0:13

Hello and welcome to the Carla podcast.

0:15

My name is Lindsay Preston Zappas and I am

0:17

the founder and editor in chief of contemporary

0:19

art review. Los Angeles. Carla

0:22

is a quarterly art magazine, online journal

0:24

and podcast committed to being an active

0:26

source for critical dialogue surrounding Las

0:29

art community. In this episode,

0:31

artists , Todd gray joins me for an hour

0:33

long conversation surrounding his work

0:36

and the influences that life experiences

0:38

have had on his approach to thinking

0:40

and making. We talk about his early

0:42

life growing up in Los Angeles, his

0:44

background, working as a music photographer

0:47

in the seventies and eighties, as

0:49

well as his current solo exhibition put

0:51

in ,

0:53

Make rules, break rules, make

0:55

rules, break rules. Yeah. Yeah. That's

0:57

really the mantra. Yeah . And so when

0:59

there is a limit, when there is a rule , when

1:01

there is something that my brain comes up and says, no,

1:03

you can't do, that's not correct. Oh

1:05

, then I got to break that because

1:08

I need to push past my limits

1:10

of thought. I need to push past the

1:12

limits of what I think good taste is and what

1:14

good art is because of the idea of good art

1:16

is very limiting.

1:17

This is a packed episode. So

1:19

stay with us. The

1:25

Carla podcast is supported in part by the Pomona

1:28

college museum of art with a year long

1:30

exhibition. Todd gray Euclidean

1:32

Grigory is now on view through may

1:35

17 , 2020. The exhibition

1:37

includes the artists photographic works and

1:39

site-specific wall drawings derived

1:41

from his exploration of the legacies

1:43

of colonialism in Africa, in

1:46

collaboration with gray scholar, Nana,

1:48

I do say Poku from Bard college

1:50

has curated a series of events titled

1:52

longing on a large scale, inspired

1:55

by the exhibition for more information,

1:57

visit pomona.edu/museum.

2:06

Welcome back. Todd great is a multidisciplinary

2:09

artist working both in Los Angeles and

2:11

Ghana Gray's meticulous photographs

2:13

are framed and then stacked on top of

2:15

each other. So certain areas are strategically

2:18

concealed. Some of his works contain

2:20

images of Michael Jackson among

2:23

other subjects of European gardens

2:25

and scenes that he shoots in Africa.

2:27

As a teen gray started taking photos

2:30

at rock concerts, mostly for the

2:32

free tickets. And then for stint

2:34

became a successful music photographer

2:36

working with the rolling stones and doing

2:38

album art for the Jackson five Gladys

2:41

Knight, and Stevie wonder, he later

2:43

became Michael Jackson's personal photographer

2:45

and amassed a huge archive of images

2:48

alongside all of that. Great. Also received

2:50

his MFA from CalArts in 1989,

2:53

where he studied under photographer, a Kula

2:55

and focused primarily on ideas of mental

2:58

colonialism. These ideas

3:00

first started around his well-known subject,

3:02

Michael Jackson, until grey realized

3:04

that his own mind had been colonized by

3:06

Western upbringing and education.

3:09

Todd and I talk about the split between this Western

3:12

logical thinking and a more African

3:14

bodily and intuitive way of thinking

3:17

and how much of his practice is in an effort

3:19

to reconcile the two. Here's

3:22

my conversation with Todd gray. Hey

3:24

Todd. So I want to start and

3:26

talk about your background a little bit. You grew

3:28

up here in LA

3:30

Hamilton, high Crenshaw, high Dorsey

3:32

high. Yeah.

3:34

What w what sticks out in your

3:36

mind as growing up in

3:38

LA? Like, what were your influences? What

3:40

was the culture like?

3:42

Well, you know, my parents moved

3:44

into parts of Los

3:46

Angeles that were tangential to the

3:48

Jewish neighborhoods so that the public

3:50

schools I would go to would be predominantly Jewish.

3:53

Interesting. And so that's the first,

3:56

you know, aside from black culture, that's outside

3:58

of black culture. That's the first culture

4:00

that I became aware of.

4:03

And also, so Russia , Shauna Yancha

4:05

poor high Holy days, and

4:09

Burlington, Illinois under him , the

4:12

prayers. Got it. That's

4:14

also what those schools, I got introduced to surfing.

