Setback, breakthroughs, doldrums

MS: What we’re doing is a bit different than other curatorial experiments, don’t you think?

NFA: I think we're holding our concept more loosely, perhaps allowing for different questions, or rather more time for questioning. Part of what we're doing I think is to look for a different tone or attitude, and we're doing that with a pretty clear feeling of what that approach is but articulating it slowly over time.

MS: Right. This is usually the kind of thing that makes me incredibly anxious. But it really makes for a stronger foundation and better work, in my humble opinion.

NFA: Time is something that I'm constantly feeling I don't have enough of, that I’m rushing to do things and still not getting them all done, and I think that that’s a kind of trance that this process will help break down. Why not let some things unfold in a leisurely way? Before we started this I had kind of forgotten this question.

MS: Ah, for me, time's a bit different.

NFA: How is it for you?

MS: For me, it's that I'm late. In life, in general. The metaphor I have is the boat has already left without me.

NFA: It was the wrong boat.

MS: That's what they say. Also, I worry about things not coming together.Like May 2010, and we have no artists lined up.

NFA: Maybe that’s one of the advantages of art. If it fails it doesn't mean a thing. And on the other hand, the possibility is there to make something marvelous, more marvelous than almost anything else.

MS: How could failure not mean a thing?

NFA: You’re right. I disagree with what I just said about failure. If it doesn’t mean a thing it’s probably not a failure.

MS: I need to hear a bit more about that.

NFA: I mean you can only fail if you were hoping to succeed, and that's something you can feel and it means something.

MS: Who wouldn't hope to succeed? What's an alternative? Just experimenting for experimentation's sake?

NFA: I guess a process that spans successive failures, successes, setbacks, breakthroughs, doldrums, etc., and hopefully leads to, or becomes, or is, something marvelous. That's what I hope a different attitude about time will help us get to.

MS: That would represent a true liberation for me – that is, not to weigh in in a black-and-white fashion every step of the way. In other words, going with the flow and acknowledging it as just flow.