Interviews

  • Nick Mauss

    May 09, 2018 • Nick Mauss talks about Transmissions at the Whitney Museum of American Art

    For “Transmissions,” his first museum solo exhibition, New York–based artist Nick Mauss juxtaposes his own works with those from public and private collections to reinterpret New York modernism during the first half of the twentieth century. On view through May 14 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the show encompasses dance and visual art. Here, Mauss considers the connections to be found across artistic histories.

    I CONCEIVED OF TRANSMISSIONS as a new work for the museum that is continually in process. I wanted a title that immediately signaled away from received ideas about ballet, to open

    Read more

  • Cody Critcheloe

    May 07, 2018 • Cody Critcheloe discusses his new album, O

    Artist Cody Critcheloe—the figurehead behind the music, video, and performance pop group SSION, which he founded in 1999 while he was in high school—is releasing O, his first album in five years, on May 11, 2018 through DERO Arcade. The thirteen-track record features collaborations with artists such as Ariel Pink, Róisín Murphy, and Contessa Stuto, and draws inspiration from musicians including Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, the Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, Atari Teenage Riot, and Hole. Here, Critcheloe talks about the making of O and the magic involved in crafting the perfect song.

    THERE WASN’T

    Read more

  • BRYAN STEVENSON

    PRINT May 2018 • TALKS ABOUT THE NATIONAL MEMORIAL FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE AND THE LEGACY MUSEUM: FROM ENSLAVEMENT TO MASS INCARCERATION

    AT THE NATIONAL MEMORIAL for Peace and Justice, which overlooks downtown Montgomery, Alabama, more than eight hundred steel monuments hang, bearing the weight of over four thousand lynchings. A few blocks away, the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration chronicles the history and continued presence of racial violence in America. Opened in April, these two cultural sites were created by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) under the leadership of Bryan Stevenson in order to rewrite, and set right, the narratives regarding the African American experience. EJI was founded in 1989 and

    Read more

  • Suzanne Bocanegra

    April 30, 2018 • Suzanne Bocanegra talks about her “Artist Lectures”

    Known for her paintings, costume designs, installations, and solo performances, Suzanne Bocanegra has more recently ventured into the world of theater with her “Artist Lectures,” 2011–16, a series of three meandering, memoiristic essays that are performed by professional actors. On May 5, 2018, all three talks will be presented together at Bard College’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Here, Bocanegra discusses her creative process, which involves gleaning, collaging, and plenty of collaborating. A solo show of her work will open at the Fabric Workshop

    Read more

  • Alice Shaw

    April 27, 2018 • Alice Shaw on her current exhibition at Gallery 16 in San Francisco

    With wry wit and deceptive literalness, Alice Shaw has been making work for over twenty-five years that cleverly focuses on a few core issues: doubles, photography, and the hegemonic history of landscape photography in her native Golden State. Her current exhibition at Gallery 16 in San Francisco, “Cloned,” is on view through May 26, 2018. Here, among other things, she reveals some reasons for her current focus on sheep.

    IMAGERY OF FARM ANIMALS seems somewhat unpopular these days. I was watching some Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton films a while back and noticed how much animals used to play

    Read more

  • 1000 Words: Bryan Stevenson

    April 27, 2018 • Bryan Stevenson talks about the National Memorial for Peace and Justice

    AT THE NATIONAL MEMORIAL for Peace and Justice, which overlooks downtown Montgomery, Alabama, more than eight hundred steel monuments hang, bearing the weight of over four thousand lynchings. A few blocks away, the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration chronicles the history and continued presence of racial violence in America. Opened in April, these two cultural sites were created by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) under the leadership of Bryan Stevenson in order to rewrite, and set right, the narratives regarding the African American experience. EJI was founded in 1989 and

    Read more

  • Katinka Bock

    April 24, 2018 • Katinka Bock on her exhibition for Glasgow International 2018

    Katinka Bock is a German, Paris-based artist whose debut exhibition in Scotland, “Radio Piombino,” is currently on view at the Common Guild in Glasgow through July 8, 2018. The show is presented as part of Glasgow International 2018, which runs until May 7, 2018. Here, she discusses her approach to materials and sites, as well as the effects of natural processes, such as the weather, on her works.

