,“ October 28, 2011: Hedgerow, Mt. Hope, Williamstown, MA, 34ºF”, 2011, Oil on panel, 47”x70”

Art-Rated’s Jonathan Beer had the chance to talk with  artist Mike Glier at during his recent solo show, ‘With All The Holes In You Already There’s No Reason To Define The Outside Environment As Alien‘ at Gerald Peters Gallery in New York:

Art-Rated: What I’d like to start with is where you started. Your work gained notoriety in the 80’s with the ‘White Male Power’  series, at least that’s how I was introduced to you. Looking back at this work and comparing it to what you are doing now, I’m curious to know the trajectory.

White Male Power: Liberty”, 1987, acrylic on panel, 48”x86”

Mike Glier: Well, it’s been a long trajectory at this point. The inspiration for White Male Power arrived during a conference on art and social issues organized in part by Lucy Lippard. I was the only able-bodied, white, Christian male in the group and it became a joke, during the discussions, for my colleagues to look at me and say “it’s your fault.” [Laughs] I began to see that my identity as an able-bodied, white, Christian male was not the norm, but in fact a very specific identity, which was a topic of interest. And this intellectual interest in identity fit nicely with a pissed-off feeling I was carrying around. I grew up in Kentucky, where there were very narrow expectations of what a man was to be and I was fed up with trying to be traditionally masculine. So, in White Male Power, I explored my white male identity from the inside out.

The masculinity thing came back when our daughter, Lili, was born.  I was a much more hands-on father than my own Dad had been and to celebrate this evolution, an evolution that a lot of men have made in recent years, I painted a twenty-six panel installation called The Alphabet of Lili. The images in each panel of this series correspond to a letter of the alphabet. I loved reading with my daughter before bedtime, sitting on the couch, making up tales and reviewing the events of the day. This was my favorite part of caregiving, so I recorded it as art.

“Alphabet of Lili: B” 1991, 26 panel installation, each panel 45”x36”, acrylic and charcoal on fiberglass.

A few year later the issue of masculine identity returned in another installation, Garden Court. In this imaginary garden the stucco walls were peppered with bullets, scarred by mortars and splashed with blood.  But on top of this grisly setting were images of pretty flowers, lacy tree shadows and the occasional bird.  I realized as I was painting these big pictures, that I was enacting a lot of masculine roles. First, I was the victor, shooting up the walls. Then I was the loser, splashing my blood around. Finally, I took on the role of the gardener, who observes what has happened, tends to current needs and returns the garden to productivity. I liked being the gardener, and found in the role some answers about how to construct a modern, masculine identity.

“Garden Court: Summer”, 1994, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 120”x90”.

Now, I’m making landscape painting in the time of global warming.  When the oceans rise, there will be extraordinary chaos. So, I’m painting landscape pictures because the subject is so urgent.

“August 22, 2011: Mt. Hope, Williamstown, MA, 70ºF”. 2011, Oil on panel. 47”x70”

AR: Along a Long Line was thrown in there. It was an extensive, multi-year project where you traveled along a line of longitude, which began at the Arctic Circle and ended at the equator. What prompted that project? What was that like? I imagine that there were many amazing moments but are there any that really stand out from that undertaking?

“July 28, 2007: Clouds and Moss, Pangnirtung, Canada, 48ºF.” 2007, oil on aluminum panel, 24×30.

MG: Working in the studio got boring, so I started to paint out of doors in upstate NY. I’d get set up outside, choose a subject and then the wind would blow everything to the ground. Or the clouds would come in and change the light completely, or a bird would fly by and it would be so much more interesting than I what I was painting, that I’d change the course of the picture and paint the bird. Plein air painting is about serendipity and giving up any sort of plan and being responsive to what is happening. I love it!

So I did that for a couple of years, and it was fun_, but I questioned if the project was relevant to contemporary life. I began to think about the stretch of perception that all of us are asked to make as citizens of the 21^st century; we are asked to be sensitive to our local environments and to protect their uniqueness, but at the same time we are asked to be conscious of the consequences of our actions on a global scale. To be sensitive to your local environment and conscious of your role as a global citizen requires a lot of imagination and empathy. So, I wondered, ‘How can an artwork possibly engage these extremes of perception? So, I combined plein air painting, a practice that is very attuned to a particular place and time, with lines of travel that describe big shapes on the earth.  The itinerary of Along a Long Line, describes a big arc that makes a quarter turn around the earth, and the a current project, Antipodes describes diagonals through the center of the earth which begin and end on locations on opposite sides of the globe.

In terms of great experiences, they were legion. In the rainforest of Ecuador, the night before a visit to the home of my friend, Juanita , the rain fell, heavy and drenching for 8 hours without a pause. The Rio Napo breached its banks and the canoes were pulled up near the path for safety. We set out for her house after lunch, but the track to her house was still flooded and fish were swimming among our feet. With a leap and cry of, “Pescado!”,  Juanita lanced one with the tip of her umbrella and wrapped it, still flopping, in a foot-long, banana leaf to carry home.

San Cudo, Ecuador: Juanita on her Porch”, 2007.

AR: How long did you stay in Ecuador?

MG: I stayed two months, and got about 15 paintings done.

AR: What would the two months be like in terms of your everyday experiences? Were you painting every day?

MG: Yeah, I rented small houses in each place and set up indoor studios. I’d go out in the field two or three days a week to collect motifs and colors and begin each painting.

“Pangnirtung, Nunavut, Canada”, 2006

AR: In your recent abstract landscapes, drawing provides an understanding of shape and composition, which pushes the picture past the initial moment of interest that stopped you in the first place.

MG: Yes, drawing helps to get a little deeper into the scene and suggest immersion.  While I’m sitting outside, I try to draw not only what I see, but also invisible things like wind, sound, and smell. The drawings are very chaotic and formless to start, and then I take my erasers out and try to find something in the mess .

“August 2, 2012: Hedgerow, Mt. Hope, Williamstown, MA, 85ºF”. 2013, gouache on paper, 20×30

By avoiding preconceived outcomes and working as improvisationally as I can, I’m trying to model an important ethical position. I cringe a little saying this, since it is so pretentious, but it’s important in the time of global warming that we, as a species, reconsider our relation to what is outside us.  The “natural” world is not something separate from us. Culture and nature are the same; what is inside is intimately, fluidly and constantly exchanged with what is outside.  That phrase in the Bible, “fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Gen. 1:28),” is the most dangerous phrase out there. We are not separate and insulated; we don’t have control over everything, and if we keep up with the attitude that we are lords of the earth, we’ll destroy our habitat and die from hubris.

AR: That makes me think other people who work within the landscape genre, and attempt to go beyond depiction.  I think of Peter Doig’s snow paintings;  I once read that the entire series was based around his attempts to capture weather. His initial attempts to build the surfaces we now know him for came out of his attempt to hang or suspend weather on the canvas, to float those layers of meteorological events there. I always thought that was amazing.

“December 19: 2010, Mt. Hope, Williamstown, MA, 30ºF”, 2011, Oil on panel, 32”x40”

MG: I also like Ronnie Horn’s portrait series called You Are the Weather. She photographs one woman many times and shows the portraits in series. The title suggest that the woman is the atmosphere, that any slight change in her expression is a change in the temperature and the velocity of the wind. I think the equation between facial expression and the weather is so beautiful. It really gets at the idea that there relation between the self and the outside is fluid.

AR: I think a lot about the Futurists when I look at your work, in particular artists from the Second Futurist movement like Giacomo Balla. They are interested in the conflation of self and space.  Do you see your work in relation to those artists?

MG: I hadn’t till you said it. Working in the rich, historical context of painting is a great comfort, since it’s a way to overcome alienation. As a painter, one learns from all the people who painted in a previous time and one brings this knowledge into the present in an attempt to add something to the discourse.  It really feels like a family, or maybe a guild is a better description. It’s a group with similar interests in which you can participate across generations.

I question the value of the avant garde model, since it requires a rupture from previous generations, which ensures a measure of alienation.

“December 31, 2010: Mt. Hope, Williamstown, MA, 36ºF”, 2011, Oil on panel, 32”x40”

,“ August 10, 2011: Loon Fishing, Blue Mountain Lake, NY, 75ºF”, 2011, Oil on panel, 32”x40”

AR: Maybe a healthy disregard is the right attitude. It’s something we talked about before: the ability to acknowledge your foundations, but to be able to have a healthy disregard for them at the same time.

MG: Yeah, finding your own voice is important. But I think we need a new language to describe the process of creating a point of view. I don’t like “rupture” since it’s violent and it’s wholly impossible to completely sever oneself from the past, and “disregard” is too dismissive. How about words like “absorb, analyze and contextualize” to describe the process of learning from the past and constructing a position in relation to it?

,“ October 6, 2011: The Arrival of Fall in the Berkshires, Mt. Hope, Williamstown, MA, 58ºF”, 2011, Oil on panel, 32”x40”

AR: Can you talk about abstraction in your work, in particular about the new work here at the gallery.  Attempting to create an abstract visual language from direct observation is a familiar approach and could so easily fall on its face . You’ve talked about that a bit, but I’m curious, how did that develop for you?

MG: [Laughs] I teach drawing and have for a long time. In drawing there is no separation between representation and abstraction. To create a convincing representational image you have to understand its underlying geometry. As soon as you see that, you realize that representation and abstraction are not in conflict; instead, they are elements in a perceptual system and they are codependent. An artwork that navigates this relationship will always be of some interest because it will celebrate the amazing capacity of the human brain to collect large amounts of data, reduce it to bits for processing, and reconstruct it into context-specific knowledge. To work between abstraction and representation is to celebrate how our brains work!

Installation, Gerald Peters Gallery, March, 2013.

To view more of Mike’s work please visit: http://mikeglier.net/
For more information specifically about his project Along a Long Line, please visit: http://www.alongalongline.com/

MIKE GLIER was born in Kentucky in 1953 and lives in New York State. In 1975 he received a BA from Williams College, Williamstown, MA, and then attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. He received an MA from Hunter College in 1975.

From 1978 to 1984 he was an active member of Collaborative Projects, and participated in the Time Square Show. Between 1979 and 2000 he was engaged with Printed Matter Inc, NY, serving on the staff and then the Board of Directors. Solo exhibitions of his drawing and painting have been presented internationally in galleries which include The American Graffiti Gallery, Amsterdam, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, Galerie Tanja Grunert, Cologne. The list of museums that have presented solo exhibitions of his work include the San Diego Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, The Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, The Wexner Center, Columbus, OH and Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA.

In 1989 he was the New England recipient of Awards in the Visual Arts 9, and 1996 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in painting. In collaboration with his wife, Jenny Holzer, he completed in 1999 a permanent memorial sculpture for the City of Leipzig, Germany and in 2004, “Town Green” a wall drawing installation for the Cambridge, MA City Hall Annex was selected by Americans for the Arts as one of the best public art works of the year.

He is currently represented by Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, Gerald Peters Gallery, NY and Santa Fe, and Geoffrey Young, Great Barrington, MA

__________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Jonathan Beer is a New York-based artist and writer. He began to write critically in 2010 while attending the New York Academy of Art for his MFA in Painting. His paintings have been exhibited at Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, Flowers Gallery, Boltax Gallery and Sotheby’s in New York. Jon is also a contributing writer for The Brooklyn Rail, ArtWrit and for Art Observed.
www.JonathanBeer.com

Lost in a Field, 2012, acrylic, collage, colored pencil on paper mounted to canvas
48 x 36 in | 122 x 91 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris

Art-Rated’s Rachelle Reichert had the chance to meet Amir H. Fallah at Gallery Wendi Norris in San Francisco to talk about his work and his exhibition of paintings, The Collected. Amir H. Fallah is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, CA. Amir received his B.F.A. from The Maryland Institute College of Art and his M.F.A from UCLA in 2005. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally. Exhibits include shows at Weatherspoon Art Museum, The Sharjah Biennial 2009, LA Louver, The Third Line, Gallery Wendi Norris, Baer Ridgway Exhibitions, Cherry And Martin, 31 Grand, Frederieke Taylor gallery, Mary Goldman Gallery among others.

He has been a visiting lecturer at a range of respected institutions, including Columbia College, USC, UCLA, Cleveland Institute of Art, California State University, University Of New Mexico, Otis College Of Art, and Maryland Institute College of Art.

Amir is also the founder of Beautiful/Decay, an art and design blog and print publication.

I met Amir H. Fallah at Wendi Norris in San Francisco to talk about his solo exhibition The Collected. Inspired by Renaissance portraiture and vanitas paintings, Fallah’s paintings are engaging and intelligent. Working with themes of power and economics in the history of commissioned portraiture, Fallah constructs unique portraits featuring draped figures surrounded by personal mementos from the sitter’s home. There is an implied significance to the objects the sitters surround themselves with and serve as a face of identity. Naturally, I began the conversation about environment and Fallah’s own home surroundings of Los Angeles.

Art-Rated: Tell me about making art in Los Angeles. It obvious that you are interested in the environments one surrounds himself with. How has Los Angeles shaped your work and helped you develop as an artist? 

Amir H. Fallah: Because LA it is so big, it takes awhile to find your community. The first year I was there I was miserable because I couldn’t find like-minded people. I moved there to go to grad school at UCLA. I was really miserable and I just got out of a serious relationship. It was hard. But then I found like-minded people and I got settled in I realized this place is awesome. In LA, you can walk into a gallery and meet the dealer. You can’t go to Barbara Gladstone and talk to Barbara, you can’t even talk to an intern. You can literally walk into almost any gallery and speak with the owner and they will be fairly nice. I don’t know, maybe because it is 75 degrees all year round, it is hard to be depressed.

AR: California has a reputation is that you guys are a bunch of daydreamers with no work ethic. What is your day usually like?

AF: If you are a serious artist, you get more studio time because you don’t have people pop in. Because it is so spread out you are more isolated. I am literally in my studio 8-12 hours everyday working. It depends on the person. If you are serious about your work, you’re working, if you aren’t, you’re not. It’s laid back but productive. I’m working, but I’m working in shorts and flip flops, not bundled up with a space heater.I had all those misconceptions about LA when I moved here but it wasn’t true. I thought I would come out here for grad school, three years, then straight back to the east coast.

AR: Did your mindset change during your time at grad school or afterwards?

AF: By the time the second year rolled around I was like ‘I love this place, I love the people, the culture, the accessibility.’ You can go to any art event, music, comedy, any day of the week, just like New York— except it is easy. You can drive, there aren’t so many people but you can get tickets to places. It is a great place for creative people. The quality of life a little bit easier. It makes being a working artist a little bit easier.

AR: Did you ever have a problem having your studio space in your home?

AF: Yeah, when I first got out of school for the first six months I worked out of a one car garage at my apartment. We, with my now wife, moved into a house where I had a tiny bedroom I painted out of. Then I rented studio spaces outside. We now have a house with a two car garage.

AR: Did you find that the work changed every time the studio changed?

AF: Well the work is constantly changing and shifting. I don’t know if it has so much to do with a studio or not. Since 2009 I have had a consistent sized studio but I am really productive by having a home studio. My schedule for the last year has been wake up at 8 or 9, I’ll walk our dog, answer a couple emails and I am in the studio by 10 or 11. I will work until about 5:30, then somewhere around 10 or 11p.m. I’ll go back into the studio and paint until around 2am. Since the beginning of 2012 things picked up and I started having show commitments. I’ve had to strike while the iron is hot. I have this show (at Gallery Wendi Norris) then a couple of group shows, then two more solo shows this year. One show is just five medium sized paintings at my gallery in Dubai (The Third Line) in their project room.

Installation Image courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris

AR: When is that?

AF: June. I have three done. I have to do two more. And they are all still lives. Then in December I have a solo show in their main space. It is a really big space and it is a lot of work. I’ll have about seven shows by the end of the year.

AR: That’s fantastic. How do you think about your shows? Do you think of them separately or do you work on all of them all at once? 

AF: I work on multiple shows at a time. The work is thematically the same. So for this show the work is two commissioned portraits and the show in Dubai is all commissioned pieces.

AR: And that is the concept of the show? To exhibit work that is already sold?

Overseer of the Power Chord, 2013. acrylic, collage, colored pencil on paper mounted to canvas
60 x 48 in | 152 x 122 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris

AF: So let me explain. For a while I was doing paintings of friends. I would go to their home and start having a dialogue of who they are and the mundane items in their home. Like this one, this guy is a musician and here are some distortion pedals, guitars, the everyday debris of life. I wanted to paint a portrait of someone without having to do a literal portrait displaying male or female, young or old, all the basic things that describe a traditional portrait. I always cover the 90% of the body and their faces with their own belongings, be it with their duvet cover, their favorite shirt, a blanket, something from their home. I am creating a deconstructed portrait of who they are so usually it is a ghost of a figure with a couple of items.

AR: How does the pattern relate to the portrait?

AF: The patterns are all from their homes but a lot of times I will superimpose a pattern. For example, like this was a Kenyan weaving that was framed and hanging on his wall. So I took that pattern and superimposed it. The portraits are skewed, it isn’t a literal translation.

AR: Do you think of these found patterns as a representation an identity?

AF: I am attracted to pattern so I think it is more of a formal thing. But these are the textures, colors, and patterns that we all have around us.  I naturally gravitate towards them. For me that really stands out. Also, the plants people have in their home. The reason why I like plants so much is that plant life is this other living thing you have in your home. Like stand-ins for people.  They are living things in your house that you interact with as objects and for me that is really interesting. I did a whole series of paintings that were portraits minus the figures and I would use plants like cacti as stand-ins for people as the only living thing represented in the painting. So some of the patterns are more formal and I definitely punch them up at times. Then again, some people literally have crazy, bright pattern.

