Interviews by Brainard Carey

Vivek, drawn by Dyuti Mittal

Vivek Narayanan was born in India in to Tamil-speaking parents and grew up in Zambia. He did undergraduate and graduate study in cultural anthropology and creative writing at Stanford and Boston Universities respectively, taught at the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, and currently lives between India and the United States. Narayanan’s books of poetry include Universal Beach (Mumbai: Harbour Line, 2006; re-issued, in a new US edition by ingirumimusnocteetconsumimurigni in 2011) and Life and Times of Mr S (HarperCollins, 2012).

A full-length collection of his poems in Swedish translation was published in 2015 by the Stockholm-based Wahlström & Widstrand. He has been a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University (2013-14) and a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library (2015-16) as part of work for his ongoing current project, an experimental “writing through” of the Sanskrit of Valmiki’s Ramayana.

Narayanan is also the Co-editor of Almost Island, an India-based international literary journal, forum and publisher founded in 2007. Through ongoing formats like Text As Material, he has tried to reinvent the design of the creative writing workshop, imagining it beyond conventional pedagogy as a more open-ended, inter-media mode of collective and compositional art practice; and he has extensively explored conceptual approaches to the performance of poetry—such as in its potential intersections with technology, physical space, movement, site-specific projects and audience interaction—partly through a series of works in collaboration with the filmmaker Priya Sen, the musician and composer Maarten Visser, the sound artist Sophea Lerner, the dancer and choreographer Padmini Chettur, the conceptual artist Laura Napier and others. In the mid-2000s, Narayanan was part of Sarai-CSDS, a seminal New Delhi-based organization that brought together visual artists, social scientists, writers, public intellectuals and others to reflect inventively on new and old media forms and the contemporary global city.

Andrea Scrima was born in New York City and studied fine arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York and the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, Germany, where she lives and works as an artist, writer, and translator. Scrima’s first book, A Lesser Day, was published in a second edition in 2018 by Spuyten Duyvil Press to coincide with the German edition, published by Literaturverlag Droschl in Graz, Austria. Excerpts from an ongoing blog titled all about love, nearly are included in Wreckage of Reason II: Back to the Drawing Board (Spuyten Duyvil, 2014) and the forthcoming anthology Strange Attractors (University of Massachusetts Press, 2019; edited by Edie Meidav). Scrima is currently completing a second novel, titled Like Lips, Like Skins. An earlier version of this novel was awarded Second Prize in the Glimmer Train Fall 2010 Fiction Open.

Scrima was the recipient of a literature fellowship from the Berlin Council on Science, Research, and the Arts in Berlin, Germany (Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur, 2004) and won a 2007 National Hackney Literary Award for Sisters, a short story from an ongoing collection. In the spring of 2011 she took part in a writing fellowship at the Ledig House / Art Omi residency program in Ghent, New York. Her literary criticism appears regularly in The Brooklyn Rail, Music & Literature, and The Quarterly Conversation (recent essays on Don DeLillo, Lydia Davis, and László Krasznahorkai). She is a contributing editor to the online literary magazine Statorec.

Prior to her decision to focus on literature, Scrima worked as a professional artist for many years, incorporating short fiction pieces into large-scale text installations. She has received numerous awards for her artistic work, including a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1989/1990) and the Lingen Art Prize (Kunstverein Lingen, Germany; 1996) and has been represented in exhibitions at Franklin Furnace in New York, the Contemporary Art Center in Moscow, Kunst Haus in Dresden, the Museum für Neue Kunst in Freiburg, the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, and many other institutions and commercial galleries internationally.

An excerpt from A Lesser Day can be read on Scrima’s website, and in-depth interviews were featured in Music & Literature, The Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and The Brooklyn Rail. The excerpt below is taken from Scrima’s novel, A Lesser Day. The article we discussed in this interview is titled The Problem with Patriotism: A Critical Look at Collective Identity in the U.S. and Germany. Scrima is currently reading Esther Kinsky’s River; Agota Kristof’s The Notebook; and Ally Klein’s Carter.