    THE INSIDE AND THE OUTSIDE, the dry and the wet, the hot and the cold, the visible and the invisible: these oppositional modes have dramatic effects in the world. However, I want to bring my work back

    Read more

  • Harmony Hammond

    April 17, 2018 • Harmony Hammond talks about her show at Alexander Gray Associates in New York

    As a cofounder of A.I.R. Gallery in New York and Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics in the 1970s, Harmony Hammond was at the forefront of a feminist revolution in contemporary art. From her early sculptures that incorporate gendered notions of craft, such as her series of “Floorpieces” and hanging textile sculptures, to her book Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History (2000), to her more recent, almost monochromatic paintings, Hammond has expanded the possibilities of what might be considered queer art, often championing the idea that abstraction has the power to signify

    Read more

  • Elaine Reichek

    April 10, 2018 • Elaine Reichek talks about her show at the Secession in Vienna

    Everything old is new again, and vice versa. Elaine Reichek is a New York–born and –bred artist who has long engaged with some of the women of ancient Greek myths in her works, often via hand embroidery and digital sewing. Her latest exhibition, “Now If I Had Been Writing This Story,” which takes its title from a poem by Stevie Smith, features ten works from the past eleven years and is on view at the Secession in Vienna from April 13 to June 3, 2018.

    FOR THIS SHOW, I wanted to spotlight part of a long ongoing body of work. It consists of two series: “Ariadne’s Thread” and “Minoan Girls.” They’re

    Read more

  • Alice Maher

    April 03, 2018 • Alice Maher on her work and the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment

    The Irish artist Alice Maher’s work is, by turns, a powerful call to action and a persuasive invitation for reflection. Her solo exhibition “Vox Materia” at Source Arts Centre in Tipperary, Ireland, which she discusses below, is on view through May 5, 2018. Here, she also talks about her work in the next EVA International, which will run from April 14 through July 8, 2018. Additionally, Maher’s new film, The Sixth Skin (2018), made in collaboration with artist Aideen Barry, will premiere at the Cork Film Festival this fall.

    YOU MIGHT THINK WOMEN come out pretty negatively in myths and history,

    Read more

  • Wang Yin

    March 27, 2018 • Wang Yin talks about his show at Vitamin Creative Space’s Mirrored Gardens

    Wang Yin is a Beijing-based artist whose works carefully trace the aesthetic experience that informed the modernization of painting in China. Here, he discusses his latest exhibition, “Friendship,” at Vitamin Creative Space’s Mirrored Gardens in Guangzhou, China, which features fourteen new works illuminated only by natural light. The show is on view until April 15, 2018.

    I DECIDED TO TITLE THIS SHOW “FRIENDSHIP” because I think we need to establish a more friendly relationship with the past and with the Other. Oil painting has always been an incomplete issue in East Asia. And I am willing to

    Read more

  • Reina Gossett and Sasha Wortzel

    March 20, 2018 • Reina Gossett and Sasha Wortzel talk about their film Happy Birthday, Marsha!

    Reina Gossett and Sasha Wortzel’s short film Happy Birthday, Marsha! (2018) is a moving celebration and evocation of trans activist and artist Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson, set on the eve of the Stonewall riots in 1969. Gossett and Wortzel bring archival intimacies and a deep sense of care to the project of representing Johnson’s life and legacy, resulting in a remarkable fifteen-minute film that ranges in feeling from soaring uplift to deep loss. Created through extensive community collaboration, the film features lush cinematography by Arthur Jafa, an expressive score by Geo Wyeth, and star

    Read more