cc
too loud, 'cause I get >> Tell me if I get a little
I just wanted to turn on real animated sometimes.
music, but by all means, a little bit of background
y'all please let me know. if iHow's that?loud,
Can you hear that and still hear me?
It's a little ambiance. And it's not very much time,
so I'm just going to flash. This is on automatic.
I'm going to just try to talk to you about how it is
that I work.
a little introductory period Then eventually, I'll go through
towards the end. and move to a few projects
will slow me down at a Hopefully, this sort of music
some questions in. certain point and we can fit
more, because there's a lot of Because questions will engage
And just flash it on automatic. mSo give me just a second here.
Okay, well, as you understand about me by now, is that I had
a little period as a fashion
And that happened quite designeby accident.k City.
I was completely never intending
I grew up the daughter ever to be a fashion designer.
is also a third generation of a painter, a writer, who
down in south Georgia during bee keeper in turbulent '60s
And that affected my work and my life politically, socially
through present and into the future.
And this little period, well not little, actually it
was about 20 years
brought on quite accidentally ofby some installation workas
I was doing as a graduate student at the School of the
Art Institute.
I sort of went to study about And Depression Era clothingort,
for this particular conceptual
that also was about dwelling. prAnd if I don't get backing
to dwelling, I want someone to ask me about it, because
it's very important to my work. So clothing, dwelling, thinking,
is very important.
to me was that I went to And the thing that happened
of Costume, and searching for these Depression Era clothing,
that I couldn't find
in any museum in the country. And the curator told me
that they did not exist.
I just thought how can this be? This is a whole period
of our history that's just gone.
brought me into the institutional critique forum,
that our institutions were collecting, you know,
aristocratic, Euro-centric, you know, very specialized
collections through a particular
And that was very epiphanaic class through history.
I suddenly realized there's this huge vast field of work
out there to be done. And now already, you know,
I was an installation artist, just totally driven by
the material, complex,
But really frustrated by its field of installation practice.
i.e. the art world. And I knew that I wasn't going
to function in that world in a regular way.
So what I proceeded to do was to try to run through this
project that I was working on about Depression Era clothing.
And what happened was, as people
than they did resthe installation itself.ing
The installation was one thing, but the clothing,
people wanted to buy. And I got commissioned to do
a body of clothing
painters. forSo I just thought,rs,
this is something.
in my development, And then at a very early stage
was an intersection for me. It was an intersection
of everything that I believed in
And suddenly could thrust me and that I wanted to do.
installation artist, as a studio artist,
that was more social and public. into a practice
that might be crazy? Now, why do you think
is a system that is used, negotiated, or imposed,
by every person on this planet. Every person.
And I challenge you to just dispute that.
There's no other system of communication.
No other universal system that actually touches
every person on this planet.
of negotiations. And I found it a rich field
from that moment on for me And a series of things evolved
they are still evolving today, as a young artist, and
So what you're looking at right now is sort of that
fashion history of me sort of experimenting
in a public sphere. And I said the other day
to the grad students, you know, the thing about my practice
is I immediately had to make
I opened up a series my studio a public place.
And I knew nothing about of retail stores in Manhattan.
And it was really ironic, because people sort of
walk over that retail threshold and say, "Fix me."
"Do me."
But the fact is, you know, "Seduce me."
art history, contemporary art. I came out of art,
to get them to read into I was just sort of like trying
I was doing through fashion. the conceptual projects
you know, with a bunch So you're just getting flashed,
But it was a very early experimental period for me.
Uh oh.
To go into the cosmos ( where I am now.
( laughter )
that I'm working on now with Spurse, the collective.
So that's going to happen.
Okay, thank you, because Will you just...
So y'all tell me I'm not watching the images.
Like for instance, this erotica series, you know, people really
got upset by this the other day when I showed this
in the PC world of Madison, radical institute.
But this is actually, you know, early response, you know,
to the way fashion functions. And there was a whole
embodied installation,
My stores are like salons, discourse, visitation, salon.
my artist friends, so I would invite
my curator friends. And it would become sort of
a little salon forum
I didn't do ofa traditional fashion show.s.
I would do more installation, presentation, performances
around these projects.
is when a moment What you're looking at right now
my wholesale business closed when my fashion business closed,
a bad businessperson. I hired all the wrong people.
And behind the doors, you know, things were happening and
my business grew really fast. I became an international
little starlet
With that kind of fast growth on tin capitalism,ne.
this series of problems occur.
with it. And you just can't keep up
the wholesale division So in 1997 I closed
a project where I bees waxed of my company and created
the entire corporation. And I'm going to come
back to that a little bit later.
collaboratively. I was always working
about my work, an important point that I make politically
about moving through
there's no way, I believe, the world today, is that
to hear this, that you as studio artists,
or you who are studio artists are going to be able
to function in the future if you continue to have
these romantic notions
that someone's going to come in aband discover youe,
and pull you out, and you're
he's the one that's going to go and have a show and sell art.
