Talking Shape

Joshua Saunders [JS]: So, Josh mentioned that we might talk about that Carl Andre piece. I don’t think I want to go with that angle. I was thinking about comparing the scale in which Minimalist sculptures worked with the artists’ egos. I was thinking today about that Richard Serra piece that got dismantled—you heard of it?

Alison Kuo: What’s it called?

JS: “Tilted arc.” It was in front of some federal building¹, but people hated it and they took it away. But he acted like a baby and made it worse. So I was thinking about that a lot, and how Serra, and Judd, and other large scale minimalist sculptors. It’s like the apex of their careers is about locking down huge spaces with their work. And though Serra’s an incredibly talented person, it sounds like from what I’ve read he’s become a more difficult person to work with. He’s just such a bad-ass guy in his own mind, but I have some other things. I was thinking about the movement before minimalism, modernism. And the absorption of the pedestal. Before, the pedestal is what discerned the sculpture, and marks the historical place in time. Then sculpture becomes super homeless. What’s interesting about Judd, is that not only does the environment kind of act as a pedestal because the site is such a specific choice, but it acts like a pedestal that he’s placed his own mega-ego work on. Then he’s so backed by Dia [Foundation], which is financial god of art. So I don’t have any formal questions, but a shitload of notes to try and sound supersmart, juxtaposed with the tie-dye sheet behind me.

AK: [Laughing] Yeah, I get a lot of postcards for people who used to live in my apartment. And this guy got this postcard from the Chinati Foundation², and my immediate reaction is “Ugh…” It’s so aggressively boring and bland. The way that they market themselves or kind of refuse to engage with people in appealing ways; I feel like they think that’s what part of minimalism should be. But it’s just really unfriendly.

JS: Yeah, totally. I feel like Judd is one of the worst in a way; he locked down this land on the opposite side of the country, and then he stretched his legs in a ridiculous way. Then he kind of time-capsuled his own work. He handled his own work with such sensitivity with the hopes that it would pretty much stay intact forever, which I think is a pretty crazy idea. Part of what comes off in Chinati’s depiction of itself is “We’re floating on an incredibly wealthy minimalist cloud that is so much smarter than you. So much more valuable.” In a way.

AK: And the people who work there instantly validate it just by being there. But they’re not engaging as art people. When I asked a woman in the bookstore what was going [on] in town, she was just like “Oh, I dunno.” That one tour guide was nice, but I think she was still processing having just arrived. Like she hadn’t become one of them yet.

JS: But is it so crazy?

AK: Well, yeah it kind of is!

JS: I know, but how do we actually relate with that at this point? I mean, I think that it’s impressive, but like when I’m in a really really rich person’s home and I feel them wanting me to notice it all, it alienates me and makes me feel not rad at all. And not everybody makes me feel that way; I know some people can incorporate those elements of class and financial depiction of their wealth and it’s not abrasive. But the Chinati Foundation really rubs me the wrong way.

AK: Well, I think it’s like what you were saying about this “cloud.” I almost feel like the air is consecrated; “Now you’re inside of this special place. Don’t fuck with this dirt, or this air… don’t bring a puppy…” [Both Laugh]

JS: “No fucking puppies in Chinati! Get It! Once we found a kitten in Chinati and we killed it! ‘Cause it was running around in a desert environment with aluminum boxes so it had to be destroyed! And we had Brooklyn intern girls who are 23 and they took it out and killed it, ’cause that was their job their first day!” We probably can’t publish that, [because] that’s a total lie.

AK: Clearly, that’s a lie.³

JS: So Josh referenced that conversation about the Andre piece, but now that I have had time to process, I still feel pretty much the same, but I have looked at more work involved in that time, and it makes a little more sense to me. It doesn’t necessarily make it better for me, but let me read you a couple of other notes I wrote down. I read an article by Rosalind Krauss, . It was funny, but it wasn’t. It was like reading the Bible. So dense and so much mind fucking in a way that art historical critique sometimes is. There are these really awesome diagrams; the first part of modernism is about the ability to discern what the landscape is and what it is not. What’s not landscape is taken as sculpture. What is not architecture, but is involved in the public is sculpture… that was kind of the gist I got out of it. Instead of it being about what it is—like when you see a marble sculpture, or sculpture with a narrative its trying to project about Marcus Aurelius or whatever—that would be a positive sculpture. Later sculpture is about what it isn’t. It’s not a tree, it’s not a basketball, it’s not a slobbering little puppy that doesn’t belong in Chinati. It’s a sculpture if it’s not all these other things. That’s what annoyed the shit out of me about the Carl Andre piece. It’s clearly not a useful wooden bridge because it’s in a temperature controlled environment, and it’s just logs stacked up on each other. But I just think that type of work needs such a literal description by someone that’s so justified by someone in high art to make it valid in a way, y’know? We could make that.

