Join us for a conversation with contributors from X-TRA Fall/Winter to celebrate the issue and Printed Matter Virtual Art Book Fair (PMVABF).
Panelists discuss themes of embodiment, truth, ownership, and care in relationship to their writing in the issue.
Saturday, February 27th, 2021
1pm – 2:30pm PST
Live Zoom w/Q&A
Intro by Asha Bukojemsky
Transcript provided below.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
NIC KAY is from the Bronx. They are a person who makes performances and creates/organizes performative spaces. Their work choreographically highlights and meditates on Black life in relation ship to space, social structures, and architecture through centering embodied practices.
Read NIC’s conversation with curator and writer Jareh Das.
JENNIFER BORNSTEIN is an artist who lives in Los Angeles. She is an Associate Professor in the Art Department at University of California, Irvine.
Read Jennifer’s essay reflecting on eBay photography as genre, and the role her step-mother played in her research.
GEORGIA LASSNER has been contributing to X-TRA since 2018. She is the author of UNPUBLISHED, an ongoing blog featuring deep-dive texts into the work of unsung artists.
Read Georgia’s review of the “The Body, The Object, The Other” at Craft Contemporary.
NEHA CHOKSI is an artist and a member of X-TRA’s editorial board.
TRANSCRIPT
Asha Bukojemsky
All right, everybody, I’m going to get started. Thank you so much for your patience.
If I’m temporarily sidetracked, it’s because people are still joining. And I’m also going to be managing and talking at the same time and with my COVID skills, my multitasking is not what it used to be. So welcome, everyone. For today’s talk. I’m really excited to be hosting these incredible minds today for this conversation welcoming all of you, we have a really great conversation lined up. For those of you unfamiliar, I’m the program coordinator here at X-TRA. And today we’re bringing together artists NIC Kay, Jennifer Bornstein, Georgia Lassner, and our moderator today will be Neha Choksi.
And for those of you who you may or may not be familiar with X-TRA, so I’m just going to do a little housekeeping X-TRA is published by the nonprofit Project X Foundation, and we’ve been publishing vibrant, critical discourse about contemporary art since Believe it or not 1997, the full archive is accessible for free on our site. So any of the articles that you’ll be hearing about today, you can either order the published issue, or you can read them online, and all the new articles and projects for X-TRA Online or online as well. And there’s also the podcast Artists and Rights in the X-TRA store. And you can also make donations for us, whatever you’d like. And we’re also at Printed Matter this year. So do check out our booth. And one thing that we’re doing for the weekend for today and tomorrow is we will be having 20% off all of the issues and the tote bag that’s there. We also have a really great Limited Edition. And we are also previewing an edition from our friends at JOAN in Los Angeles. And so before I hand it over to the panelists and Neha, I just wanted to let you know that you can chat your questions to me directly if you don’t feel like asking them. Otherwise, we will be having a Q&A at the end. So you can turn on your video, you can ask yourself, or as I mentioned, you can just message me directly, and then I can read it out or share it today. So whatever you feel most comfortable doing today. And for the zoom, initially, I’m going to introduce each panelist, I’m going to show a few images of their work. And then I’m going to share a video by NIC it is their work, pushit!! And then I’m going to actually hand it over to NIC for a little exercise that we will have in store. So I’m going to do that awkward moment of screen sharing, which is always super fun.
Just one second.
Here we go. Perfect.
All right. So here we have Jennifer Bornstein. Oh, before I introduce the panelists, I’m going to introduce Neha. So Neha Choksi is our moderator today. She’s an artist and member of X-TRA’s editorial board. Her recently opened exhibition with Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum can be seen online, and part of it can also be seen at Various Small Fires in Los Angeles.
Now, the work that we have in front of us is by Jennifer Bornstein. Jennifer is an Associate Professor in the Art Department at the University of California Irvine. Her column, “Some Thoughts on Contemporary eBay Photography,” considers the role her stepmother played in Jennifer’s designation of eBay photography as a genre.
Next up, Georgia Lassner has been contributing to X-TRA since 2018. She is the author of unpublished an ongoing blog featuring deep dive texts into the work of unsung artists. For exhibition review titled La Vita Nuova delves into the Craft Contemporary’s clay biennial, The Body, the Object, the Other.
NIC Kay, makes performances and organizes performative spaces, their work choreographically highlights and mediates on black life in relationship to space, social structures and architecture through centering embodied practices. You can read their conversation with Jareh Das in the current issue. So I’m going to start a video now.
All right, so that video excerpt that we just saw was from NIC’s performance pushit! [an exercise in getting well soon] that they performed at Pomona College Museum of Art in 2018. And so I am now going to hand it over to the artists. Got NIC coming up. And Neha. All right, so I’m going to hand it over to all of you enjoy the talk for I’m just going to One last housekeeping. If you’ve logged in now, you all should be muted. But just in case you’re not muted, make sure. So we don’t potentially hear your adorable dog barking in the background. But I think we’re all good for now. All right, Neha, and NIC I’ll lead it over to you guys.
[VIDEO documentation of pushit! [an exercise in getting well soon], no sound.]
NIC Kay
Hello. One thing, the performance you just saw, was performed last at Pomona College. That was in 2020. And that performance in the video was in Berlin in 2018.
Asha Bukojemsky
Got it. Thanks.
NIC Kay
No problem. Anyone who’s been to Pomona probably is like, Where? Where’s those stairs? So I just wanted to clear that up. So good afternoon to everyone, wherever you are, I’d like to lead us in a little bit of breath before I ask some questions. Okay, so whether you’re sitting or lying down, let’s try and find your center of balance, you can shake yourself a little bit just to loosen up, you can wiggle from your shoulders, or from your middle section or from your butt just sort of loosen up wherever you are, I’m standing standing on zoom can be a really great experience, if that is something you can do. If laying down is also something you can do laying down. So that gives you the same sort of field of movement potentially.