It's not going to happen. You know, the thing is
that you have to engage with the world.
And I think, in my opinion, my deep political position, is
that exchange and collaboration is the only way that
we as artists can do that.
a series of early collaborations And so you're just looking at
I continue to use collaboration thas my primary modeat
of methodology in a work. When I start to talk about
particular projects,
in that I can't find a place you'll see that demonstrated,
that I'm the one who's that, you know, or presume
in any given thought or thing. going to have the final say
out there. There are too many things
I'm a great mediation to activate a site sensitively,
socially, intelligently,
anthropologically, historically. theoretically,
through this world where You know, we got to move
sized up in a gallery, it's not just about one thing
somebody what your idea is, and they're supposed to get it.g
"Ah ha, I get it."
you're going to do I believe that what
the whole multiplicity of things in the world is take on
in every which way you can. andA sort of...em
( speaking German ) which is a German term that's
not really easily translatable
whole art, in English, but it's sort of
And it's a way artful as a whole world.
A lot of my work to think through your life.
like this grafter shack, which is extremely autobiographical,
I come from, is about my family history.
five generations of beekeepers now four generations,
And this particular project was in discourse with Mark Dion,
my partner who does a lot of work about nature,
culture, conversation and the representation of nature
in a contemporary world.
it was sort of showing that, But this was not only that,
as artists of many things. you know, we're at the nexus
to take them all on. And it's so important
Grafter shack was at Wave Hill This is what we do best.
Did it do it again? ( laughs )York.
I think, another important
just immediately am concerned with not what I can do, that
I'm not going to call out and dream up a project, and
tell you what the outcome is. And this is a real problem
for me as an artist in contemporary world.
Make note, if you're vague
as vague. But my problem is not vagueness.
It's a real particular intention
doors open for activating any given thing at one time.
A site. If I go into a site, and
I'm usually inspired by a site. And I look to the quotidian
in search for some kind of
speak to a large body of people, common language that I can
of disciplines. But if I go into a site,
I immediately want to set up
so that something can emerge. a seSomething calleders
an emerging community.
different about my practice And and other practiceshat's
that sort of get slotted
or community-based practices, or other, or merely,
project-based practices.
with expectations of a thing. I'mI have hopes and dreams.te
And I fantasize what could possibly happen.
Sometimes,
Often, I'm really disappointed. I'm rBut by golly,inted.
I'll do the best I can
in every way I can to try and activate that site
through its economy, through its history,
from the individuals through its psychologies
But the main thing is that that get involved.
in that sense, it's not community based
And this is what where they're thinking--
What's it's going to look like, or what it's going to smell like
or what's going to happen?
that I want to keep open, because it's entirely emergent.
And that's the only way it can really truly, honestly
become part of a social weave,
it's not that you enforce ayourself onto the community.
You enforce your politics onto
they should think, but actually themsomething, the people way
who choose to collaborate and exchange with my projects
suddenly become a part of them. We all evolve together.
And the hope is that
So it's this transversal reality we're all transformed.
that's not just about me, it's about a situation
that I might have just proposed,
And you're looking at anCottage Industry right now,ng.
where a famous example
in South Carolina where I collaborated with that family
of those three women. And I still am in a dialog
with them to this day.
none of my projects Anotherever end.t thing,
They are just part of my life.
and think that it's going So I doto ever leave.n idea,
I move into it. It becomes like a virus in me.
And then it takes over. It surfaces.
I can actually then get invited by somebody,
and then go I got a project for that place.
I'll just do that.
I still have a relation But thwith that place.es me.
I still have a psychology with that place.
I still have friendships, long lasting friendships,
with those places.
If I can't leave a place without And that's so important to me.
you know, I just feel like those kinds of engagements,
I've failed. I haven't gotten there.
don't get me wrong. Failure'I failed., though,
But I've spent 20 years in that fashion industry
failing every day in my open studio
where hundreds of people
and watch me make the biggest faux pas, because I knew nothing
about fashion,
You know, I just had a knack completely self-taught.
I was really for architecture.
you know, since I was a child. secretly an architect from,
to architecture and dwelling, Balmost all of my workck
goes to dwelling. Very important point,
and I call out, you know, these great thinkers,
Thoreau, Burrows, you know, great, great thinkers who
actually, you know, a dwelling, a single room dwelling
was an important
of their practice aand their writings.rt
And those kinds of examples are why my obsession with
the little shack dwelling shed
So clothing, dwelling, is a big thread through my work.
And particularly thinking about those things.
Cottage Industry was such a love of mine, because it was
I was given an abandoned building.
Mary Jane Jacob was really
because she brought the building to me, you know.
And Mary Jane Jacob is a curator in Chicago.
I'm sure a lot of y'all know about her.
And that building was just rich with history.
History.