AK: Another piece, the metal plates on the floor you could walk on…I’ve never connected to that at all. I remember seeing it in the Dallas Museum of Art when I was a teenager, and I remember just being so affected by all the other art, and just thinking, “This is so mysterious… and not interesting.” Having an art historical education hasn’t made that any more understandable to me. Unless I think about… “I guess this is sculpture, because it’s in this expensive empty room…”

JS: Because it’s not anything else…

AK: But I don’t feel that way about Donald Judd’s sculptures.

JS: The boxes?⁴

AK: Yeah, I look at the boxes and they have all sorts of interesting variations and visual ideas. You can’t experience them by touching them, because they would be compromised, but at least they’re interesting.

JS: I agree with that. Those definitely have grown on me. They are really beautiful. There are qualities about them that are just tangibly beautiful. The material is really amazing, and the precision in which they’re machined is really amazing. It reminds me of the sensation I would get from seeing a perfect piece of an airplane… like when you see a part of something that hasn’t been fucked with or used for whatever its going to be used for. Even though they have maybe tiny scratches from the contraction and expansion. There’s a certain beauty in that virginity, and the rawness of the material. Conceptually it’s still a crazy super ego move as an artist. Just to lock down all that space to put different planes of virgin, perfect, impressive material. It still is crazy.

AK: I went to the screening of Marfa Voices with Josh a couple of weeks ago. They were talking about the history of that. And when Judd finally got recognized for his sculpture and got into the Whitney, that was so exciting. But quickly that became depressing for Judd, because he would have to de-install his work and move it. He just didn’t want to do that. It was something he made, and he wanted it to last forever, not have it be compromised. And he wanted unlimited space too, not low ceilings or small rooms. I think the move to Marfa—if it were purely about wanting to make art the way he wanted to make it and maybe have some breathing room, I think that’s actually really cool. I just have an issue with the way it exists now. I don’t know what he determined about the way he wanted it to be after his death. Was he just an egomaniac who said “keep it this way forever?” Or is that the interpretation of art historians and people who came in and said, “This is the way it is now?”

JS: Yeah, I guess I don’t know that either. Maybe it’s not his ego. I heard also in regards to this piece by Daniel Buren… so, you know the Guggenheim is designed. Buren made this piece the function of which is to disrupt your ability to see through the flow of the Guggenheim. I guess Judd and Flavin were super pissed about that because it obstructed how they wanted their work to be seen. Even though their work would be in there longer, they were super butt-hurt about it blocking this idea that they had.

AK: It’s kind of gross to try to control the way someone experiences your art so much. In college, I hated abstract expressionism and minimalist art so much. Even though I really liked the professor and knew I was being bratty, my friend and I made these t-shirts… mine just said, “Fuck postmodernism.” I remember sitting in class looking at Barnett Newman paintings and thinking, “I hate it so much, I hate it so much.” It’s so domineering.

JS: I think that’s why the Judd work and the Andre piece bothered me so much. I really think that it requires a really large amount of very academically based writing to come out about it. I think that’s why Barnett Newman makes me so grumpy. Because he was also a writer, like that’s what he did. He weirdly wrote the justification for his own work. I feel like he should have been a poet, a really challenging wordsmith person. Like the “zip,” leaving a fucking piece of tape on the canvas and painting over it. Then to go on to say that you fucking unified the surface after living with the painting for eight months. What the fuck is that guy even talking about‽ I mean, seriously. I don’t know how that doesn’t just alienate every person that’s even seriously considering the work. That feels like a really exclusive party where people will even pretend to be on the same page just to be down with that shit. And I don’t get that. In a way that’s how I feel about Chinati, even though I can find beauty in some of it.

AK: Yeah, “I’m going on a vacation there. I’m cool enough to go to this place that you’ve never heard of, and would be bored by, but I just really really love being in the desert looking at a box.”

JS: [Laughing] I really really like that, what you just said! “I’m cool enough to go on a vacation that you would be bored by to look at a box.” That’s tight. I was trying to think of interesting funny angles to take this today, to justify my own dislike for this, which I don’t have to do in certain circles. I can just talk shit to most people I know and they just agree because they don’t get it or like it either. But have you seen Richard Serra’s verb list? He lists all these actions to relate to oneself. It doesn’t say “to dominate” and it doesn’t say “to own.” Though I feel like that’s a major thing they do. Like that town: driving through and it’s like, “Oh my god, this foundation owns every fucking part of this town.” Y’know? Other than, say, Josh’s cousin’s house, that Mexican restaurant we ate at, the cemetery, and that bar Lazy Horse, Thirsty Horse…?