4:17

Oh yeah. I was surfing when I was in

4:19

high school and actually junior high school.

4:21

I started surfing. Wow . So a

4:23

lot of things happened because

4:25

of those experiences outside

4:27

of the black neighborhood that I lived in.

4:29

Right. Do you still surf?

4:31

No, no, no. I buy , I bodyboard though.

4:33

Oh, okay. I love that.

4:35

Yeah. That's amazing.

4:38

I'm jumping way ahead. That's why

4:40

my wife can be shin and I

4:43

got the studio house in Ghana

4:46

because I stumbled upon

4:48

a surf point in Ghana and

4:51

it is always my dream to wake up in the

4:53

morning, grab a board and then just jump

4:55

in the ocean. And I never thought I would be able

4:57

to realize that wow. Until

5:00

we got three acres on the beach in Ghana. Okay

5:02

.

5:03

Wow. Yeah, I was going to , I

5:05

was going to ask you about that, but surfing, wasn't going

5:07

to be my inroad to that question.

5:12

Well , that's how we found. That's how we found the

5:14

place. I was looking for surf spots up

5:16

and down the coast. And I found a spot that

5:18

had a nice break.

5:20

Is that something you do in general,

5:23

looking for surf spots or specifically like

5:25

in Africa, you really like ,

5:26

It was specific in Africa because I always

5:28

heard that Ghana had good points,

5:31

good surf points. So when I was

5:33

there for an exhibition, I went

5:35

and explored for a couple of weeks on my own. And

5:37

that's when I stumbled upon that spot.

5:38

Wow. So tell us

5:40

a little bit, we'll jump ahead. We'll go ahead and then

5:42

we'll jump back. We'll go forward and back. So

5:45

you have lands there and have

5:47

built a studio. Yeah . It's

5:49

a weird story.

5:51

Yeah . I mean, because in 1992,

5:53

when I was still a music photographer, I

5:56

would have been way

5:58

It's . Okay. We're good. We're good. Go ahead.

6:00

Maybe it's more interesting. I think actually

6:02

the truth is closer to nonlinear.

6:05

You know , I guess this is probably more

6:07

accurate in any event, I

6:10

went there at the behest

6:12

of Motown records with Stevie wonder

6:14

to shoot his album cover. So I was there

6:16

with Steve and Ghana

6:19

to Ghana and my assistant and to makeup

6:21

artist . And then he kept saying, Todd, this is where you're

6:23

from. You know, we don't because we have

6:25

no history. I have no, my, my

6:28

nobody passed . My grandparent

6:30

will admit that slavery's

6:33

in our family. So I can't

6:35

even last week, my father is 93. I asked

6:37

him about his grandfather and I said,

6:39

what did he tell you? And he says nothing. He goes, I

6:41

asked, it'd be a lot of that generation

6:43

that experienced slavery will not speak

6:46

of it. They don't want to revisit the horror

6:48

from memory. My dad was telling

6:50

me, it's verboten. You don't bring that

6:52

subject up. So in any event I

6:54

have, no, I have no way of knowing

6:56

, uh, where on the continent I'm from.

6:59

Right . And so Steve just said, it's a high

7:02

percentage of probability that you're from

7:04

Ghana, because that was a big departure point

7:06

in West Africa. And they said,

7:08

you know, you should buy land here. And

7:10

I just said , Oh yeah, Steve. Yeah. Yeah. And

7:13

then forgot about it until I was in an exhibition

7:16

at the opening of the NYU campus in a CRA

7:19

in two, in 90, anyway,

7:22

mid two thousands. And I

7:24

was also on sabbatical. So I went with the opening.

7:26

Yeah . That's when I was looking for a surface

7:28

There's spots . And then when I found the same, Stevie

7:31

wonder in your head words came

7:33

back in like , Oh my God

7:35

.

7:35

And , uh , the rest is, has , as we say,

7:38

Wow. So how often do you get to go there?

7:40

Well, let's see, when we first

7:42

built, I was a professor at Cal state,

7:44

long beach, so every summer break and every

7:46

winter break. So all the academic breaks, we

7:49

went nice . And then

7:51

, uh, since I've retired

7:53

three years ago, it's about once a

7:55

year now, something like I'm going

7:58

on in three days, I'm going actually

8:00

Amazing. And how long do you plan

8:02

to stay for that trip?

