisite</a></em></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> in France. Bon appetit.</span> </p> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">August 2010</div> </div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-43252850156055179812010-09-16T13:31:00.001-07:002010-09-16T13:31:35.634-07:00<div class="node node-content_zingchat "> <h2 class="title"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/node/1290">INTERVIEW: Joshua Saunders with Josh T. Franco </a></h2> <div class="content"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/guccipussyview2CNTKR.jpg" height="400" width="579" /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><em><span style="font-size:78%;"><span>Pocket Gucci</span></span></em> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong><a href="http://www.joshuamartinsaunders.com/">Joshua Saunders</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> is an Austin-based artist who works largely with the paper detritus of everyday life from today and recent decades. He also creates poignant assemblage sculptures from everyday ephemera. <strong>Josh T Franco</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> splits his time between New York and Texas. He is a Chican@ artist and Art History PhD student currently working on a collaborative project with Saunders and artist Alison Kuo scheduled to show at Co-Lab in Austin Fall 2011. This interview follows the opening of Saunders’ solo show, <em>Wizard Sleeve,</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> at BiRDHOUSE in Austin. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Interview with Joshua Saunders, by Josh T Franco, 7/27/10, remote by Skype</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Josh T. Franco:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Where did the title of the show, <em>Wizard Sleeve</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">, come from? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>Joshua Saunders:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> “Wizard sleeve” is like a slang term for a vagina that’s aged. It kind of becomes baggy. One of my friends when I was younger, this older guy named Steve, would always say it. You know like a joking thing, he would always call people “wizard sleeves” or whatever, and I never really knew what it was, then he told me and I thought it was really funny. I knew not a lot of people would know what it was, so it would be a funny title, and what with the Gucci thing as the title piece…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Yeah, totally…but it’s the “cliché” piece too. I watched so many people at the show respond—like one guy thought it was gold paint. He was like “It’s really beautiful. It’s gold paint.” He thought it was ironic and cool enough being gold paint. I said “No, that’s his semen” and he got really disgusted. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> [Laughs] I know, one guy was like “Man that ‘cliché’ piece just makes me mad.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> [Laughs] Did he know it was semen when he said that?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Yeah, he said “I’m mad about it…I’m just mad.” So I said, “That’s awesome!”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> [Laughs] That IS awesome! Really funny. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">That whole front room. I’ve thought about it, and it was the craziest set up - with the cliché piece and the pocket Gucci - because you walk in and you see pocket Gucci, and it seems to be the wildest thing in the room. Then you look at the cliché, you realize what the material is, and all of a sudden the pocket Gucci becomes pretty tame because it’s just plastic. Then you’re like ‘Oh fuck, this thing’s crazy’. Did you put thought into the placement? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Definitely. I wanted the pocket Gucci to be right in the front because it was on the poster, and it’s been one of the strongest digital images I’ve had all year. So it’s circulated a lot more than the other stuff…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> …and it’s on eBay, so.... </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> And what?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> It’s on eBay, so more people have probably seen it than you know of…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I tried to sell it on eBay. I tried to get Soulja Boy to buy it. So, I’ve been using it quite a bit. Not literally, but…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">I liked backing that with the cliché piece, because I figured most people wouldn’t get the cliché piece right away, but I think it’s like you were saying: it’s even more aggressive, whatever that really means. But it would take the prize for probably being the most shocking thing in there. Even though the context in which I made the piece is not necessarily to be shocking, but kind of to be a conversation <em>about</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> ‘shocking work’ in a way, and it being a cliché or not. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> We all think we’re kind of “over” the idea of ‘representation-and-not-representation’, that distinction, but obviously we’re not. Because when you realized that that’s not <em>representing </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">semen, it <em>is </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">semen, obviously everyone has a reaction. So there’s definitely a lot more there to talk about. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> [Laughs] I judged it for a really long time, and that’s why I made that piece. I made a different one called “Ode to Joy,” which we talked about last time you were around. I don’t know, those are just reactions to me thinking that people using semen was easy, and didn’t really warrant the reaction in a way. There really isn’t much to it obviously. It’s like all people can produce semen and put it on any type of substrate. It was the easiest piece to make in the whole show. But I knew it would probably garner the biggest reaction. I made it because I’m having a conversation with myself in a way about what I think is okay to do and not do, and what is a cliché, and what using clichés means in your work. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Yeah, do you remember the piece a few years ago that caused all the controversy; it’s a Virgin Mary image and then he slung shit all over the piece? It was on exhibit, I think it traveled quite a bit too. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I know that piece, but I don’t know the artist’s name. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Me either, but you think after that, using semen would be cliché. But in your show, already on its own it’s not cliché, and then pairing it with pocket Gucci--I think that’s the brilliance of your stuff. Now we can talk about pornography. If I were sitting with anyone else about to have a conversation about pornography, I’d be rolling my eyes…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> [Laughs] Definitely.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> …but you’ve given us this new way to look at porn, which…who knew that existed? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I like to approach pornography in a “fun” way I suppose? My acculturation process has made me feel like I shouldn’t deal with pornography, and I shouldn’t watch pornography, and all that. So, it’s like, I don’t know, part of my growth into adulthood. But I’ve realized that it’s totally fine to make things out of it, or to make jokes about it, or whatever. I like it; I think pornography’s such a strong material <em>because</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> it’s so basic. But people get so riled up about it. To me, that doesn’t make a lot of sense, because it’s the most fundamental part of being a human, and it’s such a funny-looking exploitive medium anyways. There’s so much to take from it! My favorite thing is to use it in different ways; to take things out of it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I’m actually at my parent’s kitchen table right now, so talking about porn is really awesome to do right here! You said that “Hand Censored Swank Extreme” you decided kind of last minute to put that in? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Yeah. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I was looking at it with the glove—I kept my glove as a keepsake—and I realized it’s got all those fun aspects, and it’s really cool with the show. But then I realized you also accidentally created some, like, ultra porn! I was flipping the page, and I flipped over the page, and there’s this woman with her ass in the air, and something you had cut out on the other side had made like a space in a large chunk of her ass, but it had left the outline of it intact so you see her ass in the air, her whole midsection, then there’s the hole. And on the other side behind it shows a hand in a grabbing position so it looks like it’s grabbing her vulva or something! Like her <em>internal </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">sex organs! It’s like “holy shit,” you know. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> [Laughing] That’s why I like that so much! That’s why that project happened. It’s because I was using that to build other things. I wasn’t trying to empty it out at first. I was just cutting pieces out of that to make other things out of, you know what I mean? Taking and then using. But then once I had done it enough it started to make weird things like that happen. And that’s when I was like “Wow, I’m so excited about just the emptying now.” And then it became the focus of the piece, not the taking away. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> It was brilliant. You know I loved the idea when I heard it. I didn’t realize what kind of shit would really happen when I actually looked through it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Honestly, that piece was finished like a day before the exhibition opened, because I still had to work on that a lot right before. But that’s one of my favorite things for sure. I’m probably going to scan every one of those pages and create a book out of that just to reproduce it in entirety, and not to change anything, not add pages or anything, but just scan the whole thing and make an editioned book out of it. I think that would be really cool. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Yeah, that’s really smart. I want to go back to pocket Gucci. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Okay. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I think we’ve skirted around this conversation before, but we’ve never been in a “serious” venue, such as this interview [BOTH LAUGH] to talk. So pocket Gucci; I work with a philosopher, Maria Lugones, who’s responsible for this idea of the ‘coloniality of gender’ and so I saw pocket Gucci, and immediately the collusion of historically constructed race and global market capitalism all at once get sort of swatted at, like backslapped, and that’s really interesting. All the sort of sources where I think about that, and the people I think about that with, and the legacy I know of that through, are all women of color thinkers, or queer folk, so we have to talk about identity. How did you end up doing this?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I just felt like every single element of it was loaded from the exact moment that I realized that I could make it. You know what I mean? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">From the color indicated on the box, I mean, it’s obviously totally charged. The fact that I realized, ‘Man, maybe I could put a sex toy in there and it would fit properly’, and then I went and got it and realized it fit so perfectly and then the actual one I found…just as I created it, it was like every moment got better. It has commentary on the biggest issues, period. I mean race, gender, sexuality, marketing…things that kind of control the world in a way and in the form of this funny anti-product.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">I have an idea and then I wonder if it’ll work. And when it started to work, it’s just like my pleasure levels went through the roof. It started to like work like that. Then I realized, wow, this thing is super charged.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I’ve been familiar with it for a few months, and I’ve shown it to people I work with. It’s sparked some really good conversations. I don’t think people are done talking about it. I’m not done writing about it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> It’s kind of been funny since I made it too, because its been a source of really interesting family dynamic stuff. Recently I got some pages in <em>Cantanker </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">magazine in Austin, and one of them is pocket Gucci. My family thinks that I’m doing whatever and no one’s like “You’re really an artist, and we’re happy about that.” They’re more like “If you would get busy doing something pretty soon that’s going to get you a career and be more on a path to normality, we’d be really happy”, but now I’m starting to get a little bit going in terms of people seeing my work. So I told them “Hey I got all these pages in this magazine” and they were so excited, but my mom asked me, first question, ‘Well, what images are in the magazine?’ and I had to say, because she’s seen it, “Pocket Gucci, and some of the other stuff”. My grandfather’s older and really conservative, and he really wanted a copy. My mom asked me to take razor blades and remove my own work from the magazine before sending it, and I just think that’s so funny.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> [Laughing] I agree. You know, its so funny that you say that because I’ve had similar experiences with papers that I’ve really been proud of or had published…I’ve shown my mom first, and then she told me that if I wanted to show my dad I had to edit out “some things”. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">It’s just like I hear this shit, and I live in New York now. We definitely have a different vibe growing up in Texas. This just totally points to that. I wanted to ask you about being an artist in Texas, and the shows at BiRDHOUSE. It’s all changed – Texas is crazy now.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Well, Austin, I mean, I don’t think I could live anywhere but Austin, really. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I know. I’ve been in West Texas for three months and I’m going insane. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I haven’t traveled all over Texas too hard, but I do get the feeling from the people I hang out with, which, randomly, is a lot of people from West Texas, that it just doesn’t seem to have the level of acceptance. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> But I love that you’re here, I come back a ridiculous amount and all my research and work is here…I like that we’re staying. I think that’s what’s different about our generation. We’re staying in Texas, as ridiculous as it is sometimes. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> There’s something like really amazing Texas too. You know I moved here, and I had never even been here. There’s some kind of like push-pull feeling about this place. Like it’s too hot, it’s trying to kill you at all times in the summer. It is weirdly conservative, yet there are these pockets of really driven amazing art folks and musicians and other stuff happening. I think it is an interesting diverse group and that’s really attractive. Colorado is similar but everybody’s really outdoorsy, and fitness oriented, and they seem more liberal and whatnot. And that’s kind of boring in a way. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> That’s what I’ve found around New York, like in Vermont and New Hampshire; it’s there, but there’s not an edge to it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> It seems like people are slightly less distorted, but they’re like slightly less exciting in a way. I kind of like the false cowboy in Texas that drives a giant truck and then actually doesn’t do manual labor, but has major pride in being a Texan good boy, you know? I like the juxtaposition between real and unreal here. The psychology of pride in the past. I guess I have a hard time finding words, but there is something crazy and kind of magical about Texas and its whole quagmire. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> The project we’re about to do with Alison has to do with all of this, at least a large part of it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> That’s a great example. Just that town, is like exactly like that. Marfa. High art meets middle-of-nowhere Texas.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> But there are other things in <em>Wizard Sleeve</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">. We’ve talked about dots before, and I’m still thinking. I use a lot of dots in my drawings; I spend hours just going like this [DOT-MAKING GESTURE] with a pen, so they always stick when I notice them. A lot of people were looking at “East of Eden” and the flowers really stuck out. Some people thought they were lollipops. Then I was looking at your past stuff—in “Girl on Paintchip Mountain,” the whole skyscape is dots, “Hand Ladder” has dots in the hand. “Hand Ladder” is interesting; in “East of Eden” the dots are flowers, it’s pretty clear, and in “Girl,” they’re stars; there’s definite representation going on. But in “Hand Ladder” the dots are really ambiguous. Did you have something in mind when you did that?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> They’re just like some type of energy or something leaving that hand. I just thought that they looked beautiful; like it was releasing little dots of color. They’re so useful because they’re so ambiguous, but they’re so beautiful, especially when you cluster them. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Like in “Girl,” the way they get more dense around the bottom. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> It’s really fun to use dots too. Because you don’t have to think as you draw and do dots endlessly. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">And that’s part of why I like making things that have a lot of small particles to them that take forever to do. That’s when I really get to stop thinking and spend hours doing monotonous tasks, which I actually find really relieving about art. Or about my art making process. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">There are no gestural brush strokes, or things that can change the whole trajectory of the piece. I’ll leave stuff like that sometimes until I <em>need </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">two days of just dotting things in a row, or something. So, I have this large number of hours. It’s great. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I know there are sections in my drawings where there are going to be dots, and sometimes I come to them, then save them. And if I know I have something coming the next day that’s going to stress me out, I’ll think ‘I’ll do these after that’ because it’ll feel really great. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> It’s almost like a mental massage for me. I mean, I have a lot of anxiety and I feel like I spin a lot in my own thought process. And that can become really overwhelming. And just doing dots is great. It’s not using drugs or anything else to turn that off. It’s just using a meditative monotonous task. Those trees too, in “East of Eden”—you know, first, creating all the triangles and the tree parts, and then having to deal with them all and arrange them in size and put them all in. Same kind of thing. It’s just stupid amounts of time. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> The biggest surprise to me in the show was the roach traps. I had no idea you were doing those. I actually didn’t know what they were at first. I saw the roaches—it’s that thing again, about the difference between representation and not. Like with the semen. I saw the roaches, and I saw what you were doing, juxtaposing them with the images. But I didn’t realize they were actual roach traps until my friend pointed it out. And it changed everything, again. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> In a way it’s self-revealing. I’ve lived in some really shitty situations in the last couple of years that have had some pretty serious roach infestations. We lived at this place a little bit down the road from here last year, and we just had this really bad roach problem. It was there when we got there, and it got worse. I tried to combat it quite a bit. Having a roach infestation is not like the raddest thing to have to deal with. I feel like people slightly want to judge you too, like ‘Oh my god, you live in filth. Look at this problem you have.’ Which in some ways is probably half true. I definitely know with myself I could probably tighten up around the edges a little bit, but at the same time, it’s also part of Texas in a way. I had a lot of those traps. I was always amazed at the mother being caught and birthing like thirty or fifty babies only to die immediately. It’s got that mother-cradling-child-in-the-ash-of-Vesuvius kind of feel to it. Like a haunting entire-dead-family image. I had these things, and I thought, ‘Well what am I going to do?’. I didn’t just want to throw them away, which would obviously be the logical thing to do, to remove them from the house. Put babies in there, and it would create a really interesting aesthetic. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> It definitely did. There are so many layers to that story you just told. It’s the same sort of juxtapositions we’ll deal with when we do the Marfa project. This high art in weird places—you’re on the East Side of Austin, which has experienced this crazy development. Roaches are “part of” low-income housing, or “trashiness.” But then you put it in BiRDHOUSE—and I don’t know if you remember, but you made this anxious comment that night at the show about these people in “fancy clothing” [Both laugh]…and all those layers are there. Like the roach traps. You made them art, which is fantastic. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I think making art is sometimes just like showing internal parts of your life, that you’re not really supposed to. You know you’re going to be judged by it and have a certain comfort about it, like ‘Hey, that’s fine.’ I’ve really worked hard this year—well, ‘worked’ is probably the wrong way to describe it—but I’ve allowed myself to stop filtering some of the things I want to make as much. Like not telling myself ‘No, don’t do that’.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">If I have the idea to put babies in despicable looking roach traps, I’ll just allow myself to do that. Whatever it says about me, I’m not as concerned with. I just don’t want to stop my process. I want to use whatever materials I fee like. I want to go out on a limb and make clichés, even if they’re bad or if people aren’t accepting of them, or don’t like them, or <em>I </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">don’t like them once they’re done. I like to allow myself to do whatever I want now because I think that will help me to grow. Also, I like self-revealing stuff, probably from spending so much time in that psychological high school for behavioral problem children. I mean I learned a lot about the more you reveal giving you a lot of strength in a weird way, to have a lot of your dysfunctional parts on the outside of you. The roaches are just an obvious aesthetic representation of some of the dysfunction that is in my own life. And that’s strong, that’s strong in art. That’s what I look for. When I go and look at people’s work and stuff I like to see a kind of window into people, and the more willing they are to open that window, often times the more the art will do it for me.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> It’s like the men’s nipples exhibit that lives in theory in our heads. It’s about asking people to put out their anxieties about race and their bodies, and living in male bodies. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">So this shift that you just described, this not filtering yourself; does this have anything to do with your new opinion of Dash Snow’s work? Because the first time we met, we talked about Ryan Trecartin, and we also talked about Dash Snow. We were on opposite sides of the fence about the polaroids. The collages we agreed on, but the polaroids you were not a fan of, and I was. Earlier this summer, you said you had changed your opinion about that, and I don’t remember if we talked about “Nest”. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I don’t know what happened. I think I just spent more time <em>looking </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">at the work. In some ways, to be completely honest, I think that maybe I was slightly…I almost want to say jealous, of some of that work, because it was pretty aggressive and good. Some of those situations just seemed pretty intense. I don’t know what my issue was originally, but I spent a lot more time looking especially at the Dash Snow work, and I think it’s really strong. I was always interested in the collage stuff. I looked at the collage stuff more and more and I think the collage stuff is really the strongest. But the more I really loved the collage stuff, the more I realized that I loved the other parts of the work too. In a way, I guess the same reason I made the cliché piece, I felt like some of it was all a huge cliché. You know, you’re young and beautiful, and you’re from New York, and you’re a social prince of a major art scene in a capital of fine art in the world and obviously you take polaroids of people taking cocaine off other peoples’ dicks. I guess I didn’t <em>want to </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">react to it in the way I ended up reacting to it. At first, I wanted to be like ‘No, that doesn’t work on me’ because it’s so obvious. But in a way, I think I’ve realized it’s not obvious. It’s like, that was what that dude chose to do, and the images are really strong, and you can’t take that away from them. I had to become acquainted with my own reaction. Obviously, I overreact pretty hard. I’ll have an opinion way before I’ve allowed myself to process things. Which is my own problem or whatever. You ever get a first impression and run your mouth right away and then think about it, and think ‘oh god.’