Okay, so hopefully you’re a little bit shaken out, we’re gonna do some deep breaths in, and then we’re gonna breathe out on three. So breathe in on one, and then out on three. So it’ll be something like and one… three.Yeah, so let’s do a few of those together, let’s say still five of those together. So I’m going to hold my hand up. And we’re going to go one, and out. And on, and out. Last one, and one. Hold it there. And out.
If you can, let’s get some hands, put them on your chest and just make some circles. Breathe into your hands. We are here. Now although zoom is a hard reality in relationship to feeling together and to hear now, it’s acknowledged that we are here we’ve made a choice to be here. And this can be a wonderful, amazing place to be.
Ah, breathe into those hands. All right. If you can, and if you are willing, please close your eyes and just listen to my voice. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do. It’s an offering. Okay.
I want you to think of a space that you love. A favorite space of yours. somewhere that you aren’t currently. What are the shapes? What is its shape? What are the colors? Are their walls? Can you see the sky? What does it feel like? What’s the smell?
As if these are things that you can grasp, try and hold on to them. See if we can create a vivid picture. Whether that is through seeing, or through feeling, or through smell, or taste. Let’s find this place.
Hold on to that. Stay with that.
How does being in this place make you feel? What is the first emotion that rises to the top. What is that feeling?
that sensation if you can’t necessarily think of a word to match that feeling
I want you to then imagine your body engulfing becoming engulfed with that feeling—and your body can do anything. There are no limits to what you can physically do. There are no bounds. How does your body, in this favorite, in this wonderful place, take over, or is taken over by this emotion, this feeling?
Allow yourself to imagine.
Which sort of shapes are you taking? Can you defy gravity? Are you human? What is your humanity? How fast can you go? How slow can you go?
This is your space.
Okay, we’re going to do another breath in on one deep breath in, and out. Thank you.
Neha Choksi
Thank you, NIC. That was wonderful. I went to the ocean. Now I’m back here in my studio.
Thank you all for joining us. I want to start by acknowledging that Jennifer, Georgia and NIC’s contributions to X-TRA were different in nature. NIC’s was a conversation about their movement work as it relates to inherited black experiences and sites meaningful to black experience. Jennifer’s was more a reflection on an art project that grew out of an experience of finding her dying father’s clothes, clothing being offered on eBay, by her stepmother, as it turns out, that she then purchased over time to make work out of, and Georgia’s is a review of an exhibition devoted to clay as a material and art. And it’s a review that’s framed by her own experience of an ectopic pregnancy.
Keeping in mind that the goals of each of these three panelists were separate when they made their contributions to X-TRA, I still think that there is a body responsiveness in their contributions, a relationship to body that can be the starting point for a conversation, we can consider the different registers of the body, whether personal, communal, ideological, or the body is a site. The body as an archive, its absences and presences, its very materiality and more. I wanted to start by talking about how in particular, Jennifer and NIC, you take care of the body through your work, or in the case of Georgia, attend to the body and your writing. I feel that these are concerns that all three of you address in various ways and with different insights. NIC, I kind of wanted to start with you because, to paraphrase in your own words, movement exploration shows the limits of an individual body but the potential of a collective body as well. So how do you take care of the two bodies your own and the collective in your work?
NIC Kay
I said that in the article?
Neha Choksi
You did. Very well put.
NIC Kay
I was like wow, who said that? Um, care can, well in get well soon I was thinking about care as many different things, as actions, as space, as objects. So that’s something I would say plainly, I think about memory and respect as one of those things in relationship to borrowing from cultural practices, and doing so with a sort of self-consciousness and reverence that looks to these things as not inherently yours, but things that you’re borrowing and contributing to, but aren’t about copyright and ownership in relationship to like black movement practices throughout the diaspora, but specifically also as someone who’s based in New York, and is learned and practiced in that space. So I think that’s one thing, in terms of what I have been exploring in get well soon, with my own body, is about agency, and what spaces inherently do to my body, to the black body. So really becoming more aware, not just of like social arrangements or architectures, but physical space, and the ways in which architecture is programmed and how we move through that as a consideration of the architecture and how, as a choreographer to consider those things as an act of care. So how does the theater force you into a particular formation, that potentially for a black person, for a black performer creates harm? Right? And a lack of power or agency. So I would say those are some ways that I’ve been thinking about and when making pushit!! was entering the choreographic process.
Neha Choksi
Right, so you’re in a way taking care of, of your body, but as a representative of your community and as a representative of diasporic experiences? In a way?
NIC Kay
I wouldn’t say, representative. Right.
Neha Choksi
Okay.
NIC Kay
I don’t think one, that’s my responsibility and/or that like, that is something that anyone you know, is doing, I think it’s more so as an acknowledgement of someone who is working alongside, right, and using my experiences and my relationships as a part of my practice. And because I’m doing that I choose to enter into that practice through a self-consciousness knowing that I don’t inherently own, right, like I don’t own any of this. It is through relationship and through, I think, a collective that these things are being created, like I don’t, I didn’t create these movements. It is a tradition and a tradition that goes beyond just the Bronx and New York, but through the diaspora, and I can’t represent the multiplicity that is blackness, but I can say, this is where I’m coming from. And these are the things that are important to me. And they go beyond.
Neha Choksi
Right, yeah, it’s what you’ve absorbed in a way. Asyour body has absorbed, in particular. Georgia, in our previous conversation, you had talked about the title of the show, The Body, the Object, the Other had maybe perhaps angered and challenged you and I guess I kind of wanted to, you know, ask you what you thought about it in terms of taking care of the body, taking care of the object, taking care of maybe your own body as you went through that space?