8:04

It's just an exploratory trip where there's

8:06

a building project going on. We have a residency

8:08

also there. Oh . And so, so

8:10

when we're not there, the property is used

8:13

and the village sees people

8:16

there's life, you know? So Nicole

8:18

Hebron was there and she

8:20

, uh, started a school,

8:23

right?

8:23

Oh , of course she, her rather,

8:26

She convinced , uh , our caretaker

8:29

that a school would be a great thing for

8:31

locally and for artists to come visit,

8:34

to expand it. And we have so much, you know, we

8:36

have three acres, so there's a lot of land. And

8:39

so then she came back to LA, did a Facebook

8:41

campaign raised money. So

8:44

the school is being built. And then I've been sending my

8:46

wife and I have been sending money also. So now

8:48

I'm going there to check up and see,

8:51

Wow. So the school would be

8:53

For , to learn carpentry skills skills,

8:56

as well as when artists come

8:59

to organize some kind of

9:01

program. Cause I've had like April Bay,

9:04

an African American artists in Los Angeles has inquired

9:06

about, you know, bringing students there. And

9:09

I , in the past, there's been some

9:11

inquiries about having some kind

9:14

of program or retreat. And

9:16

I thought, wow, this would I say, don't resist

9:18

when things start just happening,

9:19

Let it go. Yeah. That sounds

9:22

like such a beautiful kind of culmination.

9:24

And just your time

9:26

there and the research you've done and now

9:28

kind of involving the community in a whole different

9:30

way.

9:31

Yeah. I like also the public

9:33

component and the idea that

9:36

, of giving back. So, so

9:38

this , the first part was the residency and now it's moving

9:40

into something else. But as Jim

9:43

pike once said, just say yes to everything,

9:47

Do you say yes to everything? Or wait better

9:49

question. Do you say no to things? I absolutely

9:51

say notice . Yeah.

9:54

So then it's trusting the intuition of when

9:56

to say yes when to say no.

9:58

Yeah. When something has a certain amount of momentum and energy,

10:00

I don't want to get in the way. And I, and I realized

10:02

that there was this cosmic energy

10:04

that was going, it was positive. So

10:07

I wasn't gonna get in the way I was gonna assist

10:09

it to keep the inertia going.

10:13

Okay. Traveling back in time again.

10:15

So I want to go back to your high school.

10:18

Um , so you're in high school, you

10:20

have Jewish friends you're surfing. And

10:23

I read that you started photographing at a very

10:25

early age and doing commercial photography

10:27

when you were what like 15, 16.

10:30

Yeah. At 16. That's when I started

10:32

doing jobs, but I was

10:34

in the photography course. So I

10:36

learned in the dark room and I completely

10:39

fell in love with flying and sinker

10:41

with photography. And then

10:44

of course, my friend Neil's Lowe's hour, and

10:46

I were going to concerts all the time. Right

10:48

? At this point, he started bringing his camera and

10:51

then it never occurred to me to bring our

10:54

camera to a rock and roll show.

10:57

And then he was selling his photos

10:59

at a record store. He went to Fairfax. I was

11:01

in Hamilton. He was at Fairfax. He

11:03

would sell his photos at Aaron records,

11:06

which is across the street from Fairfax. Then

11:08

we both decided I picked up a camera.

11:10

I thought this was fun and started

11:12

shooting concerts. And then we decided to do something

11:15

together since we were both

11:17

going to the, you know, we're best friends and both going.

11:19

So we decided to start a company

11:21

called Grey's Lowe's hour . Wow.

11:24

And what happened next was

11:26

we went to our good friend, Greg Brown,

11:28

who was in the print shop at Hamilton

11:30

high. And he made us fake photo

11:33

passes for the Santa Monica civic auditorium.

11:36

And so those fake laminate photo passes

11:39

were good enough to get us all

11:41

the way down to about the second row. But

11:43

then by that time, the big foot beefy

11:45

football players and stuff, they knew

11:47

what a proper PhotoPass

11:49

was. And we couldn't get backstage

11:51

or into the photo pit, but we could make it from

11:54

the back of the auditorium all the way to about

11:56

the second row and then photograph

11:58

bands. And that's how we , uh, assembled

12:01

a portfolio as well as going to

12:03

the whiskey, a go go and shooting groups. Right

12:05

. And then , uh, started publishing

12:08

them in little rock magazines, like hipper

12:10

Raider, or rock circus,

12:13

things like that,

12:14

Such an industrious high schooler.

