Academy Awards - Most Experimental Media - Sarah Elise Hall (MFA 2009)

by Claire Cushman (MFA 2015)

Ruptured Slab: hydrocal, spray paint transfer,
 dry pigment, calcite geode (2015)

I first met Sarah Elise Hall (MFA 2009) two and a half years ago, in Toronto, where we are both from. I was painting out of a shared studio space, and Sarah happened to stop by to visit the space’s owner. When she mentioned that she had gone to the Academy, I excitedly told her I was applying for the following year.

Soon after, Sarah and I met for coffee. She told me all about her Academy experience, and helped me select images for my application. A few months later, when I was accepted to the school, she was very encouraging. Thankfully we've stayed in touch, and Sarah has been a kind and helpful mentor throughout my entire Academy experience.  

This fall, when I was beginning to delve into abstraction, Sarah recommended I get a little crazy with my materials and media. “Use the most insane tools you can think of,” she told me. “Like, get a broom, put your canvas on the floor, and see what it’s like to paint with a broom. And really mess around with medium – pour a whole can of shellac over your oil paint. There are all these rules about ‘fat over lean,’ but see what happens if you completely disregard them.”

Unsurprisingly, this spring, Sarah was nominated for “Most Experimental Media.” 

Sometimes, when something in a work of art isn’t working, all you really need to do is switch up your tools or medium to fix the problem. For example, brush size can make all the difference. Hall, who went through NYAA for sculpture, pushes materials to their limits. She’s been exploring themes of mortality and decay for about ten years now and is currently working with geodes and dry pigments to further this investigation. Her work was recently on display at Los Ojos in Brooklyn. Below, she answers some questions about her materials.

System 2 (Grey Aggregate with Carbon Stack).
Plywood, enamel floor paint,
dry pigment, acrylic paint skins, hydrocal.

What are you doing with geodes and dry pigment? How do these materials relate to your investigation of mortality and decay?

As my work has evolved, the expression of this idea (mortality and decay) has become progressively more abstract. The geodes and the cast dry pigment fit into a larger category of work called Cavities - ruptures in paintings, walls and sculptures. Cavities are about what's inside or underneath a facade, surface or skin, and make me think of the body, urban decay such as sinkholes and dilapidated infrastructure, and hollowed-out spaces in nature such as caves and other geological formations. In my work, sometimes these ruptures are natural forms such as geodes, and sometimes they are hand made with cast forms that I sink into walls or paintings. Casting dry pigment is another way of creating an area of decay in a given form. Working with dry pigment and hydrocal is also a way for me to investigate new ways of painting.  

System 1 (Ultramarine R7)
plywood, enamel floor paint, dry pigment,
spray paint transfer, hydrocal (2015) 

You majored in sculpture at NYAA, and now are working more with installation- What caused this shift? What information that you learned at the Academy have you held onto/let go of? 

I don't really see it as that much of a departure. I've studied both painting and sculpture, and what I'm doing now is a continued investigation of both, although I now consider the architecture I'm working within as well. My parameters have more to do with my ideas (memento mori) than with a specific form, and so this has allowed me to shift between medical imagery, the body, disease, contaminated landscapes, fossils, and decay within a form in a cohesive way. What I learned at NYAA was invaluable and in many ways is the backbone of my practice. I think the information and skill I acquired at the school will continue to resurface in my work in the future

Studio shot (untitled) - materials: plywood, enamel floor paint, 
dry pigment, acrylic paint skins, hydrocal (2015)

in different ways.

You tend to shift around a lot in terms of media - how does this process of changing gears happen for you? How long will you stay in one medium/process before moving on?

I really like working with different materials as a way of expressing different ideas - materials have inherent meaning, and I like either pairing or juxtaposing materials with my overall concept. Materials are as much part of my visual language as my form sense, so I don't really move on and leave something else behind. It's more like expanding my language where at times I circle back and pick something up again if it serves a purpose. I like to have a lot of things in my tool box, so I usually end up working with multiple media at the same time.

What music do you listen to while you work?

That's all over the place and not always music ... Miles Davis, Dosh, New Order, Nine Inch Nails, NPR, Rachel Maddow… and sometimes nothing. Silence can be a good thing, especially in this city.

Detail of Grey Aggregate (2015)

Check out Hyperallergic's review of Sarah's show at Los Ojos.