AK: Thirsty Wolf…?

JS: Well, I want to relate Serra’s 1-ton House of Cards to that, and how he doesn’t say the verbs I mentioned. It’s close to the Judd stuff, though it’s not quite as perfect, it’s that idea of using some industrial materials like a rebel: “I’ll just use these industrial materials, have that place process it for me, then I’ll just experiment with them.” His material is a dirtier version of a Judd box but with a similar statement.

AK: Yeah, the pieces hold each other up, right? It’s not really attached, so all the pieces need each other or they’ll crash.

JS: Which is so much like that circle of life intro from The Lion King…

AK: Maybe from the Serra piece you would get that feeling looking at it, that it’s a little bit dangerous but kind of sweet too.

JS: Yeah, and that one did fall down also. Which I think is one of the most interesting aspects of Serra. I think it fell down in MoMA. Can you imagine if it killed someone in MoMA?

AK: Yeah, people would use it as a reason to hate art even more…

JS: Richard Scare-a!

AK: [laughing] I think I have some questions for you. I’ll change the topic. My impression when we were there is that you were excited about Marfa, about the town. It sounds like your feelings have changed…

JS: No, I’m still into it. I really like Marfa. I don’t necessarily see myself living there now. It’s just not the direction I’m going in. But I do think it’s ultra-attractive: the idea of being shut off and in the middle of nowhere. I think you could get a shitload of work done.

AK: So you don’t really admire Judd’s motivation for doing what he did, but whatever’s there now is appealing for you?

JS: I mean I can totally understand why Judd wanted to go there. I’m sure he probably drank booze and chilled there at night and did tons and tons of work. The reasons I think are attractive are probably the same.

AK: He was such a big artist that it didn’t matter that he was moving out to the middle of nowhere. People were going to come to him. I just feel like the quandary for someone our age that wants to go out and get work done and live somewhere cheap is that unless you convince all your friends to go there, who’s going to be there to push you or inspire you? Or collaborate with? Or notice?

JS: I think… the internet? [Laughing] I know so many people who isolate themselves anyways. Here [in Austin] and in New York. Some of my friends are actually more isolated in New York than in Austin.

AK: Oh totally. I was thinking about that today. I just cut back at work to have more time to make art, and I was making stuff, and I was thinking, “I need a studio visit, but I don’t know many sculptors here…” And if I think about the artists that inform the work that I’m doing, a lot of them are people I knew in Austin, but I don’t go to a lot of people’s studios here.

JS: It’s ridiculous to say, but I feel like there’s a weird correlation between my idea of living in Marfa and the reasons I want to move to New York after [Austin]. There is something about these divided ideas in my mind: a romanticized art community where people are influencing each other and participating in producing work around each other, but I think that’s derived from stories from generations that I’m not a part of but that I’ve been turned on to. Like the idea of the New York School: a group of people that are pushing each other and making stuff that’s really rad. That’s a really cool idea, but in reality it doesn’t work that way for me.

AK: Maybe it’s not working that way in Austin. People aren’t really pushing each other. They’re just repeating each other?

JS: Yeah. I don’t feel a kindred spirit with many other people’s work. I’m not making shit that, in my mind, is that close to any body around me that I want to sit around with and talk out our deal. You know what I mean?

AK: Yeah, I really like the artists I was able to be around in Austin, but it wasn’t always necessarily because I was attracted to their work. I was attracted to them as people that could talk about art. “We’re both interested in this thing, but what you’re making isn’t at all what I’m interested in…” or something like that.

JS: There are pockets. There are a few people making stuff I really like. But it isn’t that I’m getting my conceptual goosebumps on usually. Where my studio’s at now is probably the closest thing to that that I’ve experienced so far. I work completely by myself usually. This is the first time I’ve had a studio outside my house. And now I work around all those people at [East Austin art studio] Monofonus. So that’s cool. But I also need a certain level of isolation. It’s not really about theoretical ideas; I have to make something that I think is important, and funny, and I don’t need to attach words too too much. It’s more like the work of a standup comedian. I don’t know if it’s my attention span, a generational thing, but I know other people who work way differently. I can’t have a group that “reinforces a movement,” because I don’t know what my movement is. And I’m not trying to stay in one spot either. What was attractive about Marfa was that it was isolated enough to get stuff done and this dusty middle-of-nowhere “stereotype” with some young people imported from time to time. Be around some kids, be around some weirdos…

AK: I think being social and talking to people about work is important, even if most of the time I do need to be isolated in order to work. Do you think your work would benefit from being in Marfa?

JS: I don’t know. I really don’t. But for some reason I was attracted right away. When we were just eating food and drinking a beer and it was so hot… I like that desolate desperate scenario. It speaks to something that I’m interested in and trying to put in my work as some kind of vacancy in life in general.