12:17

I mean, it was really because we wanted

12:19

to get to the point where you didn't have to buy tickets

12:21

to see the show . And when we

12:24

would talk to photographers outside of the

12:26

venue, they told us, I know you get a

12:29

PhotoPass if you're shooting for a magazine or publication

12:31

and then, you know, it's all free. And I thought, wow,

12:34

wow. So it was totally motivated

12:37

through, I don't , I wouldn't say greed, but,

12:39

But just your passion, let's say patch

12:41

.

12:42

Yeah. Passion at

12:44

a high school budget.

12:45

Yeah. Right. So,

12:47

and then you start doing commercial projects for

12:50

Jackson five and Gladys Knight

12:52

and doing , uh , album covers and things

12:54

like that. Like how did that, did they find

12:56

you just through the work you were doing in magazines?

12:59

Well, no, I solicited them

13:01

because I had

13:03

graduated Cal arts at that point

13:06

when I really moved up

13:08

the food chain and music photography, and

13:11

I had a fashion portfolio

13:14

and portrait portfolio and

13:16

started taking them to the record companies,

13:18

but this is mid twenties, mid twenties. But

13:21

prior to that, while we were still 17,

13:23

I bugged the manager

13:26

Marshall chess for the rolling stones because

13:29

Neil, my partner loved the rolling stones.

13:31

So we bugged him for about

13:34

several months , uh , saying that we wanted

13:36

to shoot the rolling stones and they came to town

13:38

And still just for co for the free concert,

13:41

That point were being published at that point,

13:44

Atlantic records had hired us Capitol

13:46

records and records because

13:49

we were, it's almost like

13:51

today's technology. There was a

13:53

shift in technology in

13:55

the seventies where you have the older

13:57

generation with large medium

13:59

format cameras with flashes.

14:02

We had 35 millimeter and we didn't

14:05

use flashes. We used fast film and just

14:07

the existing stage lights. So we would

14:09

capture the ambience of

14:11

the lighting and the performance. Whereas

14:13

these older guys who were used to shooting for

14:15

newspapers and things like that, everything was just

14:19

pop a flash, everything flattens out. So

14:22

our photos look different in

14:24

those, in our generation yet the other older

14:26

people by older, I mean the 20 year

14:28

olds who are shooting the

14:30

hippy 20 year olds who are shooting, were getting jobs,

14:33

but then we would get jobs. Also

14:35

we assembled a portfolio and

14:38

Marshall chess saw it and he saw that

14:40

we had photographed Chad Berry . His

14:42

father was the

14:44

president of chess records, check

14:47

berries , a record label, and long story

14:49

short. He said, man, if you can make Chuck and

14:51

little Richard look this good, then there's

14:53

no reason why you can't shoot the stones. So what,

14:55

where do you want to shoot him ? So we said, we want to shoot

14:57

them a bit all in California

15:00

because that's our parents wouldn't let us go outside of California.

15:03

So from San Francisco to San Diego, we

15:06

had backstage passes and

15:08

then life magazine found out rather than manager

15:10

told life magazine, where are these

15:12

little 17 year olds are incredible

15:14

photographers and they're shooting the stones and they show

15:17

the photos. And then they put us on stage

15:20

with the stones in San Diego. That

15:22

was pretty phenomenal. The amount

15:24

of things I saw

15:27

And the sweat that sprayed on you, I'm sure

15:29

The sweat, the Jack Daniels and

15:31

the powdery dust lined

15:35

up on top of the amplifiers. Yeah.

15:37

Wow. That is so

15:39

wild. But I also read

15:41

that for a while. You kind of wanted to separate

15:43

your commercial work from more of like your

15:46

art. You were afraid to sort

15:48

of tell people or kind of come out

15:50

as a commercial photographer. Is that okay ?

15:52

Yeah. Um, as an undergrad, initially,

15:54

I went there because I , I knew

15:57

it was a as a man of color that

15:59

I had to offer the marketplace. Something

16:01

that no one else could offer. Cause it was my experience.

16:04

My parents experience that if

16:06

it's the same job and some in

16:08

a white person was up for it, the black person wouldn't get it.

