Donkey Trail

This blog is Ovah

2010-07-05T17:53:00.000-04:00

For further musings, please join me at Art of My Mind.

"Out of Line" in the press

2010-06-02T10:42:00.000-04:00

"Out of Line" is on the Short List in this week’s New Yorker in the Goings on About Town section! Whooooo! Oh, I mean, "I am so pleased."

This Saturday I will be giving an unconventional slide-presentation that will expand on the show.

The presentation is a subjective survey of what line is and has been in visual art and other domains, including sports, war, language and spiritual practice. I travel far and wide from Matisse to Charles Ray, from my bathroom calendar to a chorus line, from vectors to the most delicate grape leaf outlined by Ellsworth Kelly.

Please come.

June 5 at 5pm.
Slag Gallery
531 West 25th St., Ground 10

A talk with Carin Riley

2010-05-12T11:46:00.010-04:00

(Molly in front of Carin's Belinda, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 83" x 79")

Molly Stevens: You’re the springy-est chicken that I know, Carin, but in the eyes of the art world, you’re no spring chicken. What do you think about making art after the age of 22?

Carin Riley: Well I started drawing when I was 2. It was just a part of my life. By the time I was 22, I had had some very strong teachers. And I knew that I had a long way to go. Also, there weren’t any women as examples that I could latch on to. There weren’t any women that I could say “Oh that’s me” or that I could emulate. And then, in the 80s, I saw that the art world commodified people in a way that wasn’t going to work for me. So, it has been a winding road. But, I’ve never stopped drawing. It’s always been a language for me, a language that I accept.

MS: Once you said to me that you always thought you’d make your best art at 80.

CR: Yeah. Definitely.

MS: Tell me about that.

CR: Well, sometimes I’d meet a collector who would try and push me into the public eye. But I knew it wasn’t my time. I would just say, “don’t worry, it’ll happen by the time I’m 80.” And I just figured that that was the way it was going to be. Because I was looking for something I wasn’t finding at the time. But I had the hope that I’d find it by 80. I found it sooner.

MS: What makes the time ripe for an artist?

CR: That’s determined somewhere else. A force comes into your life that gives you clarity. I knew in 1992 what I was looking for, but it didn’t come around until this year!

MS: What were you looking for?

CR: I was looking for some kind of strength. I was looking for a Belinda-type force. I drew Belinda in 1992 but I hadn’t met her in person yet. And when I met her last year, she knocked me off my feet. That was it. I found what I was looking for and it was easy. Painting became tangible to me.

MS: So who’s Belinda?

CR: Belinda was – before my father died – the person who came into our lives and really took care of the family. My father was very ill and when she arrived she was very powerful. Her word was her bond. And she would say that, ”my word is my bond.” And she made everything much lighter for us.

MS: So, technically, she’s a home health aide?

CR: Yes, and she was much more than that in the sense that she just took my father to the next level in life. She helped him transition out of life. And she was very confident doing that.

MS: And immediately you wanted to put her into your drawing and painting?

CR: I wanted to be her!

MS: Would you call her a muse?

CR: She was bigger than a muse. She was like a universal force. I’ve never met anyone stronger than Belinda. That’s the truth. Physically or mentally.

(Willem de Kooning, 1950-1952, Oil on Canvas, 6'3" x 58")

MS: Nurses have been a popular subject in literature and art. For example, Richard Prince’s nurses. But Prince’s nurses are pulpy, sexy, flimsy women. And Belinda is definitely not.

CR: No she’s the antidote to Prince’s nurses. She’s an aide and very proud of it. And there was so much honesty and hard work. She had worked since she was a young girl and put her daughters through school. There was nothing fictional about her. So I liked that.

MS: Yeah, Prince’s nurses are fictional.

CR: I mean, I suppose there are nurses out there that are like his nurses. But I wanted something much deeper…There’s one more parallel and that’s de Kooning’s Woman, I. When I was in school they said, “she’s our Madonna, our Mona Lisa.” And I thought that was so unfair to women. I loved the painting but it was so angry.

MS: It was de Kooning who was angry. I’d say it was even hate.

CR: Yeah, so why would that be “our Mona Lisa.” And plus she’s composed of advertising parts. Her mouth comes out of an ad. Belinda has a soft mouth. She’s strong, more compassionate. I was looking to re-visit Woman, I in a way that was not so angry. Hence the liver. With Belinda, the liver is anger and I took the anger out. It’s next to her. When I finished, I thought Belinda is my Woman, I.

Le press release

2010-05-10T14:06:00.002-04:00

For Immediate Release:

May 10, 2010

SLAG Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of OUT OF LINE, a group exhibition featuring work by Nils Folke Anderson, Anne-Lise Coste, Elana Herzog, Carin Riley and Molly Stevens, who is also the curator.

May 20 – June 19, 2010

Opening Reception: May 20, 6 – 8 pm

Artist’s Talk by Molly Stevens: June 5, 5PM

The conventional concept of line in visual art is bound to drawing on paper. In this exhibition, however, line is a presence, visible in movement and space, paint and electricity, language and metaphor. OUT OF LINE is a fresh look at a variety of line forms: fresh, meaning vigorous and immediate, but also meaning bold and cheeky. OUT OF LINE takes a risk and speaks its own mind.

Carin Riley’s large-scale paintings from 2010 are the visual confluence of a personal vocabulary of images. Seemingly disparate elements cohere around fluid line work and a metaphorical logic that struts a bold attitude away from linear narrative.

Anne-Lise Coste’s tarpaper scroll from 2009 is a bilingual stream of consciousness that is at once frenzied and hilarious. Line is text but also the loopy marks that form handwritten letters and words.

Elana Herzog’s effortless curtain from 1992 is at once mysterious and plain-faced, solid and delicate, decadent and frayed and, as such, reminds us that lines are not easily drawn. While the piece nods to Surrealism - and also to the Renaissance - it announces the artist’s rich involvement with textiles.

The electric lines of Nils Folke Anderson’s 2009 interlocking neon are bounded by form and released by light. This vibrant orderly disorder provides a model for the show as a whole.

In Molly Stevens’ surging and cockeyed mountains from 2009 and 2010, long currents rise up and down the page, lean into each other and draw apart to form vibrating and off-kilter landscapes.

On June 5 at 5pm, Stevens will present an artist’s talk called “Out of Line,” a subjective survey of what line is and has been in visual art and other domains, including sports, war, language and spiritual practice. The event is open to the public and is free of charge.

Donkey Trail [THAT'S THIS], a year-long blog of thoughts, images and interviews leading to this show, can be viewed at the desk or online at: trailofadonkey.blogspot.com.

SLAG Gallery specializes in contemporary American and Eastern European art and is operated by owner and director Irina Protopopescu.

SLAG Gallery is located at 531 West 25th Street, Ground Floor, suite 10.

(Between 10th and 11th Avenues).

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11 am to 6 pm.

For press inquiries and reproductions contact Irina Protopopescu, 917 977 1848.

For general inquiries, contact the gallery at 212 967 9818.

What if syndrome

2010-05-03T14:20:00.004-04:00

(Amy Sillman, from her current show at Sikkema Jenkins)

One false move and the whole thing could fall apart.