Georgia Lassner
Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that the—I wouldn’t say the title of the exhibition angered me, but in some ways, it I mean, it definitely challenged me. It’s definitely a title that’s kind of banal, in regular circumstances, but because of my, my particular, what I was going through at that moment, which was like a lot of physical pain, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of anxiety, like, literally while I was touring the exhibition, this title that I would think of normally as—I don’t know how much it’s really intended to stand out and be really provocative. I don’t think it’s that provocative, but it really provoked me because it was one of those moments where I thought all right, what does an exhibition about the body have to tell me about the body? Because right now I’m feeling like I know a lot of things about my body that I don’t even want to know. So that was, that was my, that was my feeling when I came when I came into the show. And I mean, it ends up, I frame my writing about the works in the exhibition, in terms of what is—what I think in the moment is a pregnancy loss, which turns out to be an ectopic pregnancy. And it’s important, I mean, in terms of care for the body, I think it was important for me to share what I was going through at that moment, because art is, art is subjective, and how we feel about art is subjective, and introducing my own subjectivity is, I feel like, a way of caring for myself, but also, basically letting the audience know that like—there is no authoritative way to look at this. This is just the way I’m looking at this in this moment.
Neha Choksi
Well, thanks, Georgia, that helps place your body in that space, just like NIC is trying to do it in a more community-oriented way. Jennifer’s piece was more personal. And in a way it takes, I’m wondering, what body is being taken care of in your work, you know, because you are yourself salvaging, documenting, recording, re-ghosting—I mean, are you tending to your absent father’s body, your own body, the body of the clothing? How does it work for you?
Jennifer Bornstein
Um, thank you. First of all, I want to thank NIC and Georgia for those great answers. And thanks, thanks, also X-TRA for giving all of us the opportunity to publish these texts under the umbrella of your journal, it’s an amazing opportunity for artists to be able to speak and write. And so thank you very much. In terms of this question, I mean, I’m really struck by how different our texts are, and how great it is that X-TRA gives all of us an opportunity to put these disparate texts into a journal. In this case, that the question of the body is an interesting one, I think that the works themselves give an idea of caring for us, like a parental body, a father’s body. I’m literally gathering my father’s discarded clothes and making artwork out of them. I think that actually, the use of parental bodies is actually an archetype, or is using a parental body as a stand in for other people’s emotions and responses and reactions, because, frankly, everyone’s got a father, you might not know who that is, he might have disappeared, he might have gone away from the minute you were born, or whatever, or might have stuck around, or maybe some people have more than one father. I mean, everybody, everyone’s got a dad in some way, whether you know them or not. And often there are associated unresolved issues with that with that person. Sometimes the father figures is an absence rather than a presence. But I think that this text that I was writing brings up the idea of, of a parental body as a sort of litmus test in which the viewer can insert his or her own associations. I would just tell a brief story. When I first started making these works—the first—I started making them very slowly, these rubbings, and I had an opportunity to put one in an exhibition at the Hammer Museum. And I heard from someone who was a guide there, they would bring in groups of elementary school students to look at the works. And the five and six year olds just loved these rubbings of my father’s clothes, like they really responded very positively to them. And I heard that these tours with elementary school students, like they, the students, these kids had so much to say about their own parents and their own fathers when they were looking at these rubbings. And I knew I was onto something, I knew I was going to have to continue with these works. Because if I was getting their attention, I felt like this was a path to take.
Neha Choksi
That’s a charming story. And the frottage, the rubbing works are—it’s an extensive archive in a way. And in a way, it’s the body’s haunting, not just one piece of work, but like all of these clothing, all of these pieces of clothing, and it persists. But it’s persisting not just at a single remove, which is the piece of clothing, but through the indexical art like rubbing it, like you further removed it, sort of like a proto photo. I know you work in photo a lot. And, and sort of, I’m interested in and if you have anything to say about that sort of rather clinical way of removing yourself, even in your text, it’s very, very restrained and disciplined. So I’m kind of wondering what you might have to say about that.
Jennifer Bornstein
Um, that’s a good question. I mean, in terms of the rubbing or frottage, I mean, my father was, had died. And rubbing is a traditional way of capturing gravestones, actually, people make rubbings of gravestones and have done that for many, many years. So that’s why I was interested in using that process for making images of his clothes. I’m sorry, what was the second part of your question?
Neha Choksi
Well, I guess I was wondering about, it’s like, you’re, you’re kind of you do a lot of photography, and you work with film, and you work with collecting items and making archives and I was wondering how this, this sense of further remove, like, accentuated the absence of perhaps the parental figure?
Jennifer Bornstein
Um,
Neha Choksi
Or does it bring it closer to you, for you personally?
Jennifer Bornstein
No, I mean, I’m thinking of how to answer that question in a few sentences, because a, sort of a subtext of this work is I’m interested in the notion of autobiography. And I’m interested in the notion of when maybe an autobiography is fictionalized, or is constructed, rather than is truth. And so I was playing with that. And the text, I mean, it’s assumed to be true, right? It is actually true. But everybody—I think everyone here seems to assume that it’s true, which it is, but I could be lying. You know, this could be a constructed autobiography. And I’m sort of interested in that notion and sort of thinking about it, I guess. Yeah.
Neha Choksi
Right. I mean, I haven’t had the pleasure of actually seeing that archive of rubbings in space. But I imagine you would start having to piece together this person through that, in a way.
Jennifer Bornstein
It is a lie, actually. I couldn’t—my stepmother stop selling the clothes pretty early on, she caught on to me. And so I was able to buy maybe 10 things. But then she, she stopped. So I actually just blatantly lied and started to rub all sorts of things. Those are not my father’s things. A lot of those things are not my father’s things. But I think that actually in art, I mean, I think in life, one thing I say to my students when I’m teaching, oftentimes I say it’s not okay, it’s not usually okay to lie in life, but in art you can lie. I think it’s an okay space to lie. And maybe we can all sort of have fun with that sometimes.