I talk about the next project, I'm going to, before
about history. I want to just say something
there's one thing Becathat I sense right away,ite,
is that the histories are pressing in on us
all around us.
of the site is primary. I mean, that's a regular tool.
Right?
But what we forget You go to history.
It's our contemporary notion is history is contemporary.
And history's kind of convoluted of history.
it's not only about what this way, too, because
but it's so riddled as artists our contemporary notion is,
avant-garde, with this sort of
of what is contemporary. highly aestheticized notion
George Jetsons? Andrea Zitell?
You know, actually those
I love Andrea Zitell, she's a friend of mine.
You know, not a critique. But anyway, you know, I often
get mistook for sort of working in this 19th century realm,
as does Mark Dion.
a friend and collaborator. He battles with this as well,
not getting caught up But in the nostalgia of
of what history brings to us
I believe that in this room, in a contemporary moment.
and maybe let's just look at in this very room,
The Victorian is with us your clothing.
You know, the modern right now.
I mean, it's all is with us right now.
in this claustrophobic way. And it's we who activate it
and engage it,
that important point. What you're looking at
right now is a really important work.
I'm reluctant to walk over
but I'm a mover. here because it's so bright,
Future of the Nurse's Uniform." "R.N.,We were invitedent and
by the Fabric Workshop. What is it called?
The Fabric Workshop and Museum
to do a major work. We took over the entire museum
and did a three-
of what the uniform was. to four-year-long study
as our focus. Now the uniform, as we all know,
is so specific to set up those parameters
between body and body,
class and class, you know. system and system,
particularly in nursing Aand the medical industry.,
And I'm going to skip over
because this is a huge, vast project with so many
fingers and lines of flight going in all different
directions. But what we found out
is that there was no uniform. There is no uniform.
The uniform got broken down to scrubs.
And it's been a real trauma,
industry, you know, nthe practicing nurses,
student nurses, but to the patients, even.
Patients. We did this huge questionnaire
on the Internet, and
in Philadelphia area. vAnd we found that everybodys
was so traumatized
Which is just an interesting thing about us
as a species. But I don't have time to even
philosophize about that right now.
But what we did was we sort of
into all of these categories, bthe nurse's uniform,m
even looked at popular culture. We created a think tank
with retired nurses,
student nurses and really, practicing nurses,
at a couple of different schools even graduate art students
what that problem was and then try to tackle it.
We found that the only way
was to go create these tropes into the future, which was
another part of the project that
We'd always sort of fantasize emergthat we'd do theseddle.
fashion illustrations about,
a museum show that was looking you know, with the conceit about
But actually we decided paswhat we had to do tom.
make that conceit complete
of the medical industry was tinto the future.ropes
So this project became
We had to invent what the future kind of a Sci-fi project.
and think like, and how it would
philosophically exist.
actually we invented So we invented four,
But four of them a lot of Sci-fi nurses.
in this project. we could actually produce
the diagnostic nurse, the post-apocalyptic nurse
and the intergalactic nurse.
we were working with students' But also at the same time
nurse's uniform could be. So not only were we looking now
at the future and the past, but we we're trying
to take those knowledges
This is what we ended up with using the cutting-edge
of medical fiber technologies.
silver-coated fibers. I'd love to speak
deeper into this, but there's just not enough time.
But one thing, too, that we did that was the universal thing
that came out of this project,
that could become a patch that was adopted instantly by
the national nursing community. And this project was praised
and won awards for
that says "RN," which you've seen several times.
And they now, when you go to a hospital, you most likely
will see that patch on every registered nurse.
And then you'll see other renditions of it where
they've expanded it out registered nurse, x-ray,
blah, blah, blah. You know all the other
little educational acronyms.
the diagnostic nurse uniform. ButWe actually inventedat
and produced them at the Fabric Workshop.
These are fiber technologies, all computer nodes
and technologies
And they are hypothetically able to connect to a data system
where the diagnostic nurse
those fibers read diagnostically will hug a patient and have
send back to the nurse to a data system, and then
to treat this patient. the data of how she needs
and proprioceptive kind of So it's just more empathic
This is the post-apocalyptic mode of healing and prognosis.
And this of course, she's out in the field.
This uniform was made from
fibers that now buildings aare being built out of.al
Imagine that these have exploded
these together with Ziploc and she is just piecing
It's all Ziplocked together seams, so and glued.stitched.
Intergalactic nurse, which is based on a trope
of knowledge into the future
We've gone through all of these evolutions, and now we're
looking back onto self-healing
to try to holistic healing. Try to heal one's self.,
And so this uniform is based
of the chief flow lines on thin acupuncture.harts
And so we did a whole little miniature study.
And there's a great thing about my projects
and the way I work is that, you know, I follow my curiosity.
Curiosity is the thing
I don't even think of a project, is drives me.
the curious moment like, what, you know, until I have
You know, what is that how does that work?