AK: Yeah, I felt really good in Marfa just hanging out and walking around with you guys.

JS: Yeah! I also felt like the three of us were having such a fantastic time, and we have such a solid connection. So if three people you knew could move down there with you and have separate studios and meet at night to drink beers and drop quarters in a shot glass in a pickle jar full of water… that would be cool.

AK: It’s like the ultimate small town. If Austin feels like a small art town, then Marfa…

JS: Yeah, but it’s funny that it even is an art town. I remember when we were in Ballroom and saw those gangster drawings…⁵ That really resonated with me. I feel like Mike [Bianco, curator of Marfa Ballroom] really knew you know? In that high art way that I’ve felt other places.

AK: Yeah, that’s a traveling show and so much work must have gone into shipping it there to Marfa. It’s crazy. Is there a time you felt Marfa as not minimal or limited in a sense?

JS: Yeah, in Ballroom. And that grocery store.⁶ It feels like you can walk through this force field into the regular world… you cross through a door and you’re in New York then back in the middle of nowhere. Some people really get off on that shit.

AK: Do you think they’re fooling themselves?

JS: I think it’s fun for humans…who have money [laughing]… to essentially create something that would compare to Hollywood sets for their lives.

AK: Marfa is a cinematic place…

JS: Yeah, like you read when you were a teenager, then you made a zillion dollars as a stockbroker. Then you hear about Marfa because you’re an art buff and you want to fly down there and get a piece of it. You could trick yourself into thinking you’re roughing it. But you’re still drinking sparkling water every morning, and you’re shit’s still organic, and the t-shirt you buy for your wife at that one store is still $500, so you still got crazy class.

AK: It’s not even the reality of the place. You know, other places did not feel minimal. Josh’s cousin’s house was the kitschiest place I’ve ever seen or stayed in. Ester’s [Sanchez] back yard… but even more than that: if you look at the Marfa landscape as the blank canvas that Judd decided to work on, what if you decided not to see it as blank? If you looked for the trees and rocks and life?

JS: Yeah, I guess “desolate,” like I said, is really me projecting learned ideas onto that landscape.

AK: One thing I took from the screening of Marfa Voices is that people really look down on any art that was made there locally before Judd. “Oh yeah, all they saw before Judd were paintings of the desert” was a comment. But what if paintings of the desert, and the colors of the sky, were what people wanted to think about? Maybe they don’t want to think about nothingness…

JS: Maybe those people aren’t as alienated from what’s around them. They don’t have a need to turn their life into a movie set. Interpreting what’s around them instead of casting their big-ass shadow onto it… maybe that’s why I’m reacting to Judd as an egomaniac. He claims that he is interacting with the environment, but you could argue that he just put a huge footprint there. You can’t say there’s something right or wrong about that morally or whatever because, what the fuck? But it’s not like there’s only that way to interpret the act of working in the landscape.

AK: When he had his concrete pieces made there: that was interesting. But other stuff still feels like it’s definitely coming from the context of New York City.

JS: Definitely. He brought the “cutting edge” to the middle of nowhere. Then he claimed that the middle of nowhere was the new place for the cutting edge because he said it was. And he had a bazillion dollars to back him up. But that doesn’t make it true!

AK: Is minimalist art necessarily something you can’t necessarily alter or interact with? And what does that have to do with the institutionalization of art? Like if you move one of those aluminum boxes over an inch, you’re not “interacting” with it, you’re “fucking it up” according to the institution.

JS: At some point Richard Serra put an steel 8-foot plane in a corner, and in that corner it couldn’t move one way or the other. But maybe people would want to try and see if there was a way around it. We talked about this in a class recently, and the teacher was like, “people would try and ‘circumambulate’ it.” [Laughing] And I was thinking about Judd the whole time and wondering, immaturely, about people sneaking into the concrete boxes and fucking in them at night. And that’s a form of rebellious “circumambulation”: people problem-solving minimalist outdoor sculptures in a highly exclusive area by doing the most normal physical human act in them. There’s something people like so much about having sex in forbidden places, and I wonder how many rebellious young teens…

AK: …or Chinati interns…

About Alison Kuo

Alison Kuo is an artist and language teacher living in Brooklyn, New York. In the spring of 2011 she accidentally started the blog and thinks it’s creepy when people send her photos of sleeping women on the subway. Her spare time is spent in the city’s dollar stores, the beautiful, glorious dollar stores, searching for holy combinations of plastic, motion, gold, animals and sound. If she weren’t so busy heading a multi-billion dollar fur trading house, she would be providing couple’s therapy to middle-aged dolphins in Brazil.