John LeKay: In an introductory essay that you wrote for the 54th Carnegie International that you curated at the Carnegie Museum of Art, you stated the following:  "In art, grappling with grand ideas as God, free will, immortality, and ethics was stock in trade throughout history.  During the past twenty years, however an abiding interest in the most prosaic aspects of daily life has served as a strategy for making art relevant to a broader, less elite audience. All this being equal, at this moment our undeniable taste for the banal does not quash our need for art that is not merely extracted from aspects of everyday life, but rather whole heartedly participates in it by wrestling with its fundamental mysteries" .......................

 

Q.  In this age of prevailing skepticism and cynicism regarding the grand topics of immortality, ethics and the mystical etc. (especially in the mainstream commercial marketplace where in some parts a regressive, nihilistic and cynical mindset is still very much in Vogue)   --   Do you sense a shift or some kind of change in the air regarding these matters, in terms of artists grappling with these ideals, through painting, sculpture, film, poetry, music, dance or in other ways?

If so, what do you think has brought about this shift and do you see a kind of  PARA-modernism movement evolving in which the metaphysical as well as the physical and its residues will be  investigated in a broader sense?

 

 

 Still from night is coming at the 54th Carnegie International      Trisha Donnelly

Meechfieber at the 54th Carnegie International                              John Bock

 

 

Laura Hoptman: The belief that culture can deal with issues of human importance - that it can grapple with ethical questions - is not so much a trend, (wishful thinking!) but a conscious redirecting of the energies of the people who make and analyze culture. I felt, as the steward for this big international show that was supposed to tell the world what was happening in visual arts at the moment, that it was my challenge and my responsibility not to reflect something but to attempt to make something. For better or worse, I wasn't alone in this; I discussed the goal with every living artist in the show and both guest curators.

I think the key word in my statement regarding art and the "ultimates," is need. I tried in this last Carnegie - with the participating artists' full complicity - to explore an attitude towards the purpose of artmaking and concentrate on that. This, as opposed to identifying a trend, say. In examining our international cultural "moment" from the perspective of the U.S., I found/find most interesting those works that have grand ambitions for art's place in society. And yes - the last time this phenomenon had any traction in our country was after WW II with absolutist abstractionists like Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt. Modernism has been burdened with a heavy theoretical load, so I am uncomfortable about using it without modification- better I think to say that some interesting work nowadays has parallels in a certain strain of Utopian Modernism, and particularly to the goals of the Russian Constructivists or some in the New York School.

 

The Carnegie was an experiment in curating for me. It was different than anything I had done before, particularly "Drawing Now" at MoMA. In that show, I think I made a pretty thorough argument for a trend - that is the flowering of an unfetishized, narrative drawing inspired by popular forms of drawing, from scientific drawing to drafting to comics. It was a finite snapshot of a moment, not an attempt to redirect the cultural tide. It was a show that I hope inspired some lively debate, but it wasn't activist.

 

Because perhaps I started at a place like the Bronx Museum, I have been almost hyper aware where art is placed and who it is placed in front of. I am not so interested in fiddling with the formal qualities of an art exhibition as I am with figuring out ways for ideas to get across visually.

 

Culture can and should have a purpose above and beyond its very thingness.  I find it most interesting when it steps up to the plate and shoulders that responsibility.

JL: Many of the contemporary museums are now being designed by some innovative architects like I. M. Pei and his Pyramide du Louvre, or Frank Gehry's Bilbao Spain, Zaha Hadid's Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati and in the past - the Guggenheim in New York by Frank Lloyd Wright etc. etc. etc.

It can appear that the space is more than just a place to exhibit sculptures, installations, or hang paintings on a wall and that the architect's presence and unique vision, philosophy is often felt in ways that can sometimes detract, compete and overwhelm the art; as well as enhance it in the best case scenario. 

From your experience with curatiing exhibitions at venues like the Bronx Museum, MoMA and the Carnegie Museum; how does the architectural space and the museum's history, philosophy and framework, aesthetic, architectural or otherwise play into your own creative process and your curatorial decision making?

LH: My notion of "sight specificity" for better or for worse, takes in to account where a show is, but not in terms of the elements of its physical situation.  Sure, like anyone who is trying to use space well, I try to place art in a way that complements it, but I am much more interested in figuring out the kind of art that might work in a place rather than a space.

 

That said, I did collaborate with an architect for the Carnegie International. Michael Maltzan from Los Angeles was brilliant and enjoyable to work with, but essentially I worked with him and his studio in the same manner in which I worked with other artists in that particular show.