Or, I don't know about that, going to be like?
And if I'm in the middle so how can I learn about that?
go to where I don't know, of a pbecause that's whereitely
my most creative moment is going to be.
You know, I can boldly move into a territory naively
and ready and willing to take it on.
Now I often tell
I love this project. my student friends--
projects. I also tell my students that,
you know, there's three things
to be an artist. that you need to know
to sculpt or paint. You don't have to be able
to carve or, you know,
You don't have to be anywhere do dior there.thing.
But you have to be willing, willing and willing.
That's my motto.
That word, which means This is what you're looking at.
This is a little corporation "Smuggling Across Borders, Inc."
for a project in the show called the "Interventionists
at MASS MoCA in Massachusetts." And I created a little--
I took over one of their
and I created a little squat back galleries,
I actually wanted to-- of a factory.
than they could handle. I I won't go there, butus
I created this little shed
And this is how detailed I go. that I got from--
the backyard of the daughter It's like the shed came from
who, because of the die works of that he was doingdied
in that factory when MASS MoCA, the museum,
was a mill. It has a deep, deep,
deep history. And mill history
is one of my favorite studies.
so starting from the textile. BBut this project was in me
for many, many years
about mill history. And MASS MoCA was a site
where I could sensitively move through all of its
personal history
that has also a nickname, called the "Multiple Suit."
So I opened up this little
I moved in, as I do, corporation in the back gallery.
with all of my material, with me and my projects
and artifacts, culture and collections
There are sort of, this project kind of folds within itself.
It's a project within a project within a project.
The project within the project
was just me as an artist as an installation
with an institution. trying to co-evolve
with a creative way to finance this corporation,
'cause here I am, an artist,
I have no money. setting up a little business.
pittance that they had You know, except for a little
And I had to creatively come up with an economy
between us, where we could
Artist and institution. actAnd it was sort of myer.
positioning to sort of do away
do away with critique all together, if you ask me,
and move into a more constructive field.
It was a real problem.
to a moment in my career And it was also harkening back
in my fashion business, and a partner that I hired
fired me from my business.
kind of like, Show could that happen?
You know, this was
How could business a friend of mine.
This life work I lost in a day. And so, inside this project
was that little autobiographical
what is inside of a corporation that causes that kind of
dog-eat-dog, you know,
sort of ethical component, where back biting horrible
You can actually murder someone. you can get away with murder.
and went in and started studying And so, I used that conceit
and went through clothing. the history of machismo,
It was the only place where I could launch from.
So really, sort of going
And what was into, then, what was management.
What was the three-piece suit? corporate management?
popular culture. And I went through
several things. I used the footprint,
the architectural footprint of MASS MoCA.
I used this wonderful 1956 Rod Sterling movie,
called "Patterns."
it's really this brilliant And if you've not seen it,
around corporate behavior. sort of study of human behavior
all of these mechanisms to And I sort of went through
and then find a way try ato interconnect thesetory,
disparate modes of thought. This is going a head of me
a little bit here.
algorithmically, which somebody can ask me about that later,
about these pieces, I was able to bring
all of this information together
to reinvent a multipled suit. That which was more complex,
and took on more drama. And it actually became
like a 36-piece suit
and comes apart as a suit, that actually comes together
a skirt. a jacket, a pant, a dress,
here, but constantly searching Crudely, we're using buttons
for this system to work. for new technologies of a way
is still in the works. So this system
My collaborating partner We're still a corporation.
of the project is Iain Kerr. that came in the middle
into investigating And he and I have further gone
move this piece through some kind of new mode
of being clothing.
thing I've ever done, and still is the most exciting
thing that I'm doing. And it's also sort of moving
into other current projects that I'm working on with Spurse
and Spurse design, which I'll demonstrate a little bit later.
Ooh!
Those are the technical glitches It did that thing.
trying to straighten out. that we So you're seeingt I was
these examples of the way that
and become other things. those 36 pieces come together
So these are all the pieces sort of being fitted together.
Now within another project
sort of this invagination fointo machismo, ironically,,
is this other project where a person can actually
come into that installation in the back galleries
of MASS MoCA
for touching and fitting. And this was the most fun,
because wherever we...
just a pinch? Wherever we were, Iain and I
would converge at the site
potential customer, and we would enter this
collaboration with the customer.
mode of emergence occurs So another sort of yet
try to figure out a way whthe suit can exchangeem,
with their lifestyle, their existence.