? That’s why I’m saying now. I like the work because I don’t have to pretend like my first opinion is where I stand. I was wrong at first. I actually do like the work, and I think it’s really strong. And the Ryan Trecartin stuff; it’s been the same reaction from beginning to now. I just think that stuff’s like a tornado of different elements that just rocked my world. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I found out that Ryan Trecartin was born in Texas, also. I don’t know how long he lived here, but yeah, Webster, TX, I think. It’s fun to look at an artist, and after a show, see what other artists come to mind when you sit and think about it. I was sitting and thinking about “Wizard Sleeve,” and Dash Snow and Ryan Trecartin came to mind because we had talked about them, but also there’s a lot of it in the materials; this sexy, kind of hip stuff. Then I was thinking about Kara Walker. Do you know who she is? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> No. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> She came to mind because she did these large, life sized silhouette narratives, sort of in the round…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Oh, I think I’ve seen them. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> You’ve probably seen them. Everybody else I thought of first was part of that New York, downtown scene. I thought ‘Why does Kara Walker keep coming to mind?’ I watched her Art:21 episode, and this goes back to what we were talking about with pocket Gucci. First of all, there are all these dismembered body parts. Trecartin does the same thing with distorting body parts. Matthew Ronay, I also looked at. He did really funny things with penises and bleeding anuses and plastic sculptures, a few years ago. So, Walker does dismembered body parts too, but she does them in silhouette on the wall. They have to do with these historical fiction-y sort of slave narratives. She said this: ‘What does Black stand for in White America, and what does White stand for in Black America?” That adds this whole other layer to bodies. Bodies are a part of your work obviously. Part of Matthew Ronay’s, part of Trecartin’s, part of Snow’s, in a big way, and she adds this other layer to it. We all share not a common experience, but this inhabitation of the body. I always find things coming back to it, you know, pornography…and this is a really bad way to ask a question. I don’t know what the question is right now, but, bodies, it was nice to get out of one circle of artists and think of another dealing with them, dismembering them, and reformulating them, sort of connecting artists across different realms. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> It feels like there have been different moments within art that are happening simultaneously now, and earlier, in different phases. Some people approach the body in kind of a celebratory way where they want to show it for its ‘raw beauty’ and whatnot. And really, there’s so much form drawing and so many representations of the body as a kind of beautiful vessel on earth, but then there is obviously a whole flipside where people like to distort it. It is really a fundamental thing; you have to deal with your own body and your interpretation of everyone’s bodies around you. So, it’s loaded. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">I just happen to not be on the beautifying the body side of things. That doesn’t mean I can’t see beauty or whatever, but it’s not really what my work’s about. I like making freaky things look beautiful. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> It took me a while to think about this, but I was looking at pocket Gucci yesterday and only just thought of Judy Chicago, and cunt art in general. Maybe it was because that’s just too obvious, but it also might have been my own shit, because you’re a man, not a woman.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Yeah, even talking about it is kind of weird. One thing I like about making work is that I don’t even have to really be a part of it. I mean, I am a major part of it, but I don’t have to <em>represent </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">it. Obviously I’m at my own opening, trying not to drink too much, but other than that I don’t really have to participate in the work. The work can leave me, and people can draw their reactions, but they don’t have to know I’m a straight white 29-year-old dude. I don’t even have to participate in that; a lot of people can have different ideas about who the person who made this was and what their opinions on this or that are. I feel like I really don’t have to do that in a way. I make stuff like jokes. I like joking. My father is very humor-oriented and I’ve taken a lot of humor-based social abuse in my upbringing. So, I feel like I’m really, really comfortable with a lot of parts of myself: what I am, what type of sex I’m into, what color I am, how rich or poor I am…I’m really comfortable with all that, so I really like to make commentary on it, and not have to do it in a circle at a party where people visually and audibly react to me. I like to make physical representations of the jokes that I think are interesting. And maybe it’s not totally a joke. It doesn’t have a punch-line; it’s more like a gate to a conversation that a person can have with themselves or others. So it isn’t a joke. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> All those anxieties. Like the guy who thought it was gold paint and loved it, then found out it was semen and almost retched. Your comfort level in artmaking brings out this conversation with himself; like what kind of sex he’s into, what he can tolerate seeing outside of his body. You know, this is a guy that has probably never touched his own semen or something…goes right in the toilet and never talks about it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> [Laughing] Yeah, it goes into Kleenexes and that’s it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">Which is fine, that’s great. In fact, that type of reaction is what I’m kind of wanting, in a way. If a person’s more comfortable about it, I think in a lot of ways, it doesn’t carry much power with them, because they’re probably like ‘Oh, well that’s clever.’ But a person that’s kind of got issues, as I would call them—I’m sure they would say that I have issues, you know? But that reaction, that’s exciting. Like the guy who’s like ‘That just makes me mad.’ I showed that “Ode to Joy” piece at this show called <em>Texas Crude</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> at Co-Lab, and this other guy was like ‘That is just so, so wrong.’ </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;">The cliché piece is different—when I made “Ode to Joy”, I just came onto a panel, a watercolor panel, once. It was almost like I was playing a game with myself: “This is something you kind of judge, why don’t you just do it.” Then I did it, and thought, “This is funny, I’m going to do this for a while.” So then I kept doing it, and it was lying around in my house and some people saw it and I would either claim what it was to people or not, depending on who they were and what my mood was. But that was really different than the cliché piece. The cliché piece is stenciled, and so I painted that with semen, rather than came onto something. So, there was some planning involved with that. I used Helvetica because I think Helvetica is the most traditional. I was really worried when I made it because it started to bleed. You can see that little cloud under, where it did seep at the beginning. But then the actual film held, and made the letters pronounced, which I was so happy about. I liked the people’s reactions. I liked the approach - I’m really anal about my artwork anyway, so the same way I approached cutting out trees endlessly, is the same way I made that stencil piece. I tried to be as on point about it as I could. I thought about it a lot; “How am I going to create a Helvetica version of cliché and literally have it be close to as perfect as I can make it with semen?” you know what I mean? So the first piece is kind of like daring myself to come on stuff and see how I feel about it, and the second piece is, “Well, you’ve done that, and what other more advanced ways can you use your own semen?” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> First of all, I love that you said “playing a game with yourself” with a straight face. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> [Laughing] It is a game. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> I guess I knew it was Helvetica, but didn’t think about it. Then I read the title on the sheet, and ‘Helvetica’ is part of the title, so it finally got me to watch that Helvetica documentary that came out a couple of years ago. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Oh, I haven’t seen that. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> It’s been in my Netflix queue, and I had tickets to the opening in Austin, but in my head I was just thinking “I don’t want to go watch a documentary about a font.” So, I didn’t go to the showing, and I didn’t watch it for the last few months. But this morning I thought, “Well now I have an interesting thing to think about when I watch this.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> Actually, there’s this one other funny thing, on the topic of the semen pieces. This one guy at that show, he asked me “Well, do you, uh, did you masturbate every time that you came onto the panel?” And I was like, “What do you think that I did!? Like I brought this 9x12 board into my sex life?” Man, that would be fifteen times, or a million times crazier to me…bringing my work into my actual sexual life? I mean, I suppose masturbating kind of is my sexual life, but it’s not like I brought this thing in with other people at all times for a year! And have to explain it to a lover?: “Oh yeah, I’m working really hard on this piece…” I guess with the dude, masturbation was still kind of taboo to him or something. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>F:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> You’d probably have to give your partners a commission too, or something. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;"> [Laughs] Yeah. This is funny. I loved that question. That was one of my favorite questions. “Did you masturbate on this?” Yeah. Yes I did. </span></p> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">August 2010</div> </div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-6472554008793673282010-09-16T13:29:00.000-07:002010-09-16T13:30:40.420-07:00<div class="node node-content_zingchat "> <h2 class="title"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/node/1274">INTERVIEW: Noah Eli Gordon</a></h2> <div class="content"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/zingmagazine/ELIGORDON.jpg" height="369" width="369" /> </p> <p> </p><div class="Section1"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Eli_Gordon">Noah Eli Gordon</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> is the author of several books, including <em>Novel Pictorial Noise </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">(Harper Perennial, 2007), which was selected by John Ashbery for the 2006 National Poetry Series Open Competition and chosen for the 2007 San Francisco State University Poetry Center Book Award, <em>A</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> <em>Fiddle Pulled from the Throat of a Sparrow </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">(New Issues Press, 2007), and <em>The Area of Sound Called the Subtone </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">(Ahsahta Press, 2004). He’s the co-publisher of Letter Machine Editions and an Assistant Professor in the MFA program in Creative Writing at The University of Colorado–Boulder. He has a new book forthcoming from Futurepoem Books next year. Visit his PennSound page here: </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Garamond;"><span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(0, 102, 204);">http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Gordon-Noah-Eli.php</span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Interview by Rachel Cole</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> I notice a persistent gesture in your work in which poems take on the subject of music (and also emphasize musicality in the line). I believe (and perhaps I’m incorrect) that you worked at a radio station for a time and play music (or did play). What came first for you, in this life, poetry or music? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Noah Eli Gordon:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> I think anyone answering this question would have to say poetry, if only in the joy and frustration that comes from hearing the sound of one’s own voice for the first time, and realizing that that sound can just as easily obscure as express whatever one is after; it’s the babble of the newborn: give me food, hold me, etc. It always points toward its intentions with a crooked arrow. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">But to fast-forward a bit, the two were inexorably intertwined. Musicality is for me the foundation of the poem. Although I quit playing music in any serious way about a decade ago, I’ve been slowly finding my way back. The problem is I was never any good as a musician. I mostly played in punk and noise bands, so that didn’t seem to matter. Sure, I had heart, not much else. Recently, my wife has been teaching me to sing in key; really, just teaching me how to listen. We actually performed a song together in NYC about a month ago, a cover of Big Star’s <em>Thirteen</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">. I practiced singing it with her dozens of times. At the show, she ended up forgetting the chords and we did a sort of dissonant version of it. I suppose obscurity and expression come full circle. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> There is frequently a line of philosophical questioning in your work related to repetition and representation. There is the texture of echo and things ricocheting but beyond that there is also a deliberate, disorienting synaesthesia that makes sound “visible” within a poem (“miming the music / of one digging a ditch” – from <em>A Fiddle Pulled from the Throat of a Sparrow</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">) for example. Is this gesture related to a reworking of Ezra Pound’s idea that a poem is a unit composed of phanopoeia (image) and melopoeia (music)? How does repetition and echo relate to image or music, for you? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>NEG:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> What about logopoeia? the dance of the mind around the two? For me, representation is suspect, a construct, a dream, something one can only approach, never attain. It’s like those spots in one’s vision after staring at a bright light; look directly toward them and they veer away. I admire the poem that moves askance around its subject, that circles and stalks. Repetition is one way to do this, although that too is suspect, suspect as a term. Gertrude Stein asked, “Is there repetition or is there insistence. I am inclined to believe there is no such thing as repetition.” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I, too, am inclined to believe this Heraclitian dilemma. The river changes, context changes, even echoes are about change. As Stevens famously argued, “It must change.” And if that change includes a little disorientation, well, that works for me. I’d rather a poem lead me to bewilderment than grip my hand too tightly and tell me exactly where to go and what to do when I get there. Our literature needn’t treat us like automatons. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> Music is also about the silences and this is a subject you address throughout your work. A theatre (essentially, an area for the presentation of music) caves in, there are “silent film gestures,” a handful of poems end with a sudden negation. It seems that silence is frequently where meaning erupts in a poem. Is “silence” something the energy of your work reaches for? Why or why not? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>NEG:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> It’s not silence as much as it is moments of shift that I find intriguing, moments when something’s cracked, changing, aware of itself. A skipping CD, a hair in the projector. These relate to silence in the way silence allows one to hear what’s come before more fully, and to harvest attention for what’s about to happen. I’m interested in the outline of things, the wire mesh of the screen door disappearing into the view of whatever’s outside. Writing can do the same thing; it can be wholly absorptive—the words dissolving into the experience of reading—or it can shout about its own materiality. I suppose I work to allow both options simultaneous agency. </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> What strikes me about your innovative use of metaphorical language is how frequently it starts with the symbolic but reaches outward beyond itself into something else without context, and winds its way into another symbol. For example:</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 40.5pt 0.0001pt 67.5pt; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">If we could use a radio to wipe out the hum of a tuning fork’s indecision about where music begins & sound just sounds, then even the staggered rhythm might catch on something less solid, closer to the core of consciousness where what’s bound to be symphony in the personal sense is our appreciation in static, laughing at private music, a station like that of the cross.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: right;" class="MsoNormal" align="right"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">from 93.7, <em>The Frequencies</em></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">This is not typical use of metaphor and simile. We begin with an emotional, anthropomorphized radio, work our way through a strange set of dichotomies about music (comparing the beginning of music to sound that just sounds, and comparing symphonies to personal static), then end up with the religious iconography of stations of the cross (playing on the word “station,” which in this work usually refers to a radio station). Do you have a personal, critical stance on the structure of metaphors (and/or symbols)? What is the purpose, in your view, of symbolic language in poetry? </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>NEG:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> Well, the things of the world only point to themselves; it’s we who are disposed to making them into something more. This disposition is essentially a product of language, and my only critical stance on the use of language—metaphoric, symbolic, etc.—is one of advocacy for the eradication of received ideas and orthodoxy about what a writer can do with it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">I love stretching rhetorical expectations, mixing metaphors, antiquated syntax, run-on sentences, any place that it seems the structural certainties might break open, bloom into something new and unexpected. I don’t think symbolism in poetry is all that interesting when it functions as a kind of ornate riddle studded with vacuous, filigreed synonyms. Things should correspond in a way that respects a reader’s intelligence, a way that carves out a thinking space but doesn’t demand one to blindly follow. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> When I saw you read at the Dikeou Collection in the summer of 2007, you read from <em>A Fiddle Pulled from the Throat of a Sparrow</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, and you mentioned that the line, “the window shows it’s time to get up” was “found text” you overheard from a child. The “reverse memoir,” <em>INBOX</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, is essentially all found text. Is found text a consistent technique in your work? What qualities does a found piece of text have that you decide to select it for having space in a poem? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>NEG:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> Even if I said it, I have a problem with the phrase “found text,” as it implies a kind of haphazard, uninformed yet lucky accident. Sure, sometimes that’s the case; it certainly was with the line you quote here, which came from a six-year-old. It was striking to me in that it encapsulated a moment of language set free from codified usage. To say: “the window shows it’s time to get up” rather than “it’s morning” or “it’s light outside” is not only more raw but also, somehow, more accurate. It’s a shame we’re so quickly indoctrinated. A little continual wonder goes a long way. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">That said, I wouldn’t make any distinction between something inherently poetic about sampled, appropriated, quoted, collaged, or otherwise-lifted-from-the-ether language and that which one writes in a more traditional manner. In fact, there was a time when one could make a living by reciting rearranged lines from Homer. Our use of “other” material is as old as our first makings of it. For me, it all depends on context, on the aims of a particular piece of writing. Some of my books were originally written entirely by hand on small notebooks I carry in my pocket, some were built with elaborate structural underpinnings that involved sculpting already extant text. Really, it’s about allowing myself to be forever open to change, to new techniques, to never falling into a rut. I think art is at its core a harnessing of contrasts. I mean this as much in the compositional phase as in whatever end result one is after. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> A poem is a meditative thing and requires some focused attention to meaningfully read, to say nothing of the writing of poems. How do you think technology (particularly the web, Google Books, kindle) will effect the publication and dispersal of poetry? Is the book-as-object soon to be vintage? What is the significance of poetry in tangible book form? And in that same vein, how do you think the fast, flashy experience of technology changes how readers read?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>NEG:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> I don’t necessarily agree with your initial assertion here. There are many poems interested in other modes of engagement: environmental work like Ashbery’s <em>Three Poems</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">, which calls for a kind of sidewise attention and would frustrate any attempt at, say, logically tracing its pronouns throughout; Tan Lin’s ambient works, which explore states of boredom and relaxation; those grand, sprawling, mid-period books by Bernadette Mayer and Clark Coolidge, with their exhaustive attempt to get everything into the writing. In fact, sometimes I find myself more enthralled by writing that doesn’t want me to pay attention to it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">As for the other questions here, I don’t enjoy reading on the internet. If there’s an article longer than a few paragraphs, I always print it out first. For me, the book is a technological marvel that will remain valid, present, and ubiquitous. Someone gave me a kindle as a present about a year ago. It’s currently gathering dust on a shelf (and that’s only because I couldn’t figure out how to sell it). </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> <em>INBOX</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> takes on the subject of technology, blending together voices from 200 emails you had in your inbox on 9/11/2004. You essentially took private content off the Internet and recontextualized it in book form. Why did you decide that the ultimate form of the project should be in a bound book? Why not regurgitate it back onto the Internet somewhere?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>NEG:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> See my answer above!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> You’ve done several collaborations with other poets and a painter. When I saw you read in Denver from <em>Figures for a Darkroom Voice</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> with Joshua Marie Wilkinson, you and Joshua both said that, “Neither of you could remember who wrote what.” What is the process of writing a collaborative work? At what point, in the making of a collaboration, does ownership of a poem, or the elements in a poem, recede in importance?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>NEG:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> Doesn’t ownership of a poem always recede? I’d hope so. Our poems leave us the moment they’re read by someone else. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The process for collaboration is always different. If you’re interested in the specifics of the book I’d done with Josh, here’s a little note on that I’d originally written for <em>Lungfull! Magazine</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">:</span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0.5in 10pt; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">The near decade I’d spent in Northampton, MA was one rife with collaborative projects, never lacking in fellow conspirators. I think collaboration, in its ability to tout a seemingly lowered sense of individual investment in a particular work, more than anything else, allows one the comfort to take massive risks, turning one’s editing machine to idle, and, implicitly, constructing, along with whatever actual work of art, a widening of allowance as far as how one might proceeded in the future, whether alone or not. Of course, investment is hopefully there in the end, but, if one is true to the collaboration, it sneaks up, leaks in, and lords over with benevolence this beast with two fronts. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0.5in 10pt; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Imagine having at 50 mph to continually switch from sidecar to motorcycle during a cross-country trip. Well, it’s an image a bit more exciting than passing back and forth a small notebook while slinging back coffee and trying to ignore horrendous world music filling a café. If the poem requires a bit of pulling away from the world, then isn’t it nice to know one doesn’t have to be so damn self-obsessed to do it? Hey, if I’m going to jump off that bridge I sure hope someone’s willing to walk me through it. Don’t you feel a little awkward going to the movies alone? Anyhow, moving last year to Denver carried along with it the fear of losing simpatico compatriots willing to conquer collaborativille. Then I met Joshua Marie Wilkinson. Over the course of our first few conversations, it was clear that, as far as contemporary poetry goes, we inhabited a very small tuft of common ground. I think our aesthetic disagreements were generative, forcing us as they did to articulate to one another, as much to ourselves, why we where repelled by or responded to different works. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0.5in 10pt; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">What we did share was the energetic motivation to continually explore poetry on all fronts, that, and a huge respect for Graham Foust’s work. It’s enough to set things in action. <em>Figures for a Darkroom Voice</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> began with us passing the aforementioned notebook back and forth during a plane ride, trading sentences. This was in March of 2006. Josh’s first sentence reads, “Yet, stars pull the sleep out of us.” And mine: “Intrinsically, every moving thing likes a hallway.” As we’re very different writers, it made for an interesting experience. After a few months of meeting every couple of days to pound out three or four pages of full prose, trading off sentences all the while, and accumulating 50 pages of work, we hit on a procedural breakthrough: instead of passing the notebook after writing complete sentences, we let them end mid-point, forcing us to finish, twist, or totally alter each other’s trail of thought. For example, Josh wrote: “Noise keeps coming from the red radio even after—” and I continued: “its dainty refinement orchestrated a disbelief in electricity.” Now, what was beginning to feel after a few months like a chore was again exciting. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0.5in 10pt; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">It took us almost the entire summer to fill the notebook—100 pages of whacked-out sentences. Although, we were attune to running with each other’s imagery and ideas, often threading back into the project older elements to attempt a ghostlike narrative background. By this point, we’d clocked in hundreds of hours on the project. The looming editing process seemed massive, like a staircase requiring a ladder to ascend each step. Okay, maybe just like a really long staircase and a pair of worn-down sneakers with no traction. Whatever the (stair)case, we did have to reckon with how we were going to type the thing. If you’ve ever received a letter from me, I’m sure it’s clear how clouded my handwriting can be. We had to spend one of Denver’s late summer 100-plus degree heat waves cramped in Josh’s small office while I dictated for hours on end, him diligently typing all the while. Fully digitized, we’d float the document back and forth via email, cutting and pasting, splicing and grafting, lots of it moving toward the garbage bin. At one point we’d collectively created 20 sonnets, 80 prose poems, and about 60 pages of triadic haiku-like fragments. Arbitrarily, the decision to go for 70 pages of working material was made, and somehow it gave to the work a balance between what William James calls the substantive and the transitive; it’s all over the place, but one is able to now and again get some footing. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> Tell me a bit about your forthcoming projects we have to look forward to. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>NEG:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> I have a book coming out next year with Futurepoem Books. Early versions of some of it can be found here: </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><a href="http://www.conjunctions.com/webcon/gordon10.htm">http://www.conjunctions.com/webcon/gordon10.htm</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><a href="http://www.shadowboxmagazine.org/issue1/Bottle7.pdf">http://www.shadowboxmagazine.org/issue1/Bottle7.pdf</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">Here's a brief process note about the book:</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">From January of 2008 to September of 2009, I read only page 26 of nearly ten thousand books at the Denver Public Library, culling from them bits of language, which I then fused together, altering some nouns to read <em>the Source</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> so they become reflective of the parameters of the project. At its core, the book is a prose cento, a continuation of a practice dating from the Homeric song stitchers of antiquity to current trends in hip-hop culture and electronic music; however, it’s also a testament to the interconnectedness and mutability of all writing, as well as an exploration of the notion of origins, both textual and spiritual. The choice of page 26, while obviously corresponding to the amount of letters present in the English alphabet, is also important in Kabbalist terms; it represents the numerical value of the Tetragrammaton, the four Hebrew letters that form the name of God. Additionally, according to the Talmud, the Torah would have been revealed during the 26th generation of the history of the world; thus, it is Moses who, 26 generations after Adam, receives the Torah transmitted by God. Interestingly, by using a correspondence table, where each letter is given in ascending order a numerical value (A=1, B=2, C=3, etc.), the name of God in English has a total value (G=7, O=15, D=4) of 26. The problems of numerology aside, I undertook this project in order to investigate whether or not constraint-based, conceptual writing might have a spiritual dimension. It is now my belief that rigid and systemic modes of writing can embody an emotionally charged engagement with the world.</span></p> </div> <div class="Section1"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span>Read a new selection from <em>the Source</em> here:</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> <a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/noaheligordon.pdf" target="_blank" title="This external link will open in a new window">http://www.zingmagazine.com/noaheligordon.pdf</a></span></div> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> </span></p> </div> <div class="submitted"> <div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author">zingmagazine</a></div> <div class="year">July 2010</div> </div> </div>Brandon Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06555997155172921274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-11406089713984828812010-05-19T20:43:00.000-07:002010-05-19T21:29:56.366-07:00INTERVIEW: Enoc Perez<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZmS4CeS1mN0MnSrYikEh2og0rLW3IHOdePd9MK4al4B6mn6CTo8y67Va721WUITOSZvthJ4vVDJi0gIlU3IA-HBEUnjYi0TR8DHj7owHX8UNX2pOMTihcgipOytP6LAJ4JZy6YBUgSsY/s1600/enoc.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZmS4CeS1mN0MnSrYikEh2og0rLW3IHOdePd9MK4al4B6mn6CTo8y67Va721WUITOSZvthJ4vVDJi0gIlU3IA-HBEUnjYi0TR8DHj7owHX8UNX2pOMTihcgipOytP6LAJ4JZy6YBUgSsY/s200/enoc.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473204642445260258" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><div class="content" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; "><div align="left"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong><a href="http://enocperez.com/index.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Enoc Perez</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> first approached us with a project during lunch at Felix on a sunny day in Soho, New York.<span> </span>His project, “Form by Memory,” is multimedia – with watercolors, digital photos, polaroids, sketches, photos of paintings in situ, and even drink stirrers from Puerto Rican hotels.<span> </span>A divergence from his architectural paintings created via brushless paint transfer, we enthusiastically accepted the project for zingmagazine #22 (due out later this year).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Interview by Brandon Johnson</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">What is it about architecture that interests you?<span> </span>Why use it as a subject for paintings?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Enoc Perez: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">I see buildings as metaphors, as abstractions. I like how architecture can embody ideas, "the future", progress, enlightenment, optimism, etc. In fact it can project ideas in any direction. To paint architecture is to paint ideas. It is to paint an abstract reflection of current society.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong> </strong></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Do certain architectural styles appeal to you more than others?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EP: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Sure I like some architecture more than others but I find that there is a lot to like. Generally I like everything from Greek Architecture to Bauhaus, Modern, International Style, Mid-Century Modern, Brutalist to Green Building. I follow my attraction, my taste is a bit promiscuous.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">You’ve mentioned that there’s a utopian quality to your work – a belief in painting as opposed to questioning the medium.<span> </span>What, in your opinion, is the place of belief in art?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EP: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Belief is to me important in art. And I mean to believe in art. A significant part of the existence of art has to do with the artist believing in his or her art and those whom believe in the artist work. People believing in art is part of what brings art to life. My friend Tony Shafrazi once told me that art was "his religion". I think that comment goes to the heart of what I am trying to address here. It is the trust that art can make a difference, change or improve our perception of ourselves; the trust that art is important.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Does belief extend to the viewer of art?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EP: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Of course, it is central for the viewer to be in it. It is a connection that completes the process.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">I’ve been a fan since you first proposed your project over a lunch in Soho. The multi-media project seems to showcase a process rather than a product.<span> </span>Is this a glimpse into your painting process?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EP: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">I remember the lunch and yes this project is about some aspects of my painting process. I was just giving some physicality to my thought process. When it comes to my work, I am as exited about the process as I am about the finished idea.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">The drink stirrers are a great touch – they add tactile detail to the art deco modernist style you are surveying.<span> </span>Do you collect them?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EP: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">I have a beautiful collection of drink stirrers. From all over the world, I think that I have over a thousand. I love them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">You have a series of architectural monochromes upcoming at Galerie Michael Janssen during Berlin Gallery Week.<span> </span>Why monochrome?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EP: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">I wanted to see what I could do with a very disciplined palette. I also felt that it was important to untangle my painting process, break every rule that I had set for myself. For years I did not used brushes in the making of my paintings, the new paintings are done with brushes. I like the new work, making it has been renewing. Sometimes you have to burn your own house in order to create something new.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Anything else you have coming up / are working on that we should know about?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EP: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Next year I have an exhibition in a museum in Murcia Spain called "The Cannery". I also have gallery shows in Europe and in NY.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Enoc has new works on exhibit at <strong><a href="http://www.galeriemichaeljanssen.de/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Galerie Michael Janssen</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> in Berlin through June 19<sup>th</sup>.</span></p></div></div><div class="submitted" style="margin-bottom: 8px; "><div class="author"><br /></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 99, 0); ">zingmagazine</a></div><div class="location"></div><div class="year">May 2010</div></div></span>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05777122113671792079noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-35588875386816644722010-05-19T19:52:00.001-07:002010-05-19T20:42:45.284-07:00INTERVIEW: Roy McMakin<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDKPi1TlzKX_g5nsq5711qPUN4XxEIz_vam38j8Xzm6rj0MXiAo0SS-tzEije_Ww2004Qm-PyT-JEvcucqIPyJndJFaEcFCGElHNPyg-zfHMlAwYwVl6FBg7sDlZgHIvZ1rvNqOGG01ZI/s1600/roy.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDKPi1TlzKX_g5nsq5711qPUN4XxEIz_vam38j8Xzm6rj0MXiAo0SS-tzEije_Ww2004Qm-PyT-JEvcucqIPyJndJFaEcFCGElHNPyg-zfHMlAwYwVl6FBg7sDlZgHIvZ1rvNqOGG01ZI/s200/roy.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473192433015088338" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwAZsnu_em1Sojhq4VcHWo_GgE6KRYtdOTeth0vwWE5AM38ldVRwcOfX4bEjkkjxvWvCedgPrSjasnsaaCNWVuAaRQfNK2JaKeWBvsT5gcwEND04TFYP-fZfcw1RV1EGMA84jA4-iZpPQ/s1600/roy2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwAZsnu_em1Sojhq4VcHWo_GgE6KRYtdOTeth0vwWE5AM38ldVRwcOfX4bEjkkjxvWvCedgPrSjasnsaaCNWVuAaRQfNK2JaKeWBvsT5gcwEND04TFYP-fZfcw1RV1EGMA84jA4-iZpPQ/s200/roy2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473192183004018450" /></a><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><div class="content" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; "><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>A Wall Sculpture of a Drop Leaf Table</em>, 2010, Enamel paint on maple, 75-1/2 x 29-1/2 x 48 inches (views from front and side)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">I’m a sucker for multi-disciplined artists, so being introduced to the work of <strong><a href="http://www.domesticfurniture.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Roy McMakin</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> made me feel like a kid in the candy shop. McMakin is a furniture maker/designer extraordinaire with commissions like The Getty Museum on his resume. He is an artist/object maker—showing internationally not just at <strong><a href="http://www.lorareynolds.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Lora Reynolds</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> in Austin, TX but also at the Matthew Marks Gallery in NY. And he is a highly acclaimed architect with wonderfully fanciful and naturally familiar domiciles—domiciles immensely cherished by his clients in his portfolio. I’m a huge fan of his website </span><strong><span style=" ;font-size:9pt;color:purple;"><u><a href="http://www.demestic/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;color:purple;">www.domestic</span></a></u></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:purple;"><u>architecture.com</u></span></strong><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong> </strong>so be sure to check it out, he just released a monograph “Roy McMakin: When Is a Chair Not a Chair”, and he has a solo show, <em>In and On</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">, at Lora Reynolds in Austin, TX. Did I say he is multi-disciplined . . .</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Devon Dikeou:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Your fluency with color both in your architectural pieces and individual works is such a force, whereas in the works at Lora Reynolds there are just moments of color and White is an overall theme that you deftly contrast among all the pieces in the exhibition . . .</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">The white chair holds the Eames-like airport chair station</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">The white colors play Mondrian games on your tabletop canvas</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">The white contact paper reassembles the dresser—almost holding it together</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">The white netting meshes together the book photo series, as does the white of the book’s paper</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">And well, the pillows and pedestals are white</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">What does white mean to you?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Roy McMakin:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> What does white MEAN to me?<span> </span>Hmmm, meaning in color is such a wonderful riddle.<span> </span>I often remember as a child both considering and discussing with other kids what one’s favorite color is, with great seriousness.<span> </span>In a way it’s one of the early “things” I tried to make sense of.<span> </span>So, on to white.<span> </span>It’s not a color, so in a way I am released from all my varied and intense color baggage.<span> </span>Which is important at times.<span> </span>But then again, it’s as much a color as any other color.<span> </span>I sometimes pretend it’s really invisible paint, not white paint.<span> </span>Or underwear.<span> </span>Which is to say white pretends it’s neutral (like black, only white) and instead it’s the most loaded of colors to me.<span> </span>I think the white of my slatback chair is trying to be discrete in the same way the modernity of the Eames (I think they are real Eames, or at least Herman Miller) tries to be discrete.<span> </span>In a sense it exposes all the chairs for being filled with meaning and stuff. And the slight kinkiness of that piece wouldn’t be there if the chairs were not white, I think.<span> </span>But dorky kinky, like a flasher still wearing underwear.<span> </span>And white allows shadows to be seen the easiest of any color.<span> </span>Which is partly why I painted the dresser white (it’s not contact paper), as it asserts the sculpturalness of the thing.<span> </span>I could go on and on and on, as I think about this a lot, but don’t always get to be articulate about it, but you have other questions……</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> The tabletop piece “A Wall Sculpture of a Drop Leaf Table”—in which you literally attach a table to the wall—is a play on minimalism’s fight to find the end of painting’s practice. It creates what is a white painting, cum sculpture, cum installation. How did you come to this point?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>R McM:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Actually, it is just a table, on a wall. .<span> </span>It matters to me that it is a real table.<span> </span>I mostly see it as a love poem to a table.<span> </span>I kinda think it’s heart breaking in a way.<span> </span>It’s so pretty, even aspiring towards transcendence, but it’s just a table.<span> </span>And you can’t even use it, at least while its on the wall.<span> </span>I see it as about function/dysfunction, perception and how objects reveal themselves.<span> </span>And it is about painting, and sculpture, and furniture.<span> </span>I found in my journey with objects that minimalism helped me see objects, so I think of it less a play on minimalism than attempt to demonstrate the potentiality of both transcendence and mundaneness within objects, even the same object.<span> </span>Maybe it’s partially about “point of view”.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Your objects often reflect the architectural space that they occupy. Did you employ the architecture in the gallery, or the architecture in Austin as source material or did you make this exhibition work with a neutral sphere/space in mind.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>R McM:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> I hadn’t seen Lora’s gallery before I conceived this show, but I had done a previous show in her previous space, and I looked at the floor plans of this space a lot.<span> </span>So I definitely conceived this show for this space.<span> </span>I have wanted to build the table piece for a while, but seeing in my mind how it would work on the wall where we hung it was where I started.<span> </span>Then I came up with the title and then conceived the rest.<span> </span>I like the title.<span> </span>I might use it again.<span> </span>And, of course, I did the show with Lora and her lovely gallery team in mind.<span> </span>They are all so smart and serious about what they do I wanted to do a really great show.<span> </span>In other words I wanted to do a show that moved my investigation along in a serious way.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> It seems you connect often with the work of somewhat indigenous architects i.e. Ellsworth Storey—Seattle, Irving Gill—California, and clearly to a lot of indigenous American styles from Shaker to Craftsman, to Mission and Prairie. Let us know your feelings about these influences/relationships. Have you heard about Austin’s own local hero/architect Abner Cook?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>R McM:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> I tend to connect with proto or pre modern architects a lot.<span> </span>I don’t completely know why, but I think because they addressed of lot of things in a completely contemporary way; at times, I think, even more contemporary (to me at least) than the next generation of architects.<span> </span>I like architecture that can be rigorous but still be charming and sweet.<span> </span>I am very American in the way I see things, I’m kinda a homebody.<span> </span>And I don’t know Abner Cook’s work—will you show me when I’m in Austin next?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Back in the ‘80s there was this commentary in the <em>Village Voice</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> about Jennifer Bartlett’s work at Paula Cooper. She was showing these paintings with lots of dark colors and flashes of bright orange. In front of the paintings she displayed bright orange objects, like a table for example. The <em>Voice </em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">commentary quoted a collector out of Ms Cooper’s range asking her spouse if it was, “Okay to put the table in the closet?” should they buy the coveted piece. First of all, it seems that people that live with your work love it! And you embrace the idea that your works play with the line between object of desire and usability, and blur ownership and user. Can you talk about this in relation to the work shown at Lora Reynolds?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>R McM:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> The functional use of an art object is so interesting.<span> </span>I figured out long ago that if, as an artist, you allow folks to use your works it changes everything.<span> </span>I think this is a deeply profound notion, and also kinda silly.<span> </span>I think I reached out to objects as a child for psychological reasons, and they were there for me.<span> </span>At one level they were safe because they didn’t cause me harm, but they were really just the remnants of human behavior.<span> </span>I went looking for love in objects because I wasn’t finding it in other places in my life.<span> </span>As love seeking beings we can be keen readers of it.<span> </span>I was looking for objects that were the physical manifestations of love.<span> </span>And these were sometimes paintings and sometimes a chair.<span> </span>It didn’t really matter to me—I couldn’t see hierarchies as a kid.<span> </span>But my career has been bumping up against the very real hierarchies of objects since the beginning.<span> </span>My stuff at Lora’s exists in a funny place where the usability is both implied and real, but also kinda ridiculous.<span> </span>I think I do that to engage, demonstrate and illustrate the issue of use versus non physical contemplation, which I think is very real, but that in my own life I am nearly blind to.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Explain your relationship to building/designing objects as opposed to choosing/co-opting already designed objects or existing objects and manipulating them to achieve your ends? This is particularly true in “My Slatback Chair with a Pair of Attached Chairs” . . .</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>R McM:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Well, that all depends on what my ends are.<span> </span>And my goal is generally a combination of exploring my romantic relationship with certain objects and trying to manipulate a viewers experience to replicate what I experience with objects.<span> </span>Basically, I see the playing with the difference between found objects and those made by me as one of the tools in my belt to get my point across.<span> </span>I guess what I am saying is, I see it as kinda the same thing, only different.