OtherPeoplesPixels Blog

Dear, Old Master 
2009
Installation

OtherPeoplesPixels: On your website, you mention the “friendly and peaceful view of rural life as portrayed by the crafts and folk art of New England.” Could you expand on this for viewers of your work who are unfamiliar with the New England folk art tradition? Are there certain visual tropes from this tradition that you are responding to in your own work?

Andy Rosen: I’ve been focusing mostly on local art traditions like chainsaw carving, whittling, wooden toys, yard art, etc. But, really I’m looking at everything art-related that is (or was) created by folks in this area. Many of the works tend to have a roughness and imprecision (non-manufactured look) that conjures for me an attitude of the wilderness.
 
I’m particularly fascinated by a portrayal of nature where the wildlife is shown as majestic, portraying animals that never eat (each other) and are never affected by our presence. And when we do exist together, it’s as though they’re happy to see us. In short, a land at peace, untouched and pristine.

I find the lack of conflict and struggle intriguing, especially, in light of increasing pressure by us on their habitats and food sources. While such scenes surely do exist still, I can rarely see such things without wondering what’s really going on here?

I think it may be easy to dismiss such works as escapist, idealistic or merely decorative, but for me they have a kind of revelatory power. These works are more mirrors than lenses. Reflected on the faces and gestures of the animals in these works, are our desires, beliefs and fantasies about this area.

In this context, what I make becomes my way to better understand the extent to which these fantasies shape and influence my conception of nature, my biases and beliefs. For instance, why do I focus my attention on particular elements within a landscape or why do I choose certain animals and pretty much ignore others?

OPP: Woodcarving is your most prevalent media. How did you learn it?

AR: I’m more or less self-taught. My training at school was as a painter and glassblower. So for needed techniques and tricks I study what I need to learn and ask furniture maker friends for tips or just bungle my way through.

I’m quite taken by the evocative power wood holds as a material representative of the wilderness.  I love the smell and the feel of it, as well as the surfaces I can achieve with it. Also, nearly all the wood I carve comes from the dump. I like the idea that I’m reconstituting a material that comes directly from my local landscape.

Loaded
2010
Wood and Epoxy
Detail of an installation

OPP: In many of your pieces, evidence of the man-made world is built upon a single animal’s back. In pieces such as I Can Only Take You So Far, Barnacle and the installation Loaded (2010), the animals’ faces express weariness and excruciating pain. In other work, such as Trick (2010) and Chip (2010), the animals seem at peace, almost joyful. Can you talk about this difference?

AR: My interest in understanding what is happening to the environment changed. I began to question why I was depicting animals as pawns or helpless creatures in our game. This kind of thinking seemed umm... rather self-centered. Though we are certainly in an era where our actions are affecting every habitat on Earth, I’ve become increasingly interested in a more ambiguous portrayal of animals affected by human activity.

It also corresponds roughly with the birth of my son. It’s pretty hard to not see one’s offspring as an investment in the future. So many questions and concerns I had regarding the big ol’ problems of US and the environment were now being asked in the context of bringing a child into this world. How should I respond to what is undeniably a major issue that my son and his generation will face?  My artwork seemed like the best place to start this dialogue. But, should my language be dire? Why? Was there a way to talk about this worry without directly stating it?

I also became increasingly surrounded by his toys. These toys invariably depicted an animal smiling or joyfully doing something laborious—moving dirt, carrying people, etc. What are they all so happy about? Don’t they know what’s happening to them? I like how a smile can express joy and a grimace at the same time.

Pinocchio
Wood and Epoxy

OPP: Each of your sculptures and installations implies a narrative and many read like allegories. Some make references to known fairy tales including Pinocchio and Sleeping Beauty, while others evoke well-known fables in their use of specific animals like the hare and the fox. Do you generally have a specific narrative in mind before beginning a piece? Is there a prevailing allegory that runs through all of your work?

AR: It’s hard not to get caught up in the fantasy/idea I create. I even pat my sculptures on their heads, as if they’re real. On some level, I really feel for them. This kind of deceptive empathy is how I generate narrative. It definitely shapes what happens to the sculptures and the decisions I make regarding their plight. It seems weird then to treat this “being” as a symbol or stand-in for a larger theme. They probably still are allegorical but I think I’m most compelled by the irrepressible urge to treat my works like real animals. I know it’s a fantasy, but it’s also something that is for me impossible to ignore. In this way, play becomes both subject and tool.

As for the use of fables and fairytales, I can’t help but notice their influence, especially those that take place in rural settings. The notion of a fairy tale as a way to process something more abstractly or indirectly within the environment resonates with me.

I’ll borrow from these ideas, usually only in part. I’ll use them as a framework to build from. However, I don’t initially have a narrative that I set out to illustrate. I often have only a vague sense or image in mind for each piece, a kind of gut level pull (read, biases and beliefs). To make the rabbit (Duster) for instance, there was some sort of narrative bouncing around my brain, a picture or sense of this rabbit in a really specific location. It’s often as though I can’t really see it until I make it. There were a handful of iterations before I eventually decided upon making him into a motorcycle.  Sometimes a piece will languish in a pile in my studio, half-completed for really long time. And I also usually make several pieces at once. What I’ve found is that the story unfolds as a kind of interaction between the objects I’m making and have lying around. I ask myself, what if this thing and this other thing were put together?  Throughout the course of making it, the idea becomes clearer, almost as if I’m fleshing out the scene in a landscape painting.

Duster
2011
Wood and paint
60 x 75 x 48 inches

OPP: In the most recent pieces, animals are engaged in unnatural states of transportation. The fox in Psst (2010) has become cunning beyond what is natural. He must think like a human. He appears to be avoiding some danger on the ground. I imagine toxic sludge or some kind of acid, something that is the result of industry. The hare in Duster (2010) has become part machine. Its characteristic speed is no longer enough. It needs wheels in order to escape some unspecific danger. I can’t decide if these pieces have a positive or negative outlook about the animals’ chances for survival. I can’t decide if they have evolved or if they are doomed. What do you think about the presence of optimism and/or pessimism in your work?

AR: A couple years ago I asked some friends who are prominent in the fields of botany and biology, whether they we’re optimistic about the state of the environment. Essentially I was wondering if there was a lot of irrational fear going on or if our fears were warranted. They were both certain, given their research and the research of their peers, that we are in a period of massive species collapse of both flora and fauna (and likely us, as well).

Knowing that we are witnessing huge changes every day, what’s there to be optimistic about? I’m not sure.

However, I’ve started to address depictions of majestic or happy animals, head on. It’s an attempt to see if I can really feel it or find it, despite the facts.

To view more of Andy Rosenʼs work visit andy-rosen.com.

OtherPeoplesPixels: You discuss addressing hierarchical powers of societal success in your artist statement. Your pieces The Awarded (2010), Trophy (2009), and Rug Project (2009), do so directly and with a subtle humor. Please tell me more about your ideas surrounding societal success as it relates to these pieces.