So those are the pieces.
talk more about. That, I wish I could
performance about the history, But we would give a whole
decant some whiskey, we'd open a bottle of, you know,
of whiskey, have this whole ylittle speech and performance,e
and then we'd do this series
It was very much like frisking, that they do at an airport,.
or a police frisking. It was very kind of sensual
and intellectual engagement in a private
little touching and fitting.
of this project Thisthat moved into France,pter
where we actually hired a retired couturier
to be our stitcher. And to develop and push
the pieces into another future
could be. ofSo here, we're in Francet
in the countryside of France
setting up nomadically anywhere, doing our business,
of a wine vineyard. This was our agent
of mediation, sort of the French representative
who was negotiating with the
we were sort of habitating couturier and with the sites
There she is. So this is just a few slides
about the future
I'd love to talk deeper into it, of that project.
to have time to do that. but I'm not going
many unfolding chapters. Again, this project has got
we call just right now We've now moved it into an area
And what that is. And politically, it's just a way
to take on--
technology fibers that These are new fibers,
Comportment as a political we're moving into the project.
new modes of being in the world and new modes of communicating
with each other,
So we're using the suit as a way to get to that.
I'm moving backwards now
that beeswax work called into that body of work,
I did an exhibition last year "What Alexander Gray, wherey."
I revisited those histories of that archive.
I had gone through this elaborate drenching of beeswax
in Switzerland
at Fribourg Contemporary Museum. and a huge show in Switzerland
to revisit those histories And now, I've sort of come back
And it was a much different wienvironment in addressing,s.
so I'm just showing you a few pictures of that.
And I can talk to that
I don't have much time. I see I'm going to move into
another project next
You're going to see a few slides of Spurse.
Spurse is an international
It has many, many, many people. I'd say about 100 people
at this point.
just sort of looking in. But they're really
But they're about seven It'sto 12 of us who actuallyve.
are working solidly together. And within that collective,
there's another collective
And many of these projects called Spurse Design.
into Spurse Design projects. sort of fold over
of my practice, although And they're really a big part
a lot about Spurse tonight, I'm not unless somebodye to talk
asks me a question. But these are a handful
of projects that we've worked on
I'd say two or three years. And we're currently working on
a major project with Grand Arts.
some parts of the university I've tried to tie in
we collaborate with people here into the project, because
And we're currently working on all over the world.
and rapid time. It's an environmental project
about the old great inland sea
And Kansas City and Grand Art will be the site
of the exhibition in 2009,
So we're going to that heavy I think fall of 2009.
I do a lot of food projects. right now.
is called the Public Table, One prothat we can talkup here
about that too, later.
and what you're listening to But what you're about to see,
is called "The Lost Meeting." And this was a project
I was invited to
I just mentioned a few names. I'm so sorry I haven't mentioned
all the names.
and I'll mention every name Iof the people who are workingin
on these projects,
There's just not me. because there's so many.
It takes many people I can't do all of this alone.
And you've got to always to do something.
I mean, remember that. forget that--
as Bruno Latour writes, is that we often ignore, or forget,
or push away, how many people go into making us who we are.
It's a silly thing. Of course, you think
my parents made me who I am,
It's like, your friends, the but it's not true.
and having a dialog with, pthey're having as much to do
about who you are as your parents,
and probably even more. The history of this country
is steeped, you know, in Quaker history.
You know, these were, you know, dispersed people
who came here from Europe.
all of that religious migration that still has formed us
as a puritanical nation today.
was unique because they still, You know, but Quakerism
in their culture you know, a fundamental theory
Activism. It's not just a simple term
where activism is, you know,
It's actually a term that you're activating the world.
And this is something very
I learn through Quaker culture important about my practice.
I probably could be a Quaker. thaIt's about activatinghat
every part of your life that you can possibly activate.
It's not just relegated to the studio.
It's not relegated to just
studio partner or your roommate. your dialog with your, you know,
really truly an artist, Ihow can you creativelye
and inventively activate
I speak to this in my new project called "Mildred's Lane,"
where we have a contemporary art
and reassembling the terms complex that we're reinventing
on our compound in Pennsylvania, of the Contemporary Art Museum
And we speak to a mode of living called Mildred's Lane.
And I'm going to speak about we call work styles.
in the sculpture department. that tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m.
in coming to Mildred's Lane, And anybody who's interested
intensive sessions every summer. we do three or four
They're very particularly about our network of artists, dinners,
friends, speakers, lecturers, modes of thinking, researching,
dwelling, living. It's life as an artist.
Kind of a finishing school
Lost Meeting, to get back to that, was an investigation
of the pattern. We sort of broke
the Quaker culture down into what their concerns are.
And it's a big argument about mediation.
To God, to earth, to culture. Mediation became a primary
point convergence for us. We sort of broke down the tools
of that place, that culture,
anthropologically, that situation, sociologically,
artistically and created scientifically, architecturally
that completely emerged out of the rubbleo
of its very being in history. That again, is an algorithmic
problem that I can talk to
But we created what was called in questioning.
Why the Lost Meeting? The building itself
and its history was nicknamed the Lost Meeting, because
it was built out of a schism
of the 19th century, in the early part
And that schism was all about the Orthodox Quakers
and the Liberal Quakers, what were called the Hixsite Quakers,
arguing about what was it about mediation.