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> With all your pieces, initially it seems it is all “exterior”—how the outside of these objects are perceived. Perhaps address what’s going on “inside” (the drawers/pages) “underneath” (the pillows/table) “below” and “in between” (the chairs) . . . maybe speak about what is behind Oz’s Curtain?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>R McM:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Hmmmmm, I don’t know if it’s Oz’s curtain.<span> </span>I don’t think there is a little man inside making my stuff work.<span> </span>People know how to make them work.<span> </span>Everyone knows what to do with a table.<span> </span>Even one on a wall I assume. A book is always an exterior object until it is read.<span> </span>One could suggest that the people are missing, not the interiors.<span> </span>Or are they.<span> </span>You were there.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Roy McMakin’s<em> In and On</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> is on view at Lora Reynolds Gallery, 360 Nueces, Suite 50, Austin TX, Tues - Sat 11am-6pm, through May 15<sup>th</sup>.<span> </span>Visit <strong><a href="http://www.lorareynolds.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">www.lorareynolds.com</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> for details.</span></p></div><div class="submitted" style="margin-bottom: 8px; "><div class="author"><br /></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 99, 0); ">zingmagazine</a></div><div class="location"></div><div class="year">April 2010</div></div></span>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05777122113671792079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-28872039776428142372010-05-19T19:50:00.000-07:002010-05-19T21:30:58.457-07:00INTERVIEW: Rainer Ganahl<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvfJxYNHkVLSq9NrMcpJP7gib3cSqk9nRHO2iCfYpvmcjzrhe8QoNpWZu_-W810CsavZXRcqvfqVqvXRjtnyd82EfGuj-aZ6jIpnAV5KH5Tlcm4TiFBWhZSCe7kpKk2DZMnl2GkFLGwcE/s1600/Rainer.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvfJxYNHkVLSq9NrMcpJP7gib3cSqk9nRHO2iCfYpvmcjzrhe8QoNpWZu_-W810CsavZXRcqvfqVqvXRjtnyd82EfGuj-aZ6jIpnAV5KH5Tlcm4TiFBWhZSCe7kpKk2DZMnl2GkFLGwcE/s200/Rainer.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473205009711507586" /></a><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><div class="content" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; "><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong><a href="http://ganahl.info/alexzachary2010.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Rainer Ganahl’s</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> <strong><em>Language of Emigration & Pictures of Emigration</em></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> is now on view at <strong><a href="http://alexzachary.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Alex Zachary Gallery</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">.<span> </span>The show consists of video interviews with German-speaking migrants who came to New York to escape Nazi persecution.<span> </span>The videos are accompanied by photos of the interiors of their New York apartments.<span> </span>Part of Ganahl’s art practice focuses on the study of foreign language.<span> </span>These migrants are all German-speaking, as the Austrian-born Ganahl is himself.<span> </span>However, Ganahl’s interview partners “carry with them a language that has vanished” – preserving the German idioms and accents once used in 20th-century Europe that are now out of use.<span> </span>Ganahl explores how language “works in the mind of the speakers and messes with memory, grammar, syntax, and personal lexica…The relationship between language, trauma, and loss became audible.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Interview by Brandon Johnson</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong>How did you find the German emigrants / New York residents you interviewed? Are these your neighbors?<span> </span>Where do they live in New York?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Rainer Ganahl: </strong>I found most of these interviewees with the help of other people I had previously interviewed. This project, which I started at the end of the 1990s with the title: “Language of Emigration,” consists of interviews and photographs of former Nazi victims and Holocaust survivors. I’m interested in how trauma, forced emigration, distance, and loss has influenced the mother tongues of these mostly German speaking people who have been living in New York for many decades. Each work combines a lengthy unedited video interview with photographs taken of the people and their homes.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Several years ago I was seated in an airplane next to a lady with such a fate and became very curious and perplexed. I was very surprised and realized that many people of that horrific period of European history are still living among us with quite a few in New York, which is also my home town of choice for the last 20 years. As an Austrian born after WWII, I simply and naively couldn’t imagine the proximity and continuation of such a brutal time.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong>Mary Silverman’s interview was recorded in her apartment, but she did not physically appear in her video, unlike the other interviewees.<span> </span>Why was this?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>RG: </strong>She decided not to be in seen on camera, hence the camera pointed to one “of her China sets which she was able to recuperate from Austria.” Her interview is called “Pictures of Emigration” since the subject of her story is not only about how they saved their own lives through a lucky escape from Nazism, but also the near complete restitution of her father’s incredible art collection relatively soon after the war. This collection, consisting of several Rubens, a painting by Lukas Cranach, and a work by Botticelli, is now still hanging in a private apartment on the upper West side, with flowers touching the canvases and barely any climate control. In front of a Rubens, there is a flat TV screen and other contemporary objects that seem uncompetitive with the history of these fine and valuable paintings, creating quite a funny impression.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong>You mention that this particular group of people are “in possession of a language that has vanished” and that one of your interviewees used “theater-ready” German, a dialect no longer in common use.<span> </span>You say “Emigration[…]preserved idioms and accents[…]that have vanished back on the continent.”<span> </span>What happened to these dialects, idioms and accents?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>RG: </strong>Well, most of my interview partners left Europe in the 1930s and don’t speak German on a regular basis – hence they are speaking and preserving a language more or less as spoken at the time of their departure. Needless to say, every language mutates and so did German as well as any other language. You can see this in recordings of people in the 1930 and 1940s. Usually, people adapt in a linguistic context and change with the times. Not so with people who live outside their original linguistic environment.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">For example, Prague was part of the Austrian-Habsburg Empire until 1918 and had a large German speaking, partly Jewish population. Kafka was the most famous member of it. That group lived there until Hitler’s politics made it impossible for them. With the final eviction of all remaining German-speaking people from Prague in the 1940s – after the war – no German/Austrians lived there any longer. Nobody there could give us an idea of Kafka’s linguistic surrounding. I was therefore very surprised to hear an emigrant woman here in NYC who grew up in Prague in a fancy building that now houses the US embassy. As if to make it more “Kafkaesque” a letter by a Mrs. Kafka was on her table, with an US sender.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong>Along these same lines, do you consider it important to preserve these examples of language?<span> </span>Should all languages be preserved or is there a natural linguistic Darwinism?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>RG:</strong> I am not a linguistic preservationist. The world doesn’t need to be turned into a museum. Linguistic changes happen and there is a reason for it. One lady, speaking in a perfect recording-ready “historic” Austrian-German idiom told me that “today, in Vienna, even intellectuals speak like used to be only horse coachmen did.” This trend is, of course, a reflection that more people from lower classes found access to universities and knowledge.<span> </span>More attention is now paid to linguistic pluralism – hence using even regional dialects in discussing subjects that are beyond regional concerns. I myself am such a case.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">But for Language of Emigration, we are talking about a loss that is the result of brutal and abrupt circumstances. We are also talking about people that were ignored for a long time by their former perpetrators. When I was in school we got only rudimentiary information about these Nazi-atrocities and were not told that so many people were still living. So, getting an acoustic experience of a time destroyed was, for me, a bit like filling a void that we – post-war generations – all felt. Paying special attention to the linguistic nuances of this group of people was not only in line with the rest of my art work and my general interests (i.e. the ongoing studies of foreign languages as my art practice) but also a way to differ it from regular holocaust studies or the massive archive Spielberg has accumulated.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Your question about “natural linguistic Darwinism” I would answer with yes, if we can understand “natural” as socially made and driven by economics and politics. In this work we can see how traumatic political events followed by displacement and cultural loss played a crucial role in the lives and speeches of these emigrants --- often lives with undesirable accents.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">I’m not addressing here the problem of languages that disappear because of modernization, globalization, and the general destructive movements that characterized the 20<sup>th</sup> century, including the fundamental disturbance of the last indigenous people found far away from our understanding of “civilization.” Although disappearing languages cannot be preserved by orders and wishful thinking, they can and should be recorded and documented – an endeavor I recommend for anthropologists and anthropological linguistics.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong>The 20<sup>th</sup> century had a profound effect on language, especially with Western Imperialism running at full force.<span> </span>The meeting of cultures on a power-based level created a coercive relationship between the languages of the colonizer and the colonized.<span> </span>Many indigenous languages experienced violence and were driven to extinction or reduced to marginalized positions.<span> </span>However, some of those who learned the language of the colonizer could benefit, as Kurt Frankfurter did while in German concentration camps.<span> </span>Do you have any thoughts on political history and its effect on languages?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>RG: </strong>Kurt Frankfurter had an incredible history of survival based on his understanding that volunteering was saving his live. While volunteering on his day off, he not only got more to eat than during the entire work week but he also got to know the people who permanently made decisions over life and death in Auschwitz. He survived Auschwitz for nearly 3 years, which is extraordinary. To know his native German was indeed of help there. When I was spending a couple of months in Leningrad, during the end of the Soviet Era in 1991, I could observe the difference between those who spoke some foreign languages and those who knew only Russian: it was the difference between eating or not eating, the difference between knowing people from the West who had basically no choice but to go the markets where food was plenty but only affordable for those with access to Western money.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">One of the biggest changes in language politics that has gone unnoticed and unlamented for, but which affected half of the world, was the disappearance of Soviet Russia after the fall of the Iron Curtain. All former Soviet satellite-states, extending from Eastern Europe to Northeastern Asia, including African nations, used Russian as a common language. Beginning in the early 1990s the biggest linguistic forgetting campaign initiated and everybody switched to English as a lingua franca. Currently, I’m working on a video in which a German woman complains in front of a Karl Marx statue in Chinese that the entire world is now Chinese. The text is written so we see a world where English is supplanted by Chinese, as French was by English early last century. This scenario makes a lot of sense since we only have to listen to the products we are touching, using, and consuming which already only speak Chinese. I have been studying Chinese regularly since 1999 and it is a wonderful language that can be learned as easily as any other. But what’s really interesting (and very difficult but wonderful to train people’s minds) is the Chinese character being based on a non-phonetic writing system that requires all the qualities that are needed in today’s world economies: concentration, precision, visual memory and association all combined with a lot of stamina.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong> </strong></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong>A new system gained notoriety at the end of the 20<sup>th</sup> century.<span> </span>What sort of effect do you think the Internet has had on language?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>RG: </strong>Let take my own experience: I am definitely consulting on a daily basis foreign news media with a click of a finger and hence can read, see and listen to foreign languages. I also use it for my Chinese studies and can learn easily without extra costs and effort. Now to the net as such: when in the beginning it looked as if only English users were using the net, today we know that the entire world is doing so and very successfully. So, I think that the net is helping to proliferate the most dominant cultural formations through its medium in the same way to reflect their demographic, social and economical appeal and power – but not much more or less. So, if Chinese people as a demographic, economic and social force are spread over the globe, so are their communicational networks. But that goes with any group and invites even the smallest social groups to keep up with their imagined and now networked communities. It is a win-win for all be it the dominant linguistic and cultural hegemonies as well as the small and subordinate ones.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong>I noticed that the interviews were not all conducted in German.<span> </span>For example, Bertold Adler’s interview was in English.<span> </span>Why was this?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>RG: </strong>I always ask people whether they want to speak in German or in English and some prefer English. English is also a language that was not used during their sufferings. Hence, I was told several times that saying things in English was a way to distance themselves from the past. I had also some significant examples where interviews switch back and forth between the two languages – emphasizing their reaction and affection to what they said.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong>Alongside the interview videos are photographs of the interiors of your interviewees’ apartments.<span> </span>They all seem to follow distinct styles, a vernacular similar to the particular forms of language that were being preserved.<span> </span>Does this group of people play a similar role in preserving the idioms of interior décor, as well?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>RG: </strong>I was very struck how often I would see German and Austrian decorum in their houses even though they must have had enough of it. Looking through their libraries and across their floors and walls is a bit like scanning their present for their past. Not only do I give a picture to a story we were told only in the most abstract terms, but we also get an idea to what degree cultural influences persist and materialize. I was often told that it wasn’t the fault of the “German language” – something that could also be said of many German and Austrian materials I saw in their homes. I remember one woman who refused to speak to me in German and was still very bitter towards anything Austrian but she offered me Mannerschnitten (Viennese cookies available in NYC delis), used Austrian wooden furniture, Austrian China, and had images of Austria everywhere.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong>Diaspora can have the effect of strengthening cultural identification.<span> </span>People removed from their original geographic culture will value cultural tradition more than those in the homeland.<span> </span>However, these emigrants seem to have a more tenuous relationship with their cultures while maintaining the role of preservers.<span> </span>Could you give your perspective on how the people you interviewed relate to the cultures they left?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>RG: </strong>The Nazi persecution of Jews, Gypsies, Gays, Social Democrats, and many others who weren’t considered Aryan and participating in Nazi empire building was horrific and disastrous in its consequences for everybody involved. People I worked with over the course of my project were basically persecuted and attacked by the same people with whom they had lived in peace up to a certain moment. Most people were quite secular and anti-Semitism wasn’t as obvious before the arrival of Hitler. They most identified with their home culture before the dominance of Nazism. Hence, cultural identification for these elderly Germans and Austrians is not easy. I always ask how they feel about Austria and Germany and most of them like it quite a bit, yet show a certain hesitation. In most cases I have been embraced by the people I visited but sometimes I was told – like in the case of Frankfurter – that had I not been introduced by a person whom he trusted, he wouldn’t have talked to me. But this was more of an exception. Many do visit Austria or Germany regularly when they are (still) in a position to do so.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong><a href="http://ganahl.info/alexzachary2010.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Rainer Ganahl’s</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> <em>Language of Emigration & Pictures of Emigration</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> is on view at <strong><a href="http://alexzachary.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Alex Zachary Gallery</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> though April 25<sup>th</sup>, 16 East 77<sup>th</sup> Street, Thu – Sun 12-6pm.<span> </span>Visit<strong><a href="http://www.alexzachary.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">www.alexzachary.com</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> and <strong><a href="http://www.ganahl.info/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">www.ganahl.info</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> for details.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><br /></p></div><div class="submitted" style="margin-bottom: 8px; "><div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 99, 0); ">zingmagazine</a></div><div class="location"></div><div class="year">April 2010</div></div></span>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05777122113671792079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-88877204679786030662010-05-19T19:47:00.000-07:002010-05-19T21:32:32.874-07:00INTERVIEW: Parking Space<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8ZLs7Xd8_Bdw1LVe0q8oT5ETZ45jCShzXfdcX7S49GHeAab-S0ccJj5WBA_v44kzSSUY9PcJAJZcM21IDHygX9PsFGxX0ORyMeO2yjv3J5ASQzVQInQ3_bOAoM4KQnnTZuTLDhNgPO1M/s1600/parking.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8ZLs7Xd8_Bdw1LVe0q8oT5ETZ45jCShzXfdcX7S49GHeAab-S0ccJj5WBA_v44kzSSUY9PcJAJZcM21IDHygX9PsFGxX0ORyMeO2yjv3J5ASQzVQInQ3_bOAoM4KQnnTZuTLDhNgPO1M/s200/parking.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473205373565263506" /></a><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB9WG4hsf1giQnztcXtZVrWycVt3VJh6AfSrai5WXq6HO63uTCaa_NucPBpIMzOapNBeZBDGY0g2tYU2Bt5DGzBBxdXCclhct9F5V2AasVMomcCvUs2n_MQc_qTQfzZpb2Z8TOwyuVRsc/s1600/parking.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><br /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><div class="content" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; "><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Parking Space</strong>, a Chicago-based collaborative project initiated by <strong>Andrew J. Greene</strong>, <strong>E.J. Hill</strong>, and <strong>Matthew Schaffer</strong>, opened its second show, <em>This Is Not For Sale</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">, on March 12th.<span> </span><em>This Is Not For Sale</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> features work by Annie Purpura, Austin Eddy, Alexa Loftus, Danny Greene, Dorian McKaie, Karen Bovinich, Kristen VanDeventer, Nick Fraccaro, Nina Mayer, Tanner Veatch, and Xavier Jimenez.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Interview by <strong>Brandon Johnson</strong></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong> </strong></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Let’s start with your name. Where did it come from?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Matthew Schaffer:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> I think it was Andrew who came up with it. Our first show was in an abandoned garage and we thought it fitting.<span> </span>Then we thought that it could be used as a concept: us parking in other people’s spaces to do shows.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Andrew J. Greene:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Our name literally refers to the parking structure behind Matt’s apartment that housed our first show, but the idea of a “parking space” refers to the transitory nature of our curatorial practice as well as other “pop up art spaces” found commonly in Chicago.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EJ Hill:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> There was a two-car garage behind Matt’s apartment that wasn’t really being used for anything. Over the course of a couple months, we transformed the garage from a moldy storage space to Parking Space. And actually, we only had our first show there. That was the <em>Helter Sculpture</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> show at the end of October and it started getting really cold really quickly, so for our second show we moved things upstairs into Matt’s apartment. Then for <em>This Is Not For Sale</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">, we moved to my apartment. We’ve talked a bit about continuing to move around the city to different locations but keeping the name. So I think the name has taken on a completely different meaning since the days of the garage, but yes, Matt’s garage is where it all started.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Now you’re doing a show, <em>This Is Not For Sale</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">, exploring the apartment gallery, something that in my experience seems to be more prevalent in Chicago than other cities.<span> </span>Why do you think is?<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Andrew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> I think the alternative art space has thrived in Chicago for the past several decades due primarily to fairly low rent and a Midwestern pride that wants to react against more conventional venues for art viewing. Historically, Chicago has always been a place that has demands attention with an idiosyncratic voice… deep dish pizza, the Sears tower (I guess it is called the Willis Tower now…), Vienna beef, the Cubs.<span> </span>Maybe the apartment gallery is just the way our art community manifests that gimmick.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EJ</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">: Yeah, I’ve heard this a few times now actually, that Chicago has a rich tradition of apartment galleries and alternative spaces. I haven’t had much exposure to art communities in other cities, so I just assumed that apartment galleries were the norm. I saw a show recently at a space called Medicine Cabinet, which is literally a medicine cabinet in someone’s bathroom. And I haven’t seen this yet, but I’ve been hearing that there’s a gallery inside someone’s purse. This woman walks around with a purse and if you catch her on the street, she’ll open it to show you the current work that’s being exhibited. Bizarre, right? But that’s what I love about living here. It seems if you can think it, you can do it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> In the press release, you state “This Is Not For Sale refuses to ignore the conventions of the alternative art space, opting to embrace the opportunities implicit with operating outside the prevailing structure of the art community.” It seems strange to think of alternative art spaces abiding by conventions since the idea behind an “alternative” art space seems to be to avoid convention. Can you define these conventions as you see them, maybe in Chicago in particular? What opportunities are available outside the structure of the art community? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Andrew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> In my understanding of “the conventions of the alternative art space,” I see the opportunity to take curatorial and artistic risks in a supportive environment (made up mostly of peers) that should be motivated by a desire to move forward with an artistic discourse that attempts in some way to re-contextualize or reposition what it means to make/show art in a contemporary setting. In a sense, an alternative art space should be defined by its innate institutional critique (in its “do-it-yourself” structure) and its ability to react against the short-comings in communication that the commodity driven art market seems to produce.