Carolyn Salas: With pieces like The Awarded I look to question the systems for which we recognize success; awards for the unknown seek to glorify the mundane while directly addressing the absurd. Similarly, Trophy (a collaboration with Adam Parker Smith) directly addresses the unattainable. As status and material obsession become an ever growing and ingrained part of today’s society we mock the ridiculousness of it, “showing off”, in this case has reached a laughable point. Rug Project, reassesses the value of common objects and questions conventional concepts of beauty, flipping the role of carpet from floor covering to fine art, playing with ideas of construction and the historical role of the rug as design, display of wealth, and warmth.  All three of the works ultimately explore themes of disillusionment and power while the material choice shows evidence of the erosion of time, breaking down and demystifying the power that they once held.  

OPP: How does humor factor in your body of work as a whole?  

CS: I don’t consciously make the effort for the works to be humorous instead I think they reflect my personality. I am very rooted in the harsh realities of life but love to fantasize; I question my own insecurities, dissect my own inner struggles and rely on humor when I can. My material choice is driven by concept, I choose materials scaffolded with meaning which can be pleasantly interrupted or interpreted many ways, pushing the boundaries of material and concept to a place often times uncomfortable. I like how the awkwardness of a piece or the manipulation of a material very familiar to you can be jarring at the same time. For instance in the piece Stacked, I was thinking about the idea of mummifying a keepsake, questioning what happens as the object is repeated and how the meaning changes through that repetition. I’m interested in how the object loses its initial sentimental quality and becomes essentially a “kitsch” object. The objects both personal and found, placed on top of the ceramic cast quilts than provide another layer; a surrealist effect yet still tactile.

OPP: What did a day in the studio look like for you as you were creating Constructions and Tangible Losses (2010)? Do you “sketch” by drawing or does your process perhaps emphasize writing or pursuing the materials you ultimately incorporate?

CS: Initially I start by doing a lot of sketching, usually in response to a reading, thought strain or continuation of a prior body of work. During the making of this particular piece I was spending a lot of time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Greek and Roman Art wing. I was drawn to the marble figures, their missing limbs or what was left of a crumbled piece of architecture, for me their dismemberment was incredibly poetic, I like the idea of questioning what isn’t there. In attempts to recontextualize this in the work Constructions and Tangible Losses each pedestal piece displays a loss; the dowsing rod in need of land, the netted chain without a catch, the pedestal without an object, the leg and horseshow crab without its body, by simplifying the objects  the tension created lies within the absence they each represent. Their displacement and dismemberment act in dialogue with each other as if characters in a play.

OPP: What comes first in your artmaking process in a piece like Earring on a Mountain (2010)—a conceptual or formal concern, an interest in a material, or do both occur to you simultaneously?

CS: It can vary radically from piece to piece, with the series of cement works, Earring on a Mountain, Untitled and New Order though I was inspired first by a reading. Mount Analogue, a book written by Rene Daumal, was floating around the studio; I picked it up and was immediately attracted to the voyeurism he speaks of, charting unknown territories. Inspired to create a sculpture that reflected this idea I started thinking about language and symbols. The two came together for me in the form of cement architectural structures. I was interested in using a material that could both be permanent while also seeming airy and light. I started playing with ways I could manipulate the forms and  the scale in relationship to the body while also addressing the connection between the wall and the floor.

OPP: You had a busy summer. What were you working on?

CS: This past summer I spent time at Franconia Sculpture Park, MN, on a Jerome Foundation grant. While in residence I created a 50 foot long handmade chain link fence. With this work I was investigating ideas surrounding territories, boundaries, borders and class issues. I am interested in the “in-between” stages; the tension that lies both within the physical space and the psychological space. For me the absurdity of hand making a fence and its displacement of location is an important factor. The fencing posts and chain are platted in a gold colored metal, in attempts to objectify and beautify the mundane, whilst the object itself fails to gain the authority it desires. For me the piece leaves a certain dissonance and residue that’s uneasy and off mark, I am hoping the viewer’s interaction with the work will question the same ideas. The piece titled Chain Link will be on view at the park through the summer of 2012.

OPP: What is next for you?

CS: I just moved into a new studio at the Abrons Art Center in the Lower East Side (NYC). I will be an AIRspace Artist-in-Residence for the next eleven months. I am excited about the other resident artists I am with and the facilities  I am hoping to get a chance to use the ceramic kilns. I am also preparing for a show at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum in February 2012.  There, I will be working onsite at the museum, using the piece Changing Sides as a platform for a much larger installation.  

To view more of Carolyn Salas’ work, visit carolynsalas.com.

OtherPeoplesPixels is pleased to sponsor The Visualist, a Chicago visual arts calendar. OPP recently sat down with two of its three founders, Steve Ruiz and Chad Kouri, to chat about the project's inspiration, mission, and recent & upcoming highlights.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Your project, The Visualist: Chicago Visual Arts Calendar, follows On The Make, a calendar project developed by Karly Wildenhaus. Tell me about the history of both projects and how The Visualist came to be.

Steve Ruiz: Some quick history: Karly started On The Make with Brad Troemel back in 2009. Originally, the site was a more journalistic blog platform, but they pulled that down and reinvented it as a stripped down curated events calendar. 

Chicago already had plenty of arts calendars in 2009—and still does—but the unique nature of the city's visual art scene meant it was more of a collection of smaller scenes, not all geographically related, which made it difficult to identify what was going on, where, and who would be interested in what. Additionally, many alternative spaces stayed away from advertising altogether, or passed info last minute on Facebook or twitter. On The Make's editors solved this by just focusing on those events that they were actually interested in attending, and this created a very valuable resource for a smaller insider audience of contemporary artists, curators, students, and professionals. While that sounds exclusive, most of the events they listed wouldn't have been covered anywhere else, and having a personally organized calendar was often most useful in conjunction with broader calendars.

Like many others, I used the hell out of On the Make and felt it was a crucial center for a community as spread out as Chicago's. I'm more of an artist / critic than a developer, but When Karly announced she'd be shutting the project down at the end of the summer, she and I met up and discussed the site and where she imagined it going. It wasn't until a few months later that I was able to get together with Chad [Kouri] and Jenny [Kendler] to put a successor project in motion. Karly passed us all of the data from On the Make and I spent August writing a new website around it according to Chad's killer designs.

I'd say The Visualist is our effort to provide the city of Chicago with a centralized calendar for visual art events. A lot more goes on than what I might add or approve, so I often encourage readers to check  ArtSlant, Chicago Art Map, Chicago Reader, NewCity, Bad at Sports, or other visual arts calendars or event lists. The value of The Visualist is its curation; every event I put on the site is something I'd personally recommend.

OPP: Fantastic, walk me through the website!

Chad Kouri: The whole idea for this site was to do one thing: showcase the best of the best events in the city and archive them in one place. No interviews, no blog posts, no commenting or any other content to muck it all up. There are a lot of calendars sites here in Chicago that are very well done in the city but they are all a small part of a bigger website and typically not super user friendly. Our goal was to have one site you can go if you were looking to go out that night / weekend and get in and out with the info you wanted without any of the info you don't need. Our Facebook Like Buttons are a good way for people to easily share an event with friends.

SR: I actually use Facebook heavily when gauging the events that are submitted. On its own, Facebook is a noisy calendar—but since new spaces open up all the time in Chicago, I'll check an unknown space's event listing there to see who's running it and who is attending. Occasionally I'll miss a name change or one-off event and only know what it is from the fact that half of my artist friends are planning on stopping by.