We spoke to Andrea Scrima for Praxis Interview Magazine in 2016 about her novel-in-progress Like Lips, Like Skins.

My mind snapped shut like a box. I turn, perplexed: but wasn’t something there a moment ago? Waiting, waiting, looking on as though at a mute child, hoping to pry out a word, or a smile: patience is the essence. The child stands dumbly before me, and I kneel down with a friendly mien. What was that just now, what do you have in your hand, I ask gently. The child’s eyelashes veil its downcast eyes. I saw you putting something in your pocket a moment ago, wouldn’t you like to show me what you have in your pocket? But the child stares at its toes, suspended in a glistening bubble of impunity. Say something, I blurt out, growing agitated, and the child raises a grimy fist to brush the hair out of its eyes, gazing at me in sullen apathy. I hear the sharp edge in my voice, I know this tactic will lead me nowhere, yet I’m vexed, I want to drill the child with questions: what are you hiding, what have you stolen? And hardly an answer, a feeble shrug, and I, growing desperate, give it back, give it back, feeling the hand itching to slap the face of this stupid, torpid mind: will you come to your senses, will you give me back what’s mine?

Jason Ackman is a sculptor, residency director and art instructor residing in rural Frederick, IL with his wife and two daughters

Central to his studio practice is his interest in the potential symbolic meaning found in ordinary, outdated and utilitarian objects. Using reclaimed lumber and reclaimed clay as sculptural media he explores alternative or re-imagined meanings for these objects as they relate to the concepts of transition and discernment.

Currently, he is working on several interactive community-based projects.

The books mentioned in the interview were The Elements of Pizza by Ken Forkish,  Roberta's Cookbook by Brandon Hoy, Chris Parachini and Katherine Wheelock and Called to Create: A Biblical Invitation to Create, Innovate, and Risk by Jordan Raynor.

I Will If You Will 2016 Reclaimed Lumber, Latex House Paint and Beeswax  28′ x 10′ x 12′

On My Mark 2016 Reclaimed lumber, charred and latex painted surfaces 43" x 26" x 20"

photo by Curt Hoppe

Robin Winters is a mixed media cultural worker, glassblower, sculptor, painter, and teacher with studios in the Catskill Mountains and New York City.  Robin Winter's work may be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art New York, The Whitney Museum New York, The Metropolitan Museum New York, The Brooklyn Museum New York and many other American and international museums as well as corporate and private collections.

Cover of Artforum, 1981

 

wb bearman bags a job. Whitney museum, two month performance, bear mask, 1975

Lauren lives and works in London. She got her BFA at the Art Insitute of Boston (2008) and her MA in Contemporary Art History & Theory at the Sotheby’s institute of art (2012).

The statement from the artist:

Anxiety, hesitation, lust, and gluttony are never a step too far in any direction of my life. I work from memory; memories sidestep objectivity. Their visual manifestations are intensely personal and revealing. My work makes the fleeting essence of memory, tangible; the paintings put flesh to the bones of narrative. The unreliable and organic nature of recall makes for paintings that flirt with improvisation and result in vibrating and, in my case, anxiety laden energy. Working with concepts of femininity and the undercurrents that point to notions of the feminine, androgyny and feminist; my paintings unabashedly portray women delighted in their skins. Embracing flaws, sexuality and indulgence, they urge the viewer to engage with the unsavoury sides of themselves. Social labels of grotesque and lust associated with the body interest me, my figures explore the intricacies of the two.

“All the Girls in the Line for the Bathroom” Oil on Canvas, 40x50 (cms) 2016. All the aesthetic preparations that go in to a gritty night out inevitably ends up in a line for the bathroom. Debauchery, sleaziness and edge go hand in hand with the tweaked and teased elegance of getting ready to go out. Phones out, seedy reflections in a sticky floor; sweat and bodies congregating closely, intentionally and not. Everyone is in the rhythm of the night, in and out of synch with each other. Notes from art history can be seen here, figures imitating Picasso’s Demoiselles, suggesting femininity through the ages, is transient, a concept that breathes and exudes subjectivity.