Interview with Ken Johnson

by Claire Cushman, MFA 2015

When I met with Ken Johnson, he had just been to see Jeff Koons’ “Jim Beam – J.B. Turner Engine,” and six individual train cars (toy sized, silvery stainless steel, filled with Jim Beam Bourbon), at Craig F Starr gallery.  He placed the catalogue on the table. I asked him how he chooses what to write about.

 “Why am I writing about Jeff Koons? I actually think Jeff Koons has been a great artist... This work was from ‘86, and I’m very interested in the eighties – it was a really explosive time in the art world. I may be interested in a show for its historical significance, or because it’s an artist who’s making waves now– I write for lots of different reasons.”

Johnson has written for the New York Times for 17 years. (You can read his March 5^th review of the Koons show here.)  He is also the author of "Are You Experienced? How Psychedelic Consciousness Transformed Modern Art.” Unlike many art critics, he also comes from a studio art background.

In mid-February, Johnson conducted critiques for Academy second-years. I found his critiques insightful, accessible, and entertaining. As an artist and a writer, I was curious to hear about his background, and his thoughts on art and writing, so I tracked him down to ask.

Below is our conversation:

Can you tell me about your studio background?

Well, I majored in studio art at Brown, but I only took three studio courses and a bunch of art history courses. Really I did more English courses. I wanted to become a novelist first, but I found writing fiction almost impossible. I was much better at writing expository, analytic stuff. I didn’t really know what I was going to do when I graduated, so I applied for an MA in painting at SUNY Albany, and then did that.

Gladys Nilsson of the Chicago Imagists, "Turnabout Walk"

What kind of work were you interested in in grad school?

In grad school, I discovered the Chicago imagists, these artists associated with the Hairy Who. This art was kinda funky pop – more fantasy, surrealism than New York Pop… And I’ve always been interested in outsider art.

Was grad school a positive experience for you?

Yes. What happens in grad school, if you’re lucky, is you start out doing one thing and you end up doing something that you never imagined, or were capable of doing. Chances are, you start out with some fixed ideas that you’re better off without. But you have to fail trying to do them. You have to be broken down, and then at some point you go “oh, that’s what art is!” – at least that’s how I experienced it.

How did you transition from a Masters in painting to criticism?

After grad school, I got a job working in as an assistant art conservator. In that job, I learned all this woodworking and how to do things with materials. I definitely learned more technical stuff from that job than I did from grad school. I had a basement studio, and at night I was making wood sculpture. I was working all day at a conservation lab sanding glue off the back of an old canvas, and then I’d come home and be sanding this thing I was making too, and at a certain point I felt like I had such a strong desire to READ, and I had to just stop. Also, after a few years of that work, my immune system was injured by all the solvents and chemicals. Then some friends started an art criticism-reading group, and I began writing things in response to pieces we were reading, and I really got into it. And then I started writing reviews for the Albany Times Union. And then one thing just led to another.

Did you keep painting when 

Narcissus, by Ken Johnson

you started writing?

Once I started writing I pretty much stopped making art. I was married and had two little kids, so I just couldn’t really think about doing anything else. As a freelancer I just didn’t have regular time to do it.

Do you ever wish you’d seriously pursued art instead of writing?

I could’ve been an artist, but I wasn’t one of those people that was singled out as something special. So I feel pretty good about being a critic. Sometimes the grind of weekly deadlines makes me feel like “let me out of this” – but it’s always something different and I’m always learning, and hopefully evolving in my own consciousness of what writing and writing about art is.  I really like the process of looking and trying to figure out why I’m having a response to a given object. Why am I thrilled, why am I disappointed?

Do you make your own art now?

In the past ten years or so, my life has been more settled, and I’ve found myself with time in the evenings, so I started painting again. I make these small, acrylic, geometric op-art paintings... they’re about perception, really. (show photos?) I work in my lap though, I don’t have a studio –I sit and paint with a Netflix movie on so I don’t get too bored. And a couple years ago I started producing this series of cartoons based on these two characters – ball and cone –I’ve made hundreds of these pen and ink drawings. They’re sort of philosophical, I’m kind of a philosophy junkie.

How do you define successful a work of art?

The intention of any piece of art is to make the viewer feel something. If everything in the work is working together to make me feel a certain way – that’s when it’s really good art. I don’t think I’ve ever really said it like that before – a unified reaction.

What do you think has led to your success as an art critic?

Two things. First, I can write clearly. If you can write in an accessible, grammatically correct, interesting, and even entertaining way, that goes a long way. Secondly, I don’t have any ideological axe to grind. I’m willing to look at different sorts of things and judge them on a case by case basis, rather than advocating for one way of doing or thinking about things.

How much does one need to know about art history or contemporary art to write about art?

I’ve taught criticism before and I always say anybody can write art criticism. The whole thing of it is, how do you take your felt response to what you’re seeing and put that into words? It’s not about what you know, it’s about what you feel. Over time, you accumulate a lot of knowledge, but I didn’t have any training to do this. I don’t think knowing a lot about art history is a primary prerequisite for a critic starting out. But then of course at some point, you gotta know what you’re talking about.

How do you think your background in studio art has shaped you as a critic? Do you ever feel like you have a better understanding of art than other critics because you’ve actually made things?

I don’t know what it would be like to be a critic and not know how things are made. Having made art, you know it with your body. You’ve made it with your hands, you know what it smells like and feels like, you know what the consistency of paint is… I can identify with or empathize with people who are making stuff. Sometimes I’ll see how something is made and think, “why would anybody make something that way?” Not that it’s bad or wrong, it’s just not the way I would do it. And sometimes I’ll see something I like and one of the things I like about it is that it excites my own creative juices, and I think “oh, I wanna make something like that.”

Do you think you’re more of a visual or verbal person? Do you think much about that split?

This is something I’ve puzzled over since I was in college, because I wanted to do both… When I was a freshman, I went to a friend’s final studio presentation. He had these glass slides, with these transparencies, and projected them as a series of images with music, and I remember it just blew my mind. Afterward, I would lie in bed going to sleep visualizing these slides, thinking, “well what would I do if I could do that?” It was just so visually exciting to me. But making art for me is a much more narrow and focused activity. I think ultimately I have more of a discursive mind, so making art will always be secondary for me. For me the process of interpretation is really exciting. I couldn’t give up being a writer.

How much do you think your criticism has an impact on the art world and art market?

Some critics can really affect the market. I'm not sure that I do or how I fit in. I think the people at the Times like what I do because they think I’m a good writer. And if I review a show more people will go see it. But I don’t think I have much influence in the market. I have no interest in effecting the market, and the things I like and am interested in are often not the market meters – I don’t worry about it. It’s a pretty good gig to be able to just write about whatever I want and be free to say what I think about it.

How do you deal with the backlash you sometimes get for your writing?

Well, it makes a lot of noise but it’s only happened 3 times in 17 years. Well, there have probably been lots of things I’ve written that have angered people, but it’s because of Facebook that they blow up and become widely known. People who haven’t read anything by me will read this one thing and they go “AH! He’s sexist and racist.” Not all people are very good readers, and a lot of people are not very good at ambiguity or subtlety – I’ll get quoted out of context, or they’ll quote half a sentence. You know, the narcissist in me is like “this is great, everybody’s talking about me!” and since I don’t think I was wrong, I don’t really mind. Being an art critic is an ongoing performance in the paper every week.

###

Beautiful Beast

by Claire Cushman, MFA 2015

“Artists have a limited amount of studio time, so we have to be selective about which shows to see,” says Peter Drake, Academy Dean and curator of Beautiful Beast.

“I envision going to shows as part of an artist’s studio practice – and seeing shows that don’t inspire you is like losing time in the studio. With any show at the Academy, it’s important that the work presented gets people back to their studios wanting to make art.”

During the February 3^rd opening of Beautiful Beast, it was clear from guests’ reactions that this show had succeeded in inspiring artists. I overheard more than one guest remark, “This is THE BEST show the Academy’s ever put on.”

Beautiful Beast brings together 16 of the most compelling and influential figurative sculptors of our era. With wildly different visions, materials, and processes, the artists in this show slip back and forth between the beautiful and the grotesque. The works, which range in material from carved wood to stainless steel, foam rubber to video installation, ask audiences to question the meaning of these two paradigms and all that lies between.

During the Opening

Last week, I sat down with Peter Drake to discuss three of the pieces that caught my eye and left ME itching to get back to the studio.

Lesley Dill - "Rush" metal, foil, organza and wire (size?)