OPP: The Visualist is a project by three artists, yourselves (Chad Kouri and Steve Ruiz) and OtherPeoplesPixels co-founder Jenny Kendler. Can you talk about each of your art practices and other involvements in Chicago’s art(s) worlds?

CK: I co-run a collaborative art and design incubator called The Post Family with six other dudes. What other cool stuff am I involved in. . . hmmm. . . I art directed Proximity Magazine for a number of years here in the city and I have done numerous curatorial projects both online and in physical spaces: Co-prosperity Sphere, The Chicago Cultural Center and Chicago Urban Arts Society to name a few of the physical spaces. As for online stuff I started Margin Detail (a now defunct doodle blog), I write book reviews focusing on artist sketchbooks on book-by-its-cover.com and have done some guest writing on studiochicago.org. I've also shown my personal work at a handful of Chicago spaces including Ebersmoore, MVSEVM (rip), Johalla Proects, A+D Gallery and a handful of others. 

Steve Ruiz
Big Loop
Gouache, Graphite, and Ink on Paper, 8" x 9.5"
2011

SR: I'm a practicing artist and writer who writes about art, currently working on my MFA at the University of Chicago, and recently described myself as an artist interested in what other artists do—the work they make, what they do with it, and the actions artist's take within their professional and social circles. Most people who know me probably know me by my writing, which I began as editor of Chicago Art Review and later on ArtSlant, Jettison Quarterly, NewCity, and for a little group I started on Facebook called #chiart to facilitate inter-art-generational conversation. My personal site is at steveruizart.com, but googling me is probably better. 

In general, no matter what I'm working on, I try to operate in the community with a kind of active criticality. For example, I could write a paper about the importance of centralized calendars for dispersed communities, but that sounds a lot less interesting than just building a calendar and helping demonstrate that importance. Or I could complain about people my age not knowing what the Uncomfortable Spaces were, but I'd rather link them to spaces.org or invite them to #chiart. Chicago's art community is strongly defined by this kind of "go do something" criticism so I'm happy to be working within that tradition.

OPP: You are both incredibly informed about art events happening in Chicago. Do you make a point to attend much of what you post on The Visualist? What has impressed you recently?

CK: At this point Steve is doing most of the posting for the site. And he gives me some good ideas of what to attend! Most of the things I would add he is already on top of. But yes, I do try to go to as many arts events as I can each week. I average about 2-3 most weeks I think. Maybe a little less lately since I have been traveling for work. But going to art shows and lectures and such is free knowledge! Why avoid it?

SR: I'm from the western suburbs but didn't go to college in Chicago, so when I came back I think I over-compensated for that by going to as many shows as I could and writing like eighty reviews (or something equally reflective of how little else I was doing). That has dropped off a bit since starting grad school but I hope to continue to see plenty. Recent highlights have been Timothy Bergstrom / Volker Saul at Dan Devening Projects + Editions and Hennessy Youngman's presentation at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

OPP: What is next for you both and for The Visualist?

CK: I'm hoping to start a publication of my own in the coming year. In the short term working on a collaborative mural with Ina Weise, Rod Hunting, Nick Butcher, Nadine Nakanishi and Ryan Duggan... preparing to leave for Portland next week with Margot Harrington to speak at Portland State University and working on a show with Stephen Eichhorn and Cody Hudson at Purdue called Studio Vour that opens early 2012. Otherwise just lovin' life, catching some local jazz heads jammin' from time to time and trying not to rush around so much. 

SR: I'm working with a few projects here at school, reading, making, and trying to avoid getting hit by cars. Philip Von Zweck's copy-machine project that I hosted at last year's MDW Fair is going to Performa in a few weeks so I'll have a drawing there for that, and a text piece in the next SCRIPTjr.nl. As always, a few other projects too up in the air to call. Trying to use Google+ more.

There are a lot of small improvements still on The Visualist's todo list, so once I get through those I'll be looking to improve the site's core functionality, streamline the event submission process, and perhaps include some of the post-event content that I demoed on Opencrit.com—user photos, critical collection, and carefully implemented commenting. However, like Chad mentioned above, we maintain a tight focus on what's up and what's good in Chicago's art.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Your paintings are primarily acrylic on material such as knit mesh and construction debris netting. How did you arrive at the painting surfaces you employ in your work?

Aaron Johnson: It’s been a long slow journey. I didn’t get a BFA in college, I got a degree in Molecular Cellular Biology. Meanwhile, painting was a hobby. I got more and more seduced by painting and eventually—to make a long story short—ended up in New York to really be an artist but had no clue what that really meant.

When I moved to New York in 1998, the Jackson Pollock retrospective was up at MoMA, and it blew my mind, I had never heard of the guy nor did I ever fathom the existence of mega-scale drip paintings. My favorite artist prior to seeing the Pollock show was Salvador Dali (my main exposure being a poster I purchased at a head shop in Tucson and then hung it over my bed all through college), so the show was a really shattering experience for me.

I went home to my Lower East Side apartment and started making squirty drip paintings, acrylic squirts on canvas, with dreadful results, but lots of fun. Because I was painting in an apartment and I needed to keep the floor clean, I had plastic on the floor and got intrigued by the "spill-over" squirts of paint that were accumulating on the plastic. Eventually I began peeling the drips off the plastic and collaging them onto canvas. Soon, I was squirting and pouring paint directly onto the plastic and making collage pieces out of the paint solids.

Since 2002-ish, my interest in peeled acrylic solids has continued to evolve into the process that is my practice today.  Eventually I did get an MFA from Hunter College in New York, but I was self-taught first, which was crucial to me inventing my own nonconventional process. Lately my paintings are reverse-painted acrylic polymer peels on polyester nets— the nets came into the process in 2005 when I just realized through experimentation that synthetic nets are a great pseudo-canvas for holding together the acrylic peels.

Studio Shot
2007

 OPP: The “studio” images included on your website give me a clue into your process but I am still curious about the specific steps that go into the making of your often incredibly large paintings. Can you describe your process?

AJ: The works are painted completely in reverse (like reverse glass painting) on clear plastic sheeting. The figures and small details first, the back grounds and loose forms last.  At several points in the process the plastic is laid flat and I pour on puddles of squirty paint and clear coats of acrylic polymer. These layers accumulate as I build the picture in reverse, and the layers physically add up to a solid acrylic sheet that is finally peeled off the plastic, and in the end mounted on a polyester mesh.

OPP: What comes first—an idea for a specific person/icon to address conceptually or or an aesthetic idea about texture, pattern and composition, or do they occur to you simultaneously in a recent painting like Freedom From Want?

AJ: They always start with a figurative and/or narrative idea, sometimes from a sketch, sometimes in relationship to contemporary politics, and sometimes from an art-historical precedent. Freedom From Want is my version of the famous Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving painting of the same title. My interest was in articulating how the 1940s American Dream vision of the Rockwell would translate in our contemporary context of our current great American Nightmare. Like a lot of my work, this piece exposes the subverted horror of America. Grandma and Grandpa serving the turkey in my painting have been appropriated directly from the Rockwell, they have turned only slightly monstrous. As the view descends down the composition to the front of the table, we see the characters turn more and more grotesque and fiendish. Among those dining at the table we see a burning earth head, and a horribly wounded veteran.  The turkey itself may be a roasted American Eagle. The fixings on the table include severed heads, mashed guts, fuck-burgers, spurting oil rigs, a dead Indian head, mutant sea creatures, etc.—it’s a very loaded painting.

