Frieze Questionnaire
Frieze is one of the best, if not the best, [general] art magazines you can buy these days. I've been a subscriber for many years now. For a while, on the last page of the issue, Frieze has had a section called "Questionnaire", which is a collection of 10-12 questions they ask to a contemporary artist. The questions are somewhat tailored to the artist they interview and/or if there is any general theme to the issue, but overall they are usually about the same. I choose this set to answer:
Q: What is art for?
For both the maker and the viewer, art is for providing:
Visceral experiences of: wonder, excitement, disgust, anxiety, nostalgia, etc.
Unanswerable questions about: life, death, purpose, ethics, morals, self, etc.
Art is for that feeling you get when you converse, interact, and connect, with the artist through the art work. There's no way to describe this feeling. You know it when it happens and it only happens with art. If you haven't had this feeling, you haven't seen enough art. Go now.
Q: What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you?
My cousin (once removed), Arthur Ganson, sculpted a mobile out of styrofoam for me when I was a baby. It was a set of clouds. I still have them and they've hung over my bed since I dug them out of the closet a few years ago. They have a few dings, and one of the smaller clouds is missing, but they're beautiful.
Q: What was the first film you can remember watching?
It took me a few minutes to think, but I vividly remember watching "The Brave Little Toaster" when I was a child.
Q: If you could live with only one piece of art, what would it be?
This is tough. I'd have to say either Bruce Nauman's “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths” (1967) or any text sculpture by Doug Aitken. I've always loved the connection, and at the same time duality, between art and language.
Bruce Nauman, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (1967)
Doug Aitken, End (2012)
Q: What music are you listening to?
I don't really listen to music. I find NPR far more entertaining.
Q: What is your favourite title of an art work?
Either "I Will Not Make Anymore Boring Art" or "I Am Making Art". Both by John Baldessari. Conceptual art anyone?
Q: What images keep you company in the space where you work?
At the studio: None.
At home on my desk: A photo of B and I after got engaged.
Q: What should change?
Nothing. Otherwise there would be nothing to work on/towards. Ok, maybe more accessibility to art (i.e. all museums should be free).
Q: What should stay the same?
Orbits. Without the earth orbiting the sun, we wouldn't have sunrises and sunsets. Without the moon orbiting the earth, we wouldn't have the ocean tides.
Q: What do you wish you knew?
How to retain and use all the information that I've insatiably gathered and continue to gather in my life. I have hundreds of quotes and passages in "Evernotes", folders of magazine clippings, dog-eared poems in Poetry Magazine, binders of academic articles, personal journals, fiction, non-fiction, and art books, etc., and while I love having all this, and will continue to amass my collection, I wish I could bring it all together to find practical use rather then just influence my own thinking and way of life. Maybe I need to be a philosopher [see below].
Q: What could you imagine doing if you didn’t do what you do?
I always think other people's lives are so much more interesting than mine, but I'm stumped. I guess that means I wouldn't want to be doing anything else. To play along, I'd really just like to spend more time in the studio and less time in the office. And maybe based on my previous answer, I should be a philosopher and be paid to think all day. I would like that.