- What if I send the evites too early?
- What if I send the listing to TimeOut too late?
- What if the FedEx containing the piece coming from Detroit gets lost?
- What if I’m watering the plant and I accidentally spritz one of the ink drawings?
- What if my cat decides to try to climb up a wall via the drawing?
- What if I missed a typo?
- What if the fan’s breeze creases the paper?
- What if one of Carin’s painting gets punctured?
- What if the neon doesn’t light?
- What if someone actually does bomb Times Square. Does that mean we’ll still open?
- What if Roberta Smith suddenly dies?
- What if I don’t drop two hundred on a haircut?
- What if it’s actually shit? But I don’t think it is. What if that’s too confident?

Did I forget something?

A talk with Nils Folke Anderson

2010-04-26T11:09:00.007-04:00

(Work in progress, Nils' studio, 2010)

Molly Stevens: Would you agree with the following cliché: We approach our work in the studio like we do our lives.

NFA: In art and life my values are continuous—I find pleasure in things like spaciousness, grace, sensitivity, humor. However the threshold of the studio is essential. My studio is a place for action, and a particular kind of contemplation.

There are also things I do, like playing music and cooking, that influence how I work in the studio.

MS: Then there are artists who cook in galleries.

NFA: Discursive food gives me indigestion.

I like how Rauschenberg spoke of desiring a tension between art and life. The two blur into each other constantly of their own accord. By pulling them apart, making each more strange to the other, we make both richer. Then again, art is contained in life—it’s not like apples and oranges. Comparing art and life is like comparing apples and fruit.

MS: I think art should be different too. But there is a certain personality we bring to both. A certain pace. What I mean by pace is a rhythm, a personal beat. For example, there's the stereotype of the dark and depressed artist. I suppose that’s one pace.

NFA: There's a great Ray Charles song called “¾ Time.” That’s a pace I relate to. And polyrhythm is important to me—in the sense of working with multiple paces or modes at once.

MS: Does your work in the studio follow ¾ time?

NFA: It’s different, my brain engages differently with time when I’m in the studio.

But music is an influence. In musical time empty space is meaningful, because those gaps occur within a structure. Something similar happens in visual art, especially sculpture, and music has helped sensitize me to the possibilities that this presents.

MS: I think we can see a slower beat in your work. It's not the same beat that’s in my work, which is set to an alarm clock.

(Molly Stevens, Long Line Mountain II, 2010, 40" x 60")

NFA: I don’t see the alarm clock in your work. Where does that show up? Is that being regimented or just wired?

MS: It’s a bit of both. It’s both a discipline and a panic that I’m up against the clock. I tend to make, make, check email, meditate, do something else, make. I rarely sit in the chair and look for more than 5 minutes. I think you can feel that my drawings happen immediately. I often wish I were more of a planner. Are you a planner?

NFA: I sometimes feel like Robert Burns' mouse – my best laid plans "gang aft agley." So I make plans but also let go of them; or move myself just to the side of plans I’ve made.

MS: And what’s the advantage to your work when you slow down?

NFA: There’s a better continuum between me and the thing I’m making. Going slow allows for making adjustments along the way. The opportunity of all the failures along the way is more available. When I work at a slow pace I also notice that works can come together rather quickly, that slowness can lead to very satisfying moments of effortlessness.

MS: Sometimes I'll work endlessly on something, wrestle with it, and the next piece I make spreads like soft butter. I love that. For me, fast is just more natural. That said, there's fast that’s frenzied and scatterbrain, and fast that’s present and exact.

NFA: The alarm clock.

MS: Actually, the alarm clock is mostly a pain in the butt. It tells me I only have five minutes left. Or it already rang five minutes ago. It’s more psychological than anything else. But, sometimes there’s just an upbeat pace that feels right. Sometimes.

NFA: As far as the alarm clock goes, I had a different image. I pictured going to one's work as being akin to waking up.

MS: That’s an appealing thought. I do think making art raises awareness.

NFA: How does pace relate to the line for you?

MS: Every line has a pace. In drawing there's the fly away line that’s super-quick and uncontrolled, there's the heavy and slow line, there's the loose line. And each of those lines has a movement and a speed and a spirit and maybe we can call that pace. Also, electric light makes one kind of line, metal another.

NFA: In the case of electric light, radiant light, there are multiple directions occurring in the line, of unequal intensities. The path of the light in the directions it goes, and the path of the object producing the light.

MS: That's what I like about your piece in the show. It has contained and uncontainable line at the same time.

A talk with Elana Herzog

2010-04-14T10:20:00.005-04:00

(Elana Herzog, 2007, Southeastern Center for the Creative Arts)

Molly Stevens: The other night, I met an artist whose sculptures I liked. Then she started talking, using tremendous terms and offering extensive explanations.

Elana Herzog: And it killed it. She lost you.

MS: She pretty much should have not said anything.

EH: That’s a lesson! A word to the wise!

MS: I think there’s a delicate balance you have to strike, between explaining and not.

EH: Do you think she was over-zealous? Or do you think she learned that approach in school?

MS: I think that’s it. I bet she just got out of school. They must have said to her, “Know your position. Promote meaning. Shape the culture.” In any case, all this to ask you my first question: at what point are you thinking when you’re making something?

EH: It depends on how you define thinking, but it’s a bit of a back and forth process for me. I know that over the years I’ve made a lot of decisions based as much on what I don’t want to do as on what I do want to do. For example, I won’t do a certain thing because it reminds me of something else, or because it implies something that I don’t want to imply. And so sometimes I make decisions by a process of elimination. But really your question is how I use thinking. It’s a process, of course. I’m not a conceptual artist in the sense that I don’t start with a concept that is larger than the form that the work takes. Everything I think about it is embodied in the materialization of the work.

MS: It’s in front of you.

EH: Right, I think so.

MS: I have an elimination process too that’s based on “not.” I say to myself that I don’t want to go in a certain direction. But that can turn out to be the voices in my head. “Don’t do that.” It’s a judgment. It can be hard to distinguish between what’s not-wanting to go in a certain direction and what’s a judgment. Sometimes if you find yourself going in a certain direction, you just have to go.

EH: And that can be a really liberating moment. You start realizing that it’s a bias, and not actually a meaningful choice in a good sense. It’s really important to become aware of that and also to abandon the voice on your shoulder that comes from either your teachers or your parents or wherever; and also to abandon the idea of perfection. Because if you’re hyper critical, which a lot of us are, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for you to move.

MS: It’s really a process of letting go. I’m trying to become comfortable with not knowing where a work is going. It’s not sloppiness. It’s that the work is taking its own course. I have control over it, but somehow I’m in the back seat. To me, it’s frightening, but also liberating. And when I can do that – move to the back seat – it’s a moment when I’m not thinking. What I mean by thinking in this case is a certain kind of planning. Control.

EH: When you start a piece, do you start with an image, do you start with an idea?

MS: I always start with something. But the finished work rarely ends up matching what I had in my head. How about for you?

EH: Sometimes I have to go back to what’s in my head when I’m working, but I also have to give it up. Because it can stand in the way of seeing what’s in front of me. It’s really important to be responding to what’s going on, and to not be too attached to the initial idea.

MS: Plus it gives the piece some freshness.

EH: For me there are also certain technical challenges to materializing something. Not because my work is technically complex or highly produced, but a lot of my work is in spirit very much dependent on the surroundings it’s made in. It’s either on the wall or in the wall. It’s contingent on where it is. So, if I’m going to prepare work like that in my studio, and then move it and reinstall it somewhere else, it has to have portability built into it. So the technical challenge of figuring out how to make something works in tandem with the impulse or idea I had to begin with. I have to be thinking actively about both those things, and responding to everything.

