Yesterday I went to Walking Dragging Drifting at the New Museum, the last day of the show. It was exactly the elixir I needed to forcefully begin my new body of work. Described as "Epic journeys by artists documented through Drawing, Installation, Photography, and Video," I felt a kinship to the path that these artists literally and figuratively took in order to create their works.
To speak of the works individually, well, to me it remains more powerfully as an abstract idea coalesced by the curator, Lauren Cornell. A journey by river ("Bhotbhoti Tales" by Desire Machine Collective), by land on foot ("Earth Thief" by Eunji Cho and “News from the Americas" by Paulo Nazareth), by sea (works by Ellie Ga) we follow these travelers through India, Berlin, the Americas, and the North Pole. This is the rare case that the curator's vision exceeds that of the individual's; the sum of its parts tasting like lovely hearty bowl of soup. More meaningful and filling in its parallels and juxtapositions.
I was particularly drawn to the work by Ellie Ga. In "the Fortunetellers" and "At the Beginning North Was Here," the artist brought to life her physical, metaphysical and conceptual journey through her time aboard a ship for five months on a scientific expedition near the North Pole. Ga's Arctic perambulations by sea and land, rendered by photos, charcoal drawings and video carried me to those freezing, desolate white landscapes. I almost felt cold. And I could feel what it was like to walk in those snow boots, the loneliness and stark, harsh beauty of that kind of ghostly emptiness. You know I hate cold weather, but those images taunt me to venture into extreme snow and ice in order to experience that unique sort of solitude.
What most peaked my interest most was a book in the resource room of "related readings" by Dieter Roelstraete, Richard Long: A Line Made by Walking (AFTERALL). I know you had told me to look into Richard Long's work, and pointed me to "A line made by walking" made in 1967, to my abject ignorance I did not. But right then I realized the connection. I sat in that room and read the small tome, engrossed in the history and conceptual precedents of his work. You were right to refer me to Long's work, as it very much is relevant, and directly relates to some of the things I am obsessed about.
"Long's trajectory has come to embody one of the defining features of the contemporary art scene – its mobility its cultivation of a certain idea of rootlessness and its defiant identification with the figure of the vagrant, the nomad, and the exile, all of which would have been unthinkable without the revolutionary democratization of air travel (among other things) during those decades. Conceptual art in particular, partly because of its liberating emphasis on the primacy of immaterial ideas over their cumbersome execution partly because of its political penchant towards a rhetoric of internationalism, contributed in no small measure to these early stirrings of what only much later became known as 'globalization'." (Roeslstraete, 16-17)I've been attempting to define for myself that feeling of rootlessness and constant movement, as you are aware that my living situation of late has me difficult to locate. See my multiple crossed out temporary addresses! Right now, New York is kind of like home, yet it is not a warm bosom that makes me feel safe enough to work freely. It's got teeth, for better or for worse. I am feeling itchy to travel again. Always wanting to escape where I am. I blame that on being from an island! I do identify as a nomad, a traveller, who likes exploring and being washed over with the unfamiliar and exotic.
Anyway, seeing this show has given me a lot of food for thought on progressing and building upon what i've started, my theme of moving water. The transience and non-concreteness of the form of water I think attracts me to this as a starting point, a place to begin my meditations through video and drawing. That being said, I am torn about making "stuff" to sell, as I am not an object sort of person myself. I like to live and work light, but other people seem to like objects so perhaps I should think of it as things I make that I will unload on other people. That too apparently is a thing that Long has long concerned himself about, and resisted the impulse along with Baldassari et al.
Hope you are well and take care of yourself! Everyone seems to be catching cold or getting hit with the flu. I'm dosing up on vitamin C!
I'll end my letter with an excerpt of Long's artist statement which I found in the book that I quite liked:
"To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the center of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world."- L