AR: So what is the process for these portraits?

AF: So what I will do is I will go and photograph them in their home, then I will take the photograph and put it into Photoshop, cut out the background and move the objects around.

AR: So you have them sit for you covered with the fabric?

AF: Yea. I create the scene in Photoshop. I take a lot of liberties. At first I was going to paint it literally but portraits never really show the true identity of someone so I wanted to liberate myself from having to conform to do that. I wanted to put the artist back in to the role of power were I can make decisions that are based on reality but they also suit my own selfish needs.

AR: So are you playing with ideas of patronage through the manipulation and liberties taken with these commissions?

AF: Yes, so originally I was just painting my friends and that is when I had the idea. I was looking at a lot of classical portraiture and all of this work was commissioned by the wealthy and elite. These people were using the artist as a tool to represent the needs, wants, and desires of the wealth. I wanted to turn that on its head and put the artist back in power. It sounds silly and grandiose, and I am not out to make the sitters look bad. I like turning process on its head and having the freedom to manipulate an image. 

Part of the ongoing commission I am doing is that we have contracts and the contract states that before I even go to their home, they pay for half of the painting upfront. We decide on the size, then I go to their home and we collaborate on the photo collage. We have a dialogue and start pulling objects. For instance, this is something he sleeps on (pointing to the blanket covering the figure in the painting). It is nothing like a family heirloom but interestingly, his DNA is likely more embedded in this blanket, something he sleeps on, more than anything else in his house. You likely never think about it. Then this is a photo of his great grandfather, some plants, and a knife his ex-girlfriend gave him when she went to Africa.

The Laws of Order, 2012. acrylic, collage, colored pencil on paper mounted to canvas
72 x 60 in | 183 x 152 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris

AR: Interesting.

AF: Yes it was, that he kept the knife that his ex-girlfriend gave it to him and he still wanted it in the portrait. He travels a lot for work and every time he goes somewhere he collects these buttons.

About a week after we met he emails me to tell me that we forgot one of the most important things in the paintings, it was this drum. I saw it and I thought it was really weird. This guy is a high powered lawyer, what is he doing with a bongo drum? Then he told me in his office when he gets stressed late at night he plays it to relieve stress. I mean, this guy is a partner in one of the world’s biggest law firms, he is in a high stress, high power position, and I love that he is banging on a drum. So there are these random objects yet everything is embedded in a story.

Once I take a few photographs I let the sitter see and they choose a photograph. Then they pay for the painting in full and don’t see the painting until it is finished. So they are really out of the rest of the decision-making. I can make any aesthetic decision. They know that I intuitively change things, colors change. I can turn pink purple, I change the skin color. I edit pretty drastically. At the opening last night it was the first time he (the collector) saw this painting. I was so nervous. They are these expensive objects that these people paid for nine months in advance and they could totally hate it and it is theirs. Thankfully he was happy with it.

AR: Yes. I like that he now will live with the objects represented in a different way. Have these commissions changed the relationship with your work or your approach?

AF: Well, no.  What was most interesting about these works was my process was not disrupted at all. And that is the only reason I would do a commission like this in the first place. Not in a million years did I ever think I would do commission portraits of people. When I had the idea I thought it would be a really interesting psychological study but I don’t have to change my aesthetics or give up my freedoms. The one interesting thing is most of the people I painted I knew. I knew what they had in their homes. The commissions become a challenge because some of the people did not have interesting objects in their homes. It turns into this challenge of finding interesting items to work with. Some people, although they may be art collectors, don’t own any mementos or anything personal to them around. It is bizarre.

AR: That is bizarre. But then the challenge is that you have to change what you think is interesting, make the uninteresting interesting.  How do you transform the mundane into interesting paintings?

AF: Both formally and conceptually it is an interesting challenge and it forces me to paint things that are outside of my comfort zone. There was this one painting I did of a friend where his most precious object was his lucky basketball shoes. I had to paint basketball shoes and make them look interesting. Who the hell wants to see a painting of basketball shoes? So I made the painting and it worked out great but it was a challenge. Usually artists paint the same things over and over again. So it keeps the work fresh. This could be a long series because with every person I paint brings new challenges.

AR: It seems to promise a constant opportunity for growth as an artist. Can you talk about the playfulness you employ in the work? You confront serious subject matter such as identity and economics in portraiture but through pattern and playful use of material it is very visually satisfying as well.

AF: I come from the school of thought that art should be pleasurable. When I go to a gallery or a museum you can tell if an artist had a great time making the work. I want to feel their heart and soul in the work. I don’t want it to feel cold and dead unless it is apart of the content of the work. I want my paintings to be inviting and giving. My hope is that they unravel over time so that the more you look at them the more you have these moments of discovery. I want someone to stare at this for a month then realize that the letters in this painting are collaged, not painted. Or even in this painting, there are actually two people in this painting. Most people don’t catch that.

Warrior Of The Golden State, 2012, acrylic, collage, colored pencil on paper mounted to canvas, 5′x6′ Image courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris

AR: Oh! I didnt!

AF: I want the painting to keep giving. With most of my favorite artists, the more you look at the work, the more you get out of it.

AR: Who are your favorite artists?

Installation Image courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris

AF: Well, one of my big influences was Lari Pittman and also a lot of my peers. Wendell Gladstone, Asad Faulwell, he is a great painter from LA.  The paintings come out as festive color palettes. It is a color palette that I am naturally drawn to but there are references to graphic design and skate and street art. 

I did graffiti for twelve years. The way I make the paintings and the way they are constructed refer a lot to that, even if the poses are classical. [The figures] are statuesque. I am not looking at a Michelangelo sculpture and directly referencing that but  these are all in my head. I had realized that I started making this work after I had come back from my honeymoon in Italy and we visited all of these museums where every building had these incredible renaissance marble sculptures. I can’t help but think that seeing all that before I started this body of work had an influence. All of these works have very classical poses.

AR: I am thinking of the complicated folds of drapery in the Pieta when I see the fabric painted here.

AF: Yeah, to see all the exquisitely carved marble was incredible. And it is funny because I’m not really that attracted to that normally. But I appreciate it a lot more after seeing it in person. You see the statue of David and you understand how amazing it is.Another thing I am interested in is that the paintings look very graphic in photographs but they are actually very tactile.  For example, this hat is just cut paper pasted on there and it is fairly loosely done.

AR: That reminds me, when I would see your work reproduced in print or online I was always surprised to read that these were made with oil, acrylic, paper, and various mixed media. Seeing these in person is quite a different experience. What is your approach to using mixed media in your work?

Shades That Set Fire to the Sun, 2012, acrylic, collage, colored pencil on paper mounted to canvas

60 x 36 in 152 x 91 cm. Courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris

AF: How I arrived at using all of these materials is that I kinda have art supply ADD. I would go through these six month phases in art school where I would do collage, then switch to drawing, the paint, then I would do ink and watercolor, colored pencils– I love all of them! Five or six years ago I decided that I wasn’t going to limit myself to what materials I use or even the medium.  I’ve done some photography and sculpture too. For example, these floor boards are collaged monoprints. They are monoprints on paper that are then collaged on. The skin of all the figures are painted with oils while the rest is acrylic. There is digital collage on some of them, where I am taking photographs in people’s homes, printing them out archaically then collaging them back into the painting.

The Laws of Order (detail) , 2012. acrylic, collage, colored pencil on paper mounted to canvas
72 x 60 in | 183 x 152 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris

I didn’t want to limit myself to one material so over time it has created a hodge podge but I think it also speaks to the content of my work in the various references to high and low art. From graffiti art to baroque and rococo. I like that mixture.

I want all of that in the work. If someone just seeings one painting by me I don’t think it really works well. I always like to show my paintings in groups of  at least two or three.  I feel it is necessary to have a dialogue because there are lot of different references in the work. It isn’t one clear thing. For example, I could talk about graffiti and its influence in the work all day. Or I could talk about the art historical references or pop art. I could even talk about the boarders of these paintings both reference graffiti and Persian miniature painting. There are all these cultural and historical hybrids that are all smashed into each other.

AR: I think it works well with anything goes agenda in contemporary art as a digestion of tropes from the past and present. Can you speak more about the flower pieces and these smaller works?

AF: These two bigger flower paintings are part of bigger series based on Dutch or Flemish Golden Age paintings. I have a couple books of floral still lifes of that era and what I have been doing is photocopying the reproductions of those paintings, scanning the parts of reproductions, then printing out specific flowers from the original paintings and using them as in paintings and also taking the composition from the original paintings. I am trying to breath new life into this amazing moment in art history. It has also turned into a cliché because it is popular, kinda like impressionism. It is hard to make a good impressionist painting. For me that is really interesting. I am not big on flowers, it is not like I have a green thumb or anything.  I am into death metal and graffiti and skateboarding. For me, to make flower paintings is almost humorous. But I am trying to take something that I don’t like and make it interesting. Or at least that is my hope. So I am taking these old paintings and remixing them.

Shades That Set Fire To The Sun (detail), 2012, acrylic, watercolor, ink, collage, colored pencil on paper mounted to canvas, 3′x5′

The flowers in my painting are the flowers from the original paintings. It is the shape and basically the same color. Then I will mix in a childlike generic flower shape next to it. I like the idea of having a reproduction of a reproduction of a reproduction. The paintings are a reproduction, the digital images of the flowers are a reproduction, then there is this generic reproduction of a reproduction— there are all these levels of filtering. Much like with the figurative paintings where I take a photo of someone then do a digital mock up then I am drawing it. It is getting filtered through the computer, through my hand, through the camera and then through the materials over and over again until it turns into something that has a surreal bend to it. So I am trying to do the same thing with the floral still life paintings—breath new life into it. Like I would never do a straightforward portrait and I never thought I would be doing flowers. Really, I am taking these popular and basic images in painting and trying to fuck with them. I praise them, poke fun at them, challenge them and make them contemporary. So all of these small flower paintings are skins. I only use oil for living things, it’s this rule I have because oil painting is more alive. It is illuminates light in a different way. I was scraping off the yellow paint from the palette and when I scraped it off I realized that the oil paint skins looked like flower petals so I took the residue from the painting to make the petals. Again, it is another form of remixing. I am remixing the residue of a painting. A lot of the collage elements are reworked. Here is a failed painting that I collaged on top of. They connect because each flower painting has the residue of the figure painting. And then, the small figure painting, it is also the same concept. I am taking the images of the figurative paintings then making these small paintings.

Rise of the New Hope, 2012, acrylic, collage, colored pencil on paper mounted to canvas, 60 x 36 in Courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris

AR: The smaller works are done afterwards?

AF: Yes, it is the same concept of remixing in the image. It was a way of reworking the image. I can’t help but wonder, what would look like if the stripes on that blanket was a gradation of one color rather than multiple colors.

AR: But don’t you use Photoshop as a tool for these? Why do you feel the need to paint it?

AF: It’s just different. It is never going to look the same as paint. My Photoshop mock ups never look like the painting. To me, they are rough sketches. Once you put the paint down it really changes the look and feel of it.

AR: And would you say you can get your ideas out pretty quickly? Are you able to make these paintings quickly?

AF: The big paintings take about a month to a month and a half.

AR: And that is working every day?

AF: Yes, but I work on multiple pieces at a time. So I may work on one large painting at a time and then with two or three small pieces. And that is working with assistants. These new works are very, very labor intensive. But I paint pretty fast. A month to a month and a half to crank out a painting is a long time for me. I used crank out paintings twice the size of this in a couple of weeks. So now that the works are getting representational and sophisticated, I am becoming a little more and more obsessed with them and slow down, especially with the collage elements. I love the idea that from 50 feet away they read as paintings and as you get closer you realize they are handmade with all of these imperfections. I really like the fact there is a strip of paper that cuts into the leg, it disrupts the illusion of the painted leg. For me that is not a mistake, that is a happy moment. I like that the painting can feel more representational but in some parts feel flat and not too precious. Because I am very aware of how ornate and decorative my painting aesthetic is, I like to fuck with that in as many ways as possible. And that is why I like collage. Collage is a lot harder to get things to be specific or as tight as some other parts. It makes it more human for me.

AR: For me, it allows me to have moments of intimacy through discovery with the painting but I also enjoy its graphic aesthetic from across the room.

AF: Yeah, I love polarities. I want the painting to feel loose but tight. I want them to read differently from distance vs close, I want there to be moments of abstraction and representation, to be moments of beauty and grotesque. Everybody says that the flesh looks decaying or with pockmarks. I am aware they can be written off as pretty paintings and I am always trying to figure out a way to fuck with that. I don’t want to make them too precious.

AR: How do you arrive at these flesh tones?

AF: In this new work, I go back to older modes of painting, the new ones are glaze paintings but the older ones are done in chunkier style, more Philip Guston-esque. But the color choices in the entire painting is usually a more formal concern. For example, the colors in the blanket in this piece set the tone for the rest of the painting. I wanted the skin to really pop off of it. I started using these colors for the bodies is because I don’t want to viewer to be able to know much about the figure, man or women, young or old. I want to mess with that as much as possible. A lot people thought this was a guy, its actually a girl. So the viewer is left trying to figure out who this person is. All the titles of the paintings reference who these people are but it is encrypted, like the paintings. My dream is that one day maybe ten years later the collector and my friend (the sitter) would both be at one of my openings. They would somehow start talking and the collector would learn what all of the objects in the painting meant, then the piece would have a whole new meaning. It is like a delayed satisfaction.

The Earth Is But One Country (Eastern Bred, Southern Fed)
2013. acrylic, ink, collage, oil on paper mounted to canvas
48 x 72 in | 122 x 183 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris

AR: That is great about the work. There is anonymity but it is also deeply personal.

AF: I like cliché moments in paintings. For me that adds tension to the work. It’s like, ‘seriously? I am adding a giant shaggy dog in the middle of the paintings?’ It could be almost cringe worthy.

The Earth Is But One Country (Eastern Bred, Southern Fed)- detail
2013. acrylic, ink, collage, oil on paper mounted to canvas. Image courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris

AR: Well they are also intelligent and informed paintings and it is clear that these “cheesy” themes are done with intention. You make them interesting.

The Earth Is But One Country (Eastern Bred, Southern Fed)- detail
2013. acrylic, ink, collage, oil on paper mounted to canvas
Image courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris

AF: That is what I am hoping to do. And the wall painting slowly gradiates through the gallery. I was in Paris over the summer and I went to the Louvre for the first time. I think the room was Napoleon’s Ballroom. It was floor to ceiling Rococo floral wallpaper. It was so gaudy– my mom would love it. But it is also really beautiful. I was really interested in this room, there were all of these official portraits paired with this wallpaper and it made me think of this project (the commissions) again. So I first thought that I would wallpaper the whole show but then I realized it would be too direct. Then I started thinking about the line drawings for the paintings. So this is a collage of the line drawings to the floral paintings. It is tipping a hat the ornate backdrop of the paintings during this time but not being that exactly.

Installation Image courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris

AR: And what about the way you hung the show?

Installation image courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris

AF: Originally I was going to hang everything in a row but these painting have a lot of subtlety. So the reason why the small paintings are hung irregularly is to disrupt the viewing process. Most artists have the tendency to walk into a gallery and glaze over the work. Even if they like the work, they spend 10 seconds top on a painting. So I wanted to interrupt that and make the viewer pause. I hung the paintings really high and low so you literally have to go on your tippy toes and then squat down to look at them. This interrupts the scanning. Hopefully even if they scan the large paintings, they take a pause for the small ones then return to the large ones.

AR: It is a great unity in the work. Every painting displays disruption and tension. Extending it outside of the painting into the hanging of the work creates an artwork itself. You are engaging the interruption in the viewer experience of each painting and the exhibition as a whole.

AF: Thank you. Yeah, especially in LA, a lot of craft based [work] like mine is not really in vogue. Half-assed abstraction is really hot right now. I feel like there is an extra challenge for me to get people to pay attention to the work and interact with it. They could be easily written off because they are bright colored paintings or really pretty and my hope is that if people look at them a little more, they will see they are more sophisticated. I have all these different ways I try to get people to stop and acknowledge the work.

Installation Image courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris

For example, I use the borders of the paintings. Initially they were a reference to Persian miniature painting borders that function as windows into a story or a narrative into a painting. I like the fact that they cut off the edge and acknowledge that the image ends here. In contemporary painting, it is an illusion that the image is continuing outside of the canvas. I wanted to direct that and say this (the painting) is where everything ends. I don’t want you to think about outside of the edges. But then over the years the borders began to get deconstructed and started weaving in and out or the painting. They start to become a formal element that becomes a road map for the painting to direct the eye. Because they are so dense there are points the border will push the painting outward then flatten it.  I want to make a painting that is really flat yet has space at the same time.

AR: I am interested in how you arrived where you are now. You spoke about grad school a little bit but I am interested in how the work has shifted and grown into what it is now. You said earlier that you never thought you would paint portraits or flowers How did you arrive on this subject matter?

AF: When got into grad school I just finished undergrad. I was doing a lot of graffiti. I was spray-painting freight trains. It was an obsession I was doing for twelve to thirteen years. I was in art school. By day I was taking critical theory classes and by night I was vandalizing stuff. I had these two interests. That was very evident in my work. I was doing these cultural hybrid paintings that were kinda like abstract text-based work were I made up my own language. It was written in a graffiti aesthetic and it was lyrics to punk songs that I grew up listening to America but everything was phonetically sounded out in Farsi. It was a hybrid language that only someone who grew up in America, listened to punk rock, and spoke Farsi could understand.