Georgia Lassner
Yeah, I mean, when you say that, it’s interesting, because you’re saying, well, actually, you did lie. I mean, I’m not sure what you’re doing is lying. But it’s proposing that there is more than one version of the truth. And that’s an important aspect of art. I mean, when I, when I look back on things I’ve written, I mean, I don’t want to say they were lies, but certainly they were versions of the truth that I believed at one time that, I like, probably don’t subscribe to any more, or that I see differently. So I mean, I relate to that, to what you’re saying a lot.
Neha Choksi
And NIC, this aspect of biography, autobiography, truth telling—in a way your body is absorbing the lessons of many absent bodies that have historically come, the laboring bodies, the dancing bodies, all of these movements. I’m wondering if there’s a sense in what you think of this as biography or an autobiography at all? Or is there truth telling in your work? Or are you fictionalizing certain things? That’s a strange question.
NIC Kay
No, no, I think it’s a question. Um, well, in terms of get well soon, I wouldn’t necessarily enter that project in terms of biography, but in the interview, we talk about an evening-length theater piece that I created, called lil BLK. And in that performance, I am sort of creating a narrative that is based on experiences that I’ve had, but the ways in which, as you get older, particularly if you have grown up and you’re still friends with people who may have similar experiences, they sort of become intertwined, right? So did that happen to me, did it happen to girlfriend, did it happen to, you know, my best friend, did it happen to my mother? Maybe it happened to all of us. So in creating that show, I’m sort of leaning into that possibility. And I don’t know, I think often in terms of what is truth in relationship to one’s own narrative, and in the telling, retelling your story, I think often I’m, I’m thinking like, how does this factor into where I was and what I needed to believe and what I need to believe about that situation now. And I think it creates an extra texture within the narrative. In terms of other people’s stories, I try and approach them with a little bit more straightforwardness than I would with my own my own narrative.
Neha Choksi
Yes, somewhere you did say in the interview, that “I am an amalgamation of all the places I have been and the lessons I’ve learned,” which kind of harkens to all this absent, these bodies of knowledge that are now present with you.
NIC Kay
Yeah, and I don’t think they’re all absent. And I think there are a lot of the things that I talked about that—
Neha Choksi
They are alive
NIC Kay
That are alive, but I think in terms of relationship or shapes or choreography, you know, like, currently, I’m not necessarily in physical relationship to the people in many of the spaces that inspire what I do. So I would say, you know, yeah, maybe that is an absence. But you know, a lot of in dance studies, in black dance studies a lot, there’s a lot of conversations about embodied memories and dancing alongside. Right, sothis idea that time isn’t linear, and that it’s sort of a continuum. And I’m of that inclination. I like to think in that way.
Neha Choksi
Yeah, thinking about the sort of dance history, thinking about it as a dancing alongside and time as a continuum, I’m thinking about Georgia. Like the history of clay, and it has its own disciplinary boundaries and own disciplinary thinking. And you had certain thoughts about that in your essay. And you also pose two questions in the very beginning, which were, “Fleshy as we are, what can clay memory tell us about our memory? And what can clay bodies tell us about our bodies? So, any thoughts? You don’t—
Georgia Lassner
Yeah, I was I was having a little bit of language fun there. Um, oh, a lot of my writing about art is coming to ideas through, through using language, through like, you know, rhyming ideas, and words together. I think that that’s probably an example of that. But what NIC was saying, about time not being linear, in the dance practices that you’ve studied, like this idea of dancing alongside if I’m, if I’m understanding that, I think I think that with, with using clay as a material, I think in the show, and in general—I’m trying to think of how to say this, we want or I want, I want artworks. Well, a lot of us want this. But okay, there’s a linear trajectory to art history that most of us have learned. So, this idea that it could be nonlinear, or the idea that clay as a material could not be something that moves, you know, from, from, from a space of, you know, like the primitive, so to speak for, for using like outmoded ways of thinking about clay practices, but basically, the clay is, is a low art as opposed to a high art. So I think part of the part of the difficulty in writing about clay as a material and writing about contemporary ceramics is that it has a history of being something that is lesser than or, certainly apart from. So I like this idea of thinking of time, especially with clay and ceramics as being nonlinear. I know what I’m saying is super confusing, but that we can think of it you know, as a bifurcation with contemporary practice like, that, that it’s two trajectories that are actually I mean, I don’t think they’re separate from each other, but they’re at least like traveling alongside each other, you know, but they’re not totally separated.
Neha Choksi
Would you think, in a way, that clay helps interrupt the linear art history that we’ve been taught?
Georgia Lassner
I think it’s really hard to I think it’s really hard to know, because I mean, early American clay practices—and not just American, but I would say like Western clay practices—were really shunned by modernism. And then more in the 1950s, they become like highly modernist, they become about truth to materials, about authenticity, about abstraction. And so I think there’s a little bit of misremembering about the place that clay as a material has held within, like a more traditional linear art history. And so I think it’s complicated. I think it has occupied both a really rigid, traditional kind of modernist space. And then there’s plenty of examples of people who, during that same time period, or maybe, maybe a little earlier than mid -entury, had really rebelled against that. So yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s doing two things at the same time, I think.
Neha Choksi
Right. I mean, this also, is kind of parallel to NIC talking about dance as an embodied practice. And often, I know Georgia, you think of clay as an embodied material. And you actually said something about how it’s not an idea. It’s not like some modernist trope, but it’s an embodied material. To that end—
Georgia Lassner
Oh no, I said, sorry to interrupt, I said the opposite of that.
Neha Choksi
Okay. So, please, correct,
Georgia Lassner
Sorry, sorry. So, um, that I don’t think of anything as embodied material. I think of embodiment as an idea that we ascribe to whatever material that we’re using, that we can argue for or against within the materials that we’re using.