MS: Right, there are limits and considerations. In many ways that’s a blessing because when you have a certain structure, you can really go wild within it.

EH: And you also have to be resourceful. Sometimes technical limitations generate important formal decisions.

(Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #146. All two-part combinations of blue arcs from corners and sides and blue straight, not straight and broken lines)

MS: It reminds me of Sol LeWitt’s wall drawing instructions, when he gave instructions for other artists to carry out. The end result is always different.

EH: Right, I have seen the same LeWitt piece installed more than once and it was different. And at the same time, I know there have been instances where those pieces have been installed wrong. And they get corrected.

MS: In the artist’s talk I’m going to give during the run of the show, I refer to those Sol LeWitt wall drawings and how satisfying it can be for artists to carry out that work even though they’re not at the source of it. It’s like playing in an orchestra, which is how one artist described it in an interview I heard. I can understand that.

EH: I’ll be making a piece for the New Britain Museum, which is in Sol LeWitt’s hometown. In my mind, and also in the museum’s mind, what I’m going to make there is something of an homage to him. Part of what I have to do when I’m trying to work on a piece, or work out a piece - especially when it’s going to be an installation –is to look for reasons to do things that make sense in that context. I look for things inherent in the architecture or in the place that give meaning and life to the project, that tie things together on several levels. It always amazes me how long it takes me to figure out what to do. Even though when I figure it out it seems so obvious.

MS: It’s not obvious at all. If I were to choose the same space it would turn out completely differently. So it is indeed personal. The problem arises when we – or I – try to label things in terms of a dichotomy; for example, obsessive or not obsessive, random or structured, as if one were good and one were bad.

EH: But that’s already random to even think in terms of those definitions.

MS: Right, and also things can be a lot of things at once. When I draw for example, I’d like to be completely uninhibited and uncensored. That’s some kind of goal. I never get there, but I set up a dichotomy between uninhibited and uptight and I try to get away from the uptight. But, then I think that a little bit of uptight is ok. I mean it exists.

EH: And also, it’s possible to be totally uptight about being uninhibited. Which means that there’s a degree of artifice in everything.

MS: True. And it might be important to know that and it might not. Who knows. When I start thinking like this, it’s a good point for me to turn the thinking off. I can think myself into a corner. To me what’s important is to keep going.

Risk

2010-03-17T11:36:00.001-04:00

It’s true that art is exciting when it breaks through boundaries, pushes the envelope, confronts expectations, challenges esthetic norms. When it’s wild. Not easy to do. Especially every day.

What often ends up happening, is that artists think they’re being wild, but really they’re only making an insider joke. And from the outside, this comes off as pretentious, even uptight.

And sometimes the wilder an artist tries to be, the more contrived it looks. Anyway, I haven’t seen any wild-priority art that holds a candle to Lady Gaga in cigarette sunglasses lately. And those will burn out next week.

So when you have a show that’s called “Out of Line,” many will be sure to imagine the art equivalent of an orgy of stunts and provocation. But, I’d like to refine the notion.

Wildness can be shock like I’ve described. But wildness can also be risk.
Making art involves endless choices; you can go safe – stick with what you know, with the good looking cream-white combination - or you can go out on a limb, leap into the unknown, a leap of faith as my friend refers to it. Such leaps aren’t necessarily mind-blowing revolutions or sparkly, but they are always fresh and brave. And that’s what I mean by Out of Line. Partly.

Heavyweight

2010-03-01T11:14:00.003-05:00

Until very recently, the buzz-adjective was “performative.” It appeared in countless artist statements and wall texts, and was meant to indicate that whatever you were looking at involved some kind of action or process that should be considered part of (or is actually) the work; that that action or process was a performance, deliberate, and therefore meaningful. While it is true that watching something be made or thinking about how it came into being can be beautiful or interesting, we can’t be surprised that the rest of the world thinks we art people ride on a high horse.

What’s floating around these days is the word “physicality,” meant to indicate that touch, surface, the palpable predominates over idea and thinking – in artspeak the latter is erroneously called “conceptual.” It’s a noun, and I haven’t quite got the hang of using it yet. But, here’s an example, from the blog Two Coats of Paint (re: the Whitney Biennial):

[…] much of the work manifests a rediscovered attention to physicality in various ways.

And here’s an example from a wall text at the Biennial itself (re: a piece by Pae White):

[…] by contrasting an image of something immaterial with the physicality of fabric.”

All this to say, “physicality” might indeed be appropriate for the work in Out of Line. As Ms. Locke, my frightening English teacher in high school, might have ordered: Use it in a sentence. OK, here’s two:

The physicality of paint renders the metaphors in Riley’s paintings human and deeply personal.

In seeing the various surfaces and materials, and even in sensing speed and movement, we are reminded that physicality suggests meaning as much as concept.

Hmmm. I think I may stick to touch, surface, palpable.

A talk with Anne-Lise Coste

2010-02-17T10:31:00.010-05:00

(Anne-Lise Coste, all Day long, 2009, airbrush and acrylic on board and mirror)

Molly Stevens: Anne-Lise, in the outside world, I make plans and it works (sometimes). But in the studio, forget about it: Things never go according to plan.

Anne-Lise Coste: No plans in the studio.
I enter the studio and start
with whatever is around
no plans
no projects
no projections
no drafts

what comes comes

MS: So, is that impulse that we see in your work?

AC: It might be

I don’t want any mediation

From whatever it’s called - soul-mind-spirit-conscience-unconscience - through the hand-pencil to the paper for instance

Superquick, no thinking as much as possible, a breath, a scream, a fast construction, a tear, a fuk

A secretion you cannot control

Out of control

In the world of control
Une jouissance aussi [pleasure too]

MS: Do you think that the superquick - which is so fleeting - can last in art? Can it make a lasting impression?

AC: Oui, because everybody knows about fragility.

MS: Well, not everyone wants to know about fragility.

AC: I’m not sure about that sentence, actually. I don’t like to say everybody. I don’t know everybody.

Forget it.

What I mean is that there is no hierarchy for me between a work that lasts 3 seconds and another one that’s high tech, that requires hours of working, a team, a super budget or whatever.

MS: A lot of artists make art to last forever in hopes of transcendence. We could call that macho, I guess. But there’s something very macho in the quick too. It’s brave. In women they call it impulse, I think. In men, they call it boldness, or risk-taking.

AC: You’re right: boldness versus impulse in the vision of what is male and what is female, which ends up being male versus female and then hierarchy again. One thing we should not forget is that it’s also a battle for the poor men who want to be impulsive and not bold.
yes
yes
first of all I believe in a queer progression in the look of the world

And perhaps no more woman-women shows

As soon as you’re a woman and you’re invited into that perspective, you respond. You have to reject this totally passé retrograde vision. That’s over.

MS: Tell me a little more about this: "I believe in a queer progression in the look of the world.”

AC: I mean that it will become clear. It’s impossible to enclose someone in terms of gender and to generalize about a sex. Like this is male, this is female.

Everybody – ha! again - but this time it’s for a joke: someday everybody will laugh when someone says "oh you’re a girl and you like soccer"

MS: I don’t understand.