Culturally, I always felt like an outsider in the Middle Eastern community and the American community.  I always felt stuck in the middle so I was commenting on that. That work was really colorful, like this current work, but it was uncontrolled and chaotic. It was a fiesta of color, pattern and mark making. There wasn’t a foundation to put it all together. Over they years it has become more refined to where I focus my attention on, say the figure, and it allows me to hone in some of the aesthetic decisions in the painting. It has been really helpful to have something to attach my formal interests to. So over the years the process has gotten more refined and sophisticated. There are more art historical references in the paintings now and there are still cultural references in the paintings but it is subtler.

You could talk about these paintings in a totally different way. You can talk an Iranian who came to America after the Iranian revolution where women had to cover themselves head to toe. You can talk about veiled women and concealed identity and what that means. You can talk East and West and the Persian miniature painting reference. I am totally aware that these can read as very different paintings. All of those things are in there and I don’t shy away from it. There are so many things I am constantly thinking about. When I first did these I was like ‘oh my god, I am painting about hijab!’

I show in Dubai quite a bit. There is such a clash of eastern and western culture all living harmoniously in this one place. It is really interesting, you’ll see a girl in a bikini next to a woman in a burka and they aren’t bothered by one another. They are completely coexisting. It is surreal, amazing, and awesome and how the world should be. I started making these after I went to Dubai and I am sure that was a huge influence. So all the references are there but instead of beating you over the head, I am stirring in all these different ingredients into the pot. It will be interesting to start showing these [paintings] in Dubai and see what the read on them is there.

AR: When did you start showing there?

AF: In 2005. My gallery, The Third Line, was actually the first contemporary art gallery in Dubai. They pretty much kick started the entire contemporary art scene there. They are amazing because they started when there was no contemporary art, art handlers, nothing.

AR: And what was your experience showing in a place new to the contemporary art market?

AF: It’s been amazing. I’ve shown there eleven times now. Dubai is this stopping point for both the Middle East and Europe so everyone there is highly educated and  worldly. When the gallery started there it was perfect timing because there were all of these wealthy, highly educated cosmopolitan people there dying for culture. Everyone wanted to support the gallery. Now there are tons of galleries there. Actually, I was the first artist to show with them. I showed while they were building their permanent space.

AR: How did you first develop that relationship with them?

AF: They found me online.

AR: Really?

AF: Yeah. I am a big proponent of people having websites. I have had so many amazing opportunities through Facebook and Instagram. A lot of artist think it’s stupid but really it is just another way communicating. It’s a way to share the work with people and give them access.

AR: And you do that with your magazine as well, right?

AF: Yeah. When I started my magazine there were no blogs. It was a very selfish tool for me to connect with other artists. I just thought some artist’s work was really amazing. I wanted to talk to them and know what their practice is like. It has changed and shifted over the years but that is the basic concept. Now it is so different. There are a million art blogs but back then it was Amir’s personal reference book that other people got to read. It was a zine that came out of a punk aesthetic. Like a DIY photocopy thing. The first three issues I did in high school was a black and white punk zine with some art in it.

So Dubai, I go there now and there are ton of galleries there. There is an art fair there that my gallery, Gallery Wendi Norris, attends. Can you imagine going to New York one hundred years ago when there was no art scene and know the one gallery there? So it has been really interesting to watch this global art scene come out of nothing.

AR: And to be there from the very beginning.

AF: Yea, it has been really, really interesting. They are such pioneers. Because there was no established art market they had to do a lot of outreach and education programming. They functioned as a gallery but also like a non-profit or a museum. They would have book readings and artist lectures and for all of the openings they would print a catalogue because they wanted people to get what the work was about. People really caught on and now the art scene is really sophisticated.

AR: So because it was so fresh and new and you being the first artist, were you apart of the outreach at all?

AF: No, I would just go there, have my show, then head home. But I would interact with people. Like my first show, the collectors where just the dealer’s friends. It was really DIY. One of the commissions I am doing is the first collector who has now bought work from every show I have had out there. It was cool to go to his house and see all these old works from 2005 in his house.

AR: It sounds like it has been a really great experience.

AF: Its been really touching because I don’t go back to Iran.  Dubai was the first place I have ever been to where I feel completely at home. I don’t feel like a complete outsider.

AR: Were you born in Iran?

AF: I was born in Iran but I haven’t been back since I was five. But if i went back there everyone would think of me as an American. I mean, I speak Farsi but there I am completely Americanized. But I cannot help but feel that in America I will always be seen as an immigrant. Not in a bad way but when someone thinks of an American, they aren’t thinking me.  Maybe to some people but for most of the country it is definitely not the case. New York and LA, no one thinks twice. You go to West Virginia, things change.

When I go to Dubai, I blend in, no one looks twice. It really feels calming. I have always felt like a weird cultural hybrid. My old website used to be called hybridheart.com. All of my work was about that. Everybody there is from somewhere else. My opening reception there were people from Kuwait, Nigeria, Russia, Sweden, America. It was a cornucopia of races. There were fifteen different shades of brown! It was really nice for me.

AR: But even living New York City for a short time or living in LA, it isn’t that experience? Do you still feel like an outsider there?

AF: It’s not the same. I don’t think about it too much. My wife, she looks Irish but she is actually Puerto Rican and every once and awhile some old people will give us a look. It may just be in my head but I don’t feel completely “in”. Even with my friends but I feel it constantly. When I am in Dubai I don’t feel it at all. When I was there last with my wife I told her that and she was like ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ Because she is Puerto Rican but she looks white. Sometimes she will go to a bodega and they will start speaking Spanish about her then she’ll shock them with her Spanish. But she has never dealt with that feeling. It doesn’t matter if she is Puerto Rican because she doesn’t look Puerto Rican, she looks white. I definitely don’t look white. No one can figure out that I am Iranian but they think I am Mexican or Indian or some other ethnicity.

AR: That is interesting that you are working with themes of identity in others when your life in America has forced you to deeply consider your own.

AF: Yea, but it is funny that the work that was really popular in Dubai at first was work dealing with cultural identity with a lot of Middle Eastern cliches. When I started showing there I wanted to distance myself from it, which financially wasn’t the best move but I wanted to challenge the people there. When it is a young art scene, people are going to want to connect with what is familiar to them. I am a Middle Eastern artist but really, I am just an artist. I don’t want my nationality or who my parents are to dictate what genre of art I am in. I don’t want to be a part of that; I want the work to stand on its own.

AR: I think that is really important. That is a sincere approach.

AF: Yea. You see the exoticfication of the unknown in the art world a lot. Like when Indian and Chinese art auction prices go through to roof. There are some artists in America that use it to their benefit, bumping up the ethnicity as a marketing ploy. Some of it seems sincere but some it seems like they are just trying to make a sale. It is important to me to make sincere work. I love art, I love painting, I love color, and art history and I want the paintings to feel sincere. I love color and beauty and I want to make work that my mailman can enjoy but also a museumgoer. I want the work to be accessible but informative. That goes back to Beautiful/Decay. I’ve studied theory and I can get into that and we can talk about that if you want to.  But I also want these to be available to someone who simply loves colors. I love colors too. What is wrong with that?

I think beauty has turned into this ugly word in art. I like art that is beautiful. It can be black and white and beautiful or super colorful or conceptual and beautiful. One of my favorite artworks ever is Felix Gonzalez Torres sculpture with two clocks. It is just a readymade but when I read about it was heartbreaking- these two clocks that are set and one dies before the other. It touches me in a profound way and it is beautiful. I think weather it is conceptual, formal, abstract, whatever, I want there to be some beauty in it, something that really touches you.

Installation image courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris

AR: Personally, I totally agree.

AF: I always get nervous about all of the embellishment in the work because I don’t want it to be overly pretty but at the same time I am trying to make pretty work. I don’t like work that is super decorative either. It is beautiful but I can’t have it just be beautiful. There needs to be a little tension or uneasiness. Something that just fucks with the beauty and adds another layer of depth.

AR: You are really aware of the viewer’s experience in this work. Do you think through your own experience of looking extensively, first with the zine that has now grown into Beautiful/Decay, frequenting galleries and even you’re engagement social media has informed the way you present your work?

AF: I get 100 emails at least from artists who want to be featured on the website. I am constantly looking. I see so much work that is almost amazing but not quite there yet. I am not going to be satisfied until someone walks into my show and starts crying. It is never going to happen but that is where I set the bar for myself. It is really cheesy but that is what I want. I want to change their life somehow. Because when I see amazing work, like when I first saw Lari Pittman’s paintings, I was like ‘holy shit!’. It was undeniably amazing. Or when I was a teenager and I first saw Barry McGee’s work, it changed my life! It changed my life. It doesn’t happen often but I want to be able to do that one day. I want to change a world view or how someone thinks about art has shifted a little bit because they saw this work. I think with music it happens more often, especially as a teenager, but art is a harder medium. Movies can move you to tears all of the time but with painting and sculpture it is hard to hit someone at the core. Everyone says when you go to the Rothko Chapel it moves you to tears. I have seen a million Rothko’s and maybe I’ll cry from boredom, but if that happens for people, that’s amazing. What a better compliment to literally move someone in such a way?

AR: Well, that is a good bar to set.

Amir H. Fallah is currently exhibiting in works in the co-curated group show Desaturated Rainbow on exhibit until May 18^th at Field Projects Gallery in New York, NY. The exhibit will travel to Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles in July. Fallah is represented by Gallery Wendi Norris in San Francisco and The Third Line in Dubai. He is also the founder of Beautiful/Decay Magazine. You may visit his website at www.amirhfallah.com

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Rachelle Reichert is a San Francisco based artist.  Her paintings have been nationally and internationally exhibited including exhibitions at the German Consulate in New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Galleria il Sotoportego in Venice, Italy, Sloane Fine Art in New York City and Southern Exposure in San Francisco.  Rachelle received her BFA from Boston University in 2007.
http://www.rachellereichert.com

The Wall of Pleasure, detail.

It seems that the silence of the space indicates this linguistic experiment is to remain a purely intellectual instantiation of the onomatopoeia; an exercise to show that within language as a large form, smaller forms of language and expression coexist. Those notions are soon swept away as the audio component of Estrada’s work is introduced. The space is quickly thrust into a new situation as waves of heavy breathing, percussion, animalistic grunts and moans reverberate throughout the space. The piece was composed by Mão Morta bandmembers Adolfo Luxúria Canibal and António Rafael, in collaboration with Estrada.

‘The Wall of Pleasure’ limited edition vinyl record – which includes the sound piece composed by Adolfo Luxúria Canibal (b.1959) and António Rafael (b.1971), in collaboration with Estrada and three original drawings.

The sound is so dense and overwhelming that the ground floor of the gallery transforms into a mental interior of a recorded breathing, grunting human. We look out from inside the physicality of that experience and gaze upon these onomatopoeias which hang on the walls. The white gallery is rendered invisible by the invasive sound, leaving the words to seemingly hang in the air itself, some letters contracting and diminishing while others grow larger.

As the recording plays on the exhibition continues in the basement space. The descent feels corporeal; the trip to the subterranean gallery is correlative to Estrada’s more expressionistic and automatic visual explorations of language on display there. Language becomes fuzzy in this cloistered space, we hear the muffled (though still specific) sounds of the ‘body’ above us, but below we are witness to language pulled apart and less constructed. The six watercolor and graphite works downstairs are representative of the artist’s earlier trajectory: pale but clear passages of color stain paper that contain fragmented and non-descript drawings. Estrada is composing images but with more of an automatic touch, and in combination with the installation and sound piece a parallel between his practice and the Surrealist and Dada movements emerges.

I believe that part of Estrada’s interest lays in questioning automatism’s validity as a creative practice: his own attempts at creating seemingly random pictures are never truly free from the pattern recognition software hardwired in his (and his audience’s) brain. Here a connection materializes to some of the artist’s earlier work which was concerned with trying to upset this very same pattern (in this case, text) recognition process by making marks that mimicked the visual form of handwritten language yet devoid of linguistic information. Again, he uses drawing to undermine language and dissect communication.

“Narration Styles”
Ink on paper,
Dimensions Variable,
2002

The Wall of Pleasure is the beginning of Estrada negotiating the spatial possibilities woven into visual communication and internalizing considerations of scale and translation in relationship between site specific and smaller, independent works. While small conflicts arise between the mechanical style of the handwritten onomatopoeias and the organic and fluid appearance of his previous work, this wrinkle does not diminish the emergent sensate experience that arises from the total experience of the exhibition.

Tiago Estrada is represented by Rooster Gallery, graduated in painting at the School of Fine Arts of Oporto, completed an MFA in Painting at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is represented at MoMA Archives, Drawing Center’s Digital Archive Online, Culturgest (Lisbon), Colecção ECO (Marvão). ”The Wall of Pleasure” also comprises the launch of a limited edition vinyl record – which includes the sound piece and three original drawings – and a live performance by Adolfo Luxúria Canibal and António Rafael on April 20th at Rooster Gallery.

Adolfo Luxúria Canibal is a founding member and lead singer of Mão Morta, a published poet, lawyer by trade, and an agitator. António Rafael joined Mão Morta in 1990 and is the band’s keyboard and guitar player.

To view more of Tiago’s work: http://www.tiagoestrada.com

Rooster Gallery – www.RoosterGallery.com
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Jonathan Beer is a New York-based artist and writer. He began to write critically in 2010 while attending the New York Academy of Art for his MFA in Painting. His paintings have been exhibited at Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, Flowers Gallery, Boltax Gallery and Sotheby’s in New York. Jon is also a contributing writer for The Brooklyn Rail, ArtWrit and for Art Observed.
www.JonathanBeer.com

September 2001, 2001 Oil on canvas. 66 x 66 inches. Collection of Driek and Michael Zirinsky.

Hung Liu is widely considered one of the most important Chinese artists working in America today. Born in 1948 in Chanchung, China, Liu grew up under the Maoist regime.  She experienced first-hand the famine of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and later studied social realist painting during the Cultural Revolution. Liu has been the recipient of several awards, including two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at museums, cultural institutions and included in several prestigious collections.

I met Hung Liu at her large studio in Oakland, CA. She graciously greeted me and offered me a tour of her studio, currently filled with the large paintings for an upcoming exhibition at Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York. Her insight into art-making, and her friendly and playful demeanor led to a memorable conversation about history, memory, and the role of art.

Art-Rated: History is deeply rooted in your work, personally and culturally. I have heard you say that you think of history as a verb. Can you speak more about this?

By the Rivers of Babylon, 2000
Oil on canvas. 78 x 114 inches. Collection of Peter and Dorothea Perrin.

Hung Liu: Everyone has history, every family has history, the individual has history, and a nation has history, there is an oral history, an official history, a folkloric kind of history, all kinds of history. So I asked myself, what does history mean? Does it mean yesterday, last year, one hundred years ago in China? Maybe one hundred years is not old enough, five hundred? One thousand years ago? Even thinking about [time in] language is very interesting. In English you always have to change the verb in different tense. In Chinese we don’t. We say ‘we eat meal last night’, you know we ate last night, we don’t say ‘ate’. In English it is clear, you give the time modifier but in Chinese we don’t change the verb itself. I was wondering if this also reflects something about our philosophical and psychological conscious about actions in time. Maybe your action will last for a long time, not just you did it, you forget, and it becomes history. Maybe a lot of things are ongoing. Is it repetitive or maybe never really passed?

But it has not been that long that I have witnessed. I was born at the beginning of the Chinese Civil War. When I was six months old my family fled from the war. Of course I don’t remember but I remember [hearing] the story over and over.  But the story did not just end there but it developed. My father was taken away because he belonged to the Nationalist side. He was separated from my mom then they had to divorce through the government. He was sent to jail (and was imprisoned on and off for the next fifty years).  That story did not end there, it developed as time moved on. But after almost a half century, years and years after being in the U.S. I found him in the labor camp in China. I found him. My family history is still going on, right? In Chinese we have a phrase— ‘put a nail in the coffin’, but I don’t think there is that moment because you nail the coffin, you bury the body but the body starts to decompose. There are still things going on without seeing it. And there are also new developments that can change time. And sometimes you discover evidence from 200 years ago, or something about Jesus Christ. Who is to draw the final conclusion? Nobody.

Daughter of the Revolution, 1993 Oil on canvas, wood, antique bottle. 78 ½ x 62 x 5 ½ inches. Collection of Hung Liu and Jeff Kelley.

I feel personal history, family history, community history and national history is indirect and interwoven from the small to big picture. We know something has happened but we may never know exactly when.  It is one of the reasons I use washes and drips in my paintings. First of all I use old photographs that are washy and grainy. I will never know that monk’s name or age (Liu points to a large, dripping painting across her studio of a monk), even my grandfather, I lived with him until the day he died but still there are a lot of things I will never know. To feel the washes and drips create a certain kind of aesthetic.  It is washing away part of the image. I create or try portray and preserve images but also destroy or dissolve them. This is because there is no way we can fully preserve anything. Not food, not wine, not history, not memory.

Memory can deteriorate too. I use a moment, a slice of a moment, a photograph or a document, not before or after that moment. I wonder, what is before? What is after? But I don’t know. The mind changes, the word changes, time doesn’t stay still, history is a verb, it is ongoing, there is no past tense, future tense, history is constant. I have this thing [Liu picks up the hourglass that is sitting on the table next to us and turns it over], so funny, turn it around you can see time running and it keeps going. It is not a clock telling you the time, it is just visible time running. Maybe that is really time, visible time.

AR: Do the drips also have to do with the fluidity of time or the malleable and immeasurable nature of time?