Although Beautiful Beast is a sculpture show, Lesley Dill’s 2D wall installation, “Rush” was the first piece Drake thought of for the show. “Often sculpture shows can feel monotonous, because there tend to be a lot of works of roughly the same height,” he says.  “This piece, which covers the whole wall, activates the space so that anything happening in the rest of the room becomes part of a spectacle.”

In “Rush” a small metal cutout of a seated figure occupies the left corner of the wall. Hundreds of different cutouts pour forth from his back, overlapping and flowing into one another in a cloud of swirling imagery. Dill grew up in Maine, and says the vastness and grey luminosity of the sea has stayed with her and influenced her work in metal.

Dill sees the small figure as one of us. The work deals with the limitlessness and wonder of the creative impulse, and the need to just get ideas out of one’s system. She based the piece around a Kafka quote:

“The tremendous world I have in my head. But how free to myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times rather be torn to pieces than retain it in me or bury it. That, indeed, is why I’m here, that is quite clear to me…”

“This figure needs to have this purging experience in order to live and survive,” says Drake. “There’s a rush of cultural activity exploding out of him –Indonesian art, European art, American art, Mexican art – all these different icons of creativity.”

The overall effect of this piece is one of overwhelming beauty combined with frustration and confusion at this cloud of ideas. Just as the viewer can’t parse the imagery out into discrete units, as artists, we often don’t know quite what it is we’re trying to make or say, just that we need to get it out.

Folkert de Jong - "The Piper" 2007, polystyrene, plastic, pigments and adhesive, 80x40x40

In the far corner of Wilkinson Hall stands Folkert de Jong’s “The Piper.”  Its placement in the corner is no accident – with playful, candy colours and an enticing variety of materials, The Piper is incredibly seductive from afar. “It acts as a magnet and pulls people into the space,” Drake says.  

De Jong creates an entire world out of cheap materials such as polyurethane and Styrofoam. “Many of his pieces are anti-war themed,” Drake explains. “He does something that few people can do – he makes very powerful social statements, but you don’t feel like you’re being preached to.”  

The pipers de Jong refers to are the musicians employed to encourage soldiers into battle. “The piper is both musical and beautiful, but for a very destructive purpose,” says Drake. “The head of this sculpture is based on Abraham Lincoln – a strange contradiction, considering that Lincoln was a crusader for peace.”

While this piece immediately draws you in, up close, it’s downright frightening. The range of textures is at once gorgeous and repulsive, with wax that depicts flesh peeling away in some areas. The body is the size of a human form, but the swollen looking head is larger than life, and leans forward toward the viewer. If you stand right in front of the sculpture, you feel as though it might to topple over onto you, invoking a harrowing physical experience.

Monica Cook - "Snowsuit" wax, pigment, fur coats, aqua resin, fiberglass -28x30x40

Monica Cook crafted “Snowsuit” specifically for Beautiful Beast.  It began as a smaller figure, but grew to life size as she worked. “She had in mind the idea of shedding the skin, the rebirth and renewal that you must do in order to grow as a person,” says Drake. “But she was adamant about not leaving the skin behind looking like some discarded thing – she wanted to construct it in a confident posture.”

At first this piece, with its furs and zippers, reminded me of a piece of clothing I might see in a winter couture show. However, after spending some time with it I began to feel a bit sick. Cook incorporated flesh coloured pigment into the resin, which reminds the viewer of human skin. The scale of the piece makes it impossible not to think of our own bodies while viewing the piece, and the large chunks of the legs, arms and torso are cut away to reveal what looks like a layer of viscera and organs. I couldn’t help but think of “Silence of the Lambs” suit made of skin.

Monica Cook was originally thought of as a painter, but has undergone massive transformations as an artist. “She started making sculptures for stop action animation, so she had to learn all these new techniques at the same time,” says Drake. “This piece is about her journey as a creative person – she’s constantly learning and trying on new things, becoming expert at them and moving on.”

While the opening certainly succeeded in inspiring Academy students and viewers alike to get back to the studio and make things, it also provided a fantastic opportunity for the artists in the show to meet each other. “Many of them have had work in shows together or followed one another’s work over the years, but have never met in person,” says Drake. “So there was a really nice energy in bringing them together.”

Beautiful Beast is on view daily in Wilkinson Hall until March 8^th, 2015.