Now  President John F. Kennedy at the 54th Carnegie Int'l     Maurizio Cattelan

Magma Spirit Explodes. Tsunami Is Dreadful                          Chiho Aoshima

Drawing Now: Eight Propositions
By Laura Hoptman

 

Untitled             Graham Little
 

 

JL:  This question relates to the interesting experience you had with the painter Chiho Aoshima at the Carnegie when you provided her with a 40' wall - to place a mural on the front of the museum, expecting one thing; or maybe something like lizards, Japanese cherry blossoms, sexy women floating in flowing dresses amid flowers, zombies, etc. and then getting something completely unexpected like an apocalyptic battle scene.  A 40 ft Guernica.

When curating an exhibition in a museum like MoMA or the Carnegie, do you prefer to select a specific piece(s) by a particular artist to fit into a theme of the exhibition; basically plan the show in advance, piece by piece etc. or do you prefer to select the artists in advance without knowing what they will create and then lay out the show as in Chihos' case?

LH:  This is an important question, one that devils anyone making an exhibition, or making something for an exhibition, because it cuts directly to the issue of "whose show is it anyway?" In the case of a group exhibition that is idea-driven, my answer would be that the person who organizes the show is its author, of course, in deep collaboration with the participating artists. This means that the organizer takes responsibility for the show's main idea, for its success in getting that idea across through the visual means of the art included, and of course for its failure to come across.

 

When you are making a show about an idea that is not formally driven- that is not based on how an object looks, how it is made, what it is made  of - or on a specific subject - like flower painting - then you are basing your choices for the most part on interpretation. If you posit a philosophical, political or metaphysical question, you marshal artwork to try and answer it in all its depth and complexity.

 

The least risky way of doing this is to choose individual artworks, rather than selecting artists who agree with, and are stimulated by the idea that drives the show. This way though, artists, and individual artworks take a back seat to the engine that drives the show. Ideally, one tries to work in collaboration with the  entire oeuvre of artists that one chooses.. so as to do justice to the artwork that ultimately ends up in the exhibition. In the case of Drawing Now at MoMA, a show about the return of figuration based on illustration, there was less overt collaboration with each of the twenty something artists in the show. Some agreed with what I was saying about their work, and others didn't. For the most part, the work in the show was not made for the exhibition. The Carnegie was a show not only about ideas, but about what was happening in contemporary art at the moment. For this, I decided on a closer collaboration with each of the thirty odd participants, and the vast majority of the works in the show were made specifically for it. This made for a looser show, and judging from some of the critical responses, a riskier one than Drawing Now. On the other hand, there was certainly more of a cohesiveness among participating artists, none of whom, to my knowledge, had problems with the premise of the show - which was that art can be an effective way to explore the ethical.

 

JL: The New Museum is unique in the sense that it is the only museum in New York that is devoted exclusively to contemporary art.  Do you think that curating at the New Museum will differ from your other positions at MoMA and the Carnegie, being that it is exclusively contemporary work?

LH:  The New Museum was, is, and will be quite a different museum than say, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Carnegie Museum of Art even though both of these institutions started out with a mandate to exhibit contemporary art from around the world.

 

Both MoMA and the Carnegie have rich permanent collections that stretch back for more than one hundred years. They also have agendas - in the case of the Carnegie, to create a kind of history of contemporary art based on the cycle of the Carnegie International exhibitions, and in the case of MoMA, to make an airtight argument for the development and subsequent hegemony of European and American modernism.

 

The New Museum doesn't rely on its small permanent collection to shore up an agenda vis a vis international contemporary art. Since its inception, way back in the 1970s, it set for itself the mandate to be a venue for the most challenging contemporary art and ideas being created on a worldwide basis. It was by definition set up to be anti-canonical. How it has fared over the years as the canon has continued to be stretched not necessarily by innovation but by the expanding market, is a topic for debate as is the viability of the equation of innovation equaling avant gardism equaling radicality. I am personally interested in new definitions of "new" and I think that the New Museum, with its new building and new staff might be the place to explore them.

JL:  Do you have a vision of the kind of shows that you would like to curate?

LH:  I have been trained as an art historian, and my expertise reaches back to the postwar era in Europe and in the U.S. I hope to continue to make very contemporary exhibitions using material that has not necessarily been made yesterday. As far as an exhibition agenda, I have a few ideas that have been germinating since the Carnegie, but I prefer to wait until I understand the entire vision of the museum before I commit to one idea or another. Ideally, the shows we make there will be particularly suited to the museum and its constituency. I have to make sure I understand more about both of those things before I jump in to something. Museum programming is a team effort and I don't join that team for another two months.

View onto the new Museum building from the southwest

corner of Prince Street and Bowery
Photography: Christopher Dawson
Visualization:Sejima + Nishizawa/SANAA

 

 

 

SANAA's concept for the site proposes a series of shifting sculptural boxes that allow for skylights on every level, each with a slightly different proportion and character. Their design demonstrates an efficient, elegant approach to the Museum's program needs as well as an innovative response to the zoning requirements of the site.

 

 www.newmuseum.org

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