“Girly” Oil on Linen, 55x65 (cms) 2018. This image of femininity sidesteps the pretty and puts gluttony on the table. Bodies sweaty and physical; flaws are exaggerated, embraced and flaunted. These figures, using myself as a physical point of reference, exude flamboyance and confidence, two attributes I strive for in my everyday but somehow suppress. The term ‘feminine’ should be flexible and fluid, say these figures, and more strongly associated with the term ‘feminist’. Society manages to keep the two concepts fairly disassociated, when in fact both should bring the word ‘robust' to mind.

Ken Jacobs: Born, 1933, Brooklyn, New York

Studied painting with Hans Hofmann, 1956-57. Started making films, 1955

Created/Directed The Millennium Film Workshop, N.Y.C.1966-68; started the Dept.of Cinema at S.U.N.Y. at Binghamton, 1969; Professor of Cinema1974-2000; Distinguished Prof. of Cinema, 2000; Distinguished Prof. of Cinema Emeritus, 2002-

“Optic Antics The Cinema of Ken Jacobs”, Edited by Michele Pierson, David E. James and Paul Arthur, Oxford Univ. Press, May 2011

Films and videos shown worldwide, numerous grants and awards.

from Capitalism: Slavery from Ken Jacobs on Vimeo.

RAZZLE DAZZLE The Lost World from Ken Jacobs on Vimeo.

photo by Betty Beaumont

R.M. Fischer’s artwork has always rejected strict definition, hovering between the traditional boundaries that divide the worlds of art, design, architecture, and craft. Throughout his career he has made use of industrial materials in assembled objects that are simultaneously abstract and representational. His art appears both unexpected yet familiar at the same time. This is one way the artist engages the audience in a dialogue with the work.

For the last ten years, one of Mr. Fischer’s methods is to utilize aspects of craft, figuration, and references to “outsider” art in order to conjure sculpture that come alive with a human like personality. While there is humor in the work, there is also a sense of loss and sadness.

Mr. Fischer work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, The Brooklyn Museum, NY, The Jewish Museum, NYC, The Dallas Museum of Art, The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, The Boise Art Museum, Boise, Idaho, The University of Nebraska Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Lincoln, Nebraska, The Carnegie Museum of Fine Art, Pittsburgh, PA., Fundacao De Serralves, Porto, Portugal, The Newark Museum of Fine Art, Newark, NJ, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO., and Tamayo Museo Cultural Center for Contemporary Art, Mexico City, among others.

Mr. Fischer’s renowned public art works appear in cities across the United States and Japan.

Bertha, 1980 and Rolling Rock, 1981

R.M.Fischer, exhibit installation, 2010

Lidaa Winfield, photo by Alan Kimara Dixon

Lida Winfield is an innovative and accomplished dancer, choreographer, spoken word artist and educator. She creates original solo, duet and group work, merging storytelling, dance and visual art. She considers her artistic practice inextricably linked to her role as an educator and is dedicated to using the performing arts to move herself and others forward intellectually, developmentally, socially and spiritually.

Lida has taught and performed in a variety of places, including Roger Williams University, Habla: The Center for Language and Culture in Mexico, National Dance Association Conference, Skidmore College and the Bates Dance Festival.

In 2011, she toured original duet work with Ellen Smith Ahern and intermedia dance company Double Vision across Europe. Lida studied at The School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and in 2011 earned a Masters of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College, VT, with a focus on the transformative power of the expressive arts. In 2016, she was honored with the Rebecca Blunk Fund Award though New England Foundation for the Arts, and in 2017, she received a National Performance Network Creation and Development grant for her new work IMAGINARY with commissioning partners The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Jacob’s Pillow, Middlebury Performing Arts Series, and The Yard.