16:11

So my dad really drilled into it . My both

16:13

parents drilled into our head. We have to offer something unique.

16:16

So the logical thing to do would

16:18

have been to go to art center and learn at that

16:20

time, all of the advertising

16:23

photo techniques that they were famous for at the

16:25

time, they really didn't have a fine art program

16:28

back in the seventies. So I

16:30

was going to go there and then I thought, you know what,

16:32

I'm just going to be another art center,

16:34

graduate schlepping my portfolio

16:36

around with that look, which was

16:38

a million dollar. I mean, the technique that you'd pick up

16:40

at art center was phenomenal, but everybody

16:43

would have it. And so I thought, you know, what, if

16:45

I go to an art school and

16:47

then I applied the principles that I learned

16:49

there into my own

16:51

work, I will be able to offer something

16:53

that's wholly unique

16:55

Above and beyond the, just yeah.

16:57

The sort of

16:58

Standard standard. Sure. Yeah. Even

17:00

if it is a gold standard, but it be something unique.

17:02

Right . And so I went there with my

17:04

intention to come out as a fashion photographer

17:07

and so forth. And then in speaking to one

17:09

of my mentors, Raymond Zurich , he

17:11

really convinced me that art was the

17:13

path I needed to take. And

17:16

that's when I pursued it wholeheartedly.

17:18

I think after about two or three months

17:20

at Cal arts, I was

17:23

, I drank the Koolaid. Yeah . And

17:25

I really completely embraced

17:27

fine art and, and the

17:29

whole process. Yeah .

17:31

So, but the commercial side,

17:34

I think definitely influences what you're doing.

17:36

Can you talk about that? Like, was there ever

17:38

any tension, like they were talking

17:40

about certain things in art school that you

17:43

disagreed with or kind of twisted

17:46

from your kind of commercial point

17:48

of well,

17:50

You know, I'm in my mid twenties and

17:53

there were lectures

17:55

of in painting and

17:57

photographs about something called the iconic

18:00

and how one can create a , create an iconic symbol

18:02

and how that symbol can communicate

18:05

very powerfully, without words and

18:07

so forth. And it's understood. And the culture, and

18:09

I was really fascinated by

18:11

that. And I was really influenced

18:14

by Carl Young man and his

18:16

symbols. So I really embraced that. And

18:18

I was reading his spin, ski, some other things

18:20

I really wanted to get to this idea,

18:23

this way of making, where

18:25

I could make something that was graphically

18:27

strong and could communicate

18:30

an idea instantly. Right. So I also

18:32

went into graphic design courses while I was there

18:34

with April Greiman and Jamie archers

18:37

who were in the design school. So

18:39

I wanted to learn how advertising

18:42

communicates so powerfully with

18:45

assemble system. Right . So that's never

18:47

really left me, I think, because

18:50

I do place emphasis

18:53

emphasis on a certain amount of graphic

18:56

heat so that

18:58

I took away, but it's not in the service

19:01

of wall street. It's not in the service of capitalism,

19:03

it's in the service of a critical investigation

19:05

.

19:05

Right. But the , it seems like the

19:08

techniques are so fluid and that's

19:10

really interesting. You talking about graphic design and advertising

19:12

and commercial photography, all being

19:15

techniques such as come in service of

19:17

the more kind of conceptual artwork that you do.

19:19

Right. Right. Absolutely. I think also, because

19:21

for me, I have a strong mandate to communicate to

19:23

people who don't have a background in the language

19:25

of art. You know, that saying,

19:28

I want to make work that my mother can understand.

19:31

And so that was very important

19:33

to me. And so those tools of

19:35

graphic communication and mass

19:38

communication that I'd learned earlier are

19:40

I can put a service.

19:41

That's so interesting. Yeah. I think about that a lot

19:44

with the writing and academic

19:46

language that I really

19:49

do my darndest to avoid

19:51

in every way possible. And yeah.

19:53

I just think that kind of democratic

19:55

accessibility is so important in

19:58

the field of art that can be so closed off

20:00

to the outside.

20:01

Well , it's funny. Um , after I got my

20:03

undergraduate degree, I happened to be downtown.

20:06

It could have been laced when lace was downtown LA

20:08

and sometime in the eighties. And

20:11

I picked up a journal called the dumb ox

20:13

and it was a art

20:16

journal and I couldn't understand

20:18

anything. Absolutely nothing.