AC: Funny you don’t understand my example. Yeah it’s so South of France.
What I want to say is that in the normal world, some activities are male and others are female. That’s over in the queer or free world.

It’s the fukin advertising propaganda, which imposes a very narrow world
for commerce
But there’s another world, out of the market, friendship and love.
I say friendship and love to mean that there are spaces of non-conventions, of openness, the bizarre, the ambiguous and out of control again.

MS: To end, what do you think of this image:

AC: Merde. Sais pas. [Shit. Don’t know]

MS: OK. Let's end another way. Just let me think for a second.

The title of this show is now...

2010-02-11T09:07:00.002-05:00

(Anne-Lise Coste, installation detail, 2005)

This is a truism: if you don’t feel good about a decision, you always know it’s there, like a sore thumb. Sometimes you can’t treat a sore thumb, but sometimes you can.

Over the past few weeks, it has become clear to me that I’ve been forcing an idea from a previous life (a few months ago) onto a selection of work that has nothing to do with that idea.

What I’m saying is that the name Donkey Trail does not match the work in the show I’m currently putting together. This show, the one opening in May, is off-kilter, looks like instinct and energy, has its own set of rules and is unified, formally, by the line. It’s fresh, it moves, it moves fast. Donkeys? Donkey Trail? Not right.

So, in what has proved to be an act of courage, and also a step towards coming into my own (more), I’ve renamed it.

The title of this show is now: OUT OF LINE.

Name choosing can get wacky. Note the developmental process:

Donkey Trail is a Fast Paced Line
Beast Unburdened
No Dozing Ox
Urge
Trails
Hook, line and sinker
Electric Ladyland
Electric Skillet
Welcome to the Zoom Boom
Welcome to the Zoom Room
It is I, That I am,
Up, down, all around
The Zoom Boom Presents
Drawing the Curtain
Behind the curtain
Before the curtain goes up
The curtain goes up
Curtains, Kidneys and Candy
Candy Curtain
Certain curtain
The Flow Show
The To and Fro Show
We interrupt this program
Unveiled
Veil
Jumping the Fence
Next day, tomorrow, suspense
Walk the Talk
Walk like a Man
Walk the Line
Moving Down the Line
No Easy Walk to Freedom
Zoom Zoom Presents
Bloom Zoom Presents
Vroom Zoom Presents
Moving to Another Groove
Getting the Move On
Leg Work
No Sweat
Doozy
Ring Up the Curtain
Show Up
The Doozy Show
The Doozy Zoom Boom Show
Backstage
Behind the scenes
Backstage in Ladyland
Backstage at Pinkrocks
Backstage with Pink Rocks
Backstage and out of line
Up and Over
OUT OF LINE

Donkey Trail, South Africa

2010-01-29T11:58:00.009-05:00

(Haggas joins the family for dinner)

Erika Calitz and her husband Hanz have reopened a historical donkey trail near their Living Waters farm near Calitzdorp, South Africa. In addition to facilitating multi-day hikes (with help from pack donkeys), they train local members of the community as guides and donkey handlers. Their website is DonkeyTrail.com.

Molly Stevens: Do you have more contact with donkeys than you do people?

Erika Calitz: There are those days yes. I certainly wish for more of them.

MS: And why is it that there are so many donkeys in your life?

EC: Besides the certainty that they are the best and least understood animals on the planet, they are a critical ingredient of a community development and conservation project we’ve birthed near the southern most point of Africa.

MS: Least understood, for sure. And so abused.

EC: The first five donkeys brought to us by animal welfare (we have an 800 hectare property with a river running through it - donkey heaven) fled into the bushes from the truck that delivered them. They had been sorely abused and neglected. We didn’t see them for days and decided to start taking our daily lunch in the field closest to where we had last seen them. It took only a few days for their curiosity to get the better of them and within four weeks we were hugging the bunch of them, some more gingerly than others. Scariest thing is that they had thereby exposed themselves all to potential abuse all over again. Does this make sense?

MS: You mean, they decided to trust you, despite the risk and previous experience with other humans?

EC: Yes that’s it exactly. Trust is the key word to describe a donkey. There is something about a donkey - if you get to know them, even just one, as if he were your pet dog perhaps - you would feel that deep trust, beyond obedience. NOT stubborn as they are commonly seen to be.

MS: So the stubborn idea that we have must be mistrust?

EC: Good way to put it. I often marvel at their discernment. Unlike our horses.

MS: Can you describe donkey-ness?

EC: Curious (noses in grocery bags), intelligent, scheming apparently planned escape routes out of any situation on particular days including the entire herd - horses just stay in their meadows. Soft, gentle, understanding, JEALOUS, preparedness, trusting, reliable, longsuffering, patient.

MS: Before we talk a bit about donkey trails, I'd love to hear more about how their jealousy crops up.

EC: They know when we have treats with us when we approach a meadow where they are grazing. This is where we see the kicking and nipping-one-another kind of jealousy. We have won our donkeys over with love and patience and that is what they really compete for. They are equally aware of when there are no treats and this is when they swamp us with imploring eyes, And they are so hungry for touch. We believe even the wildest of jacks would eventually approach a patient enough man for that very touch. They have specific soft spots that just need to be loved. Yet at the same time, I have stomped into a field in a horrific mood and sat down in the grass and none of them approach me. They seemed to know I just need the space. That’s why I say, understanding.

(Goldie introduces her new boy)

MS: That's quite heart wrenching and heart warming. I want to ask you about something you said yesterday: “I have to remind myself I'm not an Ass.” What did you mean?

EC: I have a secret place of escape with the donkeys, my total space of denial. Sitting with them trying to figure them out and wishing I could just stay there. But, hey, I’m a wife, mom, farmer, entrepreneur, and community worker. I have responsibilities. I envy them sometimes, despite their lot in so many countries.

In a different light altogether, I have tirelessly researched donkey art, sculpture, painting, sketches, you name it. I collect ANYTHING donkey. However, with due respect to all those artists out there who have seen the nature of this animal, I am yet to see someone really capture the essence of the donkey. He is a bit like a beautiful landscape that even a wide-angle camera can’t capture. Just too deep to get the whole thing wrapped. Their faces are so tempting so that becomes the subject but there is so much more. I can only do stick figures.

MS: That's lovely. I have a choice here, I can talk about donkey representations - my favorite happens to be the French movie "Au Hasard, Balthazar" - or I can talk about donkey trails. I chose the latter. What is a donkey trail exactly and what's the experience like?

EC: Generally a donkey trail is a hike or walk through a natural area with donkeys serving as beasts of burden. Our trail however adds the element of rehabilitation of a people and their heritage. Our country has only recently been set free from apartheid, there is much restoration to be done on a national basis, but, also on an individual level with regards to young people and drug abuse, and with the donkeys and their previous lives of abuse. What you therefore can expect with our trail is to (for four days) become part of the lives of youngsters who have the courage to change, of donkeys who have the hearts to trust again, and of a nation trying to heal from its wounds. All of this through a UNESCO world heritage site of indescribable beauty. The trail becomes part of you. You leave encouraged, no matter your own private battles. Life is a donkey trail!

(A training session with new recruits)

MS: What about the trail allows for this restoration? What I imagine is that the path itself is an exercise in taking things in stride. And in my mind, donkeys do this instinctively. You mentioned they sometimes seem to plan, but is that a reigning trait?