Lida encourages her students and audience to see themselves, their bodies, and their environment from new angles. She cultivates opportunities and experiences that transform and deeply impact day to day lives. What transpires within the teaching and performing environment is integrated and transferred out into the world, allowing it to live beyond the confines of the classroom or stage. Lida is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Dance Program at Middlebury College.

In Search of Air - photo by Gene Parulis In this dance and theater performance based on her experience growing up with a learning disability, dancer, choreographer and spoken word artist Lida Winfield shares the gifts and heartache that accompanied her struggle to learn to read – which did not occur until her early twenties.

IMAGINARY - photo by Colin C. Boyd A quirky, innovative, socially poignant work that explores perception in relationship to the imagination through dance/theater, storytelling, lighting design and original audio scores. Work created by Lida Winfield in collaboration with Maree ReeMalia, Joseph Hall, Laurel Jenkins and Ellen Smith Ahern.

Kate E. Schaffer (BS 2006, MLC; MFA 2016, SAIC) is a Milwaukee artist working at the nexus of feminism, queer theory, and Abstractionist Aesthetics.

Her paintings, installations, performances, and writings, explore the fixity and possibility of time and space.

Schaffer teaches at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design as well as in Milwaukee Public Schools through the local nonprofit Arts@Large where she encourages students of all ages to consider the possibilities the world holds for them.

Her current exhibition discussed in the interview is here.

The book mentioned in the interview is What Would Lynne Tillman Do.

Installation view of The Book Club: What Would We Do with Lynne Tillman? at Frank Juarez Gallery.

"Trying Again: A Second Annotation of J is for Jokes" (detail). 2018. Ink on photocopy. 8.5 x 11 inches (4 pages).

Dana Hoey is an American photographer born in San Francisco and based in the Hudson Valley, New York. She received a B.A. in Philosophy from Wesleyan University and an M.F.A. in photography from the Yale University School of Art.

The artist’s work examines contemporary female identity through staged and directed photographs and videos, which set off “peculiarly allusive narrative sparks” by echoing familiar photographic and filmic conventions. At the beginning of her career, Hoey photographed her friends, but her oeuvre has since widened to portray women of all ages in various scenarios. Pushing the photographic and video medium’s tendency to blur the line between fact and fiction, interior and exterior appearance, Hoey interrogates the social roles that women play.

In 2017, Hoey conducted a residency project at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) in Michigan from February 11 – May 17. In addition to presenting her photographs and videos, she offered free jiu-jitsu self-defense classes to a group of local young women that the Detroit Police Athletic League assembled. The classes, which the artist filmed, linked the arts with concepts of social engagement, examining ways to foster bonds between police offices and the communities they serve. In the fall of 2012, Hoey presented The Phantom Sex, a survey exhibition at The University Art Museum at Albany, New York, featuring works created throughout her career since the 1990’s. An accompanying monograph was published for this exhibition by the university, which includes an essay by Johanna Burton.

Hoey has exhibited in museums and galleries internationally. Solo exhibitions include Dana Hoey: Five Rings, Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI (2017); Dana Hoey & Em Rooney, Raising Cattle, Montreal (2016); Love Your Enemy, at the Albany Institute of History & Art, NY (2014); Experiments in Primitive Living, organized by Maurice Berger, at the Center for Art Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland in Baltimore, MD (2010); and Dana Hoey at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. (2000). Selected group exhibition include We Pictured You Reading This at Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, SC (2010); Found on Facebook at the Arthur M. Berger Art Gallery, Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY (2010); and Muse at the Wildenberg Art Center, Tulane University in New Orleans, LA (2010).

Her work is held in various public collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, CA; Middlebury College Museum of Art, VT; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; Princeton University Art Museum, NJ; The Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, Winter Park, FL; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA.

"Dani" (portrait), 2018, Archival inkjet, size TBD.

 

"Steven", 2018, Archival inkjet, size TBD