Neha Choksi
So then thinking through that, would you maybe talk about Preparing, the piece that actually is a sort of keystone that keeps appearing in your piece as a way to think through sculpture. But it’s not a sculpture, it’s actually a residue.
Georgia Lassner
I think I kind of I messed with my head because I just returned to some really weird essays written in the 90s about ceramics and, and how they have such weird ideas about art, such weird authoritative ideas about art, that like I can’t comprehend. So I’ve been I’ve been thinking a lot about that right now. But this artwork—I think the artist might be here, Nicole Seisler, if you’re here, thank you for making this artwork. But she, she did a piece where she had her, she basically wedged clay—wedging clay is when like, you take a piece of clay and you basically knead it like a piece of dough to get the air out of it so that it can be prepared to be used to make a whatever, which is why the piece is called Preparing. In this artwork, you see actually the residue of Nicole and her students, students made the work with her, kind of wedging and flexing the clay across the wall. So you don’t see the objects, you just see the residue of it. What really struck me when I came in and saw this work, which is—it’s on the back wall of the gallery, so there’s a lot of artworks in front of it, it creates this really interesting sight line. But when you when you come in and see it, you don’t know what you’re looking at. It looks like smears on the wall. You don’t know and because it’s earthenware clay, it has this rusty like red look to it and like with my state of mind, which again was like, oh, I’ve been, I’ve been bleeding. I have anxiety, you know, all these things. To me it looked like bloodstains. And so that was, because of that sight line like, that’s the way that I ended up kind of interpreting that work. That’s the lens through which I saw that work. Yeah, so I mean, I’ve drifted far from whatever the question was, but that’s how I ended up seeing that work in that way. And I guess when you were asking me about it being a touchstone, like it’s a touchstone throughout the piece, because it kind of represents the way in which my subjectivity was really influencing the way that I saw the work. I mean, I did come to understand that like it wasn’t bloodstains, but that feeling that that’s what it could have been never really, it never left me, and it never really—it kind of haunted me throughout the exhibition that followed me so to speak.
Neha Choksi
Yeah, and one part of the essay, you, you kind of make a plea because you see the pencil lines that are gritting the smears on the wall, and you’re like, I don’t want the artwork to be about grids and discipline, and you actually seem to be talking about artwork in general, you’re like, I want it to be about rage. Do you have something to add nearly a year after you wrote that? And is there a way you’re thinking about this, perhaps, and I’m edging into like, I mean, I thought of it slightly as a feminist response.
Georgia Lassner
Yeah, I’ve thought a lot about this question. How do I feel about requesting an artwork kind of to perform something that I want it to perform, rather than, you know, performing its own terms, but I think what I wanted, I mean, the grid to me, at that moment, it seems so rigid, it seemed so antithetical to like the blood smears and, and the kind of emotion that I had felt, that I had thought had gone into making the work, that I wanted it to be about rage, because rage is a powerful emotion, whereas the emotions that I was feeling really disempowering. So I think I’m it’s hard for me to totally go back to my mental space there. But yeah, I think I wanted to feel powerful, and I wanted this work to go there with me.
Neha Choksi
I’m going to open it up to NIC and Jennifer, I mean, I have certain things to say, but I kind of first wanted to hear if you think there’s any species of rage, or perhaps grids and discipline, or some balance between the two, behind your projects. I mean, I discerned some sort of dissatisfaction. But, um yeah, NIC, perhaps? Like, does rage play any role? Do grids and discipline play any role? And then how do they come together, perhaps?
NIC Kay
Um, I don’t think there’s a direct through line. So let me say that, in relationship to what Georgia’s saying and my interests. But if we were to talk about in a larger framework, that’s how people are creating architecture and blocking out space is with grids, discipline, with measurements in mind. So that’s inherently material, the stage is blocked out in that way, and there are inherent rules to how one occupies that space. So we’re constantly dealing in terms of like bodies, grids, discipline, and resistance, and thrashing against the ways in which we are expected to have particular types of abilities, whether they’re physical, emotional, mental, in navigating those spaces. And that’s really intriguing, and a part of how I’m approaching choreography. Rage. I don’t think I explicitly talk about or have any projects that are—I mean, I guess there’s one exercise in getting well soon, called untitled—untitled, I’m already—”untitled, call the cops, I’m already dead inside,” which was a sound piece, at a studio residency that I had, which I think is, yeah, definitely a lot about rage. But other than that, there’s nothing explicit. But yeah, I think there are connections that can be made.
Neha Choksi
Right, I mean, I guess the discipline of the architecture that that your site responsive work then responds to, is a way to, as you said, talk about—well, you didn’t really say it that way. But is it a way to perhaps counteract or liberate yourself from the historical pressures on bodies that have to navigate through these spaces, whether it’s a black body or any generic human body or non-human body?
NIC Kay
Um, I would say, liberate how? Like, these are some of the questions that I’m dealing with in get well soon. I don’t think that performance should have that responsibility and that is possible through a one hour, you know, intervention for that to be. I think, in relationship to a type of imaginative space, that is definitely an exercise that I like to do. But in actuality, I think more so what I’m trying to bring to the forefront for myself or for other people is, this is what we’re grappling with, right? Like we are moving in this way because these are the things that are in our way and ushering us. How do we through that recognition, look at our bodies and look at what we how we’re interacting with each other and figure out ways to be potentially more fluid, right. So I think that’s a different type of maybe liberatory action, and then using my body as a way to disrupt and show, right, so I think those are like sort of abstract things, but that sort of how I’m entering the making of really anything at this point in my practice.