20:20

I was befuddled and I was

20:22

angered and I

20:24

thought, how was it that I have a BFA

20:27

in a really strong arts school?

20:29

Yeah . I can understand this language. And that's when I decided

20:32

I have to go to graduate school because I wanted to

20:34

be able to understand everything. Yeah .

20:36

I want to understand it, but not necessarily

20:39

push it forward within your own work.

20:41

Yeah. And also I felt it was keeping me out and

20:43

I thought, wow, this is a higher level of engagement.

20:46

And I wanted to work at the highest level of engagement.

20:48

That's just how,

20:50

Yeah. Back to what your parents

20:53

took , you know, their advice of kind of being exceptional

20:55

or explain above. Yeah .

20:57

Right. So that's when I went and

20:59

sought out Alan . So Kula [inaudible]

21:06

,

21:12

The podcast is supported in part by bridge

21:14

projects, a new Hollywood gallery connecting

21:17

contemporary art spirituality and

21:19

living religious traditions. The

21:21

inaugural show by Phillip K Smith. The

21:24

third is on view. Now learn

21:26

more about the immersive light installation

21:28

and upcoming [email protected].

21:38

Okay. So to go back in time again

21:40

, uh, you, I'm sure

21:42

people want to ask you this all the time, but you are Michael

21:44

Jackson's personal photographer. It's

21:46

like the first time . Oh,

21:49

really perfect. And

21:51

I don't want to belabor that because you've

21:53

done so many other things, but you do

21:55

use Michael Jackson in your work.

21:58

So I just kind of want to talk about that time

22:00

in your life and those experiences,

22:02

and maybe direct that

22:05

question a bit more into how it kind of fed

22:07

the work. Have to answer you in

22:09

two parts. Yeah.

22:10

The first part is because everyone

22:12

wants to know, how do we, how did I intersect?

22:14

How did I get that position? And

22:17

I got that position because

22:20

I act very unimpressed

22:23

when I was around here .

22:24

I think I read something that he said,

22:26

you were very quiet. He likes that

22:28

.

22:30

So what I was

22:33

working shooting

22:35

Gladys night for her public

22:37

relations package. So her

22:40

headshot , I was shooting last night's head shot , her manager

22:43

manage the Jacksons . So little

22:46

did I know that the Jacksons had told their management

22:49

whenever you find a talented

22:51

black person hire them, because

22:54

all they see are them

22:56

making lots of money from the black community

22:59

and the record companies , predominantly

23:01

white, the engineers and the

23:03

, and the studio, everything is predominantly

23:05

white. So they don't see any of the dollars

23:07

going back into the black community. So

23:09

they told them when you see someone who's on it,

23:11

hire them. So I was

23:14

out of Cal arts one year

23:16

and I shot the

23:20

Jackson's for some trade magazines.

23:22

And for the record, no, for the record company, just

23:24

on soul train and American bandstand

23:27

and them getting Michael getting off the

23:29

wall, multi-platinum award

23:31

handshake, grin, and flash

23:33

photography. It's called the subject grins. And you flash

23:36

with your camera. And that was that.

23:39

But then at one point, Michael came up

23:41

to me at the forum and he

23:43

said, Todd, how come you don't like

23:46

me? Huh ? And I said, what?

23:50

And he goes, Todd, how come you don't like me? And

23:52

I said, and now think this

23:55

here is a multimillion dollar

23:58

artists . And I've been around. I mean,

24:00

I've been around Mick Jagger. I've been around Robert plant

24:02

and Zeplin . I've been around a few, quite a few people

24:05

yet. No one has ever asked me the time

24:07

of day, you know?

24:08

And I'm sure to a degree, you're almost,

24:11

you're almost trained to kind of be a fly on the wall

24:13

or just be passive. Right.

24:15

Absolutely. You don't want to insert yourself.

24:17

You just want to document what's going on. Right. So

24:20

I became very suspicious.

24:23

I didn't know what

24:25

he was after. Right . And

24:27

that's what I was trying to, to do because

24:29

I saw this also was a new client.

24:32

And I didn't know if this

24:34

was a trick question or what

24:36

his motives were. I had to find out what his motives. So

24:38

I just said, well, why do you think I don't like

24:40

you? And he said, cause you never talked

24:42

to me. You talked to Tito, you talked to Randy, you

24:45

talked to Merlin . You never talked to me because

24:48

when you're in the backstage of the green room with

24:50

the group and everybody's around Michael and the

24:52

other brother ,

24:53

Or like sitting around, they're

24:55

just sitting around.