OPP: You seem to have moved away from incorporating collaged material in your paintings as you did in your earlier works. Your paintings from 2009-present accomplish the level of detail the collaged elements previously provided in highly-detailed painted passages. Can you speak about your shift away from collaged materials?

AJ: When I began painting in reverse, it was incredibly difficult to achieve any clear detail, so collage was a convenient and easy way to insert details, mostly National Geographic animal parts, fast food greasy globs, and porno sexy bits. Now I can paint all that stuff in ways that I find more interesting than what I was doing with collage, so as my painting skills improved, collage slipped out of the process.

OPP: In your daily life outside of the studio do you see the people you encounter as the grotesque figures you paint? I imagine you at the grocery store or on the subway looking around and seeing the world through the lens you’ve created for your paintings.

AJ: Haha, not quite. Recently though, I had a dream where I had a meeting with a curator at the gallery, and the curator, upon shaking my hand, turned into the demon critter I was painting in the studio that day—a little undead guy with an emaciated body and long spindly tentacle-like arms. He jumped on me, suddenly I’m naked, and we’re rolling around on the floor as he is clawing me to shreds, gallery-goers standing around watching like it’s performance art. Then the demon violently digs his claws into my butt-cheek and rips my butt-cheek off as a I awoke with my heart-pounding. Thankfully my butt-cheek still intact.

It Ain't Me Babe
2011
Acrylic on polyester knit mesh
52 x 72 inches

OPP: That is an amazing dream, I'm glad to hear your butt-cheek survived it! So, if you don't necessarily see the world through the lens you’ve created for your work, what is inspiration for your grotesque figures?

AJ: Way back when I was a biology student, I used to draw grotesque little creatures in the outlines of my bio lecture notes, which were influenced by the anatomical and biological forms we were studying. I also was crazy about Garbage Pail Kids and Madballs and other comic-grotesque toys as a kid. Fast forward to that Jackson Pollock moment at the MoMA I mentioned before, when I started being a “serious” painter in New York with my squirty abstractions... I had convinced myself that those juvenile/adolescent monster drawings I used to do were not “serious." I had a few years of making gooey weird “serious” abstract squirty works, and at a certain point, which coincides with watching 9-11 happen from my Brooklyn roof, I started painting monsters into the works, with a new urgency to speak to political issues happening in our contemporary world. The grotesque nature of my monsters comes from the Madballs and the biology, and from current affairs nightmares, but also very largely from the painting process itself. The reverse painting technique doesn’t allow for much accuracy nor for editing, so the figures end up looking sort of naturally deformed and hideous, which is part of the fun. It’s like the process and the figures grew up together and neither could be what they are without the weird symbiotics involved.

OPP: What are you working on now?

AJ: I’m taking a break from painting. My current solo show Freedom From Want is up at Stux Gallery in New York through October 22nd and I’m working on drawings through the course of the show, in order to generate new ideas and to chillout a bit and not obsess over new paintings just yet. I’m really excited about some tattoos I’m designing for people.

To view more of Aaron Johnson’s work, visit aaronjohnsonart.com

Powder Puff Parents
2009

OtherPeoplesPixels: Your work is engaged not only with the Domestic, but specifically with the Feminine (as evidenced in the presence of embroidery hoops, powder puffs and floral decals), but this is the Feminine of a different era. Your objects remind me of things I saw in my grandmother's house growing up, but never in my own house. Are these visual references personal or intended to evoke a sense of cultural nostalgia?

Jennifer Ling Datchuk: Nostalgia plays a huge role in my conceptual choices of objects to render in porcelain clay. I explore the emotive power of domestic objects that have the potential to fix, organize, and soothe our lives. These objects also have a sense of time and ritual attached to them.  For example, powder puffs were used to apply powdered make up, and you would sit in front of a mirror, dip the puff, tap off the excess, apply to face, and repeat till you reach your desired coverage.  It is a very gentle and slow process and I’d like to think that these moments provide some time for contemplation. I am also romanticizing an era in which consideration was instilled in every day actions, an era very different from our current fast paced, technologically driven, disposable culture.

First Frost, detail
2008

OPP: And the decals you decorate the surfaces of your porcelain pieces: are these found imagery from an earlier era?

JLD: The surface of my porcelain pieces represents memories of a shared history through the layering of hand drawn, found, and personal imagery. The ceramic decals I purchase in bulk lots from eBay auctions are vintage floral patterns ranging from roses to daisies. When layering decals, I pay careful attention to the color and shape of the flowers. I cut apart decals and arrange them to give the appearance of spreading growth. The surface appears to be lush and decorative but reveals itself to be heavily layered and bruised upon closer inspection. In the process of layering and multiple firings, the life of the work changes, creating a rich history, exposing qualities that are hidden and revealed through the layers, capturing the outside reaction to inside anguish.

OPP: The word that most comes to mind when looking at your work is delicacy. I see it in your choice of porcelain, fabric, and wax paper as materials, as well as the line quality in the surface embellishments. How does the concept of delicacy relate to your interest in "revealing the beauty and dysfunction of domestic settings?"

JLD: Domestic objects like teacups, handkerchiefs, and wax paper can be emotionally charged, since they have a familiar place in our homes. By distorting the objects through the manipulation of form, scale, and presentation, I am able to express potential failure in these objects and create a delicate narrative of situations. The subtle distances between forms, flowing edges, and layered surfaces allow me to heighten the elements of conflict within these relationships.What initially appears to be dainty, delicate, and fragile slowly reveals itself to be resilient but in a complicated place. Teacups are mended with “stitches” but still functional. Wax paper is punched with holes and almost destroyed but reveals familial images. Handkerchiefs are coated with porcelain that forms a hard, slightly impenetrable shell. Fired porcelain is amazingly strong, but, because it exhibits qualities of purity and preciousness, it is assumed to be dainty and weak. I use delicacy to highlight oppositions like fragility and destruction, beauty and anxiety, tenderness and harm. I am interested in how these once familiar objects have unequal but inescapable relationships.

Tie
2008

OPP: You've referred to the hanging and knotted handkerchiefs, which are dipped in porcelain, as metaphors for sadness. Could you tell me more about how this metaphor functions in such pieces as Tie (2008), Catch (2008) and Choke (2010)?  Are there other recurring metaphors in your work?

JLD: I use handkerchiefs as metaphors for sadness, because I see them being used to catch tears, soak up sadness, and provide some relief from grief. I coat the fabric handkerchiefs in porcelain slip to freeze a particular moment of this despair. Manipulation through tying, knotting, or hanging the coated pieces allows me to express anxiety and the weight of endless sadness. I am drawn to Tolstoy’s quote, “ Happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” and I see my handkerchief pieces relating to this.

Another recurring metaphor in my work is the use of chicken feet. In Chinese culture, chicken feet are an edible delicacy and are served often as a family style dish. Growing up in a half Caucasian, half Chinese household, I was often simultaneously repulsed and appreciative of this dish. I was intimidated by the gnarliness of the toes and nails and didn’t fully understand how this was a delectable dish. I use chicken feet as a metaphor for my cultural differences and displacement.

OPP: I've noticed the pieces in your Etsy shop are distinctly different from the work in the portfolio section of your OPP site. The whimsical objects with kissing animals are identified as wedding cake toppers and can be customized. Your other sculptures repeatedly bring up the less happy parts of and even the dissolution of marriage. Is this an intentional difference? How does your Etsy shop relate to the rest of your work?

JLD: My work deals with some very tough familial issues and is sometimes drawn from personal experiences. I am extremely open about my choice of remaining distant from my divorced parents (they have also chosen not to contact me for many years) and have lived a seemingly well-adjusted life without them. Occasionally that past seeps back into present day and I need a break from it! So, to take my mind off things, I started unconsciously pinching little bowls out of porcelain clay and slip casting small little animals. These little bowls were just fun to make and gave me a much needed break from the complicated side of my work. Etsy was a way for me to share my love for sweet, simple and whimsical things and allow everyone the opportunity to own one of my pieces.

  Poodle and Chihuahua: Vintage-inspired Cake Topper

I started making wedding cake toppers after I became engaged to my very loving and supportive partner, Ryan Takaba, who is also a ceramic artist.  It is a very happy time for us but initially I was overwhelmed by the formal, traditional, and familial obligations surrounding marriage and the ceremony. I started reading every book and magazine I could find and talking to all my married friends to help me with answers to my questions. I am essentially family-less and entering into my future husband’s very large family was something I didn’t know how to accept right away. His family is very kind, generous, and understanding, and I couldn’t ask for a nicer family. We’ve talked about everything and anything and are finding ways to make our nontraditional wedding day comfortable for everyone.

In my research I kept finding wedding cake toppers where the bride, in a big white dress, sits beautifully atop a multi-tiered cake only to find the groom climbing down the side, trying to slip slyly away. In many ways I found no humor in this and thought it was offensive to the idea of what marriage should be. I wanted our cake topper to portray our ideas of marriage and togetherness and used sweet, little animals to represent nurturing and unconditional love.  Making cake toppers was never an intentional departure from my other work, but I can see the connections. Everything I make, from little bunny bowls for storage and wedding cake toppers to my conceptual work, all ties into the range of themes associated with the domestic and home.

OPP: You will be traveling to China for 5 weeks for a residency at the Pottery Workshop. Congratulations. What do you plan to work on while there?

JLD: Grants from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio and Artpace are allowing me to travel to Jingdezhen, China to participate in a residency at the Pottery Workshop. Jingdezhen is the birthplace of porcelain clay over 2,000 years ago and it continued to be mined here. This residency will allow me to explore my interest in the cultural significance of porcelain and surface decoration in factory-produced Chinese ceramics. In porcelain factories, men traditionally do the making and women are segregated to the finishing and decorating roles. I want to use Jingdezhen porcelain, working within these cultural traditions, to design and manufacture objects that create identity and beautify, like hairpieces and wigs, mirrors and makeup.

To view more of Jennifer Ling Datchuck’s work, visit jenniferlingdatchuk.com

My century Zoo (Detail)
2011
Mud, Paper, Wood
18 x 10 x 12 feet

OtherPeoplesPixels: You have partitioned your practice into two ongoing series, Rocks and Rocks and Rocks which is is a mix of drawings and ephemeral sculptures and Bones and Bones and Bones which is a mix of short narrative videos, wildlife photography, and sculptural objects. Which themes that you address in your work are distinct to each series? How do the two series differ from one another aside from the media distinction you make and what do they have in common that may speak to overarching themes in your practice?
 
Andrew Scott Ross: The defining work for the Rocks and Rocks and Rocks series is Paper Caves and Habits is the primary piece for the Bones and Bones and Bones series. These two series originated with these works. The video Habits which depicts a bunch of scattered living earthworms slowly forming a perfect circle came from my interest in the incredible habits of blind animals and how they can be an interesting metaphor for the power of nature. While Paper Caves, the group of works where I make early human dioramas out of office paper, is about how human imagination was utilized in the formations of early cultures.

Somehow, everything I have made since these two works are built on these two pieces in a somewhat chronological fashion. For instance in Rocks and Rocks and Rocks I started with the Stone Age, then did some pieces about the Neolithic Era and just finished My Century Zoo which touched on themes of Archaic Greek culture. It has been a slow process and I am looking forward to make it to the French Revolution sometime in the next decade!
Stones and Rocks and Stones and Bones (Detail)
2009
Office Paper
Detail of installation at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD)

OPP: Can you speak about your titling process for the pieces included in each series?

ASR: My titling process is really different for the two series. The titles for Rocks and Rocks and Rocks are deliberately vague, picked at random, or generic. I feel there is already plenty of information packed in these pieces—so I make the titles more atmospheric. In contrast the titles for Bones and Bones and Bones are more descriptive, as I want to steer the viewers attention to certain aspect of an animals behaviour or physical traits.

OPP: Your solo exhibition My Century Zoo, now on view at John Michael Kohler Arts Center, lists mud, paper, and wood as the materials used. You’ve used mud in your work before, but using it in My Century Zoo seems to lend to a slightly different look from your past installation work. How does My Century Zoo differ for your previous installations?

ASR: Yes, I keep coming back to mud! At first I just dipped things into it to give a uniform primordial aesthetic. Now, in my newest series, My Century Zoo mud is used as a glue for the paper, drawing material, and for its sculptural qualities. It has become both a central material and metaphor in my work. We walk on mud, make cities out of it, and can get buried in it. What I find the most interesting, is that as an art material, mud comes across as immensely fragile.

OPP: You often cut and crumble paper into small and incredibly delicate silhouettes of human and animal figures as well as into trees and other landscape elements. What's the hardest and easiest part of the process of making your sculptural paper work?

ASR: People often ask me why I do not use a laser cutter. They look as the process and all they see is tedious labor. Not only would using a laser effect the work aesthetically and conceptually, but it would take away a lot of pleasure. I really enjoy most of the detailed cutting and modeling process—actually I find it incredibly relaxing. In contrast, the hardest and most frustrating part of the process is having to start over again when messing up on a complex figure—and the easiest part would be the deinstallation. It is amazing how six months of work can be put in a box in 2 hours.
Stones and Rocks and Stones and Bones
2009
office paper
Installation at Museum of Arts and Design (MAD)

OPP: Do you listen to anything while you work on the delicate elements or does your process require silence?

ASR: I am always listing to music when working on my paper cutting, often film scores—they help me focus for long periods of time.  

OPP: What does a day in the studio look like for you? Do you “sketch” by drawing or does your process include other initial steps?

ASR: Lately my studio is overwhelmingly messy! It usually involves laying down tarps, filling cement mixing troughs with stained mud, putting on a Tyvek suit, and throwing mud at large sheets of paper. There are cleaner days, where I cut and manipulate the dried mud caked paper, or apply charcoal. I have not been sketching with my new work, I have been working directly on the final surface. 

OPP: What is next for you?

ASR: I have been working on some stand alone sculpture pieces made from mud and paper, and experimenting on video work with artist Vanessa Mayoraz.

In the next few months I will be moving to a larger studio space in Tennessee. The space is an old Eastman Co. research site and warehouse recently donated to East Tennessee State University (where I will be teaching this Fall). I am very excited about making some large scale pieces there.
To view more of Andrew Scott Ross’ work visit andrewscottross.com

Posting an image online these days is easier than ever. While this makes visibility for your work great, (yay!), there are always concerns about misuse or theft (copyright infringement -- eek!). Much of the content on the internet is hosted by the networks of third parties, as most folks do not run their own servers. This means that the potentially infringing activities of individuals can be stored and transmitted through these third party, online service providers (OSPs), most likely without the OSP's knowledge.

Because of this, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides a safe harbor for these OSPs. Section 512 of the DMCA protects OSPs from liability for information posted or transmitted by subscribers if the OSP quickly removes or disables access to material identified in a copyright holder's complaint.

In order to qualify for safe harbor protection, the OSP hosting the content must:

• have no knowledge of, or financial benefit from, infringing activity on its network
• have a copyright policy and provide proper notification of that policy to its subscribers
• list an agent to deal with copyright complaints

Note however that the OSP is not required to notify you before your allegedly infringing material is removed. If the material on your site does not infringe the intellectual property rights of a copyright owner and has been improperly removed from the internet, you can file a counter-notice with the OSP, who must transmit it to the person who made the complaint. If the copyright owner does not notify the OSP within 14 business days that it has filed a claim against you in court, your materials can be restored to the Internet.

If you see your work on a website, and believe that it is being used without your permission, you do have some recourse. Here are the steps we recommend:

1. Contact the administrator of the website, and inform them that you believe your work is being used without your permission, and ask them to take it down. (Hey, a nice note can go a long way!)
2. If that doesn't work, find out who the online service provider (OSP) of the website is. This may take some digging. Look for words like 'Powered by'.
3. Go to the OSP's website, and see if they have any information on their site about how to report alleged copyright infringement. If they do, follow their instructions.
4. If the OSP's website does not have any information, try using this website to see if the OSP has decided to take part in the DMCA. You can search for the agent they have listed:  http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/list/a_agents.html
5. If the OSP does have an agent listed, you can provide the information the DMCA requires, and mail notice to the agent.
6. Basic information the DMCA requires:

• The name, address, and electronic signature of the complaining party [512(c)(3)(A)(i)]. 
• The infringing materials and their Internet location [512(c)(3)(A)(ii-iii)], or if the OSP is an "information location tool" such as a search engine, the reference or link to the infringing materials [512(d)(3)]. 
• Sufficient information to identify the copyrighted works [512(c)(3)(A)(iv)].
• A statement by the owner that it has a good faith belief that there is no legal basis for the use of the materials complained of [512(c)(3)(A)(v)].
• A statement of the accuracy of the notice and, under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on the behalf of the owner [512(c)(3)(A)(vi)].

Note that making willy nilly claims of copyright infringment is not a good idea. You're opening yourself up to liability for damages, including costs and attorneys' fees. You must consider copyright defenses, limitations or exceptions before you send notice -- so think long and hard about this (did you sign a model release? did you say it was ok for your work to be used, or sign an agreement, and just don't remember doing so? Unfortunately, simply changing your mind doesn't necessarily provide you with any protection). These are just some of the things you should be considering. If you are not sure about these things or have questions, we suggest you contact an attorney prior to filing a notice with the OSP.

If you'd like more information about OPP's policies, you can view them here:

https://otherpeoplespixels.com/dmca

To find out more about the DMCA in general:

http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/

To responsible posting, everyone!

Specters / Bloodwrath; At my end I will take you with me
2008
Graphite, acrylic, colored pencil on paper
60" x 48"

OtherPeoplesPixels: How do you think the concept of “going feral” shapes your work? It seems to factor into a number of your works dating back to your 2006 video Centaurides, in which a computer modified child—like voice shares her fantastical observations and dreams; most of which involve a desire to break—free from the mundane, civilized, or unjust.

Molly Schafer: Yes exactly!  “Going feral” is my out to the mundane daily human life.  As I see it back in the day we had it all—tons of time outside, traveling around with the seasons, NOT MULTITASKING, self-reliance, physical strength and endurance, being in the moment and more connected to nature/each other/other animals/Earth/the universe… and then we decided to live in dark, dirty cities buy stuff from stores and sit in offices all day. Blah who wants that? Well it turns out lots of people do. And the idea of “going feral” becomes threatening to society. Perhaps it partially represents everyone’s underlying longing for freedom and/or fear of that desire.

Feral is a term referring to a domesticated creature that has returned to a semi-wild state. In a way, a hybrid state of being—not truly wild, no longer domesticated. I related that to the work I was doing with lady centaurs, themselves a hybrid of woman and horse.

While in graduate school I received feedback that people had trouble relating to the centaurs since they didn’t reflect their own human bodies (unimaginative, no?) so I decided to take that wildness and hybridity I depicted through the physical body of the centaur into a fully human body having gone feral. A major influence on this work is my first entry point into this theme: young adult novels featuring a girl who has isolated herself from society, lives in the wild with an animal companion.

I have had a life-long desire to live in one of those narratives, and I do realize it is slightly silly but I am sincere in that longing. My journey to and stay on Asseateague Island with my cat was my attempt to access a bit of that world. The trip resulted in a body of work Dawn Horse. The drawings in that work reflect the iconic images on the cover of such novels, often the only image in the whole book, their function is to only tell part of the story.

Clan of the Cave Girl (We went feral y'all)
2009
Graphite & watercolor on paper
20" x 20"

OPP: Hearing a child-like voice narrate Centaurides makes me curious about what you liked to draw as a child. What were your early sketchbooks like?

MS: Ha. Yes they weren’t too different from now. Animals, girls/women. More penguins (I was into penguins way before it was cool). My brother and I grew up drawing while we watched TV. Our parents were/are artists.

My junior high sketchbooks featured pencil drawings of awesome punk girls playing guitar. Lots of piercings, Mohawk hairdos, Tribe 8 shirts, L7 tattoos. The boys I knew were into drawing dragons, wizards and punk dudes. They always had trouble getting that we were into the same things. The gender difference or concept/awareness of gender (dragons vs unicorns) was so huge they couldn’t see past it. Not to mention they were intimidated by my skills. Lame.

Ha ha.

I dunno I’ve always liked drawing mice. I guess I’ve always fell somewhere between Beatrix Potter and fantasy novel art. Which may explain my limited successes.

Still From Barrier Island
2007
digital video

OPP: Your arctic-looking house cat plays a prominent role in your video from your Barrier Island series. In reviewing images from your subsequent solo show, Dawn Horse, at Lump Gallery in Raleigh, NC, I noticed at least three other pieces that include visual references to your cat; one that even lists “my cat's fur” in the material list. Can you speak about the role your cat plays in your artmaking? Where does your house cat fit in your work’s relationship to real and imagined animals like centaurs what you describe as “similar hybrids”?

MS: Well I’m glad someone is reading my detailed descriptions of media. Yes that is my boo. His name is Sid and he has been my dawg for 18 years now. I’ve always tried to let him be a cat and as wild as he wants to be.

Once I took Sid to hang out in a park in Pennsylvania (where we both were born and raised) after an hour or so of us just chillin in some woods he started loosing control. He ran around, ate some rabbit poop and got this crazy look in his eye—shiny and wild, like he didn’t recognize me. There are moments—the realization there is no leash and he can run far, when he is at the top of the tree and is considering leaving me—when I dare say he is hearing the call of the wild. Those moments were fascinating and frightening. I related to them and was inspired by that to make this work.

As I mentioned earlier I wanted to live like the characters in my favorite novels—Reindeer Moon, Julie of the Wolves, Island of the Blue Dolphins. These characters all had a faithful friend/sidekick who was a non—human animal. I had Sid. And I wanted to see how feral he would go. So we went to Assateague Island to get weird.

Also I mainly make my objects out of whatever I have around with a nod to the materials used by and usefulness of the characters in those novels. Often they validate the killing of animals by using all of it’s parts. I don’t really kill anything for parts but do want animal parts in my work. Sid has plenty of fur to spare. And he and I are linked in a way that it adds meaning and magic to work parts of us into objects.

OPP: Your drawings of animals, centaurs and similar hybrids are often incredibly detailed. What kind of research goes into creating each piece?

MS: Hmm looking at books— field guides, pony guides, Equus Magazine. Reading about how their parts work. I also spent time with and photographed my aunt’s horses. Observing creatures in the wild or growing up around them helps. Just getting to know them. Repeatedly sketching. Honestly I have one trick that I think works best but I consider it a trade secret. Let’s just call it “becoming animal” because I like phrases that sound like the cover of hilarious fantasy novels.

Endangered Species Print Project

OPP: Your own art practice is hybrid in nature. You maintain an individual art practice exhibiting your work widely but also operate outside of the gallery system using your artistic talents to directly support conservation efforts and biodiversity as the co-founder of The Endangered Species Print Project (ESPP). Let’s talk about what ESPP is, how it got started, and how it relates to your work as an individual artist.

MS: Sure. The Endangered Species Print Project, according my collaborator Jenny Kendler, is our brain-love child. We both have strong feelings about conserving biodiversity on this planet.  We had been fumbling around looking for a way to use our artistic talents and skills to benefit a cause we cared about and to make an impact. ESPP is our best version of those efforts. ESPP sells limited-edition prints of critically endangered species. Prints are editioned to reflect the remaining population count of the species depicted. For example, there are only 37 Seychelles sheath-tailed bats remaining in the wild. So only 37 prints of my drawing of this bat will ever be made. Currently 100% of the proceeds from print sales are donated to a conservation organization working to conserve the species on the front lines.

When we started it was only Jenny and me. We have grown to include many guest artists, a blog, and an ESPP extended family which includes artist Christopher Reiger, OtherPeople’sPixels, who sponsors the project, Michael Czerepak of the School of the Art Institute (SAIC) Service Bureau who masterfully prints our work (and who asked me to marry him), and P.O.V. Evolving in Los Angeles, who handle our large print orders. Our work would not be possible without the help of the conservationists and organizations that we partner with nor without the many people who buy ESPP prints!

How it relates to my work as an individual artist? Well, for awhile it has taken over most of my studio time! Jenny and I do ESPP in our spare time. It quiets questions that may interrupt my concentration while drawing like “Why didn’t I go back to school for mammology instead of studio arts?” and “Shouldn’t I be doing something less selfish than this?”

OPP: What are you working on now?

MS: I’m in one of those stages were I am doing lots of little stuff, working up to the next big thing. So I’m slowly working on some books, maybe they fall into the graphic novel category with the chimp hybrid women I was drawing a few years back, I still have a few paintings to make to round out the Dawn Horse work. I’m also working on a collaborative project with artist and pal Tory Wright. I’ve collected a bunch of video and text to make a new narrated video, but at the moment I’m planning the piece to incorporate a good amount of hand drawn animation so I predict this will be a years long project. I’m fascinated/jealous of large predators so I collect pics of them on my blog Megafauna .

I’m moving into a new studio soon so I’m looking forward to that!  Honestly, I’m designing my wedding invitation. Is that lame? So far it features an eagle, a hawk, a peacock, a fox, a bear, a badger and a hare. I think someone else but I’m not sure. Oh! That’s right a slow loris.

To view more of Molly Schafer’s work visit mollyschafer.com.

Text Ad Links. What are they? Those annoying hotlinks connected to certain keywords on a website. When you click on them, they take you to an advertisement.

Here's some info on this technique:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-text_advertising

In other words, it's a scam/adware, and should have no part on your website! As you're admiring your content-rich, newly redesigned, SEO-optimized OPP site, you start noticing these ugly ad links popping up over certain keywords. Before you write an angry email to support, know that OPP would never sell you out for ad revenue!

There are a couple of reasons this could be happening, and some things you can check.

• Look at your OPP site in a few browsers. Is this happening in only one browser, and is definitely not any special formatting you input into your artist statement? If it is happening in only one browser, it is possible that that browser has been infected with some kind of “secure your computer” or “accelerate your web experience” trojan software that installed ads into your browser.

• Is this happening on any other website, such as cnn.com, or on our main site, otherpeoplespixels.com? If so, it's something local to your computer (or ISP, Internet Service Provider), as those two sites would never have ads built into the text.

If you are experiencing this issue in Firefox, please check out this add-on that can help you combat the issue:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

And here are some other sites, for you to reference as well:

http://download.cnet.com/Safari-AdBlock/3000-2378_4-10793198.html

http://download.cnet.com/Adblock-for-Chrome/3000-11745_4-75000931.html

(As always, download files from the internet at your own risk!)

In addition to installing helpful addons, you could also try uninstalling the infected browser, and reinstalling it -- and hopefully that will clear up any type of trojan software that may have installed the ads into your browser.

Begone, Ad Links!

An Interview with David Kagan: By OtherPeoplesPixels
The Year In Review (Live Performance)
2011
Mixed media

OtherPeoplesPixels: For your recent series The Year In Review you composed music with an electronic producer, shot short films to accompany the tracks, pressed vinyl, and staged live multimedia performances. For your previous series, The Redacted Bunny, you incorporated painting, installation, photography, and video into the structure of episodic television. How do you select the combination of media you use for each project?

David Kagan: I spent a long time trying to separate my “lofty artistic aspirations” from my “lowbrow” pop cultural interests, and found I wasn’t having very much fun making art. The Redacted Bunny was a turning point: I was finally able to openly acknowledge how pervasive the influence of television, especially bad television, had been on my life (my earliest memories are probably of The Love Boat). Hence, the work took the structural form of an episodic show. The other media included in the project followed on the basis of necessity: a cast of actors was required, therefore I fabricated costumes to alter my appearance and created a chorus of puppet co-stars. I needed sets, so I collected objects from thrift stores and I painted backdrops. A series of photographs were taken of myself and the various characters to serve as conceptual “film stills.” In exhibiting the video work, these additional elements sometimes served as installation environments. 

With The Year In Review, I sought to fulfill a nearly life-long ambition to record an album. But I didn’t want to do a half-assed job, so I set out to fully mimic the entire structure of a proper pop album ad campaign. My first love is video, so of course each of the tracks had to have its own short musical film. I’m an avid music collector (especially of electronic disco from the 70s, incidentally the style emulated in this project) and wanted to create a beautiful, fetishistic, and perhaps useless object. Hence, I had a limited run of records pressed with colored vinyl, full jacket artwork, and inner sleeve liner notes. The most exciting part of the project, however, ended up being the live performances, which I think of as “promotional appearances.” I had never sung live in public before, and I have terrible stage fright, but I wanted to push my art further outside of where I feel safe. I call these events “un-performances,” as I make no claims of having a good voice or any sort of stage presence; when in the gallery setting, I stand rather motionless and expressionless, and blend in with the other installation elements, my voice having no more importance than the projected videos, records, or other objects.

Still From "Patron Saint Of Collapsing Art Markets" (part of the The Redacted Bunny series)
2009

OPP: You star as yourself in each aspect of The Year In Review—using yourself as a test subject to explore your interests in identity construction and iconography. You also star in The Redacted Bunny but as the character Bunny Boy. Can you speak about your performative role in each series and how performing as yourself may have differed from performing as Bunny Boy?

DK: There’s no difference for me between playing “David Kagan” or a man in a rabbit suit. The two main characters in The Redacted Bunny, the transsexual mother and human-animal hybrid son, were basically my id and super ego, respectively. I never viewed them as anything other than myself in drag, playacting wild fantasies and darkest self-doubts. Eventually, though, I did come to see that the style of this work—the bright cartoon colors, camera hamming acting, and ceaseless, rapid-fire editing—created a distraction from what I was actually interested in: identity construction.

I found a more direct route to this line of inquiry by dropping the masks and wigs (well, not completely…) and using the material at hand-myself. In The Year In Review, I am “David Kagan” throughout the project, but it’s actually no more or less “acted” than the work that’s come before. Some of the song lyrics are culled from actual email exchanges with curators or quotes from art critiques I’ve had. I had to say the line (which is a quote of myself) “I do primarily video work” over and over a while back when I did a live performance of The Whitney Biennial Song. It sounds really awkward or trite to me, and yet the phrase still comes out of my mouth from time to time in daily life. It’s funny when I catch myself actually saying these things that I’ve used as song lyrics. It makes me realize that I’m acting all the time. I’m very intrigued by the prospect that I might actually be an incredibly insincere person.

OPP: Do your live performances and performative videos incorporate improvisation or do you stick to a predetermined script?

DK: I tend to be very scripted, in general. In my art and my life-it’s when I say things without first practicing them in my head that I get in trouble. Generally, the end product ends up being about 90% planned with a 10% margin for error. I guess I’ve set this strategy up for myself, almost unconsciously, so that the work has a system of internal flaws (the beauty is in the defects after all). Case in point, I shot a video, All The Conceptual Art I’ll Never Make on a rural road in Wisconsin last summer. Basically, I had to walk up and over a horizon line and traverse the better part of a mile up to where a video camera was positioned, and then sing a chorus.  The whole endeavor took about ten minutes. The landscape in the camera lens was perfectly desolate—a lonely road cutting through rolling hills of corn. The only problem was that I couldn’t stop the flow of traffic, which occurred arbitrarily: sometimes three cars would pass by in two minutes, then half an hour would go by with nothing. I had to accept that whatever was going to happen was out of my control in this respect. 

OPP: How do you think the concept of “endless hope” that you speak about in your statement for The Year In Review shapes your work and your artmaking process more generally?

DK: My knee-jerk reaction has always been to declare myself a pessimist but for some reason I am continually putting myself in situations where rejection or failure is a very possible outcome. Whether it’s applying for funding or a residency, submitting work for curatorial review, or doing a live performance with little practice or experience—I seem to just keep going regardless of what happens. Indeed, I guess my mantra is “turn your liabilities into assets.” That’s why the subject matter of much of my work is the absence of success: in The Whitney Biennial Song, an invitation and submission to a museum exhibit inevitably yields the sound of crickets chirping; Epic Pfail is about contacting a prominent artist after I’ve had a workshop residency with him and never hearing back. I’m seeking to infuse these events with a sense of purpose, by incorporating them into my work and seeing them not as mere disappointments, but key components of my art career.

OPP: The Redacted Bunny, was recently included in the Art Video International Film Festival at Cannes—congratulations. When screened at festivals is the series shown as episodes interspersed among other work or edited together sequentially?

DK: Actually, thus far it has always been screened as a single piece, but with the episodes playing non-sequentially. I chose this format as a strategy to more actively engage the viewer, forcing him to make sense of the work and construct it as a whole for himself. By nature, an episodic serial demands passivity: the spectator gives himself over to a narrative (if properly engaged) and lets it wash over himself from episode to episode, week to week, year to year. There is a sense of familiarity and stasis, especially in the sit-com genre. This is the antithesis of what the type of art I’m trying to make does; I require an obstruction, a visible thread that if pulled could unravel the very world I’ve painstakingly created.

Post x 5 Modern Tea Party
2011
Single channel video
5 min.

OPP: One of eight short films made to accompany the album tracks in your series The Year In Review features your parents and your partner. Tell me about that film. What was it like making work with your family?

DK: This is the short video Post x 5 Modern Tea Party. It was filmed over the forth of July weekend last year—the hottest two days of the entire summer! Conceptually, I’m sort of flippantly addressing the impossibility of there ever being another over-arching art movement (too many cooks in the art kitchen I suppose). It’s made all the more ridiculous with the visuals of my parents, John and I doing a synchronized dance routine in our bathing suits throughout. My ulterior motive was really to share my art making practice with the family—to include them in the process. I was attempting to foster an interaction that was outside of our normal engagement, and I wanted a record it for posterity. Of course, they might beg to differ, and see it less as collaboration and more as exploitation! My parents, though, still break into the dance moves from time to time when I see them…

OPP: How do you seek out support for your work in the form of feedback from other artists having recently graduated with an MFA from Hunter College? Are you rooted to a community of artists where you live and work in New York?

DK: This is something I’m currently sorting out, as I’m just out of grad school. A large part of why I did an MFA was to build a network of artist friends and associates. I value these relationships with former classmates and professors—and try to be diligent in supporting their exhibitions, lectures, open studios, etc.  Some schoolmates have been organizing a series of studio visits, which I plan to get looped into soon, though I guess I am still taking a break from three years of art crits!

I live on the Lower East Side, and will be doing a studio residency in my neighborhood early next year (AAI - Artists Alliance Inc.). I'm definitely looking forward to meeting some new faces and making art locally, but I have a hunch that the base of my community will remain tied to my alma mater.

OPP: What is next for you? What are you working on now?

DK: I’ve started work on more music—I’m fairly invested in that endeavor right now. It picks up thematically where the last album left off—crawling from the wreckage of an MFA program as it were. I’ve been reading books on the evils of religion (Christopher Hitchen’s God Is Not Great, Sam Harris’ The End Of Faith). It’s coloring my world right now and I’m sure it will influence the work. Love songs for atheists, perhaps?
 
I’m also very pleased to say that I’ve received a grant from Art Matters funding a project in Ghana early next year. I’m fascinated by the country—it’s where my partner is from and I’ve been just once before. I’ll be collaborating with musicians, both traditional and pop, on a filmic/music project. It’s still a bit loose as to what final form the work will take, but I’m interested in continuing to push myself further outside of what’s familiar, comfortable, or easy.

To view more of David Kagan’s work visit davidkagan.net