HL: It is a destabilization of images. Because I was trained in China, everything was copied, fashioned after the Soviet Union’s socialist realism. The realism had to be done perfectly. Russian textbooks train so you are the best camera in the world. It is the wrong direction, great craftsmanship. Copying nature? Copying what? So I have skill but that is not  all. I wanted to destabilize the realism. So what does a wash represent? Rain? Tears? Sweat? To create an overall a visual viel when you see the images, you interrupt the realism. Maybe the images are still moving? Still wet? Even when the images are dry there is still movement going on.

AR: When you came to graduate school in the US to study (at UCSD) you arrived with strict training of Social Realism. Did you find it difficult to depart from that style of painting? How did you engage in art-making differently in the United States?

I went to a very advanced school conceptually. Allan Kiprow, Eleanor Antin [professors at UCSD at the time] were very avant garde people, in the happenings, among other things. They questioned me, if I want to be an artist and improve my work, what should I do? In China everyone thought being Jackson Pollock was so cool because there was no image. In China we had the need to realistically portray something– a figure, a tree.

Hung Liu, Tai Cang-Great Granary, 2008/2013 34 Wooden dou measures, grain, flour, mixed media mural
Dimensions variable; Mural: 8 x 40 feet
Courtesy of the Mills College Art MuseumPhoto: © Phil Bond, http://philbondphotography.com

AR: Did you feel that way too?

HL: Well, we were trained. We wanted to labor it ourselves but also thought maybe abstraction is liberation from the labor. But I felt I could not do it because I didn’t know where that came from. If I pretend I was Rothko, I can copy the paintings but that is not me. So I tried things like distortion of the figure, drawing inspiration from ancient tombs, rubbings but I realized I cannot follow the same footsteps. Some art may look contemporary in China but even Jackson Pollack died a long time ago (when Liu arrived at UCSD in 1984). It was not today’s work. I asked, what is contemporary art?

Also, another thing I realized at UCSD was that I was an oil painter in China.  Chinese traditional painting is very specific. You do nothing but oil on canvas all of your life. But  then I realized here [in the U.S.] that is was not about that, you are an artist. When I had a chance to do mural installation I had never heard of it. In the early eighties in China we never heard of the word ‘installation.’ I asked- what is that? Can you write it down the term? I looked it up in the dictionary and it had nothing to do with art. Installation was for construction. It was how you build a house.

AR: Where you shocked?

HL: Still, I didn’t understand. I kept asking, what does it mean? So my husband, who was my fellow graduate student at the time, tried to explain. He said, ‘it is hard to explain, you don’t just do a painting, you think about it, maybe use the whole environment including the ceiling and the floor.’

Oh! Then I realized when I was in school in China studying the mural we went to ancient Buddhist caves-these caves, it’s installation! The Buddha in the middle could be a shrine, then there is a mural next to it, then the ceiling, everything. I didn’t realize it but we have always had installation, we just never used the word.

AR: That is an great connection.

It is there today still at the Media College at USCD, one staircase I did a mural on spring break.  I painted everywhere, from the ground up two stories. I did a some tomb rubbing icons from the Chinese genesis, half woman half snake, two fish, birds, horses, a star chart, and in ancient Chinese language I wrote Da-tong, the name for Confucian utopian society (which is the family structure of women and children at home, men working, and all the elders are taken care of by everybody). That probably started my installation. And then I had another chance in Reno at the University of Nevada, Reno. The art gallery in Reno was about to be torn down and they were building a new one so I was given two gallery spaces and the freedom to do anything I want.

Chinese Profile III, 1998
Oil on canvas. 80 x 80 inches. Collection of Judy and Bill Timken.

AR: When was this?

HL: In 1985. I thought, I can do anything! I was given two gallery spaces so I did a mural-installation on the wall, the floor, I used the whole space. I never had that kind of freedom. I didn’t know I could do installation!

AR: How did that change you as an artist?

HL: I feel like as an artist you don’t just build a wall and pigeon hole yourself to only do oil on canvas, not even do watercolor or sculpture. Also, being with Allan Kaprow, he was my advisor at UCSD, we did a lot of happenings. We splashed paint onto an old couch, that kind of thing, I was shocked. I was like, is that making art? What is this?

AR: Did you have a distaste for it originally or did you welcome it?

HL: It was a complete eye opener.

I had heard people tell me how famous [Allan Kaprow] was. He was one of the leading ‘happeners’. He was a wonderful guy. He’d come into the studio and tell stories. His studio visits were so different from China. In China they would do a studio visit and say ‘that arm you did was wrong, that color is not right’. I never heard this kind of this from Allan. At this time I realized you have to allow yourself to open up. Open up to what? I don’t know. I remember it shocked me in a good way. I had a revelation; you have to be a good thinker to be an artist.

This was a revelation for an artist who came from such a sealed society with conservative ways and used to only using political subject matter. It liberated my way of thinking. I didn’t even realize I could love this work. Because it is not a painting, it is not a sculpture, it is so conceptual. I learned this was a way of thinking. That’s great! I feel very grateful for that time. Even it was two years at school I learned so much. Matisse, everyone knows Matisse in China but it looked differently in the United States.

I learned art-making is really a process. It is more than making a drawing, a sketch, and then a painting. It is a no brainer in China, if you have skill you can do it. In terms of skill I am not bad but it isn’t about that. It isn’t just what you do, it’s how you do it.  Over the years I learned you should allow yourself to feel settled with not knowing what to do. Start from there. It is a good position to be in.

It can be scary but then you learn.  I did something at College of Charleston in South Carolina. I am not familiar with the South and they asked me to do something related to Chinese. Then I realized there there was no record of chinese restaurants. You would think it would be everywhere. The big Chinese business in South Carolina was the laundry business. The local history museum was really interesting. They had old artifacts from Chinese laundries like the hand rolled washers. From there I developed an installation called WashingTown. I made ghost clothes in three colors, red, blue, white, American flag colors. I made a jacket for a man,  woman, and child and sent the design back to my mom and my neighbors  in China and told them to make this for the exhibition. It turned out to be a memorial to the long gone Chinese laundry business. The Chinese in the south was pretty weird because back then they did not fit into the white-only or the black-only categories. The Chinese were neither white nor black. There were many ideas I had through my research before I reached the final result of what I did.

Lucy Lippard wrote something on that. But anyway, this exhibition challenged me. It started with not knowing too much, with fear, and also excitement. You must know that you will learn something through it. You do not know, but you will know although you don’t know now. There is something there. Every time you don’t know you want to learn. It is putting yourself in a student’s position. It is a privilege that I can do that.

Hung Liu, Jiu Jin Shan (Old Gold Mountain), 1994/2013.
205,000 fortune cookies with support structure and train tracks. Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the Mills College Art Museum
Photo: © Phil Bond, http://philbondphotography.com

AR: Do you consider yourself as a student?

HL: I think in life and in art-making, absolutely. Even with my students, I could be their student. I learn so much about anything you can name. Graduate students, they work. And they could be working with mixed media, video, installation, painting, anything, but their ideas, they challenge me. It is not only the artform but the content you have to understand. They may be doing something about the 1950’s American culture and ideals. I was not here. Someone what making work about Neil Young- who is Neil Young? A lot of things I learned backwards. Woodstock? What does Woodstock mean?

I learn a lot from them but also I learn that there is a human condition regardless if you are from, China or Mexico or anywhere. Something comes across. Like how a grandmother is universal, they all look alike and play similar roles. The way family is arranged, for example, but there is always things you don’t know.

AR: So teaching is an education within itself?

HL: Yes, teaching educates the students and the teacher. There is always something new. You can’t always use your past experience. It is good, it makes each day different and there is no auto-pilot.  With students who have graduated, the relationship changes from student-teacher but it is the opportunity to work with a young artist. You learn to be generous with your time. What can you lose? You learn a lot.

Goddess of Love, Goddess of Liberty, 1989 Oil on canvas, mixed media. 72 x 96 x 12 inches. Dallas Museum of Art, Museum League Purchase Fund.

AR: As a influential women artist, you are inevitably a potential role model for young artists and young women. How aware are you of that role and how do you take on the responsibility?

HL: I am aware. I constantly have email. What is a role model? People are not perfect. Being an artist, your work is the thing on the stage, not yourself. So I think the work is bigger than me. The resources comes from something bigger than my personal history and cultural history. I think of my work is much bigger than the individual. When I look back I see I have done a lot of work. I have never stopped. I never forget where I come from, I have accomplished a lot but that is not enough. It is a reason to be better, more generous, and never stop learning or pushing yourself forward. I don’t feel like I represent China, the country, but I do feel like I represent value as a human. On a daily basis, not only in artmaking. It is good to not only think about yourself and your own work. We are all teachers. In China there is a very poetic term for teachers that translates as gardeners, you have to grow a lot of beautiful flowers. You want to see you your students succeed. Some of my students become good friends and genuine good friends, like a big family.

AR: So you feel the student relationships influence your work?

HL: I think maybe. Young artists, their spirit and their thinking, helps. Such as an abstract painters, some of my work is abstract. To talk about how the abstract elements in the students work makes my work richer.

AR: I am interested in how you started making art and how your own personal history has changed over time, from China, to graduate school, teaching and with your current preparations for your retrospective exhibitions.

Interregnum, 2002
Oil on canvas. 96 x 114 inches. Collection of Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, gift of the William T. Kemper Charitable Trust.

HL: I think it is such a complex package. Your work is not alone. First of all, when teaching you have to keep up with the world. For example William Kentridge, Marlene Dumas,  Luc Tuymans, the artist you know in the late 90’s early 21st century. There is a constantly changing artworld. And then Chinese artists. Everyone calls me big sister, except Ai Wei Wei, never calls me big sister, sometimes mother.

I am growing older. My son just got married. My personal life changed. My mom passed away two years ago so I did something in her memory. I did a painting everyday in her memory. Somehow they put this in my retrospective. This kind of thing you live, you learn, the work changes. I have my grandfather’s image of him sewing his clothes. It is a moving image but I waited five or six years to paint it. I needed distance, maybe because the image is so close to me I needed to do it.I wait for many years before I work on some things. Like, I think weddings are weird things.

The wedding itself. So weird. When is the time to do something, I don’t know yet. I have been chasing people, taking pictures. Some [brides] have really bad dresses. Legs exposed. My antenna is still up. I am interested in crosswalks too. Being an artist gave me the lessons to be so excited, like a kid, to be curious, to be silly. I won’t change in twenty years, except slower maybe. What I like is the investigation, thinking, and meditating on the images.

AR: What’s coming next?

HL: Right now they are installing at the Oakland Museum. The show is beginning with drawings and sketchbooks and photos from the late sixties. About eighty pieces. That has given me a chance to look back. There was some work we couldn’t get from collectors. Some paintings I have not seen in twenty years since they sold. It was like a family reunion.

Still Point, 1998
Oil on canvas. 84 x 60 inches.
Collection of the Oakland Museum of California. Purchased with funds from the Collector’s Gallery.

AR: Do you feel you’ve learned looking at them now?

HL: Yes. Sometimes you really learn looking back.  It is good to take a moment to reflect. I was shocked and so excited that I did so much. It is good to see I was never lazy, I did so much work. But it also pushes you to ask, what next?

And then there is the show at Rena Bransten in San Francisco from work for this year. The next challenge is the San Jose Museum and the opening is in early June. It  will be of video works I have been working on. I started them last year but I am still working. Technically I am using help from a from graduate student. Some will be from my iPhone. Some of them I draw from the sky. It is not precious but somehow together it is something. I got inspiration. I took a lot of photographs of a dead bird.  There is a big wall almost 70 feet that I will do a mural. I feel the Mills show was pretty good, the Oakland Museum I am putting together is a lot of work but the San Jose is new all together.

AR: And you are having a show in New York City?

HL: Nancy Hoffman Gallery in September.

AR: And the show at the Oakland Museum is traveling?

HL: Yes, we are looking at a few museums.

AR: Do you think the work will change now after this huge rush of exhibiting?

HL: Yes, constantly. It is unpredictable, just like the weather. Like right here (Hung points to a painting she is working on for her exhibition at Nancy Holman), the background I don’t know what to do next.

AR: Are you feeling that fear?

HL: Always. It never gets easy. But I am not afraid anymore.  What I am not afraid of is my fear but my fear is there all of the time. It is important to know that things will work out. You know you have to. You have no choice.

Richter Scale, 2009
Oil on canvas. 80 x 160 inches. Collection of Marsha Elser-Smith and Larry Smith.

Liu was born in Changchun, China in 1948, growing up under the Maoist regime. She immigrated to the US in 1984 to attend the University of California, San Diego, where she received her MFA.  She currently lives in Oakland and is a tenured professor in the art department at Mills College. View more of Hung Liu’s work at http://kelliu.com/

A  major retrospective of Hung Liu’s work, “Summoning Ghosts,” at the Oakland Museum of California  will be on display from March 16 through June and is scheduled for a  two-year national tour. The San Jose Museum of Art, where she already has several works, offers a new exhibit, “Questions From the Sky: New Work by Hung Liu” June 6 through Sept. 29. Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York will be exhibiting new work by Hung Liu in September, 2013.

More information on Hung Liu’s current and upcoming exhibitions, visit:

Oakland Museum of California http://museumca.org

Nancy Hoffman Gallery http://www.nancyhoffmangallery.com/

San Jose Museum of Art http://www.sjmusart.org

__________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Rachelle Reichert is a San Francisco based artist.  Her paintings have been nationally and internationally exhibited including exhibitions at the German Consulate in New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Galleria il Sotoportego in Venice, Italy, Sloane Fine Art in New York City and Southern Exposure in San Francisco.  Rachelle received her BFA from Boston University in 2007.
http://www.rachellereichert.com

Art-Rated’s Jonathan Beer and Lily Koto Olive had the chance to visit the studio of Brooklyn-based artist Saul Melman.

Saul creates immersive environments, performances, and sculptures that integrate tactile and conceptual manifestations of the body. He holds an MFA from Bard College and is a practicing emergency room doctor. Saul’s work has been included in exhibitions at many cultural institutions including MoMAPS1, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art and Socrates Sculpture Park, as well as in numerous galleries. Saul has also created two large-scale projects in the Nevada Desert at Burning Man, funded by grants from the Burning Man Organization. He is currently a resident artist at Dieu Donné in New York City.

Best Of All Possible Worlds
2011
Site specific installation Socrates Sculpture Park
Materials: Mixed Media
Dimensions: length: 55’ x height 9’6” x width 20′

Art-Rated: Let’s begin with a project of yours that’s still in process – you completed a residency last year at BoxoHouse in Joshua Tree, California, where you turned an entire garage into a walk-in pinhole camera. Are these images from that?

Saul Melman: Yes, these are the negative exposures I made from the project.

AR: They are beautiful, very haunting. Almost like an ink or charcoal drawing. I’m curious about the round objects that seem to be floating in space – are those pie tins?

SM: [Laughs] Yes.  The use of the pie tins just came out of function. I used a small piece of a pie tin to create the aperture of the pinhole and then later introduced the pie tins into the picture because they were reflective. The rectangular lines are from a sliding glass door and a shiny aluminum ladder I found in the garage. I discovered that because I was wearing a non-reflective blue jumpsuit, I could use my body to stand in front of the reflective objects and almost erase them, preventing them from being exposed without being exposed myself.

AR: Almost like a blue screen effect.

Heliogram: Series 01:01
2012
Materials: Silver Gelatin on Paper
Dimensions: Height 32/3/4 ” width x 25 “

SM:  I also made a stop-motion video based on the arrangements of the pie tins. I started to think of them as a heliogram. Like someone signaling with mirrors in the sunlight from far away.

AR: They remind me of early computer punch cards used for input and output, like the ones that were used with the Turing machine. I’m viewing these exposures as individual slides, where the pie tins are in different configurations as if an unknown machine could read them and that in a sequence they would be a code. Or the stop-motion video could be the code. It reminds me of genetic sequences also, the vertical structures and striations.

SM: I really enjoyed the formal structure of the doors.  As the sun would rise, beams of light would reflect off the doors and come right into the garage through the pinhole.  I needed to work from 6 am to 12:30 because at that time the rays were the most parallel to the pinhole, and made a bright image with a surprising amount of detail. These are 19-minute exposures, which enabled me to be outside of the camera, go into the picture frame and physically interact with the doors and introduce other objects. Also, using the silver gelatin was totally new for me. When you buy it, it comes in a bottle, and it’s the consistency of Jell-O. You heat the bottle in hot water and then you just brush it onto the paper.

AR: And then you can just expose it like that?

SM: Yeah, and you can put it on anything. Although one thing that happened was during the day, the temperature in the garage would go above 100 degrees and, unbeknownst to me, the heat itself was activating and exposing the gelatin. I noticed this towards the end of the residency when I developed the negatives and wasn’t seeing my whitest whites and darkest darks in the exposures.

AR: I was wondering about that, if it was intentional or a result of the process. There is something nice about the murkiness of the shadows, and the qualities in the over and under exposure. They look like Sally Mann photographs, or cyanotypes, or like early photography of something from the future. And of course then the idea of a code takes on a whole new meaning. It makes you wonder where were these photos found? Who took them? Who put the pie tins up? What were they trying to warn us about?

SM: Pie tins from the future?

AR: The future of baking? [Laughs]

SM: [Laughs]. The process of making the images was physical; it was very different than digital photography. And because of the 19-minute exposure time, and performing in the image, it felt like I was shooting a video that was being compressed into a singular image.