You know, that the Hixsites,
thinking there's no mediation. which were the liberals, were
And these are philosophical We haissues, mind you.ience.
The orthodox still wanted there to be a mediating experience.
And so the building,
out of an argument this building was built
stood up out of the meeting, where 19 Orthodox Quakers
Philadelphia, and walked out the Abbington Meeting in
and built their own building. They were so mad.
And so, that history of that
project emerges, and what it philosophically speaks to
and what we produce there.
skipping over a lot of material and a lot of history,
to the pattern. And so we create
this elaborate drafting studio. Architectural drafting,
pattern drafting, industrial design drafting.
What it is to get to an object, a thing.
And how does that thing move further than it is.
So again, we're emerging
and we're going to material thculture around Philadelphia,,
Quaker material culture.
looking at now are such things These things that you're
that we've pushed down in Quaker material culture
into these three-dimensional the pattern methodology
So, a Quaker bonnet becomes that in our project.
In a way, I just want to say--
of what's going on. But all of my projects,
I want to say in sort of closing up, because
we're running out of time,
or fold back in or pleat into another project
or another form of life.
this intergalactic pattern And I just want to point out
became an architectural path that was created for "RN"
architectural commission and study for a commission,
We used that very pattern foto create thisn.
piece of architecture.
in a final note, show you how my practice never ends.
It's a part of my life. It completely encircles and
gets regurgitated, reassembled
the real world in some way. And that's very, very,
very important to me
Mildred's lane. End of my lecture.
I welcome questions.
If y'all, I know some of y'all ( applause )
I know I'm competing have to leave.
But if y'all, anybody who wants to stay and have questions,
please move forward so we can just, you know, have a chat.
Yes?
( inaudible ) >> I h>> Can y'all hearout...
what she asked? >> Not a word!
Is there a mic that we can pass around, 'cause
that was frustrating last week, I know, that no one can hear
the questions.
about repeating the question. And I'Good question.so bad
It was awkward for me.
coming out of romantic notions Especially, as a young artist
the Van Gogh theory, of art school, and what I call
crazy, and weird, and eccentric. is that we're all supposed to be
I was asking about, you know, Yeahin the early agesase.
in the fashion... ( inaudible )
And I'm wondering if that felt
contrary to kind of stanti-establishment,med
anti-economic establishment undercurrent.
This is what I thought, was so good, I mean, just to go,
I'm starting from the end of your question, because
there's several questions within a question.
What's been so fun for me in fashion is that I was kind of
an intervention.
in that world. I was always an intervention
until the end. And they never got that
oh, that art girl, damn her. They certainly thought
But, you know, I want to talk to certain pieces of that,
and if I get off track, bring me back to it.
Because, you know,
trying to be artists, it's like, I always say to students
There's this romantic notion and I said the Van Gogh theory.
in this other world. that we exist, you know,
And more and more, that's just In this higher culture of art.
I think now, there's suddenly a huge movement and backlash
in the 21st century.
it really got out of hand. In the late 20th century,
right now, because I know AnI'll go off on a tangent.ip
I just think there's
what being an artist is that ignores the fact
that we have to make a living.
I've talked to many of you And I've heard you, and
been here, is that you think throughout the week that I've
I'm going to go do this, that when I get out of school
But it's never. I have not heard one of you say
when I get out of school
And it's disturbing to me, I'm going to be an artist.
days of being a fashion designer because I learned in those early
I'm going to go start a company, where I said oh, yeah,
is where I was coming from, by and create my own world.es,
But I haven't heard any of you
remotely close to that. And this was back in
the early '80s that I did that. And it's really disturbed me,
because that is the new revolutionary ground.
You know, there are great thinkers who speak to this.
Stingers, Masumi, who talk about capitalism
and industry as a way for us
the greater global discourse. And it's the only way that we,
as creative and inventive political artists, can enter
is to move through a world
and intervene that ein a productive way,ing in
not in a critical way.
by means of, you know, Not in a critical way
and, you know, darida. post-modernism
you know, you're sitting in Notyour studio and you'rere,
telling each other
but in a productively whatcritically engaged wayrk,
where you're thinking as you go.
And I think in my early, You're learning as you go.
whole project, you know, you know, attempts at this
fresh out of graduate school. I was I was thinking,artist
what, how do I do this? I was still learning as I went,
and figuring out
I realized that thit's nothing different.
than what the art world does. I have a gallery in New York.
I see what he does, and I speak to what he does.
That whole system has this
because they don't talk about the economics, you know,
of the culture of art.
gone off on some tangents, And, you know, I may have
stab at the things but I'm trying to sort of
Has there also been, this is sort of a follow-up question.
Has there been an aesthetic?
as to how much aesthetics has to do with politics.
I guess a follow-up question
big debate among our circles. I ha( inaudible )ere's this
Can it be, you know, productive in a certain political sense?