Neha Choksi
Jennifer, your work is very, like it’s presented as a dry analytic assessment of very emotionally freighted objects. Yet there is a tone in one of your sentences, you talk about, “the parade of clothing continued in a steady and ghastly stream.” And the setup is almost like a parable. You know, there’s like a dying father, an incomprehensible stepmother’s actions, magic clothes, magical interface like eBay, and a loving daughter, perhaps. You do offer, I mean, I’m going to give it sort of sidebar, you do offer a slant justification for your stepmothers actions and apparel that you make with the woman who sold all her clothes to Christian Boltanski. And that she wanted to make a fresh start. So that’s kind of an inkling that you, you might have some sympathy. But um, yeah, I’m kind of wondering how does this sort of grids, discipline, and then wanting this expressive outburst that Georgia is talking about work itself out in your work?
Jennifer Bornstein
Um, well, actually, I don’t have any sympathy for my stepmother, but thank you for seeing kindness there, within the essay. The question of rage is an interesting one. I think that rage is a very proactive and very useful response, especially in certain political and historical circumstances. I think in my own life or personal life, I actively tried to find other outlets, and reactions besides rage, which for me are more productive. So in the case of this text, I would say that I hope that it’s not rageful, I hope that it’s more productive. And I hope that there’s an element of humor in there too. One thing to mention is that is in the final, final show of these rubbings, they were accompanied by a video and some objects. In the video, were some mice running around doing some things. So there was this, there were some other elements as well, going along with the story. I think that in the, in this text, I was hoping to illuminate just this sort of bizarre set of circumstances in which I found myself caught up, caught up, and was somewhat bewildered by and the steps that I took to honestly sort of extricate myself from that, in a way, and also to create something productive from it, which was the artwork in the end.
Neha Choksi
There’s something, sort of very, like the good daughter or the good sister, like these tropes that we have of Sophocles’s Antigone, or Cordelia in Shakespeare’s King Lear, that kind of comes up, you know, through this work. And it’s, it’s, it’s really a very disciplined way of addressing what was an emotional experience. I was really touched by the piece. This kind of—I’m kind of circling back to truth to materials and the sort of modernism/materiality conversation, but I kind of misunderstood, partly because I think Georgia emailed me earlier this morning, saying I had misunderstood so I actually rewrote what I’d written, opposite of what I’d written, so I think there was some misunderstanding…
Georgia Lassner
Sorry.
Neha Choksi
Okay.
Georgia Lassner
I want desperately to be understood.
Neha Choksi
Yeah, I’m absolutely glad that you were able to make your point clear, but although Georgia’s text sees Preparing—the piece with the sort of wedges on the wall—as a key work to keep circling back to, it obviously operates in a register of materiality. However, Georgia and somewhere else and towards the end of her essay, talking about students at the place, the educational institution which she works at, CalArts. You posit something that may or may not be true for both NICand Jennifer on this panel and I kind of wanted to think through what we think about truth to material versus truth to our identity. And Georgia says, “I don’t think today’s soon-to-be artists would concede truth to materials. Contemporary artistic production trends towards truth to oneself and one’s own identity, however loosely either is constructed.” So I thought maybe, what do you think Jennifer and NIC and maybe Georgia can have the last word after you to reflect.
NIC Kay
I don’t know. For me, the first thing I think about is that it sounds a little essentialist to me, as if there is like, in relationship to I don’t, I don’t know, it just sounds like, I want to know more, I would like to ask some follow up questions.
Neha Choksi
Here’s the forum.
NIC Kay
Um, can you repeat the question again?
Neha Choksi
It’s not even a question. It’s, it’s Georgia has a sentence or a couple of sentences in her essay, where she says that today’s artists essentially would not concede truth to materials, like, maybe they’re not as invested in that. Contemporary artistic production tends to be more interested in truth to oneself and one’s identity, however you construct it.
NIC Kay
No, I think, you know, um, depends what form you’re interested in, and what the requirements of that form are in relationship to how much you can put yourself into it. I think, in terms of what I’m doing, I’m also often grappling directly with the material, which is often ignored, right? Like, it is a given that performance will happen within a particular container. When you’re looking through a dance or theater space, it’s not something that you often can question, right? Like, how many of us have seen performance in a gallery? It’s just, it is just sort of, I wouldn’t say a trap. It’s a net. So I think I’m working through the material of the form as a way to highlight it in more of a conceptual way. But I don’t know. I’m not exactly—I don’t have a clear answer to that. But I definitely hear that and see how it can apply to a lot of the practices of people who are my contemporaries.
Neha Choksi
Your practice is, particularly, like it finds itself in the middle of this bind, that Georgia brings up because your truth to materials is kind of also your body and this history that you’re grappling with. And then you’re, also it’s also collapsed into however you construct your identity. You know? So there’s, there’s that dichotomy doesn’t quite necessarily hold true when you then suddenly start talking about live performance work in some way. The dichotomy that Georgia set up. Georgia, any thoughts? I saw you nodding.
Georgia Lassner
I mean, I think that’s a good point. What NIC said about truth to materials being an essentialist idea. I mean, to me, it totally is. And, but I wonder, okay, so what I’ve set up there that you both pointed out, it’s interesting, because I guess I’ve been a little old fashioned myself thinking, well, it’s one way or the other. I like this point that once the I mean, truth, truth to materials is a modernist concept. So once we once we start talking about our bodies as materials in a contemporary context, then we don’t need to ask, we don’t need to think about whether or not people care about truth to materials, or they care about truth to oneself, because what we’re talking about now is more hybridity, a more contemporary approach that doesn’t have to be split in that way. So I mean, I think that’s a really, what you guys brought up is really interesting. And, yeah, maybe I could do a rewrite. Can I do that?
Neha Choksi
You’re always welcome to write for X-TRA. Well, perhaps Jennifer doesn’t have something to say, do you?
Jennifer Bornstein
Um,I would add that materials are a way to get to where I want to go. And that’s how I use them and also that I really appreciate NIC and Georgia’s answers and I think they said it perfectly.