24:57

Well, if I'm had gone to Fairfax high and I knew people at Fairfax,

24:59

so he actually knew mutual people. So we're just

25:01

shooting the breeze and laughing and just bullshitting.

25:04

So I told Michael it's out

25:06

of respect. I don't talk to you because you're very,

25:08

very busy and I respect your time. So I stay away

25:11

and he goes, are you sure? It's cause you don't, like

25:14

I said, Michael, there's, I don't even know

25:16

you. How can I not? Like you have to know you first did

25:19

form an opinion. He goes, okay. So

25:21

then the next week I get a call to go to Disneyland

25:23

and to go to Disneyland with him. And

25:26

we spent the day in Disneyland and

25:29

I just got in touch with my inner 12 year old

25:31

. And then basically I just mirrored him because

25:33

I felt most comfortable. It was just too strange

25:36

being an adult while I'm with a 12 year old.

25:38

Yeah. Right.

25:41

And so it was fun just getting in touch with my inner child.

25:44

And then when, after I delivered the film,

25:46

I got a phone call from his manager and

25:48

he said, what's up between you and Mike? I

25:51

go, what do you mean? What's up between me and Mike? And

25:53

he says, what happened in Disneyland? And

25:56

I go, God.

25:58

I said , uh , I said, well , you took,

26:01

I went on the mat of horror and I , I did the, I

26:03

did the photos that he wanted and yeah ,

26:04

We're our inner children.

26:06

And I went home and I go, why are you asking me that? And

26:08

he said, I just got a phone call from Michael. And

26:11

he says that you're the only photographer I'm to hire

26:13

from now on. Wow.

26:16

He said, what happened? I go, I don't know, man. I just, you

26:18

know, I connected to my inner child, you know?

26:21

And he said, well, that's

26:23

, uh , that's what went down. So you're it.

26:26

Wow. And

26:28

to this day that's Oh, that's what I said. Did

26:30

he say anything else? He said, yeah. He said, he liked

26:32

you cause you don't talk much. That's right.

26:35

And I think really it's because he sought me out.

26:37

I didn't seek him out. And by

26:39

that time I had been around so many

26:41

big musicians. I just act normal.

26:44

I , there was no nervousness, no, no

26:46

anxiety.

26:47

And so there's less of that. I'm sure he's so used to

26:49

people, just kind of that anxious, you

26:51

know, people wanting him to do things for them

26:54

and asking for things. And he came

26:56

to you, you just were hanging out right

26:58

in the matter.

26:59

Yeah . And I just treated

27:02

him like a regular person because that's who he

27:04

wants to meet . Cause really I wasn't that into the music.

27:07

Oh right .

27:09

It wasn't until later I really recognized his

27:11

genius, you know , the music super

27:14

genius. Yeah.

27:16

Right. So then from then on you were just his

27:18

Basically I was his pocket camera. Yeah. So

27:21

when he, his, I was

27:23

his iPhone. Absolutely. And

27:25

I'd go to the house and go on

27:27

tour with him and go to Disneyland,

27:30

just go to whatever Jane Fonda's

27:32

place and take a picture of her and

27:34

him or whatever. But after

27:38

I stopped working for him, I

27:41

did not let people in

27:43

the art world know of my relationship

27:45

because I thought that would overshadow the

27:47

seriousness of my commitment to

27:49

art. And that was a time

27:52

where everything was a binary. Everything

27:54

was either, or you're either a commercial photographer

27:56

or you're an art photographer, that's it? Nothing

27:58

in between. So I

28:00

, when I went to Cal arts, I really didn't tell anyone.

28:03

And I was at a critique or something

28:05

While you're still photographing Michael or

28:08

no afterwards

28:08

Ended and it ended, okay . So I was at Cal

28:11

arts , uh , for graduate work from 87

28:13

to 89. And I stopped working for

28:16

him in 83 or 84. Okay.

28:19

At some point, Cal arts is so critical

28:21

and theoretical that you just want to pour cold

28:23

water on the whole thing. So for

28:26

one quick class, I brought my Michael

28:28

Jackson photos in and I decