CODAsummit 2021 was marked by an in-person conference in Scottsdale, AZ which coincided with the dramatic light/art/water event titled Canal Convergence. While there was a COVID-friendly digital component for those not in attendance, the turnout was relatively staggering—a volume of renowned artists, museum directors and some of the heaviest global art fabrication companies all making the trek to the Arizona desert.
For those not familiar with CODAworx—simply put, it is an organization with a purpose of bringing together the needed elements to create public art on a massive scale. CODAworx touts itselves as “the hub of the commissioned art economy.” It is a singular place where those commissioning art can link to creatives, fabricators, engineers and most any others needed to actualize a project. A thrilling announcement at the conference was that CODAworx is nearing the $2 billion mark for commissioned public works; Yes, billion with a B.
The conference wasted no time diving into controversial issues around both COVID and problems with the traditional art institution model. Christy MacLear (inaugural CEO of SUPERBLUE, Rauschenberg Foundation, etc.) moderated a panel with artist and museum professionals that addressed The Reimagined Museum. The theme that continued to surface during this panel was how COVID regulations forced the archaic museum model to finally adapt, with new ideas, contemporary programming systems and nontraditional methods for engaging the public. Jeremy Strick (Director, Nasher Sculpture Center) spoke about the series of the “Nasher Windows” exhibitions that were presented to remain relevant during a time of nonpublic gathering. It’s worth noting that nearly all changes made in programing during COVID were highly successful and will be remaining in some context moving forward.
CODAworx organized presenters in a grounding dualistic approach, with conceptual art conversations were followed by tangible presentations such as the talk by Daniel Tobin, co-founder of fabrication powerhouse UAP. Daniel addressed the current need for manufacturing on a global scale—UAP has a facility in Australia, China and New York—but also the menagerie of difficulties that come from manufacturing public art on that scale.
The Reimagined Museum panel. Photo credit: M.O.D Media Productions
The final component of CODAworx is the actual creative, the artist. Plenty of interesting presentations focused on the use of solar panels, robots or some tech in the artwork, but the standout artist was one with a far more traditional process. Los Angeles painter Ryan Sarfati, aka Yanoe, found his artistic footing while straddling large-format mural production with an AR twist. Yanoe takes both his moniker and learned skillsets from a prolific youth of graffiti painting in LA. He now applies them to world record setting murals as a part of a two-artist team—Oh Yanoe, LLC. The Majestic is a 15,000 square-foot mural in Tulsa, OK, which was finished in 2021 and is officially the world’s largest AR mural. This is not the first time Oh Yanoe has held the record, just the most recent. Their murals integrate community focused imagery and are inherently bright, stunning and dramatic to the naked eye. If the viewer chooses to employ the AR component it all starts to get real. Portions of the mural morph, hummingbirds fly off the wall, flowers grow and engulf the building. This is something new, and something great that builds on traditions we embrace.
Art and technology have been integrally related throughout the trajectory of human history with our current day and age being no exceptions. CODAsummit 2021 exemplified how many of our world’s foremost creatives are pushing the boundaries, working on global issues, and adding beauty into this world through the integration and use of technology in public art.
When Push Comes to Shove (2015), take what you know and simply make—make objects, make observations, make connections, make people listen, make people think, make a doorway in which others can enter your world. Jeffrey Gibson’s approach to making fits perfectly into our contemporary discourse; it also distinguishes Gibson’s methods in regard to objects, aesthetics, culture, and his own art practice, which,like his life, is a true mash-up in the most beautiful sense.
“Like a Hammer,” the first major museum survey to focus on Gibson’s practice post-2011, marks a notable shift and a period shortly after Gibson nearly gave up art entirely. Eventually embracing the freeing moniker of maker rather than artist, Gibson emerged invigorated and liberated—no longer needing to conform to bounds of a traditional art practice.
Gibson’s work pulls from all things in his general orbit: his Mississippi Choctaw-Cherokee heritage and traditions, pop and queer culture references, modernism, fashion, and a general freedom in regard to both the exploration and usage of materials.
His equally familiar yet unapologetically foreign aesthetic juxtaposes traditional Native American techniques (beading, painting on stretched hide, and heavy adornment of objects) with a contemporary art ethos. References to historic and current art are unmistakable, with modernism, abstraction and the manipulation of found objects being at the forefront.
This exhibition, in its third iteration after traveling from the Denver Art Museum, is truly dense and covers a multitude of genres including sculpture, painting, installation and performance. The content, the social context, the implications, the materials used, the way in which works are installed, and simply the sheer volume (nearly 70 art objects of considerable size are on display) make it a lot to take in.
Viewing Gibson’s work in the context that he does, as a maker, is crucial to understanding it—a fact that is thoroughly explored throughout the exhibition. Gibson’s perspective on the studio and the process of making objects in mass is almost Warholian. This is evident most clearly in regard to his punching bags, beaded textual wall works and abstracted rawhide paintings. All are great in their own right, but seeing them en masse illuminates the artist’s process of production.
The adorned Everlast punching bags that Gibson is most known for are one of the many highlights. They are simply beautiful as objects, but even more so as an underlying idea and way of conceptually dealing with content. Each appropriated bag is heavily embellished with beading, verbiage and hanging tassel bits—taking much of their visual inspiration from Pow Wow regalia. As displayed at the Seattle Art Museum, hanging over shallow plinths, the viewer is left longing for more. Portions of phrases—that conjure powerful rhetorical effects—are legible from certain vantage points, but as the words cascade around the curvature of the bag, the viewer is left to fill in the remaining portions of both imagery and text.
With Gibson’s work also currently on view at the Whitney Biennial, he is an artist to keep an eye on as he continues to mashup the historic, the contemporary, and everything else in proximity.
If you are one of the cool kids (or artists or gallerists), then most likely you were at 3rd street in DTLA last Saturday for a jam-packed and super festive opening. We aren’t talking Hauser, rather its newish next-door neighbor Over the Influence. OTI—with its Hong Kong lineage—has stormed onto the Los Angeles art scene as one of the new/hot/hip/cool places since its debut in early 2018.
Lauren Every-Wortman
To follow up on their uber popular exhibition of new works from Cleon Peterson—OTI and curator Lauren Every-Wortman present an all-woman group exhibition. “How They Ran” is the sixth exhibition for their LA gallery and takes its title from the 2nd chapter of the feminist writer Germaine Greer’s book, The Obstacle Race. Diving into this ethos—the show is a mix of both emerging and very well-established female Angeleno artists such as Barbara Kruger, Uta Barth, Kerry Tribe and Jo Ann Callis.
Megan Whitmarsh with her fake art-cover magazines.
At the opening we saw several of the artists in the exhibition—including Megan Whitmarsh, who presently is enjoying accolades from her “Made in L.A.” installation with collaborator Jade Gordon. She posed for us in front of her fake magazine covers (embroidery on canvas) that imagined female artists on the covers back then when they were making tons of art, but not getting tons of recognition, compared to their male counterparts.
Guy Rusha in front of artist Kelly Brumfield-Woods’ glitter paintings.
We also ran into gallery dealer Anthony Cran. How rare is it to see an art dealer at another gallerists’ opening? OTI Director Guy Rusha was in high spirits with the great turnout, texting us the address of the after party, which we’ll get to later.
Megan Geckler, Maura Bendett, Phyllis Green, Martin Durazo, Claudia Huiza.Kim Schoenstadt with Pamela Hudson
Other artist sisters who showed up in support were Phyllis Green, Claudia Huiza, Laura London and Maura Bendett. Gallerists Eva Chimento and Liz Gordon made an appearance (more art dealers showing up at other openings…take note!). Kelly Brumfield-Woods, Kim Schoenstadt and Pamela Hudson were also included in the exhibition who made it to the after-party.
Thinh Nguyen partying to white power!Cole Case
The after-party at Bar Mateo was a smashing success, and how do we know that? Because the food and quality cocktails never stopped being paraded out (there were even to-go boxes of the amazing veggie sliders.) Partygoers Thinh Nguyen, Martin Durazo, Peter Shelton,Cole Case were along for the ride while we took our smoke outside with Megan Geckler. Now that’s what I call the end to a fun evening on the scene.
There is a new queen in town. Last Saturday the Tanya Bonakdar matriarchy entered Hollywood in the most appropriate of ways—with the 12th solo presentation of gallery SoCal artist Charles Long. The exhibition “husbands, sons, fathers, brothers” provides context; it is the preamble to the post apocalyptic state depicted in “Paradigm Lost” which is Long’s contribution to “Made in L.A.” currently at the Hammer.
The two exhibitions confront patriarchy in a sculpturally direct format—the basis for all artworks being derived from a phallic cross-section. While both uncanny and ultimately perfect, this cross-section imagery likens to a sculpted relief of a sad emoji. At TBG-LA, Long explores the more formal side of cutting the head off our masculine-dominated existence with the stark white-on-white exhibition.
The vaulted/newly remodeled space on Highland Avenue, and its four separate galleries each contain a single artwork or installation. It provides a calming, safe and neutral environment allowing for both personal reflection and contemplative discussions meant to lead toward the inevitable apocalyptic patriarchal collapse depicted in “Paradigm Lost.”
While the subject matter was socially charged and geographically relevant—the mood at the opening was absolutely celebratory. It was a jovial homecoming for Long and a celebration for TBG’s entrance into LALA Land. The opening was buzzing with open and liberating discussions. A strong female art world presence made it all the more dynamic. In attendance were the gallery’s namesake Tanya Bonakdar, TBG-LA Director Mary Leigh Cherry, gallery artists Analia Saban and Uta Barth. Fellow “Made in L.A. 2018” contributor Carmen Argote, Marciano Director Jamie Manne, and many others came to show support. Welcome home Charles and Tanya. Get ready Los Angeles, the times they are a changing.
After dodging the reporters and cameramen that were shooting footage of Leonard Nimoy’s star for memorial news coverage on Hollywood Boulevard, I was buzzed into Glenn Kaino’s studio and escorted up to the second floor by an assistant. Once face to face with the artist it became immediately apparent that this product of the UC system (UC Irvine, BFA and UCSD, MFA) is not only an intellectual, but also the epitome of LA cool. In his early 40s, with a casual but pulled-together look and hip quiff hairstyle, it looked as if he had just rushed from a GQ magazine photo shoot. We spoke about life, work, technology, collaboration and the monumental year that he had in 2014.
Kaino is a natural multitasker—he sits and flips through the Artillery paraphernalia that I brought as he casually answers my first several rounds of questions. If I reference an artist’s work he is not familiar with, 30 seconds later he is Googling images on his phone, never missing a beat in the conversation. This seeming casual but fully engaged conversational style is one index of his facility; he toggles seamlessly between perceptual, intellectual and creative levels of engagement.
Kaino is one of a new breed of artist/entrepreneurs—an intellectual free spirit bound to no artistic genre—gracefully transitioning from the role of artist to that of corporate executive in the media world, and back again. To understand the multiple personalities of Kaino is to understand that the same creativity applies in each of these roles.
Glenn Kaino in his studio, photo by Joseph Rynkiewicz.
Kaino claims that the people who brought him into these large media projects—whether it was at the Oprah Network, Napster, or a multitude of others—knew that what they were signing up for was by no means traditional. “They were savvy and aware of my role as an artist and very aware that bringing me in was an unconventional decision because both my practice and my methodologies are unconventional,” he tells me.
From fetish fabrication and the use of new technology, to the deconstruction and subsequent DIY reassembly of commonplace life-ephemera into social activist sculpture—there is no construct to predict when Kaino’s wealth of varying interests may next manifest into art. Read any article on him and you will see references to “kit-bashing,” a model-maker’s term for taking all the pieces from a project, spreading them out on a table, then making whatever the hell you want. Sometimes, it would seem instructions and plans simply get in the way of true vision.
With a creative process that commingles discrete worlds and bodies of knowledge, Kaino notes, “the circumstances created with art-making allow for true generative exchange to happen.” This was no more evident than when both the chess world and the contemporary art world converged on the World Chess Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Missouri last year to watch Magnus Carlsen, former child chess prodigy (and fashion model), now established grandmaster ranked No. 1 in the world—face off with acclaimed artist, magician and former corporate media executive, Glenn Kaino. Just to make things a tad more exciting, Kaino’s “Burning Boards” work (originally shown at the Whitney Museum in 2007) substitutes flaming candles for the chess pieces.
Glenn Kaino, Burning Boards, 2007, thirty-two players, sixteen chess sets of wood and wax, tongs and lighters, dimensions variable, installation view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Photo Nhat Nguyen, Courtesy Honor Fraser Gallery.
In preparation for the event, Kaino had been practicing against the Magnus Carlsen App, which allows one to play the grandmaster at different ages. With this, Kaino knew that he could beat an 8-year-old Carlsen. Unfortunately, the champ is now in his mid-20s and Kaino needed an alternative strategy. “I created the one circumstance in chess where I knew more about the game than he did. I took the disadvantage and chose black, allowing Carlsen to make the first move. He would move his pieces, and then I just copied him. What he didn’t know was when I was going to stop copying him.” This strategy garnered a smile from Carlsen and allowed Kaino to last a couple dozen moves against one of the greatest chess players in history. Kaino doesn’t take all the credit, giving some to the “generosity of Magnus Carlsen,” who may or may not have thrown him a couple of secret signals during the last handful of those moves.
In addition to his chess performance, Kaino had what many would refer to as an epic 2014: solo exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago, the historic Naval Building 170 in D.C. and inclusion in New Orleans Biennial (Prospect 3). With all of this, it only seems appropriate that he begin 2015 focused in Los Angeles, the city he grew up in, with a solo show at Honor Fraser gallery and the finalizing of the “research phase” for the giant 6th Street Viaduct commission. Kaino was selected to provide the artistic support for the downtown 6th street bridge section of this major redevelopment effort—a part of the hotly debated LA River Revitalization Project. His contribution alone could have a budget of over a million dollars.
Glenn Kaino, Bridge, 2014, (detail) photo Joseph Rynkiewicz, Courtesy Kavi Gupta Gallery and Glenn Kaino Studio.
While speaking cryptically about 6th Street—none of his design details have officially been released—Kaino jokes that throughout his career he has “built a lot of bridges.” Among the multiple implied references, three major works spring to mind from his catalog. The 6th Street undertaking is the largest and most recent to date, but each of his bridge-centric creations has been heroic in its own right.
The first was commissioned to be a six-month public artwork as a part of Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary celebration. The celebrated sculpture is something akin to a large transformer robot, each of its components consisting of a different bridge located within the Steel City. Beloved by its residents, Arch (2008) was recently restored and relocated to a permanent new home at the Pittsburgh International Airport.
Glenn Kaino, Bridge, 2014, photo Joseph Rynkiewicz, Courtesy Kavi Gupta Gallery and Glenn Kaino Studio.
The last major project, simply titled Bridge, was one of Kaino’s standouts from 2014. The work was shown in several iterations last year, its largest being the site-specific installation at the Naval Building 170 in Washington, D.C. Bridge has heavy conceptual and cultural relevance as it re-imagines and relocates Olympian and activist Tony Smith’s iconic civil rights gesture from the 1968 Olympics back in the contemporary discourse. The 200 painted gold casts of Tony Smith’s arm are suspended gracefully in mid-air, taking the gesture out of its original context but also creating a dramatic vehicle to spur further conversation about social and political disenfranchisement. What Bridge represents is at the core of many of Kaino’s artworks; they function as the catalyzing element in which history, social activism, art and discourse all collide in one special moment.
Kinetic machines, performances, physical and metaphorical bridges, to board games on fire, to sheer magic—there is no anticipating what is coming next from this protean imagination. As the audience, we must simply sit back and wait for the next show, the next performance, the next wild idea. In Kaino’s words, “It is about the poetics of not knowing—about both mining and understanding the membrane between the known and the unknown.”
An acknowledgment of tradition coupled with a refusal to conform to established conventions makes Analia Saban an artist not easily categorized. Her work flows seamlessly across genre, concept and medium.
A native of Argentina, Saban recalls arriving in California nearly a decade ago. “When I got to UCLA, I was confused because there was all this attention always going to painting. I thought, why is painting so important? Mainly my work became about questioning painting. I am still trying to figure out, why paint?” With a praxis that originally centered around paint in a literal sense—rather than the results that come from the act of painting—Saban now uses experimental processes, a wide range of materials, and new technology in conjunction with traditional techniques. Her video on MOCAtv follows an artwork transitioning from a painting into something sculpturally different as her laser cutter removes specified areas of the canvas.
Analia Saban, Paint (Black) #1, 2012, Image courtesy of Galerie Praz-Delavallade, Paris
An investigative approach has the potential to change one’s trajectory, but alternately it can lead to a frustrating end. For Saban, the failures seem few and far between—she acknowledges that it is a small price to pay for all the research that comes from her studio experiments. She states, “I would much rather keep pushing those limits than make something that will last forever and be perfect. Rauschenberg always said that artworks should have a life and, someday, if it decays, that is okay.”
Materiality and its contrived value are at the core of Saban’s artwork; she is an artist fully engaged in an evaluation and dissection of the hierarchy of art processes. An earlier work that she recently exhibited at Marian Goodman Gallery in New York exemplifies both her investigation and critique of the often-overlooked physicality contained within painted canvases. The Painting Ball (48 Abstract, 42 Landscapes, 23 Still Lives, 11 Portraits, 2 Religious, 1 Nude) (2005) consists of 100+ deconstructed pieces of art that Saban obsessively amassed. The criteria for collecting the paintings, whether procured directly from artists, through ads on craigslist, or even from Chinese reproduction factories, Saban explains, was not the beauty or imagery of each work. “It is important to see a painting, this object that we hang on the wall that we have added this value to, is also a knitted piece of material called canvas. Once unravelled, you realize that it is just thread with pigment.”
Saban was recently in two Los Angeles shows; both questioned what it means to be a painter and explored the fringe. “Variations: Conversations in and around Abstract Painting” at LACMA featured striking newly acquired works complemented by pieces from LACMA’s collection. The exhibition embraced the contemporary definition of abstraction, which blurs across painting, sculpture and at times, installation. Saban’s solo show “Is this a painting” at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena probed a famous conversation between Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner asking themselves the same question. Fittingly, not one of Saban’s pieces for the exhibition included paint.
Analia Saban, Kitchen Sink , 2012 , Image courtesy of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York
No longer a full-time Angeleno, Saban travels to LA every two weeks to work with her team in a Santa Monica studio, a Baldessari hand-me-down. In a smaller Manhattan studio she works in solitude on drawings, new ideas and photo-related projects. This allows for a nice balance with her more intricate and demanding sculptural works, although it means an epic commute.
Having gallery representation in Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, London and Paris, Analia Saban is a poster child for the global contemporary artist, with a focus on exploration, new ideas and pushing the outer limits of what is possible when combining traditional and experimental ways of thinking about art. Reflecting on her blossoming career Saban states, “I think I have a solid understanding of what it is to be a successful artist in other cities around the world—LA is just by far the best.”
Death, destruction, strife and pollution—the pairing of Kris Kuksi’s and Preston Daniels’ variations of dark sensationalism transport us to their version of artistically-mediated Armageddon, with each creating unique and hauntingly extravagant objects. Kuksi’s baroque wall sculptures are windows onto apocalyptic scenes, using a narrative style of assemblage to critique war, and portray devastation and the rebirth of society atop the ashes. Daniels’ installation complements nicely while embracing “darkness” in a much more tactile and literal way, allowing zero buffer between the viewer and the thick black ooze claustrophobically dripping from the vast geometric shapes that engulf the second gallery.
Truly a master appropriator, Kuksi builds vastly intricate artworks using thousands of repurposed, modified and carefully articulated miniatures—whether from statues, toys or any other object globally sourced that finds its way to his rural Kansas studio. In a world where we stroll past art mid-stride, Kuksi’s work begs to be examined and explored at length, with an almost infinite amount of information residing within the minutia. Embedding Renaissance-style nudes, military figures and classic mythology into his creations, Kuksi acknowledges that which has come before—he just distorts it in a way that complements his own twisted fantasies.
While sculptural, Kuksi’s work embodies the junction at which art, image and violent narrative collide. Something akin to the method of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment—the artworks have a centralized story, but also dozens of sub-themes and characters subtly interacting with each other. The unspeakable horrors depicted are hidden amongst the sheer volume of imagery. Kuksi’s massive wall sculpture, Leda and the Swan (2014), exemplifies this unique style. The life-sized figure of Leda lies beneath a tree, surrounded by hundreds of other vignettes. A miniature world of scaffolding, construction and chaos is being built atop and around her reclining body—giving insight to the fact that evil is consuming what once represented high beauty. Explore closely and groupings of tiny severed heads can even be found suspended amid the tree leaves shading her.
Kris Kuksi, Leda and the Swan, 2014.
Compressed within the second gallery, Preston Daniels’ installation is an immersive and ominous environment. Jutting precariously from the walls and ceiling are minimalist forms of splendor—geometric structures containing fluorescent light fixtures. Covered in dark menacing goo, it is as if flawless works by Sol Lewitt and Dan Flavin have been encased in a millennia’s worth of grime, sludge and other effluences. Residing on the far wall is a cluster of text paintings, some legible and others with the lettering inverted. With phrases such as “WHEN YOU DIE WE WIN” and “ONE FOR YOU ONE FOR ME” (accompanied by imagery of two shotgun shells), the wall is an instruction manual for escaping this doomed ecosystem.
Too often, contemporary sculpture leaves us utterly disappointed, but this exhibition provides a reprieve from the norm. While psychologically menacing, these artworks embrace the wonder of destruction and the potential carnage contained within the human condition—all the while somehow making it look sexy as hell.
Seth HawkinsUpsize, supersize, largesize, megasize—there are most likely a dozen more of these contemporarily fabricated verbs that are necessitated by our want/need to consume at the current unprecedented rates. The commerce-based art world, not unlike the modern fast-food clientele, has grown fat off of the consumption; this has led to the creation of a very specific market-driven studio practice for many top artists. It is a market based on our current hierarchy of ideals: huge projects, short attention spans, celebrity status, global galleries, Costco-sized studios, and let’s not forget about mass production. The contemporary art market can devour at any scale and rate of production, given that you are an artist in demand.
Some might see this as a magnificent moment in art history, a modern-day renaissance that seemingly knows no commercial bounds. Possibly even a new art movement. Sure we have seen and talk about bubbles bursting—yet new technology, benefactors’ deep pockets and artists with immeasurable ambition have set the stage for the creation of heroic works. While our multitasking world of over-the-top stimulus may have left us desensitized to the grandiose, artists have more at their disposal than ever before. The present-day aesthetic is obliged to nothing. Couple this with the backing of a small army during production, and we have created a recipe for something spectacular, something truly monumental. Artists have the ability to create that which will be clamored over for generations to come—all you need is an idea that can fill an aircraft hangar and the financial backing to pay the right team of fabricators.
But what do we sacrifice? Through mass production, through outsourcing, through big budget projects on compressed timelines, I think it would be hard to argue if we are not very careful, that the artwork eventually will become diluted.
Yet I find myself wanting to yell at those on top of the mountain, “Impress us, go bigger!” Let us see what you really can do. Make something epic. Call in the engineers, get the cranes and welders—go ahead, carve out your place in history. For better or worse, as with much in this progress-fueled world, the crux of the question is not “Should we?” But rather “Can we?”
In this issue of Artillery, we explore what it takes to produce contemporary art. Highlighting each of the many facets of the “behind the scenes” making, we delve into much more than the simple logistics behind taking an artwork from concept to finished object. Conversations with artists, fabricators and assistants help to illuminate the current state of affairs, showing that “some assembly is definitely required” in the process of making art in a global economy.
A career artist who has been there and done that—from creating colossal outsourced works to those as intimate as replicating a simple popcorn kernel—is sculptor Charles Long. Long has now left the world of goliath-scaled production in favor of a return to the studio, to getting his hands dirty in each piece, no assistants needed. The inverse of this mentality is fabricator-for-hire Chas Smith. Chas has played a pivotal role in making some of the most noted works by today’s hottest artists. He is the one you call when the piece is meant to be a true spectacle, the size of a building with zero margin for error.
COMRADES IN ART: Ripple and Abeles. Photo by Carol Cetrone
For those who don’t make objects the size of a building, but rather cover an entire building facade with their art, a large crew is a necessity. Nicholas Bowers, Shepard Fairey’s longtime right-hand man, chats about what it is like to run the team for a globe-trotting art superstar.
What is the link that exists between the assistant and the successful artist? Does one often evolve into the other in some echo of a traditional apprenticeship scenario? We speak with emerging artist Christian Tedeschi about his current work and how his time assisting Los Angeles art royalty helped to shape his process.
Through the long days spent in the studio, deep tangible relationships develop. Kim Abeles and Rebecca Ripple exemplify this, having transitioned from working together as artist and assistant, to their current state much more like the art version of comrades-in-arms. Finally, there are the unsung heroes—the people that live solely “behind the scenes.” For this, Artillery would like to tip our hat to Fred Stecher, longtime bronze public art fabricator.
When looking logically at this current model of production, we need not worry if this is a new issue, but rather, at what cost does it come? When do we acknowledge that the overproduction of truly unique art objects causes them to actually lose their uniqueness?
I am a proponent of the grand gesture, of epic art-making. But there is a striking difference between monumental projects and mass production. Question is, can we tell the difference?
One artist who is returning to his roots after spending the last several years working on massive projects is sculptor Charles Long. For his next major exhibition “Up Land,” at his gallery Tanya Bonakdar in Chelsea, Long is embracing his personal style of hands-on production, which made him popular years before any of HIS major projects.
Working as Long’s studio manager through many of those large projects, I have been privy to an insider’s point of view to his process and style of making art on a grand scale. I was invited to his studio at the base of Mt. Baldy (an hour’s drive east of downtown Los Angeles), not to reminisce about old wars fought and won together, but rather to talk about his current body of work (sans assistants), the art market, his life and what is on the horizon.
Unassisted Immediately upon entering his studio, I see what Long lovingly refers to as his “sculpture graveyard.” There are tall shelves of his personally archived works, representing moments of creation for Long over the past three decades. Atop one of these shelves, I spot a neon green sculpture wrapped in plastic, titled Fancy (1989)—which Long created as the first piece in a series of works in the late ’80s and early ’90s. This sculpture provided inspiration for a stage set that he created for Merce Cunningham. Decades later, Long notes that Fancy, as it was stored upside down on that high shelf for safekeeping was the impetus for new work. In many cases, what is important to us in life and art does not change over time, only the perspective with which we see it.