Neha Choksi
Well, before I wrap up, I think kind of wanted to ask two questions, which is, who is your work for, in a way? I guess I’m asking that because maybe despite our pandemic moment, or maybe, perhaps, because of it, we are aware of our interconnectedness and interdependency. And I see your work is tapping into it in different ways. And then the next sort of thing is, what’s next for each of you? What are you most excited about, that you’re working on or thinking about? So who is this work for? And what’s next? Maybe NIC, since you’re already talking?
NIC Kay
Okay, I’ll accept that. Um, who’s my work for I mean, I often talk about my work being for black audiences, black people, the very people that I’m like in conversation with and as I talked about feel responsible to in relationship to what I’m borrowing, but that’s not always necessarily due to space and time and form, who I directly have access to. So often, I’m thinking about ways in which to make work, in order to get to the people that I want to be in conversation with my practice.
What am I working on now, um, survival, I think is the center of where I’m at. I don’t think that the ways in which I have worked and in relationship to the forms and the spaces can continue, I think, you know, you could approach it with sort of like a fatalistic type of thing. But I think performance is changing, our audience is changing, what people need from performance is changing. And I think that’s great. So I don’t necessarily, as someone who’s very conscious of all of those mechanisms, the scaffolding of making the thing happen, I’m very reluctant to say I am working on or I should work on anything, I think more than anything I want to be—I want to be living an okay life, I want the people that I love to also be living, you know, the fullest life that they can, and then seeing what we can do around that, um, which is very difficult, and it feels like a full time project. And anything art related that can intersect with that, I think is good. But I think there’s a lot of oppressive formations that have already existed that now are heightened and just have to change. Like, there’s just no way to continue to do the type of work that I was doing under the same conditions. And I think it’s hard. Because, you know, the, you know, it’s like you’re shaking the gates, but the castle and the tower is still there. And people are really trying to hold on to things that aren’t working. So I think priorities: take care of the self, and then figure out how to move forward in a way that feels bearable, sustainable, maybe connected.
Neha Choksi
Thank you. That was very, yeah, it spoke to us. We’re all trying to survive and find our way through this moment. And it’s gonna affect us. Georgia, Jennifer?
Georgia Lassner
So I was thinking about this question. And I wrote down in my on my little paper, my work is for HARD. Could not like think through this question. I don’t know why, it like blew my mind so much. I think, I mean, what one thing, I think that I write because I like writing and I want to, and I write about art, because art, you can write about any subject you want. But art is a subject that asks for reflection, it asks the viewer to challenge and be challenged by it. So in that sense, like I can be really engaged to write about it, because I feel like that’s what it’s there for. But I also think, I mean, maybe I talked about this earlier, but I mean, maybe my audience is—or I’m writing for people who expect that there is a right or wrong answer when it comes to art and I’d like to write something that dissuades them from thinking that, if there’s a greater theme to, you know, what I what I want to do with my writing or who I want to reach, I mean, I just want, I just want to look at things deeply to learn from them outside of like, authoritative, oppressive art structures. So I guess that’s my, it’s not my interest in the moment, but it is one of one thing I hope to achieve, like with the kind of writing that I’m doing. And then I don’t know what’s next. I mean, I’m always on the verge of quitting writing about art. So right now, I’m still writing, I’m still writing about art, but I’m not really writing art criticism, I’m working on some longer form pieces that they use art, and in particular artists as a subject of reflection, but are not topical about shows that are happening now. Because I feel like that’s tougher for me to get into. But yeah, that’s me. Thank you.
Jennifer Bornstein
Um thanks. Again, it’s hard to follow NIC and Georgia, because I think things are said so clearly. To respond to the question of who’s the work for, I can’t, I don’t know. It shifts? Not really sure. And I’m not sure if I would speak about it, actually, if I could answer the question. In terms of what’s next? I don’t know. But I’m thinking about the world a lot. Frankly, there’s a lot to think about right now. And so, yeah, that’s my answer.
Neha Choksi
That brings us right back to the NIC’s first answer, which is survival. Yeah. I wanted to see if there any questions, Asha can open it up.
Asha Bukojemsky
Yeah, so if anybody as I mentioned, at the beginning of the conversation, if anyone has something that they’d like to say, or a question that they’d like to ask, but they don’t want to actually ask it in person, feel free to choose me in the chats, we actually had a comment when Georgia was answering her question. We had one participant say that maybe your writing is for people who are absolutely tired of reading conservative writings on art. So I found Georgia. So I think it’s, we’re doing something right. So yeah, I mean, if you feel like asking a question right now, I would say turn on your microphone, go ahead and ask. If you’d like to message me directly, I can ask it for you, happy to do either. I’ll just open it up.
Neha Choksi
And until then I really wanted to thank all three of you, NIC, Jennifer and Georgia. And Asha and Shana at the X-TRA office for helping put this together. It was really wonderful to get to know all of you and all your work. And yeah.
Asha Bukojemsky
Thank you Neha for that, and also, thank you again, for the participants. I think this has been a really great conversation too, because these questions aren’t easy ones. And I think they’re ones that we’re all grappling with right now. Especially as we’re thinking about notions of interconnectedness, and physicality and lack of physicality, and health and well being at this particular time, just as Jennifer mentioned, you know. You can’t think of making art right now as your body is in the process of still recovering from something that a lot of us have been so deeply affected by. And I think these have been really challenging questions to ask, and answer.
Leslie Dick
I just wanted to say something.
Asha Bukojemsky
Yeah, go ahead.
Leslie Dick
Um, which is simply the what, what seems to me so powerful about all three positions, as articulated in this, is the vulnerability in the work and in your capacity to show up for the work and how you talk about it. And I’m interested in how that position of vulnerability can be so to speak translated, or turned inside out into a position of strength because it’s inner vulnerability, which is an embodied thing and a psychic thing, also that we find connection with others, I would argue. So I don’t, it’s more of a comment than a question, as they say. But I’m really touched by all the different positions that have been described here. And it brings me into my own sense of my own mortality and my family relations, and so on and so forth. I think it’s really, really powerful work. So just to say thank you. Thanks.