And I guess I'm wondering, too, then have you adopted...
( inaudible ) Did it exist even earlier?
I think absolutely. And you know what that is?
It's not just aesthetic.
Complexity It's complexity.
Aesthetics is to, you know, on it's a loaded word.el.
It's truly complexity.
call out one thing. It's got to be, that's sort of
how I came to work. I think I learned how to work
like this in the fashion system.
that complexity was my friend. And I realized very early on
and Dalou speaks to this And we as a culture
that I keep trying to dredge up into pass around to people,cle
because it's a really important and turning article for me.
Jill Dalou's postscript on control societies where,
you know, it's like we've been so trained
to not accept complexity. We're "no" people.
We say no, no, no.
hone it in, hone it in. We need tCurators.ne it in,
Hone it in, girl. ( laughs )
( inaudible ) >> No, I think it's--
I do it to myself.
you know. I am lWalt Kelly's Pogo.nemy,
May I quote the great socialist comic strip from the '50s
that my dad was a great enthusiast of.
"We has met the enemy,
Yes? and he is us," you know?
( inaudible ) >> I'm not a gallery artist,
and my gallery knows it.
I was invited to work Awith this galleryt,
because he knew that. He was somebody
who had watched my career since the day I came into
New York City in 1988.
ever done, and everything that I, you know, every store
that I did, every project that I had done internationally.
And I said to him, you know,
I don't make things like that. I'm not a gallery artist.
and something emerges. I make events, situations
I don't care. You've got to think of me
as your agent.
beckoning to me. And he was a radical
I was becoming, you know, kind of financially unstable.
I'm a single parent with a kid, you know, with a lot of friends.
And my partner is my best friend
in our venture Mildred's Lane. and my business partner
to step into that arena, and But I figured well, I need
But I'm certainly not letthinking of it as a placego.
where I can, like,
I'm thinking of it as a situation that now I have
an agent and a place
and in and out of, and we're where I can actually move into
for that to work. in a You know, my projectsa way
come in many forms. Like I say, a business,
corporation and sole proprietorship, a thing,
I'll still sell a piece of clothing off my back
just to make a buck.
I got to support myself. I got to make a living,
a very complex system. It's still
I'm not suddenly plopped There's no black and white here.
going to sit in my studio in a gaand make things.'m just
I'm just trying to activate as much as I possibly can
in my life. It's the only way
I can survive as an artist. And I would say,
I would challenge you all to do that, and not get stuck
in one thing, but you apply your creative and intelligent
and inventive self, and invent a place for yourself.
Don't go by, you know, the rules
and the degree that you've been handed to you,
and say, "Oh, I got that ycredentials now." to you
It makes no difference. It makes no difference.
It's just about how you're
at any moment, going to activate a situation
anywhere on the planet. at That's whatime,
being an artist is to me. A good artist.
Yes?
To change the subject a little bit, I'm really curious
about the fact that...
You touched on how history, you're not a nostalgic
sense of history... ( inaudible )
Yeah, you know, I have to say or I have to confess,
I hate that word, "confess,"
My daddy was an atheist. you know.
comes out of a lot I have to say that my huge work
At least, ofI don't talk to my history.es.
But the best thing I can do, and
I can come to a project is starting from me, somewhere.
But the best thing I can do as an artist
is to move it out from me.
But to be integral for me to be a part of the project
and a part of the world,
And whatever tools that I have I have to start with what I got.
of things, of experiences. in my conceptual tool box
tool box of experiences to have more shared experiences.
So, and I have to be
at this point, because it is maybe a little hypocritical
where it starts. a little nostalgic
my experiences as a fashion Butdesigner, which is alsointo
autobiographical. I have to take on
those situations and experiences
during that period of my life. that had happened to me
move out into different vectors. Then I quickly use those to
across a greater terrain, not so it's focused on me,
but it's focused on my shared experiences.
I'm not the only one who's had
I actually am thepart of the human species,ld.
and I know the sadness is-- everybody has it, you know.
So it's just in my particular situation, or event,
or experience is going to be particular to me.
I can immediately, empathically and proprioceptively
engage a situation
with my tool box, aall these other toolsw,
of all these other people.
where it goes, I get that. >> I mean, I understand
get is, I may be wrongly But I guess what I'm trying to
a love of this kind of perceiving as it's sort of
It seems like it's stemming from, and maybe
you're saying universally,
for that kind of... i>> But like I said before,n
I still believe that historical aesthetic is contemporary.
I drive that. >> I'm agreeing with you, but...
It's just my particular,
of getting to it. And that is completely based on
my history as a person. >> Right.
In the deep south.
My father, the way I was raised. Turbulent Civil Rights time.
kind of poetic childhood. Now, I say I spend my entire
life trying to live up to the quality of childhood
that I had, because it was just so rich.
You know, there was nothing-- Everything was alive and drama.