<span> </span>Unfortunately, the idea of the alternative art space has been marginalized to such an extent that oftentimes its participants forget the “alt space’s” prescribed role as catalyst to the “avant-garde” and only poorly mimic more institutional spaces.<span> </span>In theory, an alternative art space has the ability to communicate with a much more captive audience than more conventional art spaces and thusly should be motivated to take risks to create a dialogue with that audience.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EJ:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Planning this show was a bit tricky in the beginning because we knew we wanted to have it in an apartment but we didn’t want it to be just another apartment gallery show. And that term “alternative space” is a tough one too, because granted, our shows aren’t in white-walled, traditional gallery spaces with track lighting, but how many times can something be alternative before it becomes mainstream? There are apartment galleries all over this city and for the openings, all of the furniture and other objects that are normally in a living space are moved or stuffed into bedrooms and closets, in an attempt to mimic “the real thing.” For this show, we said fuck it, we’re not emptying the living room and moving the TV and couch into bedrooms. This is an apartment, not a commercial gallery. We’re not trying to sell anything or compete with others in any sort of market. We just want to be around good people making interesting work and create dialogue within the larger Chicago art community. And because we’re more concerned with building community and exhibiting work and less concerned with turning a buck, there’s more room for experimentation and taking risks. So we went forward with acknowledging the space for what it is and what it isn’t, and made that the subject of the show.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Matthew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> We have the luxury of not having to worry about making money, so we have the freedom to show work that cannot be purchased (performances and site specific works). Opportunities: we can do what we want and don’t have to justify or answer to anyone but ourselves.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Any other thoughts on the Chicago art community? How do you think it fits in with the national / international art scene? Are there any regional qualities that make Chicago distinct? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EJ:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> On the home front, Chicago is definitely the underdog. You’ve got New York and L.A. as the powerhouse players and a lot of the time, Chicago gets overlooked. I’m still not sure how I feel about that though. Because sometimes I enjoy being a part of a well-kept secret of Chicago being this gem between the two coasts, and other times, I want nothing more than for Chicago to be able to play on the “big kids’ playground.” It’s definitely a more affordable place to live than New York or L.A. and that may contribute to why new galleries and exhibition spaces are popping up all the time in apartments, storefronts and even garages. Chicago is also a huge city with a small Midwestern hometown kind of feel. During my first month of living here, I was riding the subway and working in my sketchbook when the woman sitting next to me started telling me how her children are artists too. Before she got out at her stop, she gave me her card and invited me to dinner so I could meet them. I haven’t been in many cities where people are able to slow down just enough to actually engage with the person sitting next to them, but it seems to happen quite often here.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Andrew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> In a way Chicago is self-defeating: too many of our artists continue to leave for NYC or LA, and in general Chicago’s yearn for international “stardom” has always been paradoxical. Chicago demands to be treated as an equal to New York and Los Angeles, but in that demand the city undercuts its potential by acting subservient to other locales. There is a community of people here that have stuck it out and have become successful, but at a certain level of success the majority will always seek a larger pond to be a bigger fish within.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> How did you find this group of artists? Most of them appear to be Chicago-based. Is there are reason why you chose mostly Chicago artists?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Andrew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> We sat down together and thought about whom of our peers could best contribute to the conversation we had started about the apartment's dual role as living space and as art space. Keeping in mind that we wanted to pull from the several communities that are sometimes at odds with each other, we wanted to curate in such a way that positioned somewhat more well known young artists (within Chicago) with lesser known artists as a means to create a platform to democratize who was allowed to participate in the conversation within Chicago.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EJ:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> When we sat down and came up with the curatorial concept of the show, we considered artists whose work or way of working would best fit that idea. We were familiar with the artists’ work in some capacity and selected them based on their current practice and many of them having shown in apartment galleries several times before. We’re all students as well, so a lot of the artists we’ve met individually or through Parking Space are other students, faculty or administrators at Chicago academic institutions. And these artists are very familiar with the apartment as exhibition space and could speak earnestly about what that means to them and to the rest of the Chicago art community.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Matthew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> We are artists in Chicago and we hangout with other Chicago-based artists, so it’s just natural. We would like to build a strong sense of community. Before we started we noticed that there were shows where all students were from either SAIC or Columbia and we thought that it was a bit of a drag that we all couldn’t come together. So, when we choose artists for shows we try to pull from all the art communities in Chicago, and being that Andrew is at SAIC and EJ and I are from Columbia, we have a real opportunity to pull from our respective groups.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> The show is titled “This Is Not For Sale.” Will the artwork in the exhibition not be sold? Given that it’s an apartment show, could it be a reference to real estate? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Andrew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> The work in the show was not for sale. In this way we felt that we were dealing directly with some of the "conventions of an alternative art space," a place where ideas should be more important than potential monetary gain. A majority of the work was made and installed specifically for the space and operated performatively, therefore somewhat negating its marketability as a sellable good. We were also very aware that the title of the show could simultaneously refer to the fact that an apartment is indeed "not for sale," and enjoyed that we could use that title as a starting point for curation.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EJ:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Paying bills, buying groceries, buying materials to make art… all of this stuff adds up financially. It would be more than nice to be able to pay for it all by selling work, but generally speaking, the majority of audiences at apartment shows are not there to buy anything. It’s a different kind of vibe and that’s what we wanted to explore with this show. We had agreed that if anyone wanted to buy a work, we would cross that bridge once we got there and so far, it hasn’t come up. As far as a head nod to real estate, I never had that in mind, but it’s interesting you mention that especially since Parking Space doesn’t have a permanent or even consistent home. We’ve had a show in a different space each time, which definitely reflects the living patterns of young people in cities.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Can you elaborate on the statement “This Is Not For Sale demands an artistic discourse where context and concept are directly correlated?” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EJ:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> The work in the show directly referenced and interacted with the space as a site for exhibiting artwork but also a site for making toast, sleeping or taking a shower. Since these sites are so unique to Chicago and since we were using my apartment this time, the most exciting part for me was just seeing how the artists would creatively respond to where I live. But I think we were all pretty excited to explore the intersections between the properties of the space itself and the subject of the work in hopes to raise questions about how reliant they are upon one another.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Andrew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> An artistic discourse where context and concept are correlated is one where an artist does not ignore site specificity and therefore deals with the baggage of a space or context and allows that context to influence how the work operates conceptually. In "This is Not For Sale," we wanted the artist to be aware of how his or her work dealt directly with how an apartment can function multi-stably as a living space and as a space to show artwork.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Where did you get the idea to start Parking Space? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Matthew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Andrew and I where playing basketball behind my apartment and next to the court was an old abandoned garage, so we decided to explore it and Andrew jokingly said that we should have a show it here. Then we had some drinks and talked about it some more.<span> </span>EJ was excited at the idea and it just kinda started from a basketball game, curiosity, and drinking and then a lot of hard work.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Andrew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> When we conceived Parking Space, we collectively saw the need to build a bridge between the disparate art communities within Chicago that have been created out of previously existing institutional structures. There was and still is a defined lack of communication within what is a relatively small city. We saw and still see the opportunity to for our city to look inward and prop itself up. Essentially, we have to fight for each other or we face the risk of remaining perpetually subservient to other cities. We saw Parking Space as a small way of doing that.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EJ:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> It was Matt and Andrew who initially talked about it and I was pumped on the idea. I offered to help out in any way that I could so we made some Home Depot runs a few times, cleaned and painted the garage, fixed some things and off we went.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> The three of you are artists, as well. How do you think this affects your perspective as curators / project co-directors? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Andrew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Because we are artists, our role allows us to take certain liberties with curatorial decisions that a traditional curator could not make due to monetary restrictions or popularity of idea. As artist-curators it allows us to organize shows around concepts we may not be able to directly manifest within our own work, therefore allowing us to speak in a voice we normally couldn't communicate with.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EJ:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> We’re more flexible. We understand how artists operate and how important it is to be able to show your work. It’s really a group effort in every sense and not just between the three of us, but for all of the artists involved in our shows. Everyone brings something different to the table and gearing into a show presents us with a very different group dynamic each time. It’s challenging and sometimes really stressful but we all want to show the best work we can. So I think we’re all willing to work very closely with the artists and each other to make that happen. We’re not wearing white gloves and directing people where to arrange things. We’re up on ladders, drilling, getting dirty and installing work too.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Matthew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> It is easier to communicate ideas and concepts to a fellow artist than it is to business person.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Who should we look out for in Chicago, in terms of artists / spaces / writers / bands / anything cultural? Any recommendations for visitors? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Andrew:</strong> THIS IS VERY DIFFICULT, I’ll try and be as succinct as possible.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Spaces: Monument 2 Gallery, Golden Gallery, Roots and Culture, SubCity Projects, The Suburban, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Shane Campbell Gallery, Dan Devening Projects and Editions, Julius Ceasar, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Happy Collaborationists Space</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">Bands: Dad, White Car, Geffika</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Matthew:</strong> Jettison magazine is a really great (currently) web based publication coming out of Chicago and The Smith Westerns are an amazing young Chicago band.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EJ:</strong> Jettison Quarterly is doing huge things here in Chicago. It’s an online publication that you should definitely keep your eye on. Happy Collaborationists Exhibition Space is also making waves. They are committed mostly to performance and installation work and just really great people to work with.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>ZING:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> Anything else coming up that people should know about?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>EJ:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> I’m showing a new work titled <em>Solo Exhibition</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> at Happy Collaborationists Exhibition Space on Saturday, April 3<sup>rd</sup> from 7-10pm. I’ll also be participating in a group performance including Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Roberto Sifuentes of La Pocha Nostra at The Conaway Center at Columbia College on Saturday, April 17<sup>th</sup> at 5pm. And of course, more shows from Parking Space are sure to come.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Matthew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> MORE SHOWS!!!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Andrew:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> More shows in Chicago... Look for Parking Space and a little taste of Chicago in your city coming soon.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">PARKING SPACE is currently located at 2246 W 19<sup>th</sup> St, #3R, btw S Oakley Ave and S Leavitt St.<span> </span>Email them at <a href="mailto:parkingspacechicago@gmail.com" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">parkingspacechicago@gmail.com</a> for more information.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "></p></div><div class="submitted" style="margin-bottom: 8px; "><div class="author"><br /></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 99, 0); ">zingmagazine</a></div><div class="location"></div><div class="year">March 2010</div></div></span>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05777122113671792079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-58803402790811305312010-05-19T19:46:00.000-07:002010-05-19T21:38:15.887-07:00INTERVIEW: Renny Ramakers<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDXTk1upkqNZcJ8kLBEmWbwTJvtUxBa7sNRdbKPbfif4Q5mHyNtjU89awU5lsCVIH4MywAi_lfdfyak_ja2K1pTV26feRig1bUW-TnUrQA76oR2qAA7Ud7AA-zkgOnZU0WhtobD3mOK_Q/s1600/renny.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDXTk1upkqNZcJ8kLBEmWbwTJvtUxBa7sNRdbKPbfif4Q5mHyNtjU89awU5lsCVIH4MywAi_lfdfyak_ja2K1pTV26feRig1bUW-TnUrQA76oR2qAA7Ud7AA-zkgOnZU0WhtobD3mOK_Q/s200/renny.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473205747580460498" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUC6Aqqvxhprs8xcFw4hbUuDE7MFdlUaQWnbhrnWWTnxaBejZIqYJeD808xjYUBkS_qyvXpV7-wn1T_4dzxjyx4Y1eQb_RrC0BEnoLckLZhXbO6lIijVI1fdWK1bkoB-lvztddLT6JIss/s1600/renny.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "></span></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><div class="node node-content_zingchat " style="margin-top: 3px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; "><div class="content" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; "><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; ">Slow glow lamp for Droog by NEXT Architects & Aura Luz Melis</span></p><div align="center"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; ">Photographer: Robaard/Theuwkens (Styling by Marjo Kranenborg, CMK)</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong><a href="http://www.droog.com/aboutus/designers/renny-ramakers/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Renny Ramakers</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> is co-founder and director of Dutch conceptual design company <strong><a href="http://www.droog.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Droog</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; ">.<span> </span>We first worked with Droog during <strong><a href="http://www.pioneersofchange.com/about.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Pioneers of Change</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; ">, a festival of Dutch design, fashion, and architecture on Governor’s Island, which occurred in Fall 2009 during NY400 week, a celebration of Dutch culture in New York.<span> </span><strong><a href="http://outwithmary.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Mary Barone</a></strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> and I met with Renny and <strong>Sheldon LaPierre</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> at the Droog storefront in Soho to discuss slow food, Droog, and the future of design.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>Brandon Johnson:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> The Pioneers of Change is our launching point, since that is when we first came in contact.<span> </span>We donated <em>zingmagazines</em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> to be placed in the Go Slow Café.<span> </span>We’re interested in your involvement in the slow food movement, or how that relates to the Go Slow Café, and how it all ties in with Droog and your ideas about design.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>Renny Ramakers:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><span> </span>We started the Go Slow Café in 2004.<span> </span>Not because of the slow food movement.<span> </span>The slow food movement is based on regional qualities.<span> </span>It started in Italy and is based on using what to land is giving you, not transporting it all over the world.<span> </span>That is part of it, but was not the main objective.<span> </span>The main objective was to give attention to processes.<span> </span>Because we live in a world where you only buy final products—especially here in the States.<span> </span>If I go for an orange juice, it’s already there.<span> </span>In the Go Slow Café, in Milan where we first presented it, we were pressing the orange juice by hand.<span> </span>And maybe that’s not allowed here…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> It’s allowed, some places do it but it’s more expensive.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> You see the people don’t know where things are coming from.<span> </span>Children think that milk comes from a factory and not a cow.<span> </span>So, that was behind it.<span> </span>The second thing we wanted was the serving and preparing of the food to be done with attention and care and people who would sit down at the Go Slow Café didn’t have to hurry.<span> </span>They can sit and have a nice time.<span> </span>They can sit there all night if they wanted to.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> That’s perfect for Governor’s Island, as a location, an escape from the city.<span> </span>When I was out there to drop off the magazines, it was a like a whole other world coming from the Financial District where the ferry departs.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> We also did it in Milan.<span> </span>There was a big hustle and bustle, everyone was excited to see as many shows as possible during the furniture fair, but they sat down and spent hours at our café.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>Mary Barone:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> The city is so frantic during the Milan Furniture Fair.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> The idea of using seniors [as employees of the café] opposes the normal practice of using people who are very young as they are cheap and maybe because they are easier.<span> </span>Instead we used retired people to work at the café for the week at Milan and two weeks at Governor’s Island.<span> </span>People loved it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>M:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Yes, I ate there.<span> </span>They were wonderful.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> We have done it in Toyko, we have done it in London.<span> </span>In London we had ninety-year-old ladies.<span> </span>They had to sit very often, which was not a problem, but every half hour they would sit down.<span> </span>And in Tokyo we had a man in his eighties, and he was so young—so fit and energetic.<span> </span>It was wonderful because people are used to being served by younger people and here there were people who could be their grandmother or grandfather.<span> </span>In Milan, they started singing songs from the childhood and giving massages.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> In that sense, the “slow movement” is literalized in the word “slow”.<span> </span>I had previously interviewed an artist in Williamsburg, Mike Ballou, about an installation he did at a restaurant called Diner.<span> </span>They source their beef from a farm in upstate New York and he did a large sculptural portrait of a cow from that farm, which was then placed on top the restaurant.<span> </span>The individual, the original source is represented in that piece.<span> </span>Now, Droog is taking it in a more literal linguistic sense, slowing down the process of eating.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Yes, very serious, but we also want things to have a twist.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Right, because there’s some humor to it as well.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>M:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> When I dined at the Go Slow Café on Governor’s Island, the food was represented in a diagram according to its origin.<span> </span>Like where the walnut came from.<span> </span>Then it finalized on something very traditional.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> The moon.<span> </span>Black and white powder.<span> </span>It’s a kind of licorice.<span> </span>We say it’s dust from the moon.<span> </span>But the idea is that food is transported all over the word.<span> </span>We wanted to show the food in proportion to its distance traveled.<span> </span>So, there was very little “moon powder” because it had to arrive from the moon, so to speak.<span> </span>It gives you an idea of where the food is coming from.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> And obviously it takes energy to transport the food.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> And that’s a damaging thing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>M:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> They sourced the ham from West Virginia.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> The butter from Russia.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> So, it’s proportionate to the distance it traveled?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Yes.<span> </span>It’s a message that you can eat a lot of the things that are grown around you and less of things that come from far away, like Japan.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Makes sense.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>M:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> One always thinks you need Italian prosciutto or Serrano ham from Spain, but it fact there are delicious hams nearby.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> There you go.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> How would you tie the Go Slow Café into Droog in a larger sense?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> It’s part of our whole philosophy.<span> </span>You see there are objects here in the storefront.<span> </span>But most of the objects are coming from our projects.<span> </span>For example, the Slow Glow lamp in the window, had been designed for the Go Slow Café, but now we are selling it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> That lightbulb lamp?