EC: We believe donkeys are compulsive travelers - they seem to love the journey and perhaps that is the key to restoration. Perhaps that is why, when we approach the meadow at 5 a.m. on a Saturday, Buddy and Saartjie know it’s their day to walk and they approach the gate to be haltered and led to the awaiting guests. To embrace each day with gratitude and expectation; to endure hardship with hope and trust that it can bring healing. Besides the development of people skills and education, which bring restoration to the community, the promise of finding a future through knitting our differences together into a new fabric is very exciting.

MS: It is exciting. Working as an artist, day in and day out, often without encouragement, is a similar experience, one that requires some sense that it's worth it, that the process of making things we call art is a way to become conscious, aware. The work in Donkey Trail, the exhibition, reflects this just by the fact of being there, and also by a fresh, winding quality, that isn't pre-planned (too much).

EC: The similarities are great. Our task, as leaders, donkeys and young guides, to climb a mountain over 28 km twice a week with a fresh group of visitors becomes tedious, exhausting, it becomes a trail, a TRIAL! But it also remains a journey of growth for all involved.

De-fense, De-fense

2010-01-22T11:06:00.002-05:00

In writing – and especially in thinking about writing the upcoming press release –every sentence deflects an oncoming attack. I cover my bases, answer to any and all negative judgment, all with the type of a key and all with a smiley face. It goes without saying that this is defensive writing, and yes, it’s something I can talk to my therapist about.

Offensive writing would assume the reader was on your side, interested in, even in awe of, your investigation, able to like without liking a hundred percent. In other words, her judgment might be able to hold nuance, even contradiction. I’m assuming a “successful” person writes offensively.

It is in the vein of defensive writing – but with an offensive veneer – that I’m preparing an artist’s talk during the run of Donkey Trail. Tentatively entitled “Walk the Line” I’ll present a subjective survey of what line is in visual art, and also in language, sports and spiritual practices. I mean thick, thin, fast, slow, shaky, ruled. I mean line as drama, line as movement, line as delineation. I mean Egyptian reliefs, Matisse, Charles Ray, party lines and line dancing.

There, I said it. No turning back now.

I do love lines and what ties Donkey Trail together is, I argue and will argue, the line. Among other things.

What's in a name?

2010-01-11T11:06:00.008-05:00

(Brice Marden drawing)

We have a date! Donkey Trail will open May 20, 2010.

That said, will the show be called Donkey Trail or will that be the name of its blog only?

This exhibition project began as a proposition: create a show through a process of one-thing-leads-to-the-next, of deal-with-each-obstacle-as-it-comes. The result, it was posited, would be inadvertent, instinctive and therefore a fresh departure from concept-laden curating.

Six months down the line, much has changed - much that I cannot disclose here - and it has become clear to me that everything is inevitably a process of one-thing-leads-to-the-next and I always deal-with-each-obstacle-as-it-comes. And while the art that I am drawn to is often a visible reflection of this approach, I do not think the work I have chosen suggests this first and foremost. All together, it points more immediately to something else (namely the line, but more about this another time). Moreover, although literalness is never a good place for art, the work in the show all has little to do with donkeys.

There are pluses, however. The name Donkey Trail has humor and humility, and it does imply a meandering path that at once makes logical sense and does not, which is in fact a good way to see the selected pieces. Furthermore, it’s the name that exists. So be it.

Stay tuned. Alternatives ahead.

Ten things I learned this year about exhibition organizing

2009-12-30T21:44:00.004-05:00

1. It's a man's world.

2. Don't expect answers to the emails you write.

3. Names count for something.

4. Artists are not reliable.

5. Artists are reliable.

6. You've got to sell it.

7. It's what you make of an opportunity.

8. All you need is one other person to believe in you.

9. Art costs money.

10. You're in this alone.

Imaginary wandering

2009-12-07T10:12:00.005-05:00

(click to enlarge)
(Kano Motonobu, The Four Accomplishments, mid-16th century)

Similar to the image above, a multi-panel screen at the Met depicting the four seasons and attributed to Kano Chokichi, was accompanied by this label:

Inspired by Chinese landscape scrolls in which the mind travels through time and space along rivers and mountain paths, this monumental landscape transforms an interior into a vast space for imaginary wandering. The quintessential Chinese theme of the scholar-recluse attuned to the natural world and enjoying its unsullied beauty reflected Confusian values and the contemplative bent of Japan’s military ruling class. A timeless quality is achieved here by a seasonal progression from spring and summer at right to autumn and winter at left. The elevated tone, strong delineation of forms, and rhythmically patterned brushstroke corroborate the work’s attribution to a Kano painter named Chokichi, who is traditionally believed to have studied with Motonobu (1476-1559).

assuming my thought processes are of interest

2009-12-02T10:30:00.015-05:00

(Molly Stevens, India ink on paper, 44" x 60", 2009)

Since spring, when I first started drawing things as opposed to words, I have repeatedly found myself outlining emerging forms that at once resemble shoots, humans interacting, dicks, auras, and what I’m today considering to be rock mountains. In fact, it was Mantegna’s mountain that made me think this (see November 17th’s post).

I went looking for the painting at the Met and found the painting among other Renaissance works and schematic representations of landscape – rocky mountains in particular, which were often butted up against perfectly round halos.

(Swiss painter, 15th century)

While there, it became clear that I had to look at Chinese paintings. Sure enough, there the forms were again, peaking above clouds.

(Wang Hui and assistants, Chinese handscroll, 1698)

And to my amazement, they are certainly exact representations. Google:

(Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, China)

Today it is Krazy Kat that has me riveted, with its shifting lunar landscapes, something like Monument Valley, all the setting for a deeply human love triangle between a cat, a mouse and a pup. (Click to enlarge)

(George Herriman, Krazy Kat, circa 1940)

(Monument Valley)

This is all to say that it does seem that I will be drawing large landscapes for Donkey Trail – in color.

A talk with Carin Riley

2009-11-19T17:04:00.005-05:00

(Philip Guston, Untitled (Cup), circa 1969-1973)

If anything on the Donkey Trail can be a sure thing, Carin Riley is a sure thing Donkey Trail artist. Wait till you see her paintings!

This week we went gallery hopping. Listen in:

Molly Stevens: Carin, we saw some pretty monumental work this week.

Carin Riley: Yes we did. Best of all was Philip Guston (McKee Gallery).

MS: I'd have to agree. When I came off the elevator and saw some of those small panels through the door, I think I threw up my arms and cheered.

CR: Yes, they were small paintings but the feeling was very large. That took me by surprise.

MS: Do you think it's because the images and the paint have such a sturdy presence that they feel large?

CR: They were small, but magnified. I noticed the animation and articulation of line more than the narrative. It seemed a whole world in a brush stroke; very confident painting with a hesitant line.

MS: It’s true. His lines are very alive, they have personality. It's funny that you say "very confident painting with a hesitant line," because that seems contradictory. How could confidence involve hesitancy? I get this somehow, but how would you explain it?

CR: I think that’s what makes him interesting. Following the lines in his work you can really see that he knows art history; although the paintings appear very linear, he packs a lot of Cézanne into a stroke. I’m going out on a limb, maybe, but that’s what occurred to me as I was looking at them. I’ve always been attracted to a continuous line in painting, but I was impressed how confidently he painted a broken line. Before, I had only noticed how he stitched a line, like in the white-hooded figures.