It was that political moment
all of the '60s, in history in the early '60s,
and my family. that so affected my life
exactly. Sorry, if I'm not getting
is that it's a difficult thing >> I think what I'm getting at
in some ways. t( inaudible )iculate,
I guess my problem is I have
I'm certainly attracted ato sort of historical...,
Things, things. >> If it's possible,
make it contemporary. It just happens naturally.
I have a similar attraction to that.
( inaudible ) That's come up as a criticism,
and I personally don't get it.
in the art world It's almost only
Yeah, in our world it is. does t( inaudible )s criticism.
In advertising and fashion, it's perfectly legitimate
to look back to move forward. Somehow in the art world
it's not allowed
Right, right. oThe art world is very rigid..
Yeah. >> It's extremely rigid,
and don't think that it's not.
you know, than maybe being It's even more rigid than,
I mean, what I want to say an automobile mechanic.
Andrea Zitell. to that is like, I brought up
Andrea Zitell and me, because we sort of, you know,
have these parallel venues. You know, I have Mildred's Lane.
She has Deep Desert Sites.
modes of dwelling, design. She's working in clothing,
assembling and reassembling. I'm also doing that, but I'm
write about these things. SAnd it's always confounding,e
because what happens
is that Andrea, and she's my friend, you know,
and I love her work,
We're actually going to be I'm a big fan of hers.
coming up. collaborating on a project
as the future, you know, her But she gets sort of identified
And I get sort of summed up having as the history,thetic.
an end of segmentation
issues in the art world. and stratification of these
speaks to retro design. She is calling upon modernism,
retro design
you know, to history. And we haven't actually gotten
into deep, you know,
I'm sure at some point. diaBut I call upon historywill
with conscious effort to reinvent a future.
It's like to create a perspective on a future
you have to critically look at
reconstruct. the past, and you have to
world, have to reconstruct these We, as present beings in the
and invent the future. histories in order to create
the future looks like, And I am interested in what
It's curious how what was once considered sort of modern
has now become retro... ( inaudible )
It's changing all the time. ( inaudible )
Imagine a post-apocalyptic
But we can play with these things, you know.
It's just stuff we can play with.
( inaudible ) >> Yeah, yeah.
Question? >> It seems like when
you started you were really interested in the vernacular...
I still am. >> And not interested in...
( inaudible ) Rather than focusing on
aesthetic requirements... ( inaudible )
And how we lose the vernacular, and you lose all that history
of everyday...
in that. >> I still am interested
vernacular as a term But I still am interested in
as a common language. Vernacular, not as a term
that immediately is our nostalgic thinking of it,
you know, vernacular architecture,
little dwellings, you know. I mean, that's where
I come out of, I love that. But vernacular as a meaning
of a common dialect,
a common place to converge. And I think I sort of have
theoretically sort of tried to move the vernacular
through another field and into another field.
But I'm still concerned with the same things, I think.
I think that I just don't have
you know, because it's such time ta lot of material. now,
You know, I've tried
I sometimes go to a class like this is, and I just talk
about one project and I touch on these things.
I showed you 350 images,
I apologize for that. But I just, you know,
I'm experimenting in this.
a new lecture, but my technology And I was trying to do
If I speak about one project, I would go deeper into that,
and I think, you know,
But I think I still am there talk to that a little bit more.
Question? wiYeah?at.
You're going to give me hell
I'm sorry! aren't you?
You mentioned about the I'turbulent '60s and I wonder..
I know nostalgia
( inaudible ) But I wonder if you sometimes
feel like you're nostalgic
It obviously stained me. for that turbulent, chaotic...
But no, I'm not nostalgic ( laufor it.
I mean, it stained me.
I just was formed to think a particular way.
That's my little boy
I think that I was, I don't know, you know..
I would call in a psychoanalyst.
I think we're all nostalgic. ( inaudible )
you know, and I say use it. >Not in that sort of self,e,
you know, collapsed sense,
in the studio, and you're painting the Van Gogh theory,
you know, cutting off your ear. Not like that,
but use it productively.
positioning about, you know, It also goes back to my
in the 21st century. the placement of critique
no critique. It's like no,
Let's do something collective, Just disband that.
think through a problem situation, site, dialog.
Not canceling out one thing or the other.
The history of philosophy makes me so mad.
You know, it's just like
the last guy. onAnd it's only beent
in the last decade where
Where they finally woke up thinkers stopped doing that.
We can only add on, make and said no, we can't do this.
move through. There's no one thing
canceling out another.
and identities, and theories, We haand philosophies,ures,
and a whole history of things.
It's overwhelming. What the hell can you do?
if I start thinking about it. IBut it's, you know, it's likew
use what you have and what you know,
and try to move into the world
in the world, abefore, to, with the world.g
And that's what I try to do,
Maybe I don't do it so well all the time, but by God,
I'm going to continue trying. ( applause )
Thank you.