My first realization about Long’s sculptures for the “Up Land” exhibition is that they are strikingly different from previous works—not necessarily aesthetically, but rather in their nontangential use of materials. The sculptures are heavily process-laden, created initially from wax to facilitate their eventual transformation into bronze. It is a method of sculpting bred out of the necessities of the traditional foundry process, while embracing what is uniquely special about archaic lost-wax casting. Long explains the new direction: “I am not working in bronze in the way that bronze has become popular again; strangely I think that has a lot more to do with money. For me, it has to do with making something that connects to things that have been made for thousands and thousands of years, and working in the most direct way possible.”
With a decision to predetermine a singular material, Long has allowed his focus to be solely on other aspects of the work, like concept and form. “In the past I really thought it was so important for the materiality and the process to be a part of creating the meaning, as well as the shapes and the references creating the meaning. I am done with that.”
Charles Long, “Memory Print Boutique” (detail), 2014, in collaboration with Eluvium, Brady Foster, Seth Hawkins, Emery Martin, Michael Mascha, Carrie Paterson, Karen Reitzel and Solid Concepts. Installation view, “Catalin,” The Contemporary Austin– Jones Center, Austin. Courtesy the artists and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. Photo by Ben Aqua.
Hearing him say this, I can hardly believe my ears. The last major project I oversaw for Long was his hefty museum exhibition in Texas, “CATALIN,” which opened earlier this year at the Contemporary Austin. The exhibition took its name from a beautiful yet highly toxic resin which was used heavily in the production of household goods from the ’30s to the ’50s—thus setting the conceptual stage with dark eco-decadent undertones.
Nearly overtaking every room of every floor of the museum, “CATALIN” even spilled out onto the exterior by using the rear projection video screen on the building façade. The artworks in the exhibition were made with hundreds of materials—all styles of visual, sculptural, auditory and scent-based creation were implemented in the process. This task necessitated a small army of talented collaborators (many of whom were successful artists in their own right) and fabricators to accomplish the final aesthetics; eventually we even teamed up with the SXSW music festival and the exhibition became a venue for several performances.
When speaking about materiality, Long states: “I think I really kicked its ass in the Austin project by using the water from the fastest melting glaciers to make perfume, spandex made from recycled bottles to make giant sculptures, huge architectural reliefs made from mushrooms.” Long expresses that while “CATALIN” was his ultimate project in using process and materials to create meaning, “Up Land” also does so, but in a more subtle way.
Charles Long, AC/AC and the Climate Controllers (detail), 2014. Mixed media. Dimensions variable. Installation view, CATALIN, The Contemporary Austin – Jones Center, Austin. Courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. Photograph by Brian Fitzsimmons.
In reference to the works in this upcoming exhibition, Long puts it simply and lays his cards on the table. “I can’t make sculptures that somehow blow you away in the way that these ideas have blown me away. I am actually just going for the basic thing—I feel humble—and would rather do this than overreach and promise you more than is in the object.”
The mention of the current all-too-over-promised art object gives me a segue to chat about the blue-chip art market. We speak about commerce and bureaucracy crushing the artistic vision, worldwide galleries, globalization, art fairs and the unrelenting pressure these issues can put on the artist. How could the vision not be sacrificed? How could the art not eventually become diluted? Long replies, “Mine would be severely sacrificed. I have discovered that my art is really about not knowing what it is I am doing. That is why every show looks different; I am always going back to square one.”
This body of work echoes some deep theories that have been explored in Long’s previous sculptures, specifically Gottfried Leibniz’s philosophy of “monadology.” (Leibniz, a German mathematician and philosopher is controversially credited as the co-creator of Calculus. His theory of monadology is—in greatly simplified terms—an inspired thinker’s summation of the world, matter, mathematics and theology, monastically centering around a simple substance, a monad.)
Long comments that his “misinterpretations” of Leibniz’s philosophies while sitting with a sketchbook and a glass of wine helped to shape his new work. Fragments of these sculptures open up in a much more representational way. Long tells me, “I am not surprised by this turn. I have tried so hard to deal with the human subject without ever representing it. For all these years, I have never had the figure in my work, and I have always known that at some point we were just going to get drunk and go to bed together. It will be me alone in the studio and I will just be sculpting the full figure. The return of the repressed!”
Charles Long, Way Station, 2001, Sets for choreographer Merce Cunningham Cunningham Dance Foundation
Long has obviously not reached this figurative extreme for “Up Land,” but he does conjure up a nice visual. When referring to the figure as it relates in context to the current body of work, Long is speaking of the small elements that he refers to as the “monads,” one of which will rest atop each of a multitude of curving bronze rods rising from amorphously sculpted sections. Each of these bronze sections are perched precariously on a deconstructed geometric base. Upon inspection, these monad sections do have the familiar stylized feel of a long-buried but recently excavated talisman or other piece of ancient ephemera. They are both abstracted, but have a human quality.
While his new sculptures possess contemporary aesthetics, the initial inspiration came to him from days spent exploring ancient relics in the back rooms of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his son, Gene.
In the Company of Others Speaking with Long about studio assistants, his creative process and his own experiences, he recounts his formidable years before turning 30, while working for the acclaimed artist Terry Winters. He jokes that his primary role was not actually assisting with the making of the paintings, but rather other studio duties. “One of the things Terry utilized me for quite a bit was curating his music. He would send me out for something at the hardware store, and would say ‘go over to Other Music, get whatever you think we need.’ I enjoyed that a lot.”
In that environment—if personalities don’t gel—it can be disastrous. Long laughs while recalling a similar situation where he just knew it wouldn’t work out with a former assistant. “He didn’t know who Ziggy Stardust was—we just had to part ways. For me the assistant is a really important part of the mood of the project; whatever the project is, you want to have the right vibe.”
It is not a far stretch to equate a traditional artist/assistant role to a marriage of sorts; there are few people with whom you truly want to spend the majority of your hours with each day, but when you find the right match it will stand the test of time. As someone often does when thinking back to the good old days, Long chuckles (almost to himself) as he reflects back to his early times at Terry Winters’ studio. “I couldn’t believe how young I felt in proximity to him. I felt honored to be part of what he was doing. It was a very classic mentor situation, and I just saw him a week ago. As we have gotten older, we have only become closer.”
Talking more about his time with Winters and about his upcoming “Up Land” exhibition, Long recalls the great mood in the studio while he and Terry were preparing for one of Winters’ exhibitions in 1989, one of the last as artist and assistant. “That period of his work is really influencing what I am doing right in this very show. As assisting goes, that was a fantastic thing. I mean it is still here in this studio, that time that I spent with him.”
As the conversation turns away from his personal days as an assistant and more toward a broad commentary on artists’ assistants, he smiles charismatically. “I think there is a sweet spot where it is a really good place to be an artist’s assistant; it is the one where you are working for an artist who doesn’t really need you to make the art.” This seems like an ideal situation: the brilliant artist solely creating masterpieces in the studio while the assistants deal with the menial tasks that simply need to get done—yet how does this fit into the current rubric of a worldwide art market?