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> It’s filled with fat.<span> </span>When you plug it in the fat is solid, but as it heats up, the fat slowly melts.<span> </span>It was a product of the project.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>M:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Who designed that?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> NEXT Architects.<span> </span>We have all been interested in a conceptual approach and projects that activate the visitor.<span> </span>Interaction is very important to us as well as showing processes.<span> </span>Many of our products are based on interactions, like the marble bench downstairs.<span> </span>It’s an experience.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; ">It’s part of our philosophy to produce things that make people happy.<span> </span>Many people start smiling when they see our products.<span> </span>There’s a sense of humor, but it is understated.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>M:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><span> </span>it’s a dry sense of humor.<span> </span>Because “droog” means dry, right?<span> </span>The English are said to have a very dry sense of humor.<span> </span>The Dutch, I think, as well.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Yes, it’s the same word in Dutch.<span> </span>There’s always a twist.<span> </span>It’s not meant to make something humorous.<span> </span>It’s meant to produce something to make people happy or to convey a message, or something else along those lines.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> What’s going on at Droog now?<span> </span>Any upcoming projects we should be talking about?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> We want to continue with Pioneers or Change.<span> </span>We are now talking about presenting it in Bangkok, but it’s still very early.<span> </span>Pioneers of Change can be repeated in every city all over the world.<span> </span>It’s based on collaboration with local parties, interaction, local context, and current topics.<span> </span>The second part is Droog lab.<span> </span>We started this last year.<span> </span>The first one we did in Dubai.<span> </span>The leaders of the Droog Lab are always one or two established designers, so Rami Farook, Jurgen Bey, and Saskia van Drimmelen went to Dubai with a few designers.<span> </span>The idea is that you go to a region, learn from a region, be inspired by a region and come back with something new.<span> </span>Our goal, and this is very ambitious, is to define the next generation of design.<span> </span>When I started Droog lab, I noticed that entire design world is only concerned with products.<span> </span>We had these fantastic projects in Milan, but the press is only showing a few products.<span> </span>Also, many designers are only interested in making products, limited editions.<span> </span>We also produce limited editions, but for us a story is more important than owning an object.<span> </span>Because it’s been going so well that last few years with studio work in limited editions, you see companies asking designers to do limited editions.<span> </span>So, there’s no story anymore.<span> </span>There are too many objects in the world right now and not enough stories.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>M:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> What are the designers in Dubai working on?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Yes, this is where we are leading into.<span> </span>They went to Dubai and came back with all kinds of observations.<span> </span>Now they are working on a new model, presented digitally, of collaborative design.<span> </span>I cannot explain it yet, because it is being developed.<span> </span>But there is a new model based in collaboration that will eventually produce products.<span> </span>Also, maybe a different kind of currency based in time.<span> </span>The original ideas have nothing to do with objects or products, but in the end there will be a number of very beautiful products based on this philosophy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; ">The second group is going to northern Canada in June.<span> </span>The topic is sustainability.<span> </span>Winy Maas and Cynthia Hathaway, she’s Canadian.<span> </span>There are always also local designers involved.<span> </span>They’re going to see how the Inuit people in the far north survive, to learn their way of living.<span> </span>I have no idea when they are coming back.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>M:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> That’s very exciting!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> We want to do a third project in New York, based on the service economy here.<span> </span>Yesterday on the street I saw someone walking with the dogs.<span> </span>Dogwalker is a new profession.<span> </span>I’ve only seen it here.<span> </span>We don’t see it as something negative or positive, but only interesting.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>Sheldon LaPierre:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> One thing that resonates for me about the lab is that it’s about exploiting already positive qualities of an existing situation.<span> </span>The designers are not saying “We’re here to provide a solution, we’re here to attack a problem.”<span> </span>It’s not that way at all.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><span> </span>There is no problem for them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> It’s about using these qualities that may already exist in this inherent situation—something I’ve even tried to employ a bit in my own life having learned about this method.<span> </span>The person who manages the lab will actually be here later today.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Perhaps I should explain why they came back from Dubai with this model.<span> </span>They saw three clear qualities of Dubai.<span> </span>For one, it’s very ambitious because it’s a desert.<span> </span>They have made this entire city out of nothing.<span> </span>The second is that there is a wide hierarchy.<span> </span>The top is very small, only the sheiks.<span> </span>The third thing is that Dubai is a hub.<span> </span>A hub for richness, for luxury.<span> </span>We wanted to make a hub of content, creation.<span> </span>Those were the observations and that’s why they came back with this model.<span> </span>A few weeks ago I told this to someone and they said I was not critical of Dubai.<span> </span>I said “Of course we are critical.<span> </span>But that’s not the issue at this moment.”<span> </span>We are critical of this hierarchy where some have outrageous amounts of money and others have none.<span> </span>So, we’re thinking about a timebank, where you pay with time or with something you are able to do.<span> </span>Someone is a hairdresser and pays for their purchase with a haircut.<span> </span>It’s just a model of course, but that’s where it comes from.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; ">There’s one more activity we would like to pursue.<span> </span>We are presenting a kind of parasite product.<span> </span>Say you have a porcelain cup produced in China.<span> </span>If it were made in our countries, you could not afford it.<span> </span>It comes from China, and it’s not quite right, so it goes back and forth all the time.<span> </span>Because of this, it takes a long time for products to be developed.<span> </span>We were also thinking there are already so many objects in existence already.<span> </span>We have glasses, our neighbor has glasses, the shop down the street has glasses.<span> </span>Do we need so much glassware?<span> </span>Then there’s the financial crisis.<span> </span>Each month in Holland there are 500 companies that go bankrupt.<span> </span>What happens to their products, their inventory?<span> </span>It goes to auctions on the internet.<span> </span>We started bidding on all kinds of items: napkins, a table, glasses, you name and we bought it.<span> </span>We asked about 15 designers to see this as their raw material.<span> </span>Each designer came up with an idea.<span> </span>There’s a lot of commentary.<span> </span>It’s fantastic.<span> </span>In three months time, we will present about 20 new products.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Based on the products that were procured from the auctions.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> The designers came up with such unexpected things.<span> </span>One example, not sure if he will succeed, was given a water dispenser.<span> </span>A cooler.<span> </span>He has taken it apart and is making a perfume dispenser from it.<span> </span>He also has 100 salt glasses that he making into perfume containers.<span> </span>This whole idea gives a new brainwave for designers.<span> </span>They don’t have to think about the system, the system is there.<span> </span>They just have to stage it.<span> </span>That goes for all the products.<span> </span>There is cutlery, which takes years to design.<span> </span>But here, the designer already has it at hand.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>M:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Will you be staging an exhibition here?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> In Milan.<span> </span>We will sell as much as possible.<span> </span>If we have things left we will sell it in the storefront here in New York.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>M:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> The fair’s coming up soon?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> April.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> They will be limited editions because there is only so much material available.<span> </span>We are also thinking about moving beyond bankruptcy auctions to work with existing things.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>S:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> To make access limited is interesting.<span> </span>A new perspective.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> We work with other companies as well who demonstrate a similar spirit.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> I was reading up on the history of Droog before coming here and it’s interesting how these ideas tie in with the founding of the company, designers using discarded and pre-existing materials.<span> </span>It goes all the way back.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> It’s not on purpose, we aren’t forcing ourselves to do it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> It’s natural?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> The idea returns in a cycle.<span> </span>It’s in my genes to do these types of projects.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>M:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> The store is a great resource in SoHo.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>R:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> Yes, we are trying to make it more lively.<span> </span>In the beginning we were a bit of a showroom and now we’re trying to change that by bringing in smaller items and doing more interactive projects.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "><strong>B:</strong></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana; "> We’re looking forward to it.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "></p></div><div class="submitted" style="margin-bottom: 8px; "><div class="author" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="author" style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 99, 0); ">zingmagazine</a></div><div class="location"></div><div class="year" style="text-align: left;">March 2010</div><div><br /></div></div></div><div class="node node-content_zingchat " style="margin-top: 3px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; "></div></span></span></div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05777122113671792079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-78304898511837816932010-05-19T19:44:00.000-07:002010-05-19T21:39:38.345-07:00INTERVIEW: Margaret Lee<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiRTOr6oWfzU_teNVxX8KjvwPEpYmfQTe6ErRZ14DjNO946gjmTm_twycH2CubjcpvyDMTDzxpgdyKy74legAs7-26tNI34z9hN0YBtOXbLXZ9yS72K2c_Ym4v5Em1zDwBfTg2EgUKGPY/s1600/marg.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 124px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiRTOr6oWfzU_teNVxX8KjvwPEpYmfQTe6ErRZ14DjNO946gjmTm_twycH2CubjcpvyDMTDzxpgdyKy74legAs7-26tNI34z9hN0YBtOXbLXZ9yS72K2c_Ym4v5Em1zDwBfTg2EgUKGPY/s200/marg.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473207195490604546" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><div class="content" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; "><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMlilHjzwXcmDPxZDiTKB4Y9jNf5wRE6BIA9PIkwf89zxTgtZBu09RjgKC7nKzE1frMpS8PkcCpLWiAIZKH-_DRaMPu9rWJLHYrHhQaMwocuMMw8fypme2v8VKUZPkeF2nwG7NszI6WXo/s1600/marg.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><strong></strong></a></span></p></div></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><div class="content" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; "><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>Michele Abeles/Margaret Lee\Darren Bader</strong></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>A project organized by Margaret Lee at White Columns in New York</strong></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>Devon Dikeou:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> Margaret, how did you come up with/organize the idea for the show, the pairings, the idea of collaborating and reacting to, well potatoes . . . and each other as artists, much less the curatorial combination of artists.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>Margeret Lee:</strong></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">HI Devon</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">The title of the show is actually those 3 icons, camera, potato, cd/music note.<span> </span>When Matthew invited me to do something in a White Room, I drew a complete blank for a few days.<span> </span>I knew that I wanted to use my potatoes again.<span> </span>I had used them in two other installations but neither of those times did I think they were being used the way I thought I wanted them to be used.<span> </span>I originally started making the potatoes as a way of pairing down my practice into something really basic; I wanted to have something almost neutral to use in creating pairs or in coming up with absurd pairings between disparate objects.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">With them as my base, I started thinking of artists/works I have seen recently. Michele Abeles and I met in the desert (Joshua Tree) while participating in a HDTS.<span> </span>I first saw her photos there and immediately knew there was some kinship – mostly because she took the kind of photos I would like to take if I had any photography skills – cold, almost dead, unnatural, with little emotion between herself and her subjects.<span> </span>There was a photo of a plant with a hand in front of it which I saw a few months before getting the White Room invitation and it was in recalling that image that I knew I wanted to work with Michele.<span> </span>I really wanted to see my potatoes in her photos (or that photo specifically) but did not want her to take portraits of them as singular artworks.<span> </span>Rather, I wanted them to disappear into the background or be featured in an arrangement of her liking.<span> </span>I wasn’t sure what would come out of this fusion, which I wouldn’t call collaboration.<span> </span>First off, I told Michele that she would have full control of the image and could do as she pleased with the potatoes.<span> </span>With that, we decided to meet in a few weeks/months and see what came about.<span> </span>I then sought out Darren Bader, who I barely knew but felt as though maybe we approached art making in a similar way, or at least looked at art making in a similar way – since I had just gotten into curating and using other artists’ works within my own pieces and Darren, well read his book <em>James Earl Scones</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> and you will understand.<span> </span>We met and talked a bit about the project, though no specifics were exchanged.<span> </span>I again made sure Darren understood that I was not handing him an assignment or asking to collaborate on something, although in the end we did end up collaborating on the chair/speaker/potato sculpture.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">Neither Darren nor Michele had any communication during the process.<span> </span>They had never met.<span> </span>I wanted each artist to have a relationship to the potatoes rather than to each other.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> How did your thinking as both an artist and organizer influence the other artists and vice versa?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>ML: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">I think Michele, who doesn’t collaborate, had a difficult time with this at first.<span> </span>But she was really familiar with my last curatorial project, “Today and Everyday,” and understood where I was coming from.<span> </span>Though I invited her from a curatorial standpoint, we discussed the show as two artists.<span> </span>She didn’t need to ask me for permission to do anything and I told her to continue making the photos she was in the process of making but try to subtly insert the potatoes into her compositions, without having to make them the focal point.<span> </span>When Michele was done with her photos, I passed them along to Darren.<span> </span>At this point, I still wasn’t sure what the final installation would look like or what Darren would bring to the room, which I think we all felt OK about because of my dual role as curator/artist.<span> </span>There is something about that hybrid that I think makes the wide-open and unknown doable because the show was not curated in a traditional sense; it’s not based around a formal or thematic statement.<span> </span>I wasn’t trying to push artworks into a story that I created before hand.<span> </span>Rather, I wanted the story to unfold while we moved ahead.<span> </span>Also, in working with other artists, especially one like Darren, you know that you can’t force your agenda onto them and their work and how it is organized.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> How orchestrated or incidental was the outcome?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>ML: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">I was absolutely devastated when Michele sent me her two first photos.<span> </span>Both of them featured a naked male body part.<span> </span>It’s funny, because although I told Michele that she could do whatever she liked, I never considered that she would use male nudity, mostly because I would never, ever in a million years consider using male nudity since I never include the human figure in my work.<span> </span>I laughed and told her I was having difficulty with them.<span> </span>She understood but asked me to sit with them and also sent me some others.<span> </span>In the end I chose one of the two difficult images.<span> </span>Actually, I chose the more difficult and graphic one.<span> </span>Darren only told me that he wanted to include the song “No One” by Alicia Keys (a song I’d never really liked before).<span> </span>Darren and I met repeatedly, talking about possibilities but we both knew that we wouldn’t really know until the installation started.<span> </span>Part of the project was working with unknown elements, the outcome was supposed to be incidental or at least I wanted the elements to be incidental.<span> </span>My goal was to take these incidentals and pull them together into a really tight installation that looked like a solo show.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> Speak about the application icons that appear on the invite, website, press material, as well as alongside the actual images of the show: camera, potato, tunes . . .</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>ML: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">I wanted to come up with a title for the project but since it was a non-thematic three-person show, I found myself resistant to coming up with a catchy title.<span> </span>Recently, I’ve been obsessed with emoticons on my iPhone, these cute little icons that stand in for words.<span> </span>I find myself sending messages like “balloon, wrapped present, champagne glass, cake” to say “Happy Birthday”.<span> </span>So, for this project, I reduced each artist and their included work down to an icon, basically to convey who was bringing what.<span> </span>I liked using this “new” language.<span> </span>It seemed web 2.0 to me, as did the actual project.<span> </span>Not in that we were using technology in any way, but in approaching the project using: interactivity, collaborative authoring, and a move away from individuality, the last of the three points being the most important to me.<span> </span>In reducing an artist and their work into these icons, that could be interchangeable and reused, I felt like it was a nice move away from the idea of the singular artist as genius concept.<span> </span>Also, the title of the show is also an artwork.<span> </span>I made the icons myself and the grouping is now a wall piece in an edition of 10.<span> </span><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> We can all imagine from experience what the tune icon implies, as well as that of the camera. What does the potato application do, or what could it potentially do.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>ML: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">It’s funny because there was no other option but to have the potato icon, since that is all I brought to the project.<span> </span>It’s the most absurd of the icons and I like the way it is something very “natural” in between two “technological” implications.<span> </span>The potato icon, nestled in between, also conveyed to me something really human and basic.<span> </span>These potato sculptures connected the works and the artists.<span> </span>It is an unlikely function for them, but a good one!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> There are elements of tension between realism and photorealism, as well as a dialogue between constructed space and literal space. These dichotomies are the thrust of several divergent artists whose work seems to be not just influential, but is almost echoed or specifically cited and twisted in the work of all three artists. This range of artists—from Rachel Harrison to Frank Stella, Robert Mapplethorpe, John Miller, and Richard Estes—even Magritte comes to mind in varying degrees. Please speak about your influences, as well as the mark that the mentioned artists might or might not have on your communal strategy as well as the individual strategy of each of artist in the grouping.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>ML: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">This is a hard one for me to answer.<span> </span>I don’t like thinking of the trajectory of art in linear terms anymore.<span> </span>Part of the Web 2.0 mentality that I like or identify with is you are bombarded with images/ideas that you really could not process in a rational, linear sense.<span> </span>You take bits and pieces and they come together in ways that are unexpected.<span> </span>You find yourself looking at say, a Magritte (who, of the artists you list, I think would be the strongest influence), and then find yourself thinking about some funny video you saw on youtube, rather than what came before or after the Magritte in art terms.<span> </span>I could say supermarkets, interior design, Madison Avenue and the museum gift store, influence me just as much or more than artists who have influenced me in the past.<span> </span>But if I were to mention anyone, it would be Louise Lawler.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">The communal strategy comes out of a desire to contextualize work again, after years of Art standing as luxury good and galleries showcasing work as such.<span> </span>It’s an attempt of my part not to make or showcase work for the mid-century modern home.<span> </span>The shared authoring of the project stands in complete opposition to artistic genius and curatorial wit.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> Onto something a little less, less or more . . . What do you think about ketchup or catsup . . .</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">And about steak? What do you think your collaborators think of it?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>ML: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">Ah, Darren would LOVE this question.<span> </span>I don’t eat steak but love ketchup, though I’m trying not to eat it since it’s so salty and kills your taste buds for hours.<span> </span>But French fries without ketchup is a sad thought; I’m too American to give it up. [Editor’s note: Jonathan Swift coined the spelling "catsup" in 1730.</span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> There is a balance between trompe l’oeil and found objects that is both coolly obscuring and hotly obvious in this show. Brillo vs Ballantine Ale, or rather Brillo and Ballantine Ale vs Hans Haacke.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>ML: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">THANKS!<span> </span>I want the Brillo and Ballantine Ale. <span> </span>I’m hoping that we are moving in a direction when artists realized the limitations of making “political” art and see that the politics are actually in your movements and actions.<span> </span>I just don’t see the point of making political art and showing it in a commercial gallery nor do I think I am making political art at all. It’s never my intention.<span> </span>I don’t want to comment on institutionalism, I want to move away from it, without strong rhetoric.<span> </span>It’s not so complicated for me.