Georgia Lassner
Thank you, Leslie.
Jennifer Bornstein
Thank you.
Asha Bukojemsky
Um I’m going to hand over the question to Ashwini.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, hi. super happy to be here. That was just beautiful. I am room hopping today. I was in Nicole Seisler’s early project session for an hour and a half, which was so beautiful. I ended that session feeling like oh my god, there are so many clay geeks out there. This is such a beautiful world. And then I entered this space and NIC’s breathing exercise. Yeah, just super happy to be here and grateful to be here. I’m not an internet stalker. But I found NIC—I work with clay, I come from a background of dance, I found Nicole Seisler’s work, which led me to the body objects other show, which led me to Georgia’s essay. And to Neha X-TRA, that’s how I’m here. One thing I’m observing in all three of your works is there is a sense of, um, if not entire, but there is a sense of catharsis. I’m curious if you’re seeking that catharsis when you begin or whether you are able to find that catharsis during the process. Sorry.
Jennifer Bornstein
I’ll just answer very quickly, I’m curious what the others would say I would, I would use the word exorcism.
NIC Kay
Um, I would say yeah, I think release. I think the, how performance is bearable with all of the ways in which it can be very challenging and unrewarding is by figuring out ways in which to find a release, to be able to go beyond the limits of my body. And I know that in many ways that has to do with physical ability for me to be able to, in terms of duration or exertion, find shapes that open me up. So yeah, catharsis is definitely a wonderful thing, when it when it can be achieved but often I feel like the formations have to be right.
Georgia Lassner
Yeah, I mean, I think I’ve said this many different ways. But what I’m writing about are, I’m finding ways of writing about myself. And that makes it sound selfish. And I think to it to an extent it is, but um, I mean, I absolutely felt like writing this piece was an opportunity to write about things that were traumatizing me, and to incorporate them into a discourse through which they could possibly have meaning. And I think, yeah, for sure. That’s, that’s a type of catharsis. I mean, I, I never feel better than when I’ve written something. So I guess that’s as clear as I can be.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you.
Georgia Lassner
Thank you.
Asha Bukojemsky
I love that you feel better after you write because I think a lot of people don’t necessarily have that response. And that’s amazing. We’re just getting a lot of comments basically, coming in right now. People thanking you for the conversation, of your generosity. And yeah, Nicole, you’ve got a question.
Nicole Seisler
Yeah. Um, first, I just want to thank—Hi, Georgia. I want to thank Georgia for her writing because, it’s like, it blew me away. And I think it’s probably the most exciting thing I’ve read about my work. And I, it’s like a totally different experience of my work. Like, to read it through your lens, and I, I love that you forefront your personal experience with it. Like, that’s such a powerful way to look at the work and to talk about the work. I also hope that you keep writing about ceramics because we like, as a field desperately need more of this kind of writing. That’s like, so personal and visceral, and critical and opinionated. And I just appreciate it so much. And so I guess my question that I’ll get to, maybe is about like, a, what a review is, or criticism, and because I appreciate so much your approach, and it is unique, and not the kind of writing that you find in a lot of other publications, like, what direction do you see art reviews or criticism going in? Or would you like it to see going in? Because I thought kind of about that question, like, who were you writing for, and I felt like you’re writing for the future, like you’re writing for some future audience that needs to like get its shit together and be in the present moment more, so just kind of wondering about that trajectory.
Georgia Lassner
Well, then thank you for saying that. And thank you for being here. So this, Nicole is the artist who created the artwork Preparing that I that I wrote about, and then returned to over and over in my essay. So, there’s an image right there. I mean, I have I have almost nothing valuable to offer, like, like on this subject. But there’s two things. One is that Peter Schjeldahl, who’s an art critic for The New Yorker, he wrote a piece a couple of months ago, or maybe it was longer, though it might have been pre—actually was pre-pandemic, so it was a world away. And he was talking about how when you’re an art critic, you learn that you can never have artists as friends. And I was thinking about, like, if I could have the artists to be my friends, that I’m doing something right. So I’ll say that. But I mean, for me in terms of writing and criticism, I mean, I have to say, like, people like, Leslie Dick, who came on before, is an editor at X-TRA who helped me a lot with my work. I mean, Neha, have having a publication that is like independently run, where people are really willing to support different types of inquiry, just like how we had all these three, super different things right here. I feel like that’s really what we need. Because we can all we can all pursue whatever we want in a vacuum. But when we come together and can support each other, and really help, I mean, I’ve said this before, but when I finish a piece with X-TRA, I feel like it’s better than when I started instead of shredded from when I started, which is a unique experience. So I would just say like making sure we support, continue to support and engage with small publications is something that’s always going to be important.
Asha Bukojemsky
Thanks, that was the perfect end plug that I could have asked for. Thank you, Georgia. So for those of you who came on a little bit later, I just wanted to reiterate that if you really enjoyed today’s conversation, you should pick up your issue. And we are currently at Printed Matter, in the digital world, at Printed Matter Virtual Art Book Fair, this weekend until tomorrow. And you can pick up this issue and the other issues at our booth, as well as the tote—you can get it for 20% off. And so it’s a perfect thing to do when you’re really sick and tired of reading things online, on the computer, to rest your eyes and to take in the beautiful visuals and the tactile format of this gorgeous publication. So thank you, NIC, Jennifer, Georgia and Neha, for moderating today. Thank you for participating and for giving your thoughts and your beautiful, honest responses today. I think it’s given all of us something to think about. And a lot of people are messaging right now and just thanking you so much for your contributions today. So on that note, I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, stay healthy, stay safe, and continue to support independent publications so we can all make really good contributions to the world. All right. Take care everybody. Bye.