MS: I know he was very interested in De Chirico and also Pierro della Francesca. In terms of Cézanne, I think there’s a similar subjective-ness that doesn’t have a me, me, me quality; a kind of dispassionate observation of self.

Let's get concrete, though. We were really into this painting here:

(Philip Guston, Untitled, circa 1969-1973)

CR: This was my favorite painting in the show. It’s a very confident, worried painting with a lot of control and direction. The figure really does appear to be moving and resisting at the same time. At first I thought it was because of how he had used the large brush strokes in the background; and also because of the appearance of the underpainting pushing the figure forward. But then I realized that it was the short, animated red strokes. That’s where he threw himself into it.

MS: Here again, we have that contradiction. Confident and worried at the same time. Maybe he was confident about being worried. I like when you say "that's where he threw himself into it." I hear by that, that's where he took a risk.

CR: I mean exposed more of himself. It seemed more vulnerable to me than the other white hooded “selfs” in the show. The hoods are a bit of a mask. Not this one.

MS: I think we can compare:

(Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1900)

CR: Yes this figure is his Mont Sainte-Victoire. N'est-ce pas? That’s a very confident mountain that Cézanne knew so well and painted in a very human way. And Guston painted this little figure that he knew so well with great assurance.

MS: With great assurance but also with shakiness, with questions.

Visual Appreciation

2009-11-17T14:26:00.007-05:00

(click on image to enlarge)
(Andrea Mantegna, San Zeno Altarpiece (left panel), The Agony in the Garden, 1457-1459)

What a fantastic dead tree. Note the mushrooms at the bottom. They are familiar almost to the point of touch. I’m also bewildered by the ethereal body of the angel in the top right: truly other-worldly, reminiscent of vanishing deities in Tibetan art.

(Andrea Mantegna, The Adoration of the Shepherds, circa 1450)

The stumpy tree is really nice in the background of this Mantegna too. And how about that arched rock! Reminds me of the island of Staff in Scotland.

Which reminds me again of another Agony of the Garden by Mantegna (1460).

What's wrong with this picture?

2009-11-10T09:16:00.003-05:00

A gallery twice forwarded my request to do a studio visit with one of its artists. I never heard from her.

I emailed an artist I kind of like requesting the same, having procured his address from his website. I never heard from him.

I visited an artist at her studio. We were together for two hours, wrapped in conversation, looking and sharing. She has not responded to my follow up email.

I emailed a friend who’s an artist about her work. Twice. Nothing.

This is a 4/5 person show in Chelsea gallery folks. Um...

I’m not going to beg. This may just end up being a three-person show. And probably the better for it.

David Hockney painting in plein air? No, there's nothing wrong with that picture at all. A show of recent landscapes is currently at PaceWildenstein on 25th.

Road Runner

2009-11-02T18:43:00.007-05:00

(Hadrian's Wall)

Nils Folke Anderson: I’ve been thinking through some ideas for donkey trail.

Molly Stevens:Like what?

NFA: Well, for one thing, there's the idea of site-responsiveness, that relates to donkey trails I think.

MS: Sculptors talk a lot about site-responsiveness, I’ve noticed.

NFA: What have you been thinking?

MS: About site-responsiveness?

NFA: About the work/artists you've been seeing, the progress of the idea and show. Let's talk about that first and then site responsiveness.

MS: Deal. Actually, I'm a bit confused about the idea at this point, and I'm not sure what to do with the blog anymore.

NFA: Getting some dry mango…

MS: Yum.

MS: What does Donkey Trail mean for you these days?

NFA: A very rich idea to mull over and also to mull over with you.

MS: What's the idea again? I'm not being facetious.

NFA: Maybe more an image than an idea I suppose, of a donkey carrying something and making a trail in the process; or an image of a trail that a donkey makes and how that relates to what we're making and looking at. For example that site-responsiveness: on one hand I guess one could say that a donkey trail is site-responsive, that a donkey has limitations in terms of the terrain it can handle and it makes its way in the straightest line possible given the site.

MS: Right.

NFA: But then I’ve been thinking about the Le Corbusier essay we talked about as well. Using caterpillar tractors and dynamite to make big orthogonals is also a response to a site...

MS: Right The way I’ve been thinking about it is: when I make something, there's a figuring out as I go along, and that's donkey trail-ish. But, other than that, I'm at an impasse. Except that I was thinking of a visual presentation (like my text talk) but about the line. I was thinking [CONFIDENTIAL INFO].

NFA: There's also an aspect of patience and perseverance that I like.

MS: In making art, you mean?

NFA: And with donkeys.

MS: Right.

NFA: And a sense of humor.

MS: I agree.

NFA: And of simply doing one's best and making one's way.

MS: That's what art-making feels like. But, in your mind, how does this all translate into concrete terms, like actually making something, asking people to make something, writing about it. I think this is where I’ve been feeling lost.

NFA: I think some lack of clarity is part of the idea. This can get precious and annoying really easily, but it’s possible to be principled and rigorous and interesting and still not know exactly where things are heading.

MS: I agree. It can also be stressful.

NFA: And in concrete terms, a big part of this for me is simply finding an occasion to write, and discuss art with you.

MS: Ah, that sounds good! Have you been thinking at all about what you'd like to make for the show?

NFA: Maybe that [CONFIDENTIAL INFO].

MS: I love that idea. I don't think artists want "curators" to help them develop an idea though too much. So I don't know what role to play here. So, wanna just talk about art?

NFA: I think your role is to simply make happen what you want to have happen. Mine too.

MS: Not sure what that is sometimes.

NFA: I have some ideas.

MS: Like what?...I am working on humongo drawings though.

NFA: ...an amazing group show with tons of reviews; brisk sales of your work, gallery representation, museum shows, a community of artists, a lively presence as a blogger, a solo show of humongo drawings, etc.

MS: That puts a lump in my throat.

NFA: But is that along the lines of what you're aiming for, generally? I don't think these are the "right" or wrong goals, by the way. And I think the goals for the show are more particular and specific, but should be aligned with what we're aiming for generally.

MS: Of course! That's pretty much what I want exactly. So, you're hoping for the same with this show?

NFA: For the show, I hope it's something that- if I'd had no involvement in it- I’d still want to go see.

MS: Well put. I think a lot of this can be discussed on the blog; even if there's no correlation really with organizing the show, or maybe even the show itself.

NFA: Agreed.

MS: It's like the show is one thing. But the possibilities of the blog are far wider. Although I like seeing more than reading in many respects. And what you see, you can’t read in many regards.

NFA: On that note, I’ve been thinking about donkey trails vs. caterpillar tractor trails. Maybe we could have an ongoing post of images of each? This is getting at two modes of mark making or organization or response. For example, a road is typically a caterpillar trail, but then again a caterpillar tractor sometimes makes trails like a donkey. Does that make any sense?

MS: It does. In the south of France, the roads sometimes go around the mountain in a coil, and sometimes they just go right through the damn thing.

NFA: Precisemont (sp?)

MS: Close enough.

NFA: Not a good word to misspell.

MS: Road runner.

NFA: Indeed.

MS: Also a cartoon character running through a wall leaving his imprint. By the way, I'm reluctant to see Urs Fischer.

NFA: How come?

MS: I have a fuck you attitude to the hip and famous.

NFA: I’m pretty psyched to see it. Hype aside, I like his work.

MS: Yeah, I do too! I'm just jealous. Ah, all of Molly's lovely sides are coming out today.

NFA: So go beat him to the next punch!

MS: I’ve been thinking about it. But I think it's a fight I'm not up for. I'd rather just focus on what I'm doing. You going to give him a run for it?

NFA: Yeah, by just focusing on what I’m doing.

Multiple Offerings

2009-10-23T15:51:00.002-04:00

Artists work solo for the most part and we like it that way, thank you very much.

At the same time, a little outside interest in our work usually goes a long way in advancing what we make. This is one of the reasons why it’s important to show. Other eyes make the work evolve.

It can be one of the curator’s roles to stimulate this evolution before the formal exhibition. Like a good editor, a good curator can offer a reading of or a challenge to the work in progress. This year, for example, I worked with an artist-curator who said, “These six, and make three more to complete it as a series for the installation.” That was hugely stimulating without being overbearing.

So rather than spreading out to visit as many artists as I possibly can to put together Donkey Trail, it makes sense to me to go down deeper with a few that I already know and admire. To be continued.

On another note completely, please admire the magnificently bold lines painted on the Greek vase above used for multiple offerings. Circa 2300-2200 BC. Now that’s old. On view now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Curate: from the Latin curare, to care.

2009-10-15T09:49:00.002-04:00

Curator is not a word I throw around lightly. It’s a painstaking role, one that requires a patient, encyclopedic mind. As I see it, curators are people who wade through registries, visit artists in every corner of the globe and think in theories. Does any of this describe me? Not really. Do I think curators are the best people to put together shows? Not necessarily.

Artist-curator is a term that gets thrown around a lot. In my mind, it usually implies less research and a more personal approach to exhibition-making. Often what artist-curators do is livelier than what non-artist-curators might; and often artist-curators are self-serving.

What are other name options? In France, “commissioner” used to be what they were called. That’s even more self-important than curator. So no.

Considering the word’s root, caretaker might be a possibility. It’s a bit precious, however.

Organizer? Coordinator? Arranger? Planner? Presenter? Preparer? Schemer? Show-maker? Ringmaster? Socialite? Schmoozer? Friend? Co-host? Multitasker? Door-opener? Opportunist? Speculator? Investor? Entrepeneur? Leader? Scout? Explorer? Investigator? Inspector? Show and Teller? Head honcho? Chandelier Swinger? Gaze God? Donkey Master? Ass?

Donk Donk

2009-10-08T17:09:00.009-04:00

Ripped from Living on the Edge:

What do you call a three legged donkey?
Wonky Donkey

What do you call a one eyed, three legged donkey?
Winky Wonky Donkey

What do you call a piano playing, one eyed, three legged donkey?
Plinky Plonky Winky Wonky Donkey

What do you call a blue suede shoe wearing, piano playing, one eyed, three legged donkey?
Honky Tonky Plinky Plonky Winky Wonky Donkey

What do you call a blue suede shoe wearing, piano playing, one eyed, three legged donkey who is in love?
Honky Tonky Plinky Plonky Winky Wonky Donkey looking for a little Hanky Panky

A talk with Alyssa Pheobus

2009-10-03T13:53:00.010-04:00

Alyssa and I had the following conversation after a visit at her studio on a recent rainy Monday evening.

Her upcoming show at Tracy Williams opens on November 6.

(Alyssa Pheobus, Endless House, 2009, graphite on paper, 72" x 53")

Molly Stevens:
So, first thing, did you know that I'm ten years older than you.

Alyssa Pheobus:
That's news to me.

MS:
Do you think that means anything?

AP:
Well, I'm sure it influences our interests, sense of historical perspective, sympathies with other artists, etc. And you have more experiences to draw on!

MS:
I guess so. I think there's a thing going on with artists born in the 70s. We're not into irony. That annoys us. (I like to talk in general statements.)

AP:
Right.

MS:
I think we're into authenticity but with some humor.

AP:
I think artists who are interested in authenticity can do it in a self-critical way without being ironic.

MS:
How would you generalize 80’s-born kids?

AP:
80’s-born kids are disconnected from the major world turmoils that were so present for previous generations. The result is that some become nostalgic for resistance movements, theory, activist tendencies, others could care less... I'm also speaking generally of course.

MS:
I love generalizations, actually. Do you feel disconnected?

AP:
Sometimes I do feel disconnected.

MS:
Me too.

AP:
How do your feelings of disconnection work? I mean, how do you experience them? How do they affect what you do/make?

MS:
I have a pretty strong sense of inner and outer. In fact I have a lot of voices from the outer and I wish they'd shut up sometimes. What about you?

AP:
In the day to day, I experience this disconnected feeling similar to what you describe.

MS:
When you approach a drawing, do you approach it from an outer or inner voice?

AP:
Drawing is totally personal and inward-looking, with outer (borrowed) voices being channeled inward all the time. I go into a fort of sorts when I'm working. And I think the work reflects that. It's very private, solitary. But usually I can re-enter my social obligations and talk about it later.

MS:
It's interesting though, your drawings don't cry out "inner voice."

AP:
No. But I think that’s because "inner voice work" has the problem of appearing naive, hysterical, wounded, wacky much of the time.

MS:
Well put. I think viewers and even artists look for that.

AP:
I'm proposing that an inner voice can be just as measured and calculated or poised as any other. It can be as expressive or non-expressive as you want it to be.

(Alyssa Pheobus, Harder, Harder, 2008, graphite on paper, 72" x 53")

MS:
I want to talk about chance.

AP:
Sure.

MS:
Chance can have a lot of visual looks. What I mean is that chance can look wacky, or it can look measured.

AP:
Right, and chance can be politicized.

MS:
What do you mean?

AP:
If you want to invite chance into a situation (basically inviting disorder into a situation of stasis, or order) then you also have to acknowledge that there's a system in place that generates the possibilities. And choosing a system and its elements is meaningful, and certainly affects your outcome or outcomes.

MS:
Can you illustrate this idea?

AP:
This is a really simple one: Let's say you consult the I Ching to make a decision about something important; the choice of that system isn't random and says something about your world view.

In our work, we both rely on chance operations sometimes, which lead to new connections that can be more interesting than the ideas that are clearly laid out or programmed from the beginning. But when you get down to it, we give ourselves certain, very specific and individual options to work with.

MS:
But there's always room for chance no matter how specific you are.

AP:
You're right. There's always room for chance, but I still think we have more of a hand in setting up the stage for the chance to happen.

MS:
I agree.

I think chance looks very different in your work than it does in my work. What role does chance play for you?

AP:
Right now the work is following a one-thing-leads-to-another sort of path.

MS:
I think that gives the work vitality. But within a single piece, do you deal with chance?

AP:
Sure, I'll start with a form, then it turns out differently than I expected, suggesting a different text intervention, and so on. The chance often lies in the space between what you think you want or are trying to achieve and what you actually get.

MS:
That makes me think about the inner voice look again. What I mean is that your work doesn't have the expected look of chance. But of course, it's in there.

AP:
Right. I guess it's never foregrounded in the work, which is why this is an interesting thing to focus on. How does your work deal with or incorporate chance?

(Molly Stevens, [Untitled installation], 2009, acrylic on board, approx. 5' x 6')

MS:
For me, chance equals being loose, and that is somehow an ideal or goal for me. Because I've spent so much time being uptight. So, when I was doing words I wanted to give into "free-association" as much as I could.