<span> </span>I want art to live in a space and feel alive for the duration of the exhibition.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>DD:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> Where do potatoes and you go from here?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><strong>ML: </strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">Hmmm, dunno really.<span> </span>Potatoes may be retired for a bit.<span> </span>From now until the end of May, most of my energy will go into trying to keep 179 Canal going.<span> </span>I think I will try to practice playing the piano and work on my cake decorating skills.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; text-align: justify; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">See <strong>Michele Abeles/Margaret Lee\Darren Bader</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> at <strong><a href="http://www.whitecolumns.org/view.html?type=exhibitions&id=485" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">White Columns</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">, 320 W. 13<sup>th</sup> St (enter on Horatio) through February 27<sup>th</sup>, 2010.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">More info on Margaret’s non-profit space <strong>179 Canal</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;"> can be found at<strong><a href="http://www.179canal.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">http://www.179canal.com</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;color:black;">.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "> </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-size:9pt;color:black;"><br /></span></p></div><div class="submitted" style="margin-bottom: 8px; "><div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 99, 0); ">zingmagazine</a></div><div class="location"></div><div class="year">February 2010</div></div></span><br /></div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05777122113671792079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-27906011165308322912010-05-19T19:42:00.001-07:002010-05-19T21:42:56.858-07:00INTERVIEW: Jeremy Dehn & John Hoff<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzQxEjxucYj-sWy2o7FBT-4APpmjPw-jokIiPzhttxRbZvEIzsJqe7lJienkXIpZbNA1Fzae92YHrc7FHBj_MAD3u7MiFf1rrrt6RsSgmJYcTVUXPp3Fh8RXt7CiCeNvPehjHR-uIZBo/s1600/Jeremy.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzQxEjxucYj-sWy2o7FBT-4APpmjPw-jokIiPzhttxRbZvEIzsJqe7lJienkXIpZbNA1Fzae92YHrc7FHBj_MAD3u7MiFf1rrrt6RsSgmJYcTVUXPp3Fh8RXt7CiCeNvPehjHR-uIZBo/s200/Jeremy.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473207621129481442" /></a><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:-webkit-xxx-large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-weight: normal; font-size:12px;"><div class="content" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; "><div class="Section1"><div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">“<em>Miracle Investigators</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> is a satirical short film about the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the Vatican office charged with validating or disproving alleged miracles worldwide. Taking this concept to its (absurdly) logical conclusion, <em>Miracle Investigators </em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">recasts itself in the mold of a buddy cop movie, making the investigators the quarrelsome, mismatched heroes recognizable from countless cop films and TV shows. Featuring strong performances from some of Austin’s most recognized actors, an irreverently amusing script, and a surprise climactic confrontation that carries the film into a whole new realm of satire, <em>Miracle Investigators</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> is a unique comedy worth the penance you’ll have to do for laughing. “</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">—From </span><span style=" ;font-size:9pt;"><a href="http://www.miracleinvestigators.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">www.miracleinvestigators.com</span></a></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"></span></p><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong><a href="http://www.dikeoucollection.org/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Dikeou Collection</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> director, <strong>Jessica Hughes</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">, interviews <strong>Jeremy Dehn</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">, director of <strong><em><a href="http://www.miracleinvestigators.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Miracle Investigators</a></em></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">, and <strong>John Hoff</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">, who plays Cardinal Thomas.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>So, tell me a little bit about the background of the film and how you two met.</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: I made this film as a graduate student at the University of Texas. This was actually my thesis film.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: And we met each other through a casting call. Jeremy had posted an ad for it on AustinActors.com, which is sort of like a craigslist, but for actors only.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>And how did you two decide to work with each other?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: I’ve been acting for 20-plus years, so, while they’re obviously evaluating me at casting calls, I’m evaluating them as well. I loved the audition, and I loved that improv was a part of the audition.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: John kept emailing me beforehand, asking to see the script, and had all of these questions. I almost blew him off, actually. I thought, “Who the hell is this guy?”</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>So how did the casting call go?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: I had a well-trained actor as a reader for the audition, which helped a lot because then he could sort of give his opinion of the actors, too. As soon as John left the room, he said “That’s your guy!” He could hardly wait to tell me.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>How did you decide on a part that was fitting for John?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: I didn’t really know what to do with John at first. He was too young to play the old priest, but too old to play the young priest. So, I ended up re-conceiving his character [Cardinal Thomas]. Originally, that character was going to be a 60-year-old man. Afterwards, I wasn’t really sure why I was so attached to that idea. In this process you get attached to certain things, but then you learn to let go. I learned that in the auditioning process, too; it’s how I learned to start auditioning actors with improv. I think in the beginning our egos are too fragile to really do that.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: I think that’s probably why the same directors and actors work together on multiple films. In this case, Jeremy had a very clear vision, but he was also open to ideas, which is important.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Are you working on any other projects where you two might collaborate again?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: There are definitely other projects in development, and I’d love to work with John again. There’s so much planning and so many things that need to come together to make a film, though, so you really have to be in love with the idea before you start on it, start getting financial support and everything else. But there are definitely projects in the developmental stages.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>How did you get financial support for Miracle Investigators?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: Well, I did have some grant money, but a lot of it was out of my own pocket. Really, I looked at it as an investment in film school. And the whole thing was shot on film (rather than video), which is over $5,000 alone. I mean, financially, I’ll never make that money back, but I’m happy with the film.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>You both started in Austin, but now you both live in Denver. How did that happen?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: After we stopped filming, my family and I went to Norway for two months, then spent two weeks in Denver, then went back to Austin. Once we got back to Austin, we said “Ew, it’s too hot and humid here. Let’s move”, so we did. We just packed up and moved.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: For me, it was because I got a teaching job at the University of Denver. I’m originally from CO, too, though. I grew up in Pueblo and my wife’s family is in Aurora.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>So, it was just a strange coincidence that you both ended up here?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: It really was. And we ended up moving in just a few houses down from each other.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><br />JD: Yeah, and at almost the same time, too. I think we moved in like 6 days after you guys did, John.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Where else has the film been showing lately?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: It just played at the Friar’s Club, which seems like a Kiwanis Club for NY comedians. It was so neat to sit at the bar and look at pictures of famous people like Dean Martin sitting at the same bar. We usually do better with this film at comedy film festivals, too.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Where else has the film been shown?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: Last night was our 22<sup>nd</sup> showing of the film at a festival. But Vail, Austin, and the Friar’s Club have really been the highlights for me.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>What sorts of films influenced Miracle Investigators?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: Well, definitely buddy cop movies. I mean, that’s all I watched for 3 or 4 years in middle school-high school.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Any particular films that were especially influential?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: This is such a hard question to answer, because if I say really good films, then I end up sounding arrogant, like my films are as good as those. But I’d say everything from <em>Charlie’s Angels</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> to Kung Fu movies like <em>Iron Monkey</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">. <em>Iron Monkey</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> is a really great one, one of my favorites. But, I mean, our film is no <em>Iron Monkey</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>John, what kind of influences did you use for your acting in the film, or did you develop a unique style for playing the role?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: I definitely worked on developing my own style for the character, and I do that by placing myself into the character and reacting to things the way my character would react. But I also like to observe other actors and say “I’d like to try that.” For instance, Michael Kane never blinks. They’ll be doing close-ups of him and he never blinks. I also trained in NY, so I learned different methods there.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>What kinds of methods do you prefer?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: Well, for example, some actors like to use sense memory. One time, I had to cry for a role, and my daughter asked me what I was thinking about to make myself cry. Like, “Were you thinking about our dog that died last year?” I don’t use this method. For me, it takes me out of the moment. I would rather immerse myself in the character and get into it that way. That’s called the Meisner method.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Where did you go to school, and for what?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: I went to the University of Texas and got a business degree, actually. Then, one time, I was on a plane talking to a lawyer, and he mentioned he was going to be late for an acting class. I asked him why he was taking an acting class if he was a lawyer, and he said it helped him be more comfortable with public speaking. So, I decided to do that too. I only took acting to speak more comfortably in front of people. Then I went to NYC to the Academy of Dramatic Arts.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>What was your favorite part of making the film?<br /><br /></strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: My favorite was the fight scene. It was just so cool and really fun to shoot.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: I agree, it was my favorite, too. It was a drawn out part, and the part I’m most proud of. It took us three solid, 14-hour days to complete it.<span> </span></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Being a low-budget film, were most people involved working as volunteers?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: Most people worked for free, yes. Which is actually really cool, because the people involved were just as into it as I was. At first, I felt bad, but by the end you realize that you’re not actually asking them to sacrifice as much because they are just as into it as you are.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: People are not going to volunteer for something they hate. Which is why it was important for me, as an actor, to make sure that he had a good script and a good vision. I asked all those questions beforehand to make sure Jeremy had his shit together.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Did Jeremy have his shit together?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: Yes, definitely.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: It really is important, though, because when you work on a film, it gets to be an intimate relationship. There is an element of honesty. People tend to overlook how important that chemistry is, I think. There’s an upside and a downside to working for free. If it’s a bad project, then you start thinking maybe you should go out and get a real job. But, in this case, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>John, how did you keep a straight face while playing your character?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: I think the best comedies are the ones in which the characters have no idea they’re in a comedy. The actors treat it as a drama. So I would be completely serious when the camera was rolling, and then as soon as the camera turns off, it’s all laughs.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>So, immersing yourself in the character was crucial.</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: Right. I knew my character, and I knew exactly what he would do in these situations. You don’t judge the character you’re playing, you just become the character.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>Have you gotten any negative response to the controversial nature of the film?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: There were a couple of people that refused to be involved because of the subject matter. But, honestly, I think <em>Miracle Investigators</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> is pretty tame satire. It could have been way harsher than it was.<span> </span></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: I met some Catholics at the screening, and they thought it was just hilarious.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: I mean, I wasn’t trying to attack Catholicism or anything. I was trying to attack the uncritical following of any religion. I was attacking the idea of following something without asking or knowing why. There are some serious moments in the movie where we pause and show this theme. It pauses for the serious moment, and then we get back to the ass-kicking.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><strong>What did you think of the screening last night?</strong></span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: I think it’s all about the attitude of the spectators, and I think the Festivus atmosphere was great. People were very open and ready to enjoy the films.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JH: As a spectator, I loved the atmosphere. It was so neat to be around other people who really enjoy film, too.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">JD: There are usually two different atmospheres at film festivals: people there to judge the pieces as artwork and people there to enjoy the films. I think the word “festival” is really appropriate for this, because it really was a celebration of accomplishments.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"><em>Miracle Investigators<strong> </strong></em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;">screened at the <strong><a href="http://www.festivusfilmfestival.com/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Festivus Film Festival</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:9pt;"> on January 14 at the Bug Theatre in Denver, CO.</span></p></div></div></div><div class="submitted" style="margin-bottom: 8px; "><div class="author"><br /></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 99, 0); ">zingmagazine</a></div><div class="location"></div><div class="year">February 2010</div></div></span></b></span></span>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05777122113671792079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-51160192432207581172010-05-19T19:34:00.000-07:002010-05-19T21:44:15.924-07:00INTERVIEW: Sari Carel<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiAhxAx5f0kup9zQOYICwgyCnAIPumPX9928DUF3ILCivxSB0o2u-dY-vVQ8e76_TKqcY65uv8Q26QF-WH0j1p8wxgMKwat-uwou9JUg6_ceMpLCD45bEOqQ36V7Ps7Q93srsJLVWZAmo/s1600/sari.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiAhxAx5f0kup9zQOYICwgyCnAIPumPX9928DUF3ILCivxSB0o2u-dY-vVQ8e76_TKqcY65uv8Q26QF-WH0j1p8wxgMKwat-uwou9JUg6_ceMpLCD45bEOqQ36V7Ps7Q93srsJLVWZAmo/s200/sari.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473208405188180546" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><div class="content" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; "><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong><a href="http://www.nicellebeauchene.com/saricarel.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Sari Carel</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> granted me access to her studio in the nefarious no man’s land near the Navy Yard in Brooklyn.<span> </span>Sari made me green tea, showed me a new film, “Olive Glove”, and we talked about her show now up at <strong><a href="http://momentaart.org/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Momenta Art</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> in Williamsburg, fantasies, clowns, and Koko: The Talking Gorilla, among other things.<span> </span>She has a project called “The Beekeeper” in the current issue of<em>zingmagazine</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">, #21 (available at your local independent bookstore / museum).<span> </span>Sari also interviewed Dave Hickey in issue #14, which can be seen <strong><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/zing14/hickey/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">here</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">.<span> </span>Now it’s Sari’s turn for the hotseat:</span></p><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Brandon:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I was thinking about it and I guess I sort of lied when I said I’m not very familiar with your work, because I’ve personally seen two of your shows, at the gallery in the Lower East side.<span> </span>What was it called again?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Sari:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> “Watching the Wolfman Dance the Foxtrot”?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> And the gallery?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Nicelle Beauchene.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> And I saw some of your photographic/illustration work at Melanie Flood Projects, which I almost managed to forget about.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "></p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Oh, right right.</span></div></span><p></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> And I’ll probably see your show up at Momenta, so I’m doing pretty well actually.<span> </span>I guess we should start off talking about your show at Momenta, and see where it takes us.<span> </span>So, tell me a little bit about the show.<span> </span>Give me a run down.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> It’s a show they do once a year where they feature recent videos that they add to their library.<span> </span>They do a series of two-week projects for each.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Oh, I think I went to that last year, maybe the year before.<span> </span>I saw a video by the Canadian artist Brenden Fernandes.<span> </span>He did a piece involving speech.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Sounds good.<span> </span>I’m going to show this video I did a couple years back.<span> </span>It’s called “Cast & Bridge” and it’s basically this kind of tour through an abandoned, decrepit falling apart house.<span> </span>It’s basically structured on the logic of a slideshow.<span> </span>Part journalism, part dream sequence.<span> </span>Then there’s a soundtrack that is very pervasive, this nature creeping back into the visuals, as well as the sound.<span> </span>Nature creeping back into a model modern house.<span> </span>There are also elements of collage in it.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Similar to some of your previous video work?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Yeah, in the feel and this logic of collage, really layering different kinds of images that don’t necessarily start as relatives, but giving them a specific relationship through the piece.<span> </span>Giving them a specificity by bringing them together, whereas some of the stuff could have been arbitrary selection or randomly put together.<span> </span>What I’m even more excited about, which is what I’m working on right now, is this performance we’re doing there on Sunday.<span> </span>The video has footage from Berlin and I’m layering on top of that, animation and collage.<span> </span>It’s going to be shown with my friend Sergei, who is a composer and musician, and he is going to play live music to the video.<span> </span>It kind of goes back to the early days of film, where they were silent with a live accompaniment of music, I guess usually a piano or something like that.<span> </span>It would give such a different experience of film or a room, the audience in relation to the visuals, in relation to the sound.<span> </span>I think something really interesting will happen in the room because it spins this whole relationship around.<span> </span>Sometimes the music will take precedence, sometimes the visuals will.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Moving back and forth.<span> </span>Is it improvised or did he compose a score?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> We’re doing some sessions together, but a lot of it is improvisation.<span> </span>He works with a synthesizer, and old synthesizer I think it’s from the 70s or 80s, a machine with some street cred.<span> </span>And we have a general idea of what we’ll do, but a fair amount of it will be improvised.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Cool.<span> </span>You said it’s a four-person show?<span> </span>Who else is part of it?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Jessica Ann Peavy, Miriam Ghani & Erin Ellen Kelly, and Eve Sussman.<span> </span>Each work is shown separately for two weeks.<span> </span>It’s almost like a four-part mini one-person shows.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Gotcha.<span> </span>Sound seems to be an important part to your videos, especially after just viewing “Olive Glove” here at your studio.<span> </span>What role would you say sound plays in your videos?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> It’s immense.<span> </span>I’m super-interested in the way sound affects visuals and visuals affect sounds.<span> </span>How they influence the meaning of one another.<span> </span>Like how I spoke earlier of how images rub together each other and influence the determination of each other's meaning.<span> </span>I really like the idea of translating one medium into another and all the mistakes that come from the process.<span> </span>The mutations that they go through in the act of translation.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> How do you create the soundtracks of your videos?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I treat it almost as a painting.<span> </span>I pull most of the stuff off the internet.<span> </span>The basic units.<span> </span>Then I just work intuitively, like shuffling a paintbrush, moving them around until it makes sense.<span> </span>Building this layered soundtrack.<span> </span>When I was in Australia, doing a residency, I was in the middle of the bush, this amazing place.<span> </span>The birds there sing very differently than anywhere else.<span> </span>A totally different repertory of sounds.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I went to Australia somewhat recently.<span> </span>So, I know what you mean.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I would spend hours listening to this whole other set of sounds.<span> </span>The soundtrack for “Olive Glove” had a lot of Australian birds in it.<span> </span>I also did an outdoor sculpture at Socrates Sculpture Park and it had a very naturalist soundtrack, made of electronic and vernacular sounds like trucks idling.<span> </span>But it was based on these magpie birds, which have this really digital sounding bird twerp.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> It also reminded me of something you hear at a zoo.