AR: It’s funny to think of this versus digital photography. Our definition for a photograph is so quick now – we perceive it to be an instantaneous medium. A 19-minute exposure time feels so foreign, like it’s this weird form of printmaking. The degradation of the image is so unclear and not crisp and macro and soft focus unlike the cultural definition of photography today. They look a lot like ink drawings, it’s interesting that you can’t tell what they are. I know you’re going back to Joshua Tree this spring. Do you have any ideas of what you’ll do in continuing the project?

SM: I was thinking about heliograms last time, and wondering if the pie tins were too recognizable in that regard. So I’m glad you noticed it right away, and ruined it! [Laughs] I was thinking of hanging a non-reflective sheet, making a stage and attaching reflective objects to my body.

Heliogram: Series 01:01
2012
Materials: Silver Gelatin on Paper
Dimensions: Height 32/3/4 ” width x 25 “

AR: I’m seeing the sliding glass doors as this surface to enlist silhouettes…possibly laying something on the glass like an animation frame and creating a kind of proto cinematic moment over the 19-minute exposure.

SM: I know from reading your interviews that one question you ask a lot is where do your ideas come from, and aside from process, I like to go to the Met, especially the Central American and Asian wings. There was an image I saw there recently, a religious painting, where several men were about to be killed. The men had golden haloes around their heads that represent light and divinity. I was thinking about making headgear to photograph with the pinhole camera that would be partially blocked out by my head. Re-imagining the light of those paintings through the pinhole camera, except that the light will be dark in the final negative exposures. In the painting the light around their heads is represented by gold leaf, which struck me because two years prior I had done the PS1 project and worked with a lot of gold leaf. Natural light was an essential component to the way I was thinking about the installation at PS1. My interest in working with light at PS1 fueled the next project at Socrates [Sculpture Park], which were the translucent doors. When I went out to Joshua Tree, having worked in the desert before, I knew that the light is special in the desert so I wanted to make light a central material.

AR: To talk about the nature of the window, or putting a window within a window, one thinks of David Salle, but you brought up Central American and Asian art. Those Pre Modern periods stretching back to Mesopotamia, all used windows within windows to describe stories within stories, way before someone like David Salle. I can’t help but think of the cylinder seals from the Morgan Library here in NY. They’re all broken into registers, a very formal device where stories physically sit on top of other stories and can be read all at once. I can’t help but think of them when I look at these exposures.

SM: I love those…that’s really interesting – why?

AR: I think about the cylinder seals a lot, and the images that they print. Because your images are broken into the rectangular panes of glass in the door, I can’t help but see them as rectangles floating in space, even though I know they make up an image. It’s almost as if you rolled a giant cylinder across the paper and deposited the image right on there.

Cult scene: the worship of the sun-god, Shamash. Limestone cylinder-seal, Mesopotamia. Louvre, Department of Oriental Antiquities (AO 9132) ”Photographer:”’ Jastrow (2005)

SM: That’s kind of incredible that you’re saying that, because my initial idea for the residency was to go out there and build a giant cylinder seal!

AR:  So where did the cylinder seal idea come from?

SM: Again, going to the Met. I love how they’re embedded with a narrative that reveals itself when rolled into another material. I’m interested in their original use as administrative tools or as magical amulets.

AR: What were your thoughts about the actual image? Or had it gotten that far?

SM: I started thinking about how I would make the seal but not really what the image would be. I would need to know more about the site first, as the site would inform the narrative.

AR: So you’ve been doing a lot of site-specific projects in the past few years, can you talk about your background a little bit? How you got here?

SM: Well, my mother was a nursery school teacher who advocated play, and my father is an inventor, scientist and a Urologic surgeon. So both a playful and an analytical way of thinking about the world influenced me at an early age. In college, I started out as a theater major and Pre-Med. But I took a drawing class in my first semester with the painter Peter Charlap. He supported breaking the rules of how art “should” be made and pushed us to think about our process in a compelling way. That was exciting to me, and so, half-way through my first year I switched from theater to studio art, while continuing to study science and architecture.

After college, I interned at an architectural firm in NYC and drove a cab. I thought about becoming an artist, but I didn’t have a model or know how a person became a professional artist. In retrospect it seems rather obvious but at the time it wasn’t.  The pathway for becoming a doctor was a lot clearer and was something that interested me, so I decided to go to medical school and become an ER doctor, with the plan in mind to ultimately go back to making art.

After medical school, I completed a residency in Emergency Medicine at Cook County Hospital in Chicago and during the five years I lived there, I took drawing classes twice a week. I returned to New York in 2001 knowing that making art had to be a central part of my life.

That year, an artist friend took me to Burning Man, which kind of blew my mind. I went back to the festival in 2002, and then decided I wanted to make a project in the desert. So, I applied for a grant and I got funded to build my rendition of Marcel Duchamp’s urinal. It took 10 months to design and fabricate here in Brooklyn and then it got packed into a truck like a kit and was driven out to the desert where a crew of 12 helped me assemble it. I wanted to invert Duchamp’s idea of a readymade placed in a gallery, so I enlarged and abstracted his Fountain piece to the size of a house so that the readymade became the gallery.

Johnny On The Spot
2003
Site: Black Rock Desert, Nevada
Materials: Tyvek, wood, steel, fluorescent lights, cast polyurethane and water.
Dimensions: Length 40′ x width 32′ x height 24′

I combined elements of religious architecture with human anatomy. For example, the proportions of the sculpture were based on the golden ratio and the arches were shaped like ribs. Under the dome of arches was a functioning water fountain, the form of which was based on the deodorant cakes found in a men’s urinal. It emitted a tranquil tinkling sound.  Zen, but also kind of tongue in cheek.  Inside, the white walls were eight feet high so the sky was framed above you. You could sit in relative silence protected by the sculpture, even in 60 mile an hour dust storms.

Johnny On The Spot
2003
Site: Black Rock Desert, Nevada
Materials: Tyvek, wood, steel, fluorescent lights, cast polyurethane and water.
Dimensions: Length 40′ x width 32′ x height 24′
Photo Credit: Gabe Kirchheimer

I learned a lot from that piece about scale, and making site-specific outdoor work. From very far away the sculpture looked large in relationship to the mountains behind it.  As you approached the sculpture it appeared smaller, and then once you were inside it felt very intimate. More than 40,000 people saw the sculpture in the week it was exhibited. Performances occurred inside it all the time. I remember two opera singers finding the acoustic center and singing an aria. That was great! Towards the end of the week, people were putting desert dust in the water fountain and drawing all over the white walls. On the final day of the festival I burned the sculpture down, not because it’s “burning” man but because I wanted to underscore its ephemerality.  About 15,000 people came to see it burn. I had a pyrotechnics specialist on my crew and he lit it up, and it went down and went down fast.

AR: How did that feel?

SM:  It was such an immense effort to realize that project.  And considering my trajectory to get there, the project was pivotal in terms of my understanding that I could create my own path. I was grateful for the opportunity and to all of the volunteers who helped to build it. Burning it down was a cathartic moment. Someone made a movie about the project.

So that sculpture lead to my next project at Burning Man in 2004. The rules I set for myself were to consider the elements of the desert, mostly the sunlight, and not to use any heavy equipment as the urinal project required three cherry pickers to install. I decided that I would make an inflatable sculpture. Around that time, I came across the image of the Mandelbrot set, an image produced from fractal theory mathematics. So I had the idea to reimagine the Mandelbrot set as something very large and to show the math of the structural elements that comprised it. But first I needed to figure out how to make an inflatable, because I had never done that before.

Making inflatable units for Jadu Beta. 2004
Photo Credit: Gabe Kirchheimer

I began with lightweight plastic that I welded with a small heat sealer. I made a two-inch by two-inch inflated pouch, put it on the floor and stood on it. And it didn’t pop! At that moment, I knew ‘This is it.’ The next 8 months were spent experimenting in the studio, and on the roof, with various kinds of plastic sheeting, industrial heat sealers and a shop vac.

Best Of All Possible Worlds
2012
Site specific installation at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Materials: Mixed Media
Dimensions: length: 55’ x height: 10’ 8” x width: 20′

That’s usually how my process begins. I start to translate an idea through an experimental process of working with a material.  It’s similar to how I made “Best Of All Possible Worlds,” which began as a translation of a photograph and evolved through experimenting with the process of vacuum forming.

Videography: Richard Huntington Swanson

In the process of playing with materials in my studio I came up with an unexpected new material for “How You Hold Something Inside Matters.” The bricks are made of skin dust and water.

How You Hold Something Inside Matters
2011 – present
Materials: Skin Dust and Water
Dimensions: Variable

My original experimentation with plastic for Jadu Beta, and the 2-inch by 2-inch pouch I made, evolved into 485 inflatable units that were each 9 feet wide and 4 1/2 feet high. The sculpture was 450 feet long and 120 feet wide, so you couldn’t appreciate its Mandelbrot form except from an airplane. But you could see its mathematical interconnectivity.

AR: Just like cells.

Jadu Beta
2004
Site: Black Rock Desert, Nevada
Materials: Polyethylene, air, plastic automotive rivets, PVC, wood and digital sound
Dimensions: Length 450 ‘ x width 120 ‘ x height 16′

SM: Cellular architecture of biologic membranes played a large role in how they were arranged.  The inflated units were connected with thousands of plastic automotive rivets. It took a crew of 12 to put it together and we constructed it from the top down without any heavy equipment. Building it with the crew was an incredible experience.

Several couples got married inside, and in the urinal piece too. Over the course of 8 days, the sculpture slowly started to shift and decay, which was really beautiful. It was another important step in thinking about my sculptures being time based.

Jadu Beta
2004
Site: Black Rock Desert, Nevada
Materials: Polyethylene, air, plastic automotive rivets, PVC, wood and digital sound
Dimensions: Length 450 ‘ x width 120 ‘ x height 16′

AR: It’s interesting to think that that particular sculpture is already in a biological framework: it’s constructed of cells, it appears like tissue, but then there’s this added component of giving it a lifespan. It seems to be an interesting contrast to a lot of your other work, including the performance at the Robeson Gallery at Rutgers where you sutured the pig’s foot that was already removed from a dead animal, to photography, to the casting of objects from shed skin and hide. There’s a lot of connection to something past life, with the exception of this piece, which feels like you created an organism and gave it life, instead of working post-life.

Videography: Craig Callison

SM:   I want my sculptures to feel alive, to imbue them with their own independent energy. I consider my sculptures to be stories, or fragments of stories that suggest time in flux. One of the things that I was interested in with the inflatable was that the units would expand and contract with the change in temperature as they were hermetically sealed, allowing the sculpture to ‘breath.’ I knew that the plastic would appear more organic, more animate, as it was affected by the heat and sunlight.

With the PS1 project, the first gesture was to sandblast everything in the boiler room and to clean the windows, removing the decades of dirt and exposing the windows so the light would pour in and reanimate the discarded boiler.

Central Governor
2010
Site specific long-term installation MoMAPS1
Materials: Gold Leaf, Salt and Saliva
Photo credit: Tim Hyde

AR: Didn’t you refer to that as ‘re-skinning?’

SM:  Yeah – skin as metaphor, if you think of it as the information found on the surface of things, it is quite profound, which you two, as painters would know. I cleaned the furnace to its bare iron skin, made it nude, and then re-skinned it with gold leaf. I trained in the traditional gilding process with a master gilder from Italy who now lives in Red Hook.

AR: The minute you said you made the iron nude, Duchamp instantly popped back into my head – his famous piece, ‘The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors.’ And I started to think about the surface as the Bride – maybe this piece is one step past Duchamp. Maybe this moves the Canon beyond the vulnerability of the Bride?

SM:  I never thought about it like that – you’re the first one to bring it up. The project at PS1 definitely related to both projects in the desert, because all three were closed immersive environments where light was an integral component. I like to think that my PS1 installation is in conversation with the James Turrell, on the top floor of the museum. The work definitely also related to Duchamp because I selected a readymade but instead of bringing the object to the gallery like Duchamp, I was interested in transforming an object already inside the museum.

Central Governor
2010
Site specific long-term installation MoMAPS1
Materials: Gold Leaf, Salt and Saliva

A few things brought the idea together for the installation at PS1: walking around the Met and seeing the gold Aztec ornaments, and reading the book The Shape of Time by George Kubler.  In the book, Kubler conflates the ideas of art objects and tools as a means to think about the relationship and value of objects throughout history. One day I was walking near my studio and I saw a crushed can on the ground, just garbage, and I wondered what would happen if I covered it in gold leaf and ascribed value to it. The can sat in my studio for six months or so, and then when I had the opportunity to create work in the boiler room at PS1, I decided to work with the boiler itself. The boiler is an imposing, massive structure that had been unused for over 60 years and was encrusted with dirt and rust. I wanted to perform a gesture that would reanimate it. So this related back to the can in my studio. I was also interested in the fact that the boiler room is subterranean and that you have to enter through a narrow door, similar to the portals through which viewers had to enter both of the desert projects. I like that this forces a physical engagement with the work. The idea for the gold also came from seeing a 50-foot high Buddha in Thailand, where people would come to put gold leaf on the hand of the Buddha. So I was also thinking of the boiler as a sacred icon. At the same time there was a Tutankhamen show in NY, so mummies and embalming were in my thoughts as well.

Gold-leafing the boiler was done as a performance over six months. The installation also included 5000 pounds of salt blocks that were stacked in the room. The salt and gold alluded to their alchemical properties, the salt representing wisdom and learned knowledge, while the gold was pure consciousness.

AR: You’ve talked a lot about reanimation with this work, and we’ve talked about your work being post-life, and you brought up that as a material gold has been used in a ceremonial sense to adorn objects and ascribe value to them throughout various cultures and that the act of applying gold to something ascribes value to it. But in an interesting turn the act of applying gold to an object also places it in the realm of the divine, and hand in hand with that comes an idea of immortalization. So then we move from reanimation, to post-life, to immortalization. It’s a way to affix something, whether it’s a pharaoh in a sarcophagus or a can you gold leaf in your studio, and suddenly this object is simultaneously reanimated and this new essence is sealed within the gold. It’s the same with the boiler: initially this object that was intimidating is cleaned, and the cleaning process is a recasting of the impression it makes and this new impression is preserved in gold. Almost like sealing it in wax or amber.

SM:  I was definitely referring to ideas of preservation; salt used in the embalming process of making mummies and gold as both re-animator and as an allusion to the eternal divine.

AR: The reification is interesting too, bringing these things to a divine place. And I was reminded of the haloes in the pinhole photos you mentioned, and the way that the gilded haloes apply a religious or divine significance.

SM:  I’ve learned that it’s not necessarily important for people to know my original intent for a work, just that they feel there is intention in the work. So to take the majesty of the boiler and ascribe or reify it, as you’re saying, through the specific material of gold leaf, brings in a whole history. Because the materials evoke cultural history I think people can sense intention behind the decisions to use these materials.

AR: How do you respond to other artists who work in similar ways like Anselm Kiefer or Rachel Whiteread? Or are there any artists in particular you look towards?

Embankment by Rachel Whiteread in Tate Modern.

SM:   I think there are certain themes in my work that overlap with Rachel Whiteread, like directing the viewer’s attention to what is absent. I’m drawn to artists who create their own cosmos and develop narratives from that world. Joseph Beuys, Matthew Ritchie, Matthew Barney, David Altmejd and Geoffrey Farmer are artists whose work interests me. I often research artists when I’m working with a material that’s new to me. For instance, when I was planning to gold leaf the boiler I tracked down Giovanni Bucchi, the master gilder. He taught me how to apply the gold leaf so that the gilding would be seamless. So when I first began gilding the boiler, the gold leaf was flawless, except for a few imperfections where the edges of the gold leaf stuck off the surface of the boiler. But then I noticed that the light coming in from the windows was highlighting these imperfections in a way that was more interesting to me, so I followed the pattern of light and created imperfections in the gold along the surface of the boiler, like a register or index for the timeline of the project. At that time I had recently seen a show at Pace Gallery that included Robert Ryman’s work, which was influential in thinking about the materiality of the gold leaf and the light.  Applying the gold leaf became much more painterly than the craft I had originally learned. That’s important in regards to my process. I have faith that materials will guide me and help to generate the work’s meaning. As the boiler exists now, you can see the hand that put each piece of gold leaf there. So the performative aspect of the work persists through time because of the information on the surface.

AR: When you were describing the light breaking across the gold leaf, illuminating the jagged edges, and as a result illuminating the moment when you laid the leaf down, I started to think of all the themes we mentioned before: animation, re-animation, and reification. But I think that act adds one more: suspended animation. One that is between animation and death.  Between a reified and immortalized surface and a degraded, original surface, post application but pre-immortalization. There’s a lot of thought that has been generated about painting being dead, because the act of painting it is one generation removed from the thought behind the work, and the thought is the only living part of it. I don’t think painting is inert, but suspended.

SM: That makes me think of de Kooning.

AR: Have you done any more painting?

SM: No, not recently. I like how sculpture creates a place and enables the viewer to have a physical relationship to it.

AR: Have you ever worked with ice?

SM: No, but its strange that you asked that. Have you ever worked with ice?

AR: No, but I was thinking about your use of light, and using light in a structural sense, which led me to think of ice hotels and the fact that ice being a medium that picks up and translate light as well.

SM: There’s a poet, Joanna Klink, whose work is very physical and feels like it has a sensibility that relates with my work. She wrote a beautiful poem about a herd of antelope that tried to cross a frozen lake in northern Montana on an annual migration like they’ve done for millennia. But because of global warming the ice broke and they fell into the water and died. I’ve been thinking about making a translation of Joanna’s poem out of ice with water from that lake.

AR: So what else is in the future for you?

SM:I just started a residency at Dieu Donné, a studio that’s dedicated to handmade paper-making. I’ve never made paper before and I was amazed at how much water is involved in the process. The water is the most animate part and then it gets pressed out, leaving behind the desiccated paper. I’m interested in making interventions while the paper is still liquid.

A couple of days ago, I had a project approved in Evansville, Indiana. The sculpture I installed there last year, the third iteration of ‘Best of All Possible Worlds,’ was vandalized and destroyed, so I proposed to create a new work on the same site that’s a continuation of the story of the previous sculpture. It will involve the community where the vandalism took place, and specifically points to local politics. There will be an article coming out about the vandalized sculpture by Mark Lane in The Believer.

Site of vandalized sculpture “Best Of All Possible Worlds” transformed into a reliquary by the local community.
Evansville, Indiana. 2012

Gregory Ito A Bed Time Tale, 2012, Mixed media, 72 x 112 x 14.5 inches, Courtesy of Eleanor Harwood Gallery

Gregory Ito is a busy man. Not only does he have a strong studio practice, he is the co-owner of Ever Gold Gallery, a space in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco dedicated to pushing the boundaries of contemporary art, and co-founder of SFAQ (San Francisco Arts Quarterly), a free publication of international art and culture. I caught up with him at Eleanor Harwood Gallery, where he recently had a solo exhibition, to meditate on the work and ask him a few questions.

Art-Rated: Tell me about your background. I understand you are originally from Los Angeles. Why did you come to San Francisco? And why did you decide to stay here when LA seems like an obvious place to live as an artist in California, especially if one has roots there?

Gregory Ito: I am originally from Venice, Los Angeles. I went to school at SFAI (San Francisco Art Institute) and shortly after graduating I opened up the Ever Gold Gallery and started a magazine with my good friend Andrew McClintock. San Francisco is great. I stay in SF because of the community here.  I have artistic endeavors here that I am dedicated to.  The idea of going back to LA comes up sometimes but I find new things in the city to fall in love with. San Francisco has a consistent flow of artists that come to the city. Right now there is some pretty interesting work being made and art spaces that I really enjoy. When you don’t find anything that holds your interest, that is when you know you should leave.

AR: Can you talk about the origins of your work and it’s personal implications from your experiences?

GI: Originally I considered myself a painter.  I was producing these celestial, spiritual geometry influenced paintings that were vivid, hard edge and symmetrical. Many people related them to Tibetan mandalas, old astrology and astronomy diagrams, and freemasonry imagery. I was really influenced by those things, just how everything works, these monumental identities of the Sun, Moon, and Earth and the relationship between the three. Being from Venice, I grew up going to the beach and would watch the sunset everyday it seemed. These moments where you could see time passing from the dramatic colors during twilight. These ephemeral moments are really special, where you can really reflect on life and yourself. It’s one of those golden moments.  This is how I became interested in the ideas of human euphoria, awe and inspiration.

After years of producing that body of paintings I began to question my relationship with the surface, because it only did so much for me. I wanted to create objects. I have always made objects, but I wanted a shift in my studio practice.  I starting becoming interested in the relationship between an object and an image, image as an object, and dialogue between these two different ways of presenting ideas. At Gallery Hijinks (Ito’s solo show “Point of Vision”, 2011) there were a couple of pieces that I called “time diagrams” where I made sculptural objects that depicted night, day, and the moment of twilight which was represented by these bands of sunset colors. After making the object I would paint a portrait of the object and then show them together.  I was making objects that depicted time, and then painted a portrait of those objects.

I did some self portraits too, which involved personal ephemera from my house. I wasn’t painting images of myself. These self portraits are where I began using the readymade in my work. I kept playing with the relationship of image and object in the studio. I used an assortment of photographs I had taken too that I collected over the years, tropical themed apparel, textiles, and other objects from home. It was a juxtaposition of all of these different textures, images, and culturally charged objects that created pathways to more personal dialogues in the work.  I was making work that was interesting to me and genuine, and felt more open than my past painting practice.

AR: These installations, however, are reminiscent of painting in their composition and use of color. Would you say that painting has been a foundation for these works?

GI:Yes, the way that I make work is through the eyes of a painter. You know? Painting is the foundation of these works because I came from painting.  Without all my previous years painting I wouldn’t have shifted to the work I’m currently making.

AR: What is impact that you want?

GI: It’s about access. In this piece here, A Bed Time Tale, there is the night stand with the glass of water on it. People would react to the piece differently if it existed as a painting.  The conversation would get lost in the skill and execution of the object’s rendering. I wanted to cut the conversation about rendering out and be able to juxtapose objects and images together. They exist as assemblages. During the opening, there was this girl who came up to me and said, ‘wow this water looks really real, did you do that in resin? It looks so clear!’ and I was like, ‘it is water.’ I didn’t feel obligated to imitate the water. It is more charged when it is in its true form.  I want people to connect with the collaboration of the elements within the piece and respond to it.  In the Moonstruck exhibition I wanted people to have some sense of romantic longing, melancholy, and nostalgia.

Courtesy of Eleanor Harwood Gallery

AR: Seeing that glass of water there really made it a very relatable piece for me. It immediately created the feeling of security of having a glass of water on my nightstand before I fall asleep. So leading us into this body of work, how did you conceive of this current exhibition?

GI: During my time producing paintings I realized I was primarily making work for other people instead of myself.  It came to a point where I wasn’t getting satisfaction from making the paintings at that time, and I made the transition to my current work which is more personal and intimate to me. Spending all those hours making something that doesn’t really matter to me anymore was exhausting. I felt like a machine making work that people requested but I was falling out of love with.  I didn’t feel like I was making any personal discoveries.

My most recent work is what I want to produce from now onward. I have so much more freedom  in the studio and the level of satisfaction is so much more.  It increased exponentially. I am grateful to Eleanor (of Eleanor Harwood Gallery) for allowing me to show this work because this is the kind of work I have been thinking about for a long time but I have never had the opportunity to execute it in a space. Nothing was complete, they all lived on in sketches and in my head. You know?  And now it happened.  I’m very happy with the results.

AR: You just exhibited at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) at the same time as this exhibition that was a very different body of work.  Was that conceived before this show or were you thinking about it at the same time?

GI: The whole theme of the show was to do something participatory. The curator, Katya Min, enjoyed my show at Gallery Hijinks and wanted me to exhibit a participatory piece because the show had a lot to do with public interaction.  I did a smaller but similar piece at her space called Ictus Gallery, which unfortunately is closing but possibly relocating to Oakland.  I hadn’t done participatory work much before. I have always had these celestial themes in the work. I was really fascinated by the altars and funeral ceremonies of Asian cultures and these beautiful, circular flower arrangements that are commonly used. I went to China in February, 2011 and I saw these street displays for people that passed away. I was tripping on the cultural gap I witnessed between China and the States.

Gregory Ito, In the Wake of the Setting Sun (installation view). 2012. Yerba Beuna Center for the Arts (YBCA), San Francisco. Dimensions variable

AR: Where did you go?

GI: Beijing and Shanghai. China was a trip. I saw a lot of beautiful things I wanted to recreate. So I wanted to bring that back and incorporate into the YBCA exhibition. I wanted to make a funerary altar for the Sun. I made a large circular painting reminiscent to a drum, circular silk flower arrangements, and a ceramic urn shaped like a casket, which were all shown on a large tiered platform that I covered in faux marble laminate. A conversation I wanted in the work is that people don’t pay attention to the Sun and Moon these days, these major components to our lives and the moments of clarity at twilight. So I wanted to have something for people to interact with and create an intimate connection with these identities that are getting diluted in today’s contemporary climate.  I wanted it to be a conversation between Eastern and Western cultures because thats what I am. I am Japanese and I’m American.

AR: Are you first generation? Have you been to Japan?

GI: No, I am fourth generation. Haven’t been to Japan, not yet. Anyway, back to the YBCA show. So I wanted people to interact with the altar and bring in offerings. I envisioned visitors coming in and looking at the altar for the recurring death of the Sun. I wanted to create an intimate spiritual space and offer something that they carried for a long time and repay to the Sun what it has offered us for thousands of years. Over three months, there were barely any offerings. I was going to burn them and do this whole procession ceremony but by the time the show was done I noticed that no one was participating, and some offerings that were previously there got stolen. I don’t think it had the effect that I wanted it to have. There wasn’t enough personal engagement, or maybe I was asking too much from the viewer.  This is when I made some changes in the work which evolved into what was recently on view at Moonstruck.

AR: Moonstruck at Eleanor Harwood Gallery is intimate and peaceful, much like the classic bedtime story the exhibition features. This work has an intimacy unlike your previous work. What inspired you to take this direction in the work? What personal questions do you feel are answered through this exhibition?

GI: This exhibition is titled Moonstruck. I was told that moonstruck is an old term given to insane people.  When I think of the term moonstruck I think about a crazy drunk guy walking down the middle of the road, yelling at the Moon. That is the picture I had in my mind. I thought it was a really dramatic image, this lone wolf character, an outcast from civilization obsessed with the Moon. Maybe it’s me who is moonstruck.  Who knows? My work always had recurring identities of the Sun and the Moon and I was in a place where I was really unsure about a lot of things with my practice and life in general. Personal doubts, I was in a doubtful state of mind with everything around me.

I was trying to figure out why I was so intrigued specifically with the Moon. So I thought back to my childhood and I realized that there was a book, Good Night Moon, that was a really big part of my childhood.  There was this image in my mind from the cover when I thought about the book, so I sketched it out. When I went online to look at an image of the cover I realized it was almost exactly the same image. This image had burned a hole in my memory. From there I continued to deconstruct my personal history with the Moon.

Good Night Moon Detail, Courtesy of Eleanor Harwood Gallery

I was thinking a lot about domestic space. The work relates to my past and the comforts of home and the comfort I also get from the Moon. The companionship with this identity in the sky that is so unobtainable. So I wanted to use materials and objects that you find in a bedroom or a household. The body of work became a romantic tale of an individual and his relationship to the Moon.

Gregory Ito, Good Night Moon, 2012, Acrylic, composite. charcoal, graphite, on wood panel and gouache on paper, 59 x 48.75 inches, Courtesy of Eleanor Harwood Gallery

AR: You are using a book and images that many children grew up with as well as basic household furnishings. It is easy for the viewer to be placed in a recognizable domestic experience.

GI: Yes, there are culturally charged items that I am using this work, the union suit, the nightstand, the sink, glass of water, and so on. The fragility of sleep that we all share. We all have our bedtime ritual at night, and that is where the spiritual conversation shines through the work.

AR: The Moon traditionally has a relationship the feminine and the female. The sense of an intimate relationship is apparent in this work.  Is the Moon your metaphor for the female as well?

GI: Totally, I was thinking about my past relationships and the idea of companionship. All the great ones in the past. It was necessary for me to make this work. One of my favorite pieces in the show is the Companion piece because that was spurred out a moment of sadness and rage put together. I came home one night, I remember it was a super long night, it was five or six in the morning and the Moon was huge in the sky. While walking home I looked at the Moon and I was reflecting on past relationships and the times when things felt balanced.  I felt on edge at first but then felt better after gazing at the Moon, the same Moon that all of mankind have looked at throughout history and into eternity. It was a humbling experience.

Gregory Ito, Companion (I Miss You), 2012, Mixed media, 70 x 34.5 x 20 inches, Courtesy of Eleanor Harwood Gallery

I went home and I walked into my bathroom to see only one toothbrush in the cup on the sink. I thought that was the saddest sight ever. When you have a companion, there is more than one toothbrush. It was a signifier of what I no longer had. It was a fragile moment. So there is an austere dialogue with the title “Companion” with photo of the Moon, and the viewer with their personal experiences and history. There is no color in the whole piece with the exception of the pink and blue toothbrushes that are embracing each other.  The sink acts as the platform for the moment when two toothbrushes touch.

Gregory Ito, Companion (detail). 2012. Mixed media.

AR: Certainly.

GI: I got this moment of clarity where I realized I don’t have to make a particular kind of work. This work was so fluid for me. To acquire objects that have their own conversations, which spoke to me. I hope that people aren’t looking for a finite answer.  In the end I’m seeking to make romantic work.  I guess I’m a romantic.

AR: I have noticed in your work a strong relationship to material and subject matter. Can you speak about how you translate your inspirations, such as the Moon and the Sun, into painting and the unexpected materials you use? Can you talk about how you acquired all of these pieces?

GI: So I sketch out all of these pieces before executing them, trying to figure out what are the most important objects to incorporate. I wanted the plainest, most basic objects I could find. I was really trying to find this generic quality. I was looking on Craigslist and on the street and everything had too much character and history. I asked myself, where do people acquire most things for their home? So I went to Home Depot. I think the name Home Depot is just amazing in itself. That is where everyone goes to buy things for their personal space.

The first thing I bought was the sink piece and I wanted the most generic sink possible. I love the displays at Home Depot, I love watching people make decisions of what they want in their intimate spaces.  It’s interesting to witness this relationship between individuals and the consumer products they are thinking of buying.

AR: Your decision to go to Home Depot for your materials highlights how we as a culture turn to commercial retail stores to buy generic items for our intimate spaces.  In this work, you too are using generic objects to express intimate subject matter in your art. The intersection between personal and general is very compelling.

GI: Yeah, so it’s funny for me to see people choosing objects for their domestic space but while I am there, I am doing the same thing, but for my artwork. I’m not seeking objects that are more embellished or has a story behind it. I wanted objects with a generic quality that seemed fresh and brand new as if it was straight out of the factory.   The objects have no weight on them. There was no life of the objects beforehand. I’m able to set it’s function.

I went to Ikea for the nightstand. I love Ikea and these commodified mass produced objects. I went with a couple of my friends who were looking for furniture for their apartment and they didn’t realize I was watching them. I love watching people identifying with objects, finding qualities that they relate to.

AR: Would you say this work is a more direct investigation of your experiences?

GI: Yea. I think I’m raising questions more than answering them.  The work answers many questions that I ask myself, so yes it is an investigation of my own personal experiences, but that’s not necessarily what is intended for the viewer to grasp.  I don’t want a tapered experience for the viewer, but rather an open one that stimulates a dialogue. This work is meant to be sincere and true.

Gregory Ito, Untitled (I Remember Your Every Detail), 2012, Mixed media, 15 x 12 x 5.5 inches, Courtesy of Eleanor Harwood Gallery

AR: So you are looking to push and expand on what art is?

GI: God, isn’t that what we all want to do as artists? Or at least contribute to art history in some way? I make work and look at work so I’m making decisions in my studio in relation to what I see, what has been made before me, and what is being made currently. There is so much I haven’t seen but it is nice to know that I have always made art in hopes to understand my orientation of what else is being made. There are a lot of really great things going on everywhere. A lot of artists are taking steps to merge different practices and incorporate new materials into their work.  It is becoming more accessible too with the incorporation of the internet and net art being made for the purpose of being re-blogged and connect with the masses rather than cater to a small group of rich art enthusiasts that are exclusive and closed off. People now look at things differently. That is why the whole conversation of image and object is being spoken of a lot more because people relate to an image of an object differently than an object itself and vice versa, also image as an object.  I think that the qualities of what an artist is is being readdressed. Freedom in your practice is more permitted and encouraged. I enjoy that. People need to break out and make whatever the hell they want.

AR: So what’s next?

GI: I have a month long residency program at Truesilver in San Francisco.  I’m using personal ephemera from the gallerists’ home to create arrangements that I find interesting and at moments funny.  I will also be in a group show in Sacramento later this year, and a solo exhibition in Los Angeles at a new gallery called Prohibition.  I’m excited to spend time in the studio after the show at Eleanor Harwood Gallery and hash out some new ideas. I am going to do studio visits with a bunch of artists I know and reached out to. Exchanging ideas and geeking out on new work they’ve seen and readings and stuff like that. When you have a consistent practice it can be overwhelming, it takes a lot of energy and time. An artist should be committed to looking at art too and reading about it, writing about it, and so on.  Artists, we’re filters of culture and the world around us and mediate it into our practice. We take in everything that we interact with and produce something as a response or as a product of those driving factors that initiate the creative process.

Andrew and I are continuing our efforts at Ever Gold Gallery (Andrew McClintock is the co-founder of the gallery and magazine). I love working with our artists and talking with them about their work. Ever Gold gives me the opportunity do that every month. When we work with artists, we usually give them a stipend for their exhibitions. I am a craftsman, I build a lot of things. One of my contributions to the gallery is helping artists execute the exhibition and fabricate things they need. Some artists don’t know how to build certain things that they hope to make, but don’t have the shop or skill, so outsourcing my help is always there if they need it. It is a good experience for me because I am involved in their creative act. It is nice to remove yourself from your own practice and be involved in another artist’s practice.  It helps you think about their work and how and why they produce the work that they do.

Gregory Ito, Bed Bath and Beyond. 2013. Yoga mat, bong, massager. Truesilver Residency, San Francisco.

The magazine, SFAQ (San Francisco Arts Quarterly), forces me to be active in seeking out what else is going on locally and internationally. It is great to interview artists, curators, gallerists, and collectors because you get to talk about art from all of their perspectives. You get to meet a lot of inspiring people.  I learn about a lot too because we have writers who pitch us stuff that I have never heard of. For Andrew and I to produce this free art publication,  I am really proud of it. It is really time consuming but the satisfaction I get from working with Andrew is an amazing experience.

All the hats I am wearing, as an artist, editor, publisher, gallerist, art handler, curator and writer, I’ve learned it is important for artists to be involved with as much as they can. They should contribute more to the artistic community. We are all obligated to give back.  We just released our 12th issue so I hope people read it which is in print and online.

Gregory Ito was born in Los Angeles and he lives and works in San Francisco. BFA: SFAI – San Francisco Art Institute, 2008. Endeavors: Ever Gold Gallery (co-owner), SFAQ – San Francisco Arts Quarterly (co-founder). CV: www.gregoryito.com

www.sfaqonline.com/

www.evergoldgallery.com

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Rachelle Reichert is a San Francisco based artist working in painting and drawing.  Her paintings have been nationally and internationally exhibited including exhibitions at the German Consulate in New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Galleria il Sotoportego in Venice, Italy, Sloane Fine Art in New York City and Southern Exposure in San Francisco. Rachelle was awarded a residency at Can Serrat, in Catalonia, Spain and a grant from the Susan Pilner Money for Women Artist Fund. She has received commissions by Red Bull, Inc. and the Boston University Medical School.  Currently, Rachelle is a resident artist at Root Division in San Francisco.

http://www.rachellereichert.com

Avelino Sala, Blockhouse, 2012. Courtesy of Input Foundation and the artist.

INPUT is an avant-garde nonprofit journal founded in 2009. The journal seeks to preserve the book form as a space for artistic experimentation and collaboration in the field of art publishing. For each limited edition, a guest art director is invited to approach the space of the book in a curatorial fashion. INPUT has been featured at the New York Art Book Fair, The Armory Show and Printed Matter.

Under the curation of guest creative director Avelino Sala, “Blockhouse” as a metaphor for a bunker, explores the capacity of artists to confront crisis, and to question the symbolic function of art and the role of creation during a critical moment of metaphorical entrenchment.

Art-Rated’s Jonathan Beer had the chance to sit down with editor, curator, NYU professor Renee Vara and talk about the latest volume of INPUT:

Art-Rated: Since 2009 you’ve published five volumes including BLOCKHOUSE – what brought you to starting a publication? What motivated you to preserve and promote the book format?
Would you consider each INPUT volume to be a curated exhibition in book format? It’s an interesting turn from the standard post exhibition catalog, which is more of a passive archive.

Renee Vara: I think it all started in two ways, one, taking my curatorial practice and working as an independent curator I felt that there was such an ephemeral element and as an art historian I really love the trace, written material and published material. And I think I was also really dissatisfied with a lot of what was coming out on web based blogs and that sort of thing. I had an impulse that I would try to do it, in a way that brought in a curatorial practice and rubbed and slightly resisted the idea of a magazine or a journal or an exhibition catalog. Which is frankly kind of amazing, when you have someone be a guest Art Director, it’s amazing how sometimes it takes them a while to understand that they’re really free to rethink it and play with it as a medium in itself -

AR: Because it’s no longer a passive archive -

RV: Right, and its more than just being a way to illustrate something, and that something I really try to encourage. Obviously when we’re trying to self-fund we don’t have an insane budget to produce something crazy. I was really inspired by a lot of art books from the PS1 Book Fair, and I really like to collect a lot of art books and I came across a bunch of hand printed, ditto copied, early Richard Prince pamphlets and thought they were beautiful. So all of that I just said, well let’s try it. The first one was small – the overall theme was public spaces and we did it in a month. We really DIYed it, it was all self-published, and I had to teach myself how to publish. And that alone was a good experience for me. Plus I think artists get a lot of chances to make work but not a lot of chances to make books. Unless they have a big gallery behind them, but even then it’s only about their work, and artists are amazing collaborators. Every single version of INPUT has shown that, and often that never gets explored in a book format because it’s just not profitable.

AR: It’s interesting to think that if an essay can open up a topic in the way that a review never can, in some ways INPUT is like a visual essay in ways that couldn’t happen otherwise.

RV: I think museums are trying to balance that more proactively, but you also have the flipside where museums move more and more to these blockbuster shows with big distribution because books are expensive to produce. I am interested in having an online component, but we had to get some traction first and play both worlds a bit.

Marc Bijl, Modern crisis, 2009. Photo: Nils Klinger. Courtesy of the artist.

AR: This publication is focused on entrenchment, which by definition is an active response to a crisis of some kind, either internal or external. It’s also something that’s felt acutely by everyone today, in one form or another. What led you to this idea for INPUT#5?

RV: Well, I think because Avelino Sala and I worked on Waterways in 2005, which I curated, we were dealing with the idea of the global warming crisis. This was before it became topical with Al Gore, and we were trying to bring back this nostalgia of a political activist project. I always look back on that as a particularly romantic moment for American artists who wanted to be political activists. The Peace Tower that was featured at the Whitney Biennial about four years ago existed in real space. So that’s where Avelino and I had a basis for working on projects about crisis, and then the Istanbul Biennale in 2005, with Waterways. I was publishing and Avelino came to me and said ‘I want to do something’ and so we sat down. It’s usually pretty collaborative but I gave a tremendous amount of freedom to how the artists want to say something. Our last issue got censored by the Canadian government, because they said one of the pieces was pornographic. Since we were printing it in Canada, the printer refused to print it for us. That was Second Skin, which was difficult because that issue was handmade. I refused to take the piece out. So the Art Director has a tremendous amount of freedom, and almost always the artist themselves choose what’s brought to the table. In a couple of cases I might have said this isn’t playing right, in terms of the format or printing, but it’s pretty liberal. The artists can do whatever they want. I have seen artists try to censor each other, in a way. Some artists really care about the quality of the output, while others are more fluid about it. A few artists thought that there should be a certain standard everything should appear at, and I had to hold my ground on that the submission quality was up to each artist.

AR: The included essays expound the idea of crisis: one that is decidedly beyond postmodernism, one that is more acutely glimpsed through a variety of lenses, whether social or economic or political. It is a crisis so large we barely understand its parts as they spin in different but equally pressing directions. Instead we feel its whole gravity and witness its repercussions. The ideas put forward in the essays are that artists build something, an object, a practice, that puts us away from and bolsters us against this crisis. Do you think that the artists’ role has always been like this because we are working within a system inside a civilization that has certain parameters?

RV: No, I don’t think so. I think the advent of Post-War economy in America did the opposite – it’s taken them out of their studios, the places that were their sanctuaries and bunkers and put them forthright as celebrities or idols, or heroes and heroines.  Maybe now, there is a reaction to that, and I don’t think it’s just the crisis but also as an ideological response to finding a different alternative to capitalism. What is consistent in INPUT #5 is that many of the artists are thinking like that, and maybe it’s because of the political relationships existent in Spain. There are a lot of artists today who are more interested in persona and less about reflection. But I think those moments of artistic reflection are helpful, helpful to society. The problem is the machine of capitalism and technology doesn’t really allow for those moments of timely reflection. In that way I think we’re always in a moment of crisis because things like flash trading and shock finances, these things that are so extreme and exacerbated, which have been reverberating since I’ve been an adult. But now the highs and the lows are exacerbated by technology, the banks and the governance, and those extremes are maybe creating more space to have that moment of reflection, because you can’t even keep pace with the highs and the lows. But I think it’s up to the artists how they respond. Hilary Clinton just said that diplomats cannot live in a bunker and be out in the world, but maybe artists are the ones that can. I think it’s a self-made situation.

AR: In his essay curator Avelino states that art is about ‘telling things as they are’- you could say that that in itself is a decision to ignore the high and low exacerbation and allow the bunker to be built. As we’ve been talking, we’ve been trying to figure out what the new model is, and I think perhaps it’s ignoring the situation to avoid being trapped in it. I think it means finding a way to be supported, which would afford a freedom if you’re willing to take it.

RV: I think that’s what is interesting about this notion of useful art as a paradigm. What it’s doing is taking art out of the world of aesthetics, which says it doesn’t have to have use value or a pragmatic application in the real world. That is a very cultural thing in the Netherlands, where artists are now bunkering down. I’m not sure of what the use is of codifying art like that, it seems very Bauhaus to me. Which is why I liked to hear about that Democracia and how they deal with the bunkering down and reflecting differently, not in a Bauhaus kind of way.

AR: Democracia’s piece in INPUT #5, ‘Eat the Rich, Kill the Poor,’ and all their projects make me think more of Joseph Beuy’s idea of ‘acting in.’ That an artwork is a social sculpture as well as a physical entity, it’s an object that enacts an invisible change on the surface of culture.

RV: And if you think of the Avant-garde, of Marionetti and the Futurists, the Dadaists, they did have this ideology that they could create change, and they felt a responsibility to do that. I think that the movement of an artist either towards the bunker or the podium is dictated by this idea of responsibility. It sounds really mundane, and un-sexy for a lot of people who aren’t interested in becoming the celebrity Bieber-status-tweeter. You can see a huge shift between someone like Damien Hirst and Ai Weiwei, both of them have gained those platforms with their talent and ability to navigate both worlds but in the end what do they choose to do with that ability? In a way, both of them have chosen to take the world onto themselves. Especially Ai Weiwei, whose created a physical firewall, a true bunker, and he’s bunkered in. As the wall gets thicker he gets even more active. So there’s this resistance and reaction with him. And I don’t think Damien Hirst sees his role that way. I think those are the two spectrums, and I think that every artist has to navigate those two things. And what’s interesting is that I don’t think Ai Weiwei had a choice, they put him in a bunker.

Democracia, Kill the poor eat the rich, Intervención sobre una limusina hummer dedicada a transportar coleccionistas y amantes del arte durante el Armory Show 2010, New York. Photo: Rodrigo Pereda. Courtesy of Input Foundation and the artist.

Democracia, Kill the poor eat the rich, Intervención sobre una limusina hummer dedicada a transportar coleccionistas y amantes del arte durante el Armory Show 2010, New York. Photo: Rodrigo Pereda. Courtesy of Input Foundation and the artist.

AR: And he built another bunker, an enclave.

RV: One that empowered him.

AR: It’s funny you just said the bunker and the podium, and I was thinking entrenched versus embedded. Koons and Hirst are very much living in a very big bubble inside the situation they want to be in – they’re self-embedded in a way.

RV: Most artists I know, most people I work with, all know that they are tied to capitalism. I think the new generation accepts that. It’s almost impossible to say that you are anti-capitalist or anti-market, because we’re all subject to these forces and in some ways tied to it. I think Europe has been a little bit better, and that this [issue] has come about in the worst of economic times for Spain, who upheld up their grant for its production. In a lot of European countries there is a little bit of support left, but if you look at the Netherlands, artists feel that no one respects the role of the artist any more. So maybe they feel vindicated if their art has a use function, aka they can find a value system outside of their capitalist value, and maybe that gives them a new definition for being an artist. But that doesn’t sound like an ideal situation either. So whether you’re entrenched or bunkered in, I think all artists understand that they have some relationship to social and economic forces. Which is how strongly they resist, or how they take from Peter to give to Paul. That freedom to do whatever they wish is amazing, I think even artists in Paris in the 1920’s had that freedom to say things how they wished or take directions without considering the capital they would get. I think that’s what INPUT is supposed to be about. But of course we’re tied to the same issues, so we have to bunker down. In a way, INPUT is supposed to be the bunker.

AR: Obviously a large part of INPUT is the artist’s work. And in this issue we see artists dealing with crisis in a variety of ways: sometimes by having a crisis themselves (Josechu Davila’s Crisis), or they depicting the crisis itself, creating fetish objects to compartmentalize the threat (like Kendell Gears Mondo Kane). Artists are even defacing the crisis; most notably Democracia’s EAT THE RICH/KILL THE POOR and Marc Bijl’s Modern Crisis.

RV: The thing with Democracia is that they are doing both, they’re becoming the victimizer and the victim at the same time. I like the way they’re trying to navigate that, by balancing that fragility they give a rich and complicated viewpoint on the issue. They don’t see their viewpoint as static.

Kendell Geers, Mondo Kane, 2002. Concrete and Glass. 120 X 120 X 120 cm.

AR: I enjoyed Marc Bijl’s work for so many of those reasons, because he’s using all these symbols from art history and architecture and combining them with a dark sense of humor to occupy an active role as victim and victimizer. He’s essentially creating a second conversation on top of the conversation that streams behind us constantly in the world.

RV: I think that’s why it was great to do this edition. On the panel we did I asked, ‘Do you believe art can make a difference, whether its social or economic or human?’ and most people answered pretty affirmatively. Even if that change was only one person.

AR: I think it’s a pretty big deal to change just one person. I feel like I experienced that at dOCUMENTA. I found myself being drawn to and taken up with work that dealt with issue that I wasn’t naturally interested in.

RV: dOCUMENTA is traditionally an artist/activist project, but even they’re balancing the commercial side of it. But you’re right. I won’t forget the first dOCUMENTA I went to, seeing Rachel Whiteread and David Hammon. It changed my life to see art do that. Because people weren’t curating outside of the box in America, except for maybe artists within their own communities like Judd or Kusama.

AR: How do you imagine the public, who is similarly affected by the crisis reads this genre of resistant and rebellious work seen at dOCUMENTA or featured in INPUT?

RV: Well I think the issues are complicated and layered, it’s not as simplistic as what we were saying before, anti-capitalist. I think the different types of language make it rich and deep, so there are many ways for it to be interpreted. And that’s a sign of good, lasting work. I expect that the general public, especially in America, would have a variety of responses. I think a lot of people would ask ‘why should I pay for this?’ or ‘why would I want to pay for this?’ It’s isolated and deals with semantics, it’s inaccessible and codified with a language that is specific art and art history. So, I think most people’s first reaction is to disregard it. Artists that engage their audience use a mixture of languages, like a conductor or composer, and avoid a purist method. My fear is that in America, art is always considered to be a luxury good and not history. I think artists are really adroit to this by managing this push pull with flexibility and creativity. I think they have a lot more freedom than a curator at an institution to do that.

AR: The work in INPUT #5 features primarily Spanish or Latino artists who work with these ideas of entrenchment and resistance. Other art scenes in China or the Middle East offer similarly potent opportunities – can you talk about the decision to focus on this artistic demographic?

RV: Well, frankly, INPUT isn’t a compendium, we aren’t trying to capture a state. Avelino wanted to work with many of the artists after working with them at the Havana Biennale. I think he was interested in how they created a voice.

AR: Where does it go from here?  This is a limited edition of 150 books – what is your readership like for INPUT? What kind of an impact does it make?

RV: We could work with a distributor, but doing events helps a lot also. It helps to bring people to a place, and doing an exhibition might help as well. Without it being a blog, it doesn’t have a constant push in that way. So in some ways I think it retains power for that reason. It’s tremendous that the five writers and all the artists came together to do it, it’s truly a labor of love. It’s amazing that artists want to participate and give so much, give us the rights to publish their work just for the chance to say something. I’m amazed how quickly it all happened, how quickly it’s all come together. I’m grateful to have such international participation because it allows INPUT to be so vibrant and feasible. Most artists understand this is not a profitable venture. It’s fun, but it’s hard work.

INPUT #5 is printed in English and Spanish and available in a limited edition of 150 copies.

Featured artists:
AES+F, Marc Bijl, Fernando Bryce, Paco Cao, Josechu Dávila, Wim Delvoye, Democracia, Mounir Fatmi, Carlos Garaicoa, Daniel García Andújar, Chus García Fraile, Kendell Geers, Goldiechiari, Regina Jose Galindo, MK Kaehne, Rogelio López Cuenca, Teresa Margolles, David Maroto, Mateo Matè, Pepe Medina, Jorge Mendéz Blake, Eugenio Merino, Santiago Morilla, Antonio Muntadas, Dan Perjovschi, PJSM, Anri Sala, Avelino Sala, Santiago Sierra and Pelayo Varela.

Featured art critics: 
Fernando Castro Flórez, José Luis Corazón Ardura, Blanca de la Torre and Imma Prieto.

To order a copy of INPUT #5 or for more information, please visit www.inputjournal.org,www.curatorsintl.org or e-mail info@varaart.com.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS: 

Jonathan Beer is a New York-based artist and writer. He began to write critically in 2010 while attending the New York Academy of Art for his MFA in Painting. His paintings have been exhibited at Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, Flowers Gallery, Boltax Gallery and Sotheby’s in New York. Jon is also a contributing writer for The Brooklyn Rail, ArtWrit and for Art Observed.
www.JonathanBeer.com

Mia Halton

Mia Halton – Courtesy of Kathleen Cullen Fine Art

Opening February 13 at Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, the intimate drawings and prints of Mia Halton echo Dubuffet’s Art Brut and the frantic drawings of Basquiat. As an accomplished printmaker, Halton’s depicts charming and densely populated internal worlds that are about to dissipate into abstraction.

February 13 – February 28, 2013
Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts
526 West 26th Street #605
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 16th, 6-8 PM

Caitlin Hurd: Difference and Disorder

Caitlin Hurd – Courtesy of J Cacciola Gallery

Caitlin Hurd’s paintings are self-described ‘suspended-in-time’ moments; domestic objects and lost children float and sink into unblemished, green landscapes. With technical assuredness Hurd tackles personal uncertainty; these pictures represent the mind’s departure after surviving a traumatic event. In her case, Hurd channels her experience of surviving being hit by a car through her characters’ relationship to the landscape.

February 14th 0 March 2nd, 2013
J. Cacciola Gallery
537 West 23rd Street
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 14, 6-8 PM

Daniel Buren: Electricity Paper Vinyl…

Daniel Buren – Courtesy of Petzel Gallery

Petzel Gallery’s latest exhibition showcases the work of artist Daniel Buren, who for the last 50 years has been known for his use of contrasting stripes to incise and divide spaces for site specific projects. His work at Petzel incites a conversation about perception, architecture, and installation. Buren’s exhibition transforms Petzel’s space into an op art illusion come to life with the aid of luminescent textiles and his characteristic 8.7cm stripes.

Works in Situ & Situated Works From 1968 to 2013
(Dedicated to Michael Asher)
January 10 – February 16, 2012
Petzel Gallery
456 W 18th Street

Svenja Deininger: One Second Balance

Svenja Deininger – Courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery

Svenja Deininger’s latest exhibition of abstract paintings at Marianne Boesky Gallery offer a respite from much of the saturated and dense abstraction populating contemporary painting today. Deininger’s hard edge abstractions are sparse and commanding, rarefied aesthetic discoveries built from line and texture, poetic statements that are learned yet fresh.

January 17 – February 16, 2013
Marianne Boesky Gallery
509 West 24th Street

Christopher Mir: Static is Singing

Christopher Mir – Courtesy of Bernimon Contemporary

In his first show at Bernimon Contemporary, painter Christopher Mir creates a kind of contemporary mythologies inspired by a myriad of sources ranging from imagery stumbled upon on the internet to song lyrics. Mir’s work straddles time periods: his pictorial strategies are indebted to Symbolism and Golden Age illustration yet his use of black outline and enamel finds more footing in the world of graphic novels and sign-painting. His paintings are hand-made heralds for a composite age.

January 17 – February 23, 2013
Bernimon Contemporary
514 West 24th Street, Floor 2E

Henry Darger – Landscapes

Henry Darger – Courtesy of Ricco/Marresca Gallery

Henry Darger might be the most prolific of all outsider artists; his 15,000 page graphic novel cum illustrated manuscript “In the Realms of the Unreal” is the visual nexus where Darger’s life experiences melded with his imagination. Till February 2nd, Ricco/Maresca Gallery has 11 of Darger’s most beautiful and eerie scroll-like works on display. For Darger lovers this is an extremely rare opportunity to see so much of his sought after work on display simultaneously.

December 13, 2012 – February 2, 2013
Ricco/Maresca Gallery
529 West 20th Street, 3rd floor

Jackie Gendel: Revenge of the Same

Jackie Gendel – Courtesy of Jeff Bailey Gallery

Jackie Gendel’s show last Fall Comedy of Manners was abruptly cut short by Hurricane Sandy, but Jeff Bailey Gallery has since recovered, and re-opened despite the massive chaos and destruction caused by the disaster. The show this time around Revenge of the Same presents a new and different installation of brightly colored paintings that are gestural, multi-figure works. The pieces address the experience of the hurricane from the clean-up efforts to the 7 feet of water that accumulated in the gallery’s basement (where all of the stable of artists’ works were stored).

January 12 – February 9th, 2013
Jeff Bailey Gallery
625 W27TH ST

Christine Gray: On Entry

Christine Gray – Courtesy of RARE Gallery

Painter Christine Gray has her second solo show with RARE Gallery up through February 7th. The show features paintings and works on paper that explore natural forms, and observed ancient ruins with a searching desire to seemingly understand the spiritual significance. She translates her encounters with these geological forms and ritualistic entities on her travels though the hinterlands of France, Iceland, Scotland, and Spain. Through a close study, Gray imbues her subjects with a sense of awe, and invites viewers on a journey into unseen realms
January 3rd – February 7th, 2013
RARE Gallery:
547 W 27 Street | No. 514

Inventing Abstraction, 1910–1925

Frantisek Kupka – Courtesy of MoMA

MoMA presents a survey of the first abstract works, tracing the history back to early 19th century European artists. Works made by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Robert Delaunay into more modern artists such as Kazimir Malevich and Marcel Duchamp. The exhibition examines works in a wide variety of artistic media and production, including dance, music, painting, drawing, sculpture, poetry and more.
December 23, 2012–April 15, 2013
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra: Entre el cielo y la tierra

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra – Courtesy of David Nolan Gallery

David Nolan Gallery presents Chilean artist Sandra Vásquez de la Horra’s second solo show of works on paper. The show consists of mysterious images of humanoids, and like the shows’ translated title (“Between Heaven and Earth”), the images examine spirituality and a sense of foreboding through their sense of unrest. The works are made with simple, bold lines, incorporating sparse text at times, and utilizing a mix of unexpected textures and shading. Her works have been aligned to the likes of Henry Darger, Francisco Goya, and Louise Bourgeois.
January 10 – February 16, 2013
David Nolan Gallery
527 West 29th St.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS: 

Jonathan Beer is a New York-based artist and writer. He began to write critically in 2010 while attending the New York Academy of Art for his MFA in Painting. His paintings have been exhibited at Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, Flowers Gallery, Boltax Gallery and Sotheby’s in New York. Jon is also a contributing writer for The Brooklyn Rail, ArtWrit and for Art Observed.
www.JonathanBeer.com

Lily Koto Olive is a New York-based artist, writer and musician. She began to write critically about art in 2010 while attending the New York Academy of Art for her MFA in Painting. She has exhibited her paintings at the Dumbo Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY, HERE Arts Center, Sloan Fine Arts and ISE Cultural Foundation in NYC and Marketplace Gallery in Albany, NY. Lily is also a contributing writer for The Brooklyn Rail.
http://www.lilykoto.com

Pablo Picasso, Marie-Thérèse, Face and Profile (Marie-Thérèse, face et profil), Paris, 1931

by Jonathan Beer

Among museum professionals the word ‘edutainment’ is tossed around quite a bit. It describes content that is both entertaining and educational, and has come to apply to the multifarious nature of museum programming during a global economic crisis as well. It is safe to say that most museums (in an ideal world where funding wouldn’t be an issue) would strive to create more exhibitions that challenge and broaden the horizons of their patrons. Unfortunately, due to financial constraints, museums are now increasingly dependent on the financial success of their exhibitions and thus, education becomes aligned with entertainment, hampering efforts to push boundaries. More and more blockbuster exhibitions are put on to draw larger crowds by showcasing the greatest hits of famous and popular artists, and for that reason many museums leave something to be desired.

The Picasso: Black and White exhibition, currently on view at the Guggenheim (which is as guilty for curating blockbuster shows as other major museums) does not fall in that category. The works featured span the artist’s 70 plus year career, offering a revealing glimpse of a sometimes unsteady Picasso, in painted, drawn and sculpted form.

Pablo Picasso, Sylvette, Vallauris, 1954

The work is arranged along the Guggenheim’s famous spiral tiers not chronologically but in clusters that illuminate moments of trial and discovery in the works. It begins with sculpture and ends with painting. Four sections of wall text, placed at critical points along the ramp, provide an important context (and respite) to what might otherwise seem to be an exhausting show: 118 works is a lot even for the most ardent Picasso fanatic. The beginning of the exhibition points out the Spanish painter’s early struggles with finding a voice outside of his obvious facility. Works like his 1913 painting Woman with a Guitar and the 1911 picture Accordionist show Picasso finding a foothold during his synthetic period.

Pablo Picasso, Accordionist (L’accordéoniste), Céret, summer 1911

Picasso’s struggle does not disappear; it grows along with his confidence. His creative energy is felt in full force; the weight of actual work far surpasses any monograph surveying the trajectory of his work. Seeing this show, I am reminded of what a retrospective is supposed to do. The mainstay of this exhibition is not just Picasso’s work, but the excitement of following along his creative path. There is an immersion available in Picasso’s work not only because of his long running investigation of subject matter, but also because of his prolific output. One wall text states that between May and June of 1937 Picasso made over 45 drawings that led to what is undoubtedly his most famous work, Guernica. The urgency of the maker electrifies many of the works: Seated Woman in an Armchair (Dora) 1938, towers about the viewer, tittering on unsteady legs, woman and armchair are joined in an “animpossible and irreversible structure, forever bound in the confidence of Picasso’s line.

Pablo Picasso, Seated Woman in an Armchair (Dora) (Femme assise dans un fauteuil [Dora]), Grands-Augustins, Paris, May 31, 1938

The exhibition is refreshingly not about Picasso’s prowess, instead it reveals his retreats and returns that broaden the public conception of Picasso beyond an artist who consistently created masterworks for the duration of his career. Curator Carmen Gimenez does not make the claim that all Picasso’s are masterpieces; she acknowledges the importance that these other works played in the ideation process. She understands that these rarely seen, ‘lesser’ works provide a context that deepens the vision of Picasso as a fallible artist. Its strength is in the fact that you are not bludgeoned by spectacle, rather the public is given a more open-ended, permissive and vulnerable view of one of the most important artist of the 20^th century.

As cultural institutions, museums are responsible for the material they push into the public spectrum; for that reason their programming should strive to creatively address the increasingly astringent financial atmosphere with an emphasis of maintaining the illuminating role they can play. This survey could be seen as a model for exhibitions focused on formative aspects of artist’s careers. Perhaps presenting a more complete creative lineage could in turn foster a stronger public interest in art and culture.

Picasso Black and White
The Guggenheim Museum
October 5, 2012–January 23, 2013

__________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: 

Jonathan Beer is a New York-based artist and writer. He began to write critically in 2010 while attending the New York Academy of Art for his MFA in Painting. His paintings have been exhibited at Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, Flowers Gallery, Boltax Gallery and Sotheby’s in New York. Jon is also a contributing writer for The Brooklyn Rail, ArtWrit and for Art Observed.
www.JonathanBeer.com

 AR: Could you describe your background, and how you first became interested in painting as a visual medium?

JO: I grew up in North Carolina. I always thought in an abstract manner and always made things, but never considered myself an artist. I was under the impression that an artist was someone who sat quietly and made realistic renderings of sailboats and such. That didn’t appeal to me. Skateboarding and punk rock lined up much closer to my teenage angst than an easel and water colors. When I was in my late teens skateboarding led me to art. It was through the work of Mark Gonzales, Ed Templeton, Neil Blender, and other skate related artists that I first became familiar with painting and creating in a visual sense. This was an entry point. From there I discovered Basquiat, which led me to Twombly, Twombly led me to all the 50’s painters, and so on in a natural progression.

AR: Materiality and technical narrative seems to play a significant role in your work. Spray paint, ink, sawdust, oil stick, tape, silkscreen, found objects, collage, industrial paint, and acrylic paint can all be found in your work.

What is your studio process typically like, and how do you decide upon which materials you incorporate within a piece?

Joseph O’ Neal, Golden Bough 4, 37″ x 4″ inches, acrylic, tape and oil stick on found wood, 2011

JO: When I work I take a completely visceral approach, the material usually has to do with what is around me. I try and have a real urgency when I paint, working in waves. I strive to make honest work and go about it in a primitive manner.

AR: I can see a connection to Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jean-Michel Basquiat in your paintings and sculptures in terms of your mark making and materiality. Who are you currently looking at and what artists from the past inspire and inform your works?

JO: I don’t see enough work, but I really dig that guy Sergej Jensen. His subtle color choices, and the honesty of his materials is really something special. It definitely works.

In terms of the past I feel a connection with the 50’s painters and the Black Mountain College movement. Right now I find myself mostly immersed in the work of Twombly, Beuys, Rauschenberg, Tapies, and Schnabel. Seems like a lot of art folks hate Schnabel’s work; but for me he is one of the best.  Oh and Picasso, if I don’t mention Picasso I’m just an asshole. If you fancy yourself a painter and don’t dig Picasso, you aren’t a painter.

As for Basquiat, I devoured his work in my late teens and early twenties. There is no doubt that it has made an impression on me. More or less it is the urgency with which he painted that has affected me most. I don’t want to say that I outgrew it but I don’t think of him as much these days.

Joseph O’ Neal, Feathers/Roots, 31″ x 23″ inches, acrylic, tape and oil stick on silkscreen, 2012

AR: Your work is beautifully poetic. Layers of color, delicate lines and moments of repeated words and phrases create a mystery to your work that is really intriguing. Are these words used to guide the viewer in reading your pieces? What is the meaning behind the repeated words and phrases?

JO: The words and phrases are free associations, automatic writing. I am never trying to set up a narrative or guide viewers to see the works in a certain way or take a certain feeling or thought from them. They are completely ambiguous in that manner. I want the work to be an opportunity for something to occur within the viewer. I am not going to build you a house but I will place the tools and lumber at your feet.

AR: What’s your fascination with Jacqueline Onassis all about and what does she represent to you? She seems to be a constant subject for you.

JO: I’ve been working on the Onassis series for 5 or 6 years now. First I became fascinated with the way the word Onassis sounds. With all connotations aside it is a wonderfully poetic word. I also like the way it looks when written.

As a person I find Jacqueline Onassis extremely intriguing, as she is full of conflicting labels and traits. Part myth, part painful reality; At times elegant, at times tragic. Representing American strength and fortitude, yet maintaining a certain sense of European Bourgeois. I like that she can be taken many ways. There is no concrete path.

Joseph O’ Neal, Walt Whitman, inches, diptych, industrial paint, acrylic and oil stick on found wood, 2011

AR: Ties to literature are obvious in your work. You refer to Walt Whitman and Carl Jung in several pieces. I’ve been reading a lot of Carl Jung recently, so I am particularly curious if you share the core beliefs of Transcendentalists and if so how does your work reflect these philosophies?

JO: By no means am I a scholar or expert on Jung, but I do find his work relevant to painting. I think the truth or as close to the truth as we are able to understand does come from the subconscious. It is important to fill my mind with high-minded material, to look at masterpieces, to analyze work. It is important to absorb these things. But beyond that I think it is important to be intuitive and primitive, to be close to nature. Working in a brutally intuitive manner can create space for the subconscious to override the conscious mind. I try and trust my intuition and not give myself the discourtesy of trying to make meaning of my actions and gestures when I’m working. I make time to consciously observe my work and figure out what works and what doesn’t, but that time isn’t when I have a brush in my hand.

Joseph O’ Neal, Song for Isis, 4.5 ft x 2.5 ft x 2.5 ft, wood, found material, acrylic and industrial paint, 2011

AR: You are a part of the Brooklyn-based art collective Bluetan. Who runs Bluetan, how many artists are a part of the collective, and how did it start?

JO: There are five of us involved. Other than myself it is: Brandon Fonville, Geoff Henshall, Steve Chellis, and Joe Strasser. Brandon Fonville and I do most of the day-to-day logistical work. But everyone is involved in the curatorial aspect, the direction we take it, and the way in which we approach our exhibitions.

Geoff Henshall and I used to curate shows out of my apartment in Wilmington, North Carolina. I lived in this old apartment right in the middle of downtown. The place had beautiful brick interior walls. Someone painted them white then someone else came back and tried to re-paint the bricks in but gave up midway through the job. So it was kind of a funny scene in there. We would take all of my furniture and everything else that ends up in an apartment and shove it in my room like a storage unit and turn the space in to a gallery. I don’t know about my work back then but I am very proud of those shows. So that’s how it started. It was just Geoff and I for a few years. That was 2003 or 2004. Then the rest of the guys just made sense. I am very honored to be able to work with all four of these guys. We all have different approaches and in some ways different philosophies, but we all carry the same seriousness which is important.

AR: What exactly does Bluetan do and how does the collective function?

JO: We put on shows a few times a year as a collective, and make and sell zines of our work and the work of other artists and photographers we feel are relevant. In addition to the bluetan shows, we all do our individual work and participate in group and solo exhibitions. It keeps the five of us in conversation and is a good platform for us to present work and ideas.

Joseph O’ Neal, Joan of Arc, 64 x 27.5 inches, acrylic, chalk on found wood, 2010

AR: What has it been like to make work and exhibit within a collective for you as an artist?

JO: It has been very rewarding and gratifying. We have been doing this for over 7 years now, so we have been able to fine-tune how we approach exhibitions as a collective and still maintain our individual integrity and work. At times it can be a trying and challenging endeavor but I feel it is important and worth it.

AR: I often see artists that seem to try to go it alone, and while this can work, I, like you, believe that as artists we are all in it together, and should work to support each other as much as possible. I firmly believe there is enough room for everyone in the art world. What recommendations can you give to other artists regarding collaborative endeavors and the advantages of being a collective?

JO: Collaborations are hard. We are all very close and have been able to put our egos aside to try and create something that works as a whole, but we are also still growing in this regard; with every exhibition and project we learn something new and apply it to the next. So I guess I would recommend that you trust and admire the people you work with.

Joseph O’ Neal, Nemi, 42.5″ x 36.5″ inches, canvas, paper and acrylic on wood, 2012

AR: I know you have exhibited at art fairs, in addition to your gallery shows and the DIY pop-up shows you help curate and organize. What are the advantages for you as an artist to stage DIY exhibitions?

JO: DIY shows just feel real. There is nothing plastic about them if done correctly. It’s hard to achieve that feeling in a fair or a commercial gallery. I think this also comes from our upbringing that if you want to do something you just do it.

AR: What is up next for you and Bluetan?

JO: In the immediate future we are looking to do a show in North Carolina, Ultisols; which refers to the red clay and soil found in much of the state and will be loosely based on our individual relationships to the region. We are also looking to get more heavily involved in making zines and booklets. We have some amazing artists and photographers lined up to make zines and booklets with us in 2013 so I am very excited about that.

AR: Thank you for taking the time to chat with us here at Art-Rated. We truly respect the amount of energy you put into both your work and your collective, and we love your paintings. Best of luck on your upcoming endeavors.

JO: Thank you.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lily Koto Olive is a New York-based artist, writer and musician. She began to write critically about art in 2010 while attending the New York Academy of Art for her MFA in Painting. She has exhibited her paintings at the Dumbo Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY, RH Gallery,  HERE Arts Center, Sloan Fine Arts and ISE Cultural Foundation in NYC and Marketplace Gallery in Albany, NY. Lily is also a contributing writer for The Brooklyn Rail.
http://www.lilykoto.com

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