AP:
Which implies a psychological one thing leads to another.

MS:
Indeed.

AP:
Do you think of your work with language or even images in psychoanalytic terms?

MS:
Yes. What about you?

AP:
Psychoanalytic ideas certainly influence me. But I don't think my work goes after the subconscious as actively as yours does. The subconscious is definitely tied up with questions of the authentic inner voice.

MS:
What I think I’m getting at is this: Although there's a surface difference between your work and mine - very different in fact - I somehow suspect there's an impetus that's the same that just ends up looking different.

AP:
Yes, while you're focusing on looseness, opening up a gate, I'm interested in a tighter language.

MS:
Tell me about that.

AP:
I guess my work takes words out of context to really focus in on them, also to lay a claim on them, to take them apart, disorient someone's supposed interpretation of them. But it's done with a slow, intense, almost devotional hand, one that’s very different from the speed and spontaneity in your hand.

(Alyssa Pheobus, The Comber, 2009, handmade paper, 60" x 40")

MS:
So the focus or concentration is a form of authentification for you? The word or line becomes yours, personal. If that's the case, then our shared impetus is making something that is our own, no matter how fleeting that possession is.

AP:
That sounds right...I'm cathected to certain words whereas you're releasing them, but both imply a desire to possess.

MS:
Let’s call this Part I of the Interview.

AP:
Looking forward to Part II. Maybe we'll change our minds.

A September morning volley

2009-09-23T10:22:00.010-04:00

What I read over summer vacation

2009-09-03T09:31:00.003-04:00

(Forrest Bess, Variations in Time, 1964)

I do what I’m told. So, when Balthazar asked that I read The Transformations of Lucius Otherwise Known as The Golden Ass (Robert Graves’ translation, adapted to modern language, a must.), I did.

A common worldview held among New Yorkers is that we each have a will, and it is this will that directs much of our lives. Discerning leftists among us will like to qualify this statement by noting that social class, race and gender also determine our course in life. Yes they do. But, even from this modified viewpoint, it is generally agreed that we individuals and groups of individuals have agency, and it is this agency that permits us to make decisions and act.

Dive into our summer reading, however, and the world becomes a less controllable place. Taken as a given is that we mortals coexist with apparitions, gods and deities; we drink potions and have portentous dreams; there are slaves and there are masters, eunich priests, bandits and whispering winds; and in our every experience, there is extraordinary violence and punishment, but also unutterable mysteries.

The gist of the story is this: a man of some stature gets his hands on a concoction that will turn him into a bird. But, as fortune has it, he becomes an ass instead, and spends a year experiencing his own sundry misadventures and encountering those of others.

Does this make the world a more luscious place to read about and visualize? You bet. Can it be a part of better art making that goes beyond folksy allegory? We’ll see.

Summer break

2009-07-31T13:35:00.004-04:00

Nils and I have pressed eject until late August, early September. Until then, hee haw.

A recommended summer read and flic

2009-07-17T14:48:00.005-04:00

The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius. (From Antiquity people!)

Au hasard Balthazar, the 1966 French film directed by Robert Bresson.

(Still from Shaun Gladwell's video Storm Sequence, happily on view in the back room at Sikkema Jenkins, sadly only through today).

Image Volley

2009-07-09T12:29:00.010-04:00

MS:
I like what you said about - as I understood it - playing a bit more, using the time we have.

NFA:
That sounds good. Any ideas on how to proceed?

MS:
Maybe a post of just images? I send one to you and you send one to me in reaction?

Ahead and Down

2009-07-02T16:28:00.006-04:00

to meander, to stumble, to look ahead and down at once, to be burdened, to be wily, to respond, to anticipate, to retrace, to resist, to submit, to draw, to inscribe, to pre-date, to carry, to bear, to forbear, to transport, to move, to choose, to be agent, to ruminate, to be an ass, to bray, to smell bad, to bare one’s teeth, to eat roses, to be fearless of heights, to be sure-footed, to drink at a stream, to fall in a stream.

Setback, breakthroughs, doldrums

2009-07-02T11:48:00.008-04:00

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.

Starting at the Start

2009-06-24T10:02:00.004-04:00

Nils Folke Anderson:
Shall we start with how we started?

Molly Stevens:
Yes. I think it started first with the possibility of a show.
Then we had to come up with an idea.

NFA:
Right, we met to talk in the park. It was a sunny day and we had sandwiches and lots of people were hanging out. We had a great, fun conversation without ever settling into a specific concept of what we wanted to do, but just arrived at many points of commonality, common interests, artists we both liked, and a general sense that it would be interesting to see where the conversation would lead in terms of a show.., and that the concept would form as a conversation, like THAT conversation; unfold easily and over time. Or not necessarily easily, but progressively, across time and space.

MS:
But there was Le Corbusier. You had told me about how the architect once derided European cities because they didn't follow a rational, formal plan.

I have the quote right here.

Man walks in a straight line because he has a goal and knows where he is going […]. The pack-donkey meanders along, meditates a little in his scatter brained and distracted fashion, he zigzags in order to avoid the large stones, or to ease the climb, or to gain a little shade; he takes the line of least resistance. […] The Pack-Donkey’s Way is responsible for the plan of every continental city; including Paris, unfortunately.

Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning, 1929

NFA:
I had just read an essay by Catherine Ingraham, from her "Burdens of Linearity" and had read the quote there. As someone who admires both Le Corbusier and donkeys it immediately struck me as interesting terrain.

MS:
Tangent: The interest in Le Corbusier is in the purity of form? The interest in donkeys is obvious.

NFA:
The interest is from various encounters with his work, the buildings, the writings etc. For example, there's a book called Chromophobia in which Le Corbusier is taken to task for helping proliferate a love for pure white in architecture, and he's quoted from an early diary entry when he's traveling in Greece, talking about the beauty of white marble columns, but what he's observing in the quote, it turns out, is the light on the columns, and this complicates the "purity" idea. He's appreciating white as a reflective surface.

So I guess my interest is partly in the dissonance between the treatment I often encounter of his work and my own experience of it.

MS:
You mean, it's treated as...

NFA:
...as pure, ideal, utopian, Modern, but he's constantly bumping into the messy world.

MS:
Right. For example, that Chapel in Ronchamp is pretty much kookie, not rectilinear. Although I’m certain he was aware that he was breaking away from his early convictions with this and other later work.

NFA:
Yes.

MS:
That said, if I were to put it in a sentence, I'd say the show will emerge from conversation, in a pack-donkey-like way. Also, I'm personally interested in artwork that emerges in this way too. That is, through process, through a certain surrender of rational, linear thought.

NFA:
Definitely, feeling one's way along.

MS:
At the same time, I think it's important that the show include “rectilinearity” as a possible outcome of feeling one's way.

NFA:
Exactly, and also as a means to feel one's way.

(Image: The chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, designed by Le Corbusier, 1955.)

Donkey Trail

2009-06-17T09:53:00.002-04:00

Straight from the Donkey's mouth:

I've been on this path for a while now, with these sacks on my back. This morning I tripped on a rock. So I’ll just stop in front of this one right here. Come to think of it, if I go this way, it’s still up. Nice roses. Ouch.

Donkey Trail: an exhibition being developed by Nils Folke Anderson and Molly Stevens, opening May 2010 at Slag Gallery in New York. Maturing until then right here at the Donkey Trail blog and on Art on My Mind.