As I press him yet again about the level of production coming out of some artist’s studios and our present-day view of art-making, the smile returns to Long’s face. “We live in a period more like the Baroque—where Paul Rubens probably never got near his paintings. We live in a time when you can assist and the artist never touches the art; you can be completely involved but are you really involved in what the art is about? Is the art about anything? Is Paul Rubens’ art really about anything other than big chunky thighs?”
Charles Long, “Pet Sounds” (detail), 2012. Installation view, The Contemporary Austin. Courtesy the artist, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, and Madison Square Park Conservancy. Photo by Ben Aqua.
PUBLIC DISPLAY During my tenure working with Long, there was never a moment’s break. As I bring up these times, he pauses for a moment; I can only imagine that he is mentally scrolling through the thousands of emails and on-site visits behind making those projects happen. He finally answers that artists should be ambitious and take on massive projects—saying that some works are as simple as, “the more you put on, the better.” While sometimes this may be the case, Long looks at his public practice in a much different way. “The pieces that I like to make, when you get into the big scale, it is really like trying to steer a giant ship. You might avert the iceberg but are you going to truly hit your target?”
Long recently has been making interactive art using new technologies—and there are definitely a lot of icebergs to negotiate. Pondering and reflecting back on his recent publicly collaborative works such as “Pet Sounds” (2012) and Fountainhead (2013), Long states, “When I had to think about making a piece that was going to be in the center of Manhattan, outdoors all summer, it wasn’t okay for me to just do my signature thing. I didn’t want to do that. It is almost like I am having a different conversation. It is like making love to somebody and thinking about somebody else. Which is fine, except that it is the public that is thinking about somebody else. And maybe I had given them reason to.”
Charles Long, Pet Sounds (detail), 2012. Powder coated aluminum, fiberglass, and electronic components. Dimensions variable. Installation view, The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria, Austin. Courtesy the artist, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, and Madison Square Park Conservancy. Photograph by Brian Fitzsimmons.
My personal experience with “Pet Sounds” has shown that the public is thinking about absolutely no one else. It is as simple as stopping for five minutes and watching the people interact with the artworks; the smiles provide all the evidence needed. Old and young alike light up when the sculptures buzz, purr and vibrate as each different “zone” on the brightly colored blobs are activated through “petting” the objects. This is not consumerist art solely reserved for the fiscally elite, but rather something uniquely accessible by the general populous. A more accurate interpretation may be that while the general public is viewing a different static piece of plop-public art, they are actually thinking about “Pet Sounds.”
At times, the stress and compromise inherent to those big projects cause an artist to lose sight of the societal importance of the objects they are creating. These works give the public a reprieve from the daily norm. The magic the object instills into the world transcends its physicality. It is easy for an artist to sit back in the studio and live within their comfort zone. As a society we should applaud those who truly step out, avoid the icebergs and add something memorable to this world.
For an artist whose career has taken many turns over the years—one who admittedly reinvents himself every exhibition—the future may never be known. Again, it seems Charles Long works best that way. Reflecting on the time spent with Long as his studio manager, and even more now during our conversation, I think he sums it up nicely in his own words: “I love Nietzsche’s idea that you live like you are writing a myth— that has always made sense to me.”
See Charles Long: “Up Land,” Sept. 11–Oct. 18, 2014, at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, 521 West 21st Street, New York, NY; tanyabonakdargallery.com
Unbeknownst to many, the majority of sculptors that are known for creating large sculptures in bronze, never actually work with the material. Rather they sculpt in some alternative natural—such as clay or wax—then when the final aesthetic is reached, the object is handed off to a bronze fabricator—a foundry person—to change the sculpture’s materiality. The job of the foundry is to take that unique original object and exactly replicate it in bronze.
One of the aforementioned bronze fabricators is Monumental Bronze Inc. owner Fred Stecher. Fred has worked on larger-than-life bronze sculptures for over 30 years, always behind the scenes. While the public may have interacted with Stecher’s creations on many occasions, his name is not listed on the title of the work. He remains in his studio, facilitating the creation of these publicly loved sculptures. In his most recent endeavor, Stecher is constructing the final components for Charles Long’s new exhibit, “Up Land.”
Remaining anonymous coupled with becoming a globally recognized figure is no easy feat; it seems almost a requirement of celebrity status that the entire world know your name and face. The crux of what has catapulted some into the spotlight also necessitates a need for anonymity. For street artists and superheroes alike, this is the case—vital to their continued success exists a need to protect one’s identity for fear of backlash or legal repercussions.
The last decade marked a monumental shift as the art market turned its eye toward the street; leading the charge are longtime icons Shepard Fairey, JR and Banksy. For street artists, revealing the “human behind the tag” and capitalizing on their branded monikers is all about timing and intent. Too early or late and they will have missed the window to transition to the white cube. For some this was never an objective, meaning their identities may forever remain shrouded in mystery.
more work by JR
The current poster child for the activist side of the street art movement is charismatic photographer JR—a high-profile, globally recognized artist that was the 2011 TED Grant winner. His list of accolades includes exhibitions at the Tate Modern, Venice Biennale, MOCA and the Dallas Contemporary. Recently he covered Times Square with New York City portraits as a part of his ever-expanding “Inside Out” project, which has included 200,000 participants from 112 countries submitting portraits. Extending his reach, JR has released several documentary-style films, and is working with the NYC Ballet on their NYCB Art Series 2014.
The most notorious of all, Banksy, continues to capitalize on his anonymity, begging the question: How it is possible for an unnamed human to be on Time magazines’ “Top 100 Most Influential People of 2010,” or be given an Oscar nomination or have multiple works sell for over a million dollars at auction? We are forced to wait patiently and continue the “Where’s Waldo” search for his next endeavor.
Banksy’s work
The final of the big three is one of the original street art crossovers. Shepard Fairey is known for his infamous OBEY campaign, clothing line and controversial Obama “Hope” poster, which nearly landed him in jail. While not as visible a public figure as JR, there are millions of human billboards wearing OBEY clothing and propelling Fairey’s subversive vision onward.
The question remains—stay anonymous, true to your street roots or shoot for the stars and be branded a sellout. There has to be a middle ground. It is undeniable that for these artists celebrity status doesn’t simply open doors, it gives them an all-access pass to the most prized walls in the world—in the full light of day.
One of Banksy’s largely publicized art acts was smuggling his work into the Tate Britain, hanging it on a gallery wall and leaving undetected. With JR’s status, there was no sneaking past security. The Tate Modern simply asked him to wheatpaste the building facade.
Death becomes her, there really is no better way to describe Andra Ursuta’s first solo show in the US.
Ursuta’s work has been dark, conceptual, sexually-charged and fueled by a death obsession; now fear is the impetus for creating a fictional graveyard in the Hammer Museum’s project space. Terrified to enter an actual cemetery, this is the second imagined version Ursuta has manifested. The first, a commissioned work for Frieze NYC 2013, depicted geometric grave markers installed on the lawn outside the art fair village, an abstracted location where forgotten art goes to die.
While the Hammer Projects exhibition initially feels like a misuse of space to the point of being uncomfortable, this component ultimately makes Ursuta’s exhibition conceptually successful. Eleven precarious floor works, each a mock tombstone with a sculptural representation of its shadow, renders it nearly impossible to navigate one’s way through the works without feeling on the verge of an anxiety episode. A singular object without a shadow is a tall white obelisk, a monochromatic monument rising above the chaos. Ursuta’s perverse sense of humor cuts through the noticeable tension with titles such as Future Husbands, In Some War and 1957-Cancer (all works 2014).
Andra Ursuta, “In Some War”, 2014. Courtesy the artist and Ramiken Crucible, New York.
The sculptures are dichotomies of painstakingly finished headstones styled like striking minimalist sculptures, paired with loose and fast shadow sections—many with the feeling of a violent AbEx painting. If painting were truly dead, this alludes to a sculptural resurrection. They are two-tiered psychological objects, the vertical representing a form made with careful planning, calculated mold-making, and utter control in execution; the horizontal embraces the loss of that control. It is an emotional style of creation, which seizes the moment, the trauma, the unspeakable feelings. Jesting with traditional sculptural aesthetics, the base becomes integral to the emotional content and structural integrity of the work.
Andra Ursuta, “Future Husbands”, 2014. Courtesy the artist and Ramiken Crucible, New York.
The physicality of materials is evident in subsequent layers cast to build this mass of shadows. The objects take on the feel of excavated terra firma, in a painterly and metaphorical way echoing Nobuo Sekine’s Phase-Mother Earth (1968), where stratums of earth were transposed from the ground. Several shadows in Ursuta’s work include buried consumer elements such as fluorescently-colored Nike’s. These found objects are obscured beneath layers of fecal-colored material, visible as negative space or implied caverns that can be seen in the cross section of the shadow’s edge. While evoking historic John Miller brown paintings, the shadow allows the viewer a glimpse behind the curtain. John Miller’s Untitled (1990) even exists within proximity, a part of the Hammer’s simultaneous “Take It or Leave It” exhibit. Could this be a subtle comment on her predecessors’ institutional critique?
In the end, simple aesthetic beauty does not define an artwork as good or bad. Andra Ursuta’s exhibition, while successful, walks a fine line between simple minimalist forms, repulsive references, and the creation of a general sense of unease. Ursuta effectively takes us to the dark reaches of her mind; luckily, we don’t have to stay too long.
Andra Ursuta, “1957 – Cancer”, 2014. Courtesy the artist and Ramiken Crucible, New York.
Environmental undertones, bright poppy color and a sense of collaboration create a striking combination for Devon Tsuno’s exhibition “Watershed,” which is split into two distinct sections. Tsuno is native to LA and an educator enamored with the Los Angeles River system.
Six new paintings in Tsuno’s trademark style are intensely colored, heavily process-laden, with abstract and vegetative imagery that crossover from fine art to stunning design, and seamlessly back again. The far end of the traditional white cube gallery is dominated by two large format acrylic and aerosol paintings: Agglomerate Horticulture (2013) and South of Fletcher (2013–14), the latter referring to the section of river near Frogtown. Each is done on a single sheet of handmade Japanese Washi paper, a nod to his Japanese heritage.
The large works transition impressively from the macro to the micro, graphic and striking from a distance, but at close proximity revealing dozens of intimate layers of stenciling, taping, masking, covering and re-stenciling, as if they were a raised topographic map.
Devon Tsuno, Agglomerate Horitculture, 2014. Courtesy of the artist.
To call the works abstract or simple landscape paintings would neither be correct nor far from the mark. In reality, they are imagined geographies made by collaging imagery from photographs taken while exploring the Los Angeles watershed. Vibrantly colored, camouflage-esque backgrounds conceptualize images of rippling water running down the concrete riverbeds, while the boldly stenciled organic shapes indicate non-native plant species. Flatness, distortions of scale and numerous layers of visual imagery begin to play with the viewer’s perception of foreground and background, causing a beautiful disorientation.
Devon Tsuno: Watershed, Installation view, 2014. Courtesy of the artist.
Tsuno’s bright pink and teal, digitally-printed wallpaper designed from river water imagery covers an adjoining room of the “Watershed” exhibition, transforming it into a homey den environment, where a multitude of books produced in conjunction with the Occidental College book arts program are displayed. Tsuno produced editions of Risograph prints, each given to 20 students who reordered the prints and added text that responded to the foreword written by Jon Leaver. Each student’s unique book was then hand-bound in an edition of three.
Opposite the book wall exist multiple precarious stacks of handmade wooden milk crates, containing thousands more Risograph prints in varying colors. With abstracted imagery of rippling water, they combine facts relating to LA population and total precipitation during 2013. Tsuno follows a marked tradition of the art “take-away” to represent loss or exhaustion of something precious. To Felix Gonzalez-Torres, candy was a metaphor for the deterioration of his partner’s body due to a terminal illness; for Tsuno, giving away prints symbolizes the depletion of LA’s natural resources coupled with the strain of rising population.
While many Angelenos speed down the freeways, crossing over the concrete channels that once were thriving environments, in “Watershed” we are left to contemplate how nature exists here. Artist-adventurers like Tsuno help to bring attention to this fact and remind us of the hidden ecosystems all around the city that are deserving our attention.
A special place exists within those fleeting moments transitioning from slumber into an awakened state. In those few seconds when dreamscape combines with reality, both a mild confusion and an eerie comfort sets in. Our mind sifts, sorts and makes sense of what is imagined vs. what is real. Images seem familiar, yet somewhat distant and askew. This is how best to describe the films from Victoria Fu’s exhibition at UC Irvine’s Art Gallery, “Cult of Splendor.”
Fu is an artist currently on fire after being announced as one of the participating artists for the 2014 Whitney Biennial. She will also be featured regionally in the next major exhibition at the UCR’s California Museum of Photography, “Trouble with the Index.”
Fu’s work transitions seamlessly from photo to film, with “The Cult of Splendor” being solely a film exhibition. Upon entering the large, darkened gallery, the viewer is met with an expansive freestanding wall upon which is projected the primary work of the exhibition, Belle Captive I (2013). This work dominates the space, bleeding off of the right side of its main projection surface and spilling onto the back wall of the gallery.
Victoria Fu, Still image from Belle Captive I, 2013. Courtesy of the artist.
Belle Captive I blends digital video and analog film, with imagery combining both original and appropriated content. In the foreground is generic stock footage taken from the Internet—a bright yellow bird, a hand moving across the screen, the top of a young man’s head, a tomato slowly spinning in the corner. This footage is digitally overlaid on brightly colored, modulating backgrounds, the original content for which were filmed as 16 mm abstractions. The feeling is akin to watching a cinematic movie with a multitude of green screen shots, with foreground distinct from the background. Attractive, yet unnatural at the same time, this technique leads to an uncanny familiarity and uneasiness.
Fu’s “Cult of Splendor” is split into two very distinct halves, the front being dominated by Belle Captive I. After passing the freestanding wall that BelleCaptive I occupies, the back half of the exhibition contains two smaller works, ThreeBreaths and Milk of the Eye (both 2012). These two films are projected in a much smaller format using vintage 16 mm projectors. With their winding loop of exposed filmstrips and highly repetitive sound, the projectors lend the feel of an installation. At the Jack Goldstein exhibition at OCMA in 2012 or, for example, in the room adjacent to Mike Kelley’s Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #1 (2000) at MoMA, the use of such projectors resulted in viewers spending as much time investigating the object on the pedestal as they did watching the film. Within the context of “Cult of Splendor” these projectors seem much more natural, even essential as they add both a subtle soundtrack and also help contextualize the analog films. They provide a tangible grounding effect to the otherwise abstract, dreamlike quality of the two silent films.
Victoria Fu, Milk of the Eye, 2012, Still image. Courtesy of the artist.
Both Three Breaths and Milk of the Eye are much more subtle works than Belle Captive I. Milk of the Eye is a grainy black-and-white film, reminiscent of something out of a horror movie. A nondescript woman, out of focus, walks along a path slowly through the woods toward the viewer. The footage is choppy and jumps between several distinct clips of the woman, created by the splicing of multiple different filmstrips in true analog fashion. The woman’s face is primarily out of view—blocked by a large mirror that repeatedly catches the light, shining it back toward the camera, resulting in explosive blasts of white on the screen. The film ends abruptly, leaving only the mind of the viewer, wanting to create narrative.
Three Breaths is an abstract film—akin to zooming in on a slowly morphing Impressionist painting of a sunset with bright yellows, oranges and reds undulating throughout the 2-minute loop. Through the duration, growing black masses that enter from the edge of the screen slowly overtake the colors. A final flash and suddenly the vivid impressionistic imagery is gone. An out of focus shot of the desert remains. As Hunter S. Thompson wrote in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, “What the f::: are we doing out here in the desert?”
Beautiful yet baffling, similar to the warm confusion felt when waking from a deep slumber in an unfamiliar, unremarkable location, Fu’s work leaves us to wonder when exactly the dream ends and reality begins.
From the light, airy and playful feelings of the Laguna Art Musem’s “Faux Real” exhibition on the main floor, the atmosphere of “Ex·pose: Beatriz da Costa” shifts into dark, moving and intense as one descends into the museum’s dark basement.
Da Costa’s “Dying for the Other” is a three-channel video installation dealing with the artist’s lifelong battle with cancer, with the show occurring not even 12 months after her passing—a timely and haunting exhibition of her last creation.
Beatriz da Costa made work that refused genre classification—seamlessly transitioning between contemporary art, science, engineering and politics—in many cases working in collaboration with forerunning art/technology groups such as Critical Art Ensemble, Free Range Grains, GenTerra, and Preemptive Media. Born in 1974 and raised in Germany, da Costa attended Carnegie Mellon University, eventually moving on to teach in the Studio Art, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Departments at UC, Irvine.
While watching da Costa’s video installation, it is hard not to hear echoes of self-mutilating artist Bob Flanagan. This is by no means a masochistic performance piece, but underlying similarities can be seen. The act of creation, of continuing one’s practice in the face of grave illness or disease takes not only a special kind of artist, but also a dedicated human.
In Dying for the Other, video clips of mice that are being used in cancer research are projected and interspersed with video segments of the artist’s life as she is going through physical/cognitive therapy after having brain surgery to remove tumors that had spread from her breast to her brain.
Unfortunately, many of us have been touched by cancer. The battle with this disease is one of the darkest and most personal, in which the emotional toll is heaviest for those closest to the patient. In many cases the day-to-day heartbreak and immense medical traumas are hidden from the outside world, primarily internalized by the suffering person. Few want to be seen in public while fighting this battle, losing their hair, feeling constant nausea, fighting for their lives, all the while knowing that this may be an unwinnable fight.
This exhibition brings all of those hidden feelings and emotions quickly to the surface; but da Costa’s installation is not about internalizing the trauma caused by the disease. Rather, it uses that trauma as the catalyst to move forward, to affect some sort of change in the world. While the disease eventually ended the artist’s life, she refused to let it end her practice.
The videos of the artist in physical therapy coupled with videos of the cancer research mice—“test subjects”—begins to make a very dark link between the animals we use as proxy for our suffering and how little we really know about certain diseases. In many cases, there is no cure—only remission.
In one of the most striking moments of the installation, two of the three videos of the triptych fade away as a cancer research mouse is being pinned down and dissected, forcing the viewer to make a choice—to witness and participate in this experience, or to leave or look away. Slowly, a second video fades back into view—a close-up of the artist’s face staring directly at the viewer, engaging the viewer. It is mildly traumatizing and amazingly emotive. This juxtaposition between the dissection of this animal—so rough, so detached—coupled with this fragile human—emotionally dissected—staring back at you, it is intense.
Paired alongside “Dying for the Other” is da Costa’s Anti-Cancer Survival Kit, an approachable and informational coping device. Binding together the work of many artists and scholars, this collection is meant for those living with cancer and for their loved ones. The Anti-Cancer Survival Kit includes a database of comprehensive research, a coffee table-style book providing guidelines for anti-cancer approaches, interactive smartphone games or activities, and instructions on creating a therapeutic anti-cancer garden.
The pieces at LAM are staggering works of art that help to epitomize, and do justice, to what is important in life—and was, in her life. While locked into an epic battle for her survival, the most important thing to da Costa was her art. She needed to document this battle through her practice—to keep something for herself, something that the cancer could not steal. This is how the artist continued through the suffering—with grace, honesty, and continued art-making. I have the utmost respect for someone like da Costa—brave enough, strong enough and inspired enough to allow us to view the most intimate of battles, in a beautiful, memorable and artistic way.
Few exhibitions have the strength to resonate in one’s mind—reaching the viewer on an intimate level—for days or even weeks after seeing the work. Since experiencing this installation, there hasn’t been a day where it did not invade my thoughts.
“ex•pose: beatriz da costa,” ends September 29. At Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA, www.lagunaartmuseum.org
Above stills from Beatriz da Costa’s “Dying for the Other” triptych video installation (2011–12)