<span> </span>Like you go for a walk through the woods and they have these speakers hidden with soundtracks.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> That’s also very interesting, the synthesizing of the natural into something that is really meticulously fabricated.<span> </span>The video you saw at Nicelle’s gallery is basically all shot at the Bronx Zoo, where you have all of these fabricated environments.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> The attempt to replicate a natural habitat.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> A natural remote and pristine environment, so that falls exactly in the territory that I am interested in looking at from different angles.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> The natural vs the artificial?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Not so much a binary relationship, but more how they fantasize about each other, how they are different sides of a similar fantasy, like in “Olive Glove,” where there are projections of the natural image, projections of the designed image.<span> </span></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">The video is a series of vignettes, little theater sets that mesh together images and projections of the "natural" and the "designed". </span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">I think they fall into a way of desiring something far away and different. </span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> A utopian point within them?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> These images are the images of desire for something very complete, separate from what these objects do day to day.<span> </span>Separate from what it is to go to a place like that.<span> </span>What else?<span> </span>A lot of my interest in sound is in the natural, immediate representations of these far away places that are slowly disappearing.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> And at the same time, they are all digital recordings, a digitizing of natural sounds, so I guess that fits in with the grand scheme of things.<span> </span>In your other work you have a lot of layering as well, drawing on top of photographs and things of that nature.<span> </span>For example, the work at Melanie Flood Projects.<span> </span>Did you start working in photography or illustration and move into video?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Yeah, I used to do straight up painting, but was always interested rubbing two or more things together.<span> </span>These mongrel situations.<span> </span>Once I started working with video, it fit much, much better, but I still brought a sensibility that is very much of painting, out of the studio.<span> </span>This way the materiality of the medium, along with the sound, treating them as a painting with a spatiality to it.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I was just noticing these very frightening drawings of clowns on your wall.<span> </span>What’s up with clowns?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Yes.<span> </span>I like them because they are very unalluring images.<span> </span>A very low level of seduction.<span> </span>So, it’s a matter of using the images on the margins, the images no one else wants.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> But they are these sad clowns.<span> </span>The men behind the clowns.<span> </span>Are you afraid of clowns?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> No, I mean the relationship to the image isn’t so much personal.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> My roommate is terrified of clowns.<span> </span>I’ve never had a problem with them, but I’ve never had to face one.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> And then you have all these horror stories where a clown plays a role.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I take that back.<span> </span>The Stephen King movie <em>It</em></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">.<span> </span>It’s about this clown that lives in a sewer and eats little kids.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Like an alligator.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Yeah.<span> </span>They would show it once a year, and somehow I would always see it and end up watching, but not wanting to watch it then have nightmares for a month.<span> </span>Anyway, sidetracked.<span> </span>When is your rotation in the exhibition?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> January 21 through February 1.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> How did you get involved with Momenta?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I was in a show there some years back, and I guess we reconnected.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Momenta is one of those Williamsburg institutions.<span> </span>Do you have any take on the Williamsburg art scene in general?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I don’t know that many artists that work in Williamsburg anymore.<span> </span>I think that they all moved to Bed-Stuy.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> The mass exodus.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Definitely not new people there.<span> </span>But when it got pricey, people moved out.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Is this considered Clinton Hill still or what?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> It’s kind of a no man’s land.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> A liminal area.<span> </span>The Navy Yards.<span> </span>Don’t know what that is.<span> </span>Whenever I bike by, it seems super-secure.<span> </span>But this is definitely not a place you would just stroll by for any reason, on a Sunday walk.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Once in a while there’s the odd tourist, who is very lost.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> You’ve been here for a while?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> 3 years.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> There really isn’t much of a presence otherwise, commercial or places to show.<span> </span>Melanie’s was in her apartment.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I don’t know if galleries would move here, but it’s hard to get here.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> You had a project in zingmagazine, issue #21.<span> </span>Can you give me your take on it?<span> </span>From what I recall, it was animals missing body parts, paintings?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Actually a lot of the images are images from a show I did.<span> </span>And I did a layout for the magazine.<span> </span>The show also had sculpture and I had this idea, which is kind of a mirror idea to what I said earlier of how do you take the sensibility of film, the way its structured, how narrative is structured, no necessarily a story, but narrative movement, and apply that to something that is spatial.<span> </span>Like a room full of images and some objects.<span> </span>So that was the motor behind the whole idea, and it made for an odd show.<span> </span>But the images were kind of vignettes, flashes of this fictional film I had in the back of my head.<span> </span>Some of them were reverberations of an act of violence.<span> </span>Really direct—like here’s a rhinoceros with its horn chopped off and others that were more indirect, the atmosphere of the image.<span> </span>It’s not like a strict connection, but more atmospheric and poetic and creates a group of images with a distinct feeling.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Seeing that this is the beginning of the new year, let’s do some summaries of 2009.<span> </span>Do you have a favorite show of 2009?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Oh wow.<span> </span>Those moments when you forget everything. [Laughs]</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Whatever comes to mind.<span> </span>This section is called “What comes to mind from 2009?”</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> There was a show at the Met, after Phillippe de Montebello retired as director.<span> </span>It was in his honor called “The Phillippe de Montebello Years” and it had all kinds of objects that were added to his collection, throughout his term.<span> </span>Sounds boring, right?<span> </span>Whatever, some random collection of things.<span> </span>Paying respect.<span> </span>But you go in there, and it’s the most exciting show I’ve seen in a really long time.<span> </span>Because the way they put it together, you have these objects from different centuries, different styles, different mediums, religions, contexts.<span> </span>The curation was magnificent.<span> </span>The way they put things next to each other to create the most beautiful, startling pairings.<span> </span>It was so exciting.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> As a product of the curation?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> And just the power of the images themselves</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> What was in it?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> They had an Egyptian male bust, a sculpture, a body beautifully crafted next to a Swiss wooden bust, this really ornate man with meticulous details.<span> </span>They was these two things worked together, it was electrical.<span> </span>You have a room full of 17<sup>th</sup> century drawings, or a room of Egyptian sculpture, they all look the same.<span> </span>But mixed, it is the differences that make them stand out.<span> </span>The objects all shined on their own.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I’m such a bum that I didn’t see it.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> You could go to that Met and go from room to room, DJ in your mind.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Yeah, somebody should make a map of the Met, a curation tour for other people.<span> </span>Did you have a favorite movie of 2009? Throw a little pop culture in the mix.<span> </span>Doesn’t even have to be from 2009.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I saw this movie Koko: The Talking Gorilla, an old documentary with beautiful Technicolor and it’s about this gorilla that was taught sign language.<span> </span>It was really interested but a bit tragic because it lived with humans and learned how to speak and it became a creature, a species of its own because it knew how to talk.<span> </span>It had an awareness that probably other gorillas wouldn’t have.<span> </span>Abstract ideas like love and anger and “I’m sorry” and they created this creature that at the end was something very lonely and tragic.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> That sort of relates back to how you were describe your work.<span> </span>How it’s like taking something that is natural and then, like with sign language you’re making a hand gesture that is a symbol.<span> </span>A symbol for a sound, which is a word that relates to abstract thinking.<span> </span>You’re giving an animal a symbolic order.<span> </span>It is in some way artificial because symbols are not naturally occurring things.<span> </span>There’s this disconnect once the animal crosses the threshold in a way similar to your work.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Right, it creates a hybrid third place, it becomes this mutation.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> Sign language is artificial, created as a system of communication.<span> </span>Like you’re presented designed objects into a natural landscape.<span> </span>Not necessarily a direct connection, but the ideas are floating around.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> They swim in the same pool.<span> </span>This movie is from the 70s, and everyone is a hippie and it’s in California and it is about progress.<span> </span>Yet there is something so inadvertently sad and hopeless about this project because this woman’s life is devoted to this gorilla and the gorilla was yanked out of her pack and moved into this other life.<span> </span>It became kind of senseless at some point or hopeless.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> It was helpless because people did everything for it?<span> </span>Could it not go back to its pack?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I feel like it was a point of no return.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> It took a bite out of the apple of knowledge.<span> </span>It learned human systems.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>S:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> It entered the kind of relationships that severed it from its original people.<span> </span>I was reading the other day about monkeys and language and some guy interviewed a chimpanzee for a newspaper,<span> </span>like "What is your favorite movie of 2009?</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><strong>B:</strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> I hope it didn’t say Avatar.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> </span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">See <strong><a href="http://www.nicellebeauchene.com/saricarel.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Sari Carel’s</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> film “Cast & Bridge” at <strong><a href="http://momentaart.org/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Momenta Art</a></strong></span><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">, 359 Bedford Ave, through February 1.</span></p><div align="justify"></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:10pt;"> </span></p><div align="justify"><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:10pt;"></span></div></div><div class="submitted" style="margin-bottom: 8px; "><div class="author"><br /></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 99, 0); ">zingmagazine</a></div><div class="location"></div><div class="year">January 2010</div></div></span>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05777122113671792079noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-448213261381067035.post-26507294591674201292010-05-19T19:32:00.000-07:002010-05-19T19:34:43.966-07:00INTERVIEW: Geraldine Postel<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghFXbpqkSQRi5Sir2xtmvTS4TLMAryh5TVHoRFu3ZucRuuZSiUfHmO9Q5-1sohUjNcw26KRtbwwpP0ueWQIsMvtX-bipAWQh07ybOsmCVrIVMrJCOHRLjmaE68VkzD0kWv7GGtjuuaI1M/s1600/turb.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghFXbpqkSQRi5Sir2xtmvTS4TLMAryh5TVHoRFu3ZucRuuZSiUfHmO9Q5-1sohUjNcw26KRtbwwpP0ueWQIsMvtX-bipAWQh07ybOsmCVrIVMrJCOHRLjmaE68VkzD0kWv7GGtjuuaI1M/s200/turb.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473174833904398306" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><div class="content" style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="text-align: center; ">Fabuleuses Turbulences entitled #1, collection of Amanda Obering</div><div style="text-align: center; "> </div><p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">Geraldine Postel at Galerie du Singe en Hiver, Villerville, Normandy, France</span></div><br /><p></p><div align="justify"><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>Devon Dikeou:</strong> You haven’t shown in 15 years. How did you get back to making work and how did this exhibition come about?</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>Geraldine Postel:</strong> I didn’t expect to do anything with these pictures, it just happened that I took them as I was struck by a storm, at a special moment of my life, where the elements matched my emotions: I was equally devastated and inspired by the sky roaming above me. I really felt a special connection with my surroundings and at that specific moment, the sky and I were in tune, in synchronized revolutions. It lasted three hours, and I was literary blown away by the spectacle above, the strength of the elements, the rain pouring, soaking me wet, the thunder bursting everywhere . . . I was alternatively amazed and afraid, time had stopped.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I took these pictures as I take many others on a daily basis, when I feel a personal relationship to what I see. I keep some of the photos for myself or to share with close friends, and I throw the rest away. The next day as I was still reveling from the spectacle the night before. I realized how specific this moment was. I could not erase any of it, nor could I erase from my memory what realizations I had personally or visually in the process.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">When I made these pictures, it was a true moment of decision-making and awareness. It was time for me to make a new step and take charge of my destiny again. I was convinced the voice of the elements reinforced my energy towards this new direction, although I did not think for a second that this was going to lead to my first exhibition in 15 years. In fact, I was terrified when the gallerist, Serge Perkowsky, proposed an exhibition a few months later at Galerie du Singe en Hiver, but I could do nothing but accept the challenge.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD: </strong>Talk about the historic relationship the Normandy locale plays in your work.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> Normandy is my small paradise two hours driving distance from Paris, which I have a personal relationship with; I have been running there for shelter to a small fisherman’s house I have there—to escape the rhythm of Paris for the past few years. It is located between the cities of Deauville and Honfleur, but my home is removed in a small village on a very quiet beach . . . World War II bunkers leave two sporadic concrete shadows, and everything else is raw nature.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I love Normandy for the light, and the peculiar landscape of the shores, the wide movements of high and low tides which transforms the landscape constantly. This area has also inspired many creative types for centuries—writers, musicians and artists including Flaubert, Marguerite Duras, Eric Satie, Eugene Boudin, Monet . . .</div><p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "></p><p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; "></p><div style="text-align: left;"><strong>DD:</strong> Talk about your relationship to the following artists. Say as much or as little as you like. Turner.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> Well, Turner is truly an amazing painter to me, he has painted countless seascapes and situations where the skies are amazing, he also was often inspired by the struggle of mankind to face the strength of the elements and its inherent fatality, with philosophical and historical references. It seems that a sense of tragedy is also recurrent subject. I could have a connection with Turner, in the movement of the skies and the landscapes themes, but I’d rather associate with Emmanuel Kant’s “Aesthetic Judgement”: I admire the beauty of the sublime as opposed to suffer from it.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD:</strong> Monet.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> If there is a way to reproduce the light, the wind and capture a sentimental perception of nature and time passing by, Monet is a master. Monet was also very much inspired by Turner for the way he painted the fog over the Thames, and he did a large series of paintings on this subject. I have to admit that I found myself referring directly to the specific series of Monet’s paintings of the London Parliament, in which we see a tower fading in the corner. It was painted at dawn, and the tower dissolves in the night. It is very dark and Monet captures the accurate light of a landscape after sunset. I saw this piece again recently, as it is part of the permanent collection at the Andre Malraux Museum. The Museum is in the harbor of Le Havre, located in Normandy, and I went back three times to see it again. Monet was born in Le Havre by the way, that’s also where he painted Impression Au Soleil Levant . . .</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD:</strong> Veja Celmins.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> The natural phenomena reproduced by Veja Celmins are very interesting. Often I sense that emotions are somehow removed from the images, it feels like she is quietly witnessing the waves of life.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD: </strong>James Sheppard.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> I have read the review in zingmagazine, but am not familiar with the work.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD:</strong> Vik Muniz.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> I love the way images are decomposed with all kinds of accessories breaking it into sorts of large pixels and “a plats”. There is a lot of strength emanating from Vik Muniz’s art. It’s beautiful.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD:</strong> Giasco Bertoli.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> I really admire him as a photographer and artist. His landscapes and all his work around cinema strike me the most. Somehow there is an incredible quietness in the witnessing, a raw capture with a distance from feelings, a sort of mind game. He also did a large series on clouds, in color, which are very light, playful and, of course, this book, Clouds Don’t Care, but this book does not have anything to do with my work. Things happen for a reason . . . I can say that among the many reasons that lead me to do this series, he had a direct cause and effect on my work and my life, and what followed from that.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I was alone when I took these pictures—I had stepped away from home for a long weekend retreat in Normandy. Without the need of stepping away, I wouldn’t have seen the storm. Without the storm, I am not sure things would have evolved the way they did soon after. But without the storm, I wouldn’t be answering these questions.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD:</strong> Tiepolo.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> For some reason I have a hard time with the religiously inspired decorative painting. Most of it is so beautifully executed, and full of life and lightness, but I really have a strange relationship with it. It’s probably because of my religious upbringing, I’ve had enough religiosity from Catholic School . . .</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD:</strong> Why the iPhone medium?</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> It was the only thing I had at the time. I have a strange relationship with photography. Every time I have made pieces involving the photographic process, I used the process and mediums current to the time—disposal cameras and Xerox machines in the ‘90s, and an iPhone today. Since I am not a photographer, I like to use these popular everyman devices as a medium.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD:</strong> Why the necessity to make them into objects?</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> The iPhone is too small of a format to show more than one person at a time. The enlarged format as it hangs in the gallery is beautiful as it is now. It is digitally printed on glossy paper, mounted on aluminum and covered with a Plexiglas. The enlarged pixels have a strong effect—it is almost Pointillistic. I wanted to make it into high gloss photographic wall piece, where the pieces show that they are neither a painting nor a photograph: they integrate codes from both.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD:</strong> They recently discovered a new kind of cloud in Iowa and elsewhere and it was just someone taking pictures of the sky, somewhere near a tornado. I think the cloud form is called asperatus. Tell me your feeling seeing these kinds of clouds.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP: </strong>I had to look it up on the web, I had no idea what asperatus were . . . But yes I think I have seen this kind of cloud, I continue to be impressed everyday by clouds and light . . . I am not a cloud expert, but find myself attracted to the cloud watch associations and all related websites, in fact the NASA website pictures are some of my favorites—that’s how much I like to look at the sky . . .</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD:</strong> Were your shots from this series just a one-time explosion of picture making or edited from a long ongoing series.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> All images were edited from a larger series, but they were all made during the same storm, on the very same beach. It’s also where I happened to have the exhibition. It all happened in Normandy.</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD:</strong> Do you try to see things in clouds, like children see a bunny?</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> All the time, I see things in clouds, on buildings, in water, in shadows, in architecture, I see things everywhere as soon as I let my imagination go . . .</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>DD:</strong> Where do you see your work going?</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><strong><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><strong>GP:</strong> I have no idea . . . I have taken many more pictures since. Some of them I’d be ashamed to show . . . They were taken in a psychiatric hospital where I experienced a small journey after the storm in the Summer . . . And more clouds . . . But I also like to write . . . So I drift around and embrace the things that happen as they come . . . Let’s see where it leads to . . . I am a cloud . . .</span></div></strong><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p></p></div></div><div class="submitted" style="margin-bottom: 8px; "><div class="author"><a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/user/2" class="editorial-author" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 99, 0); ">zingmagazine</a></div><div class="location"></div><div class="year">January 2010</div></div></span>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05777122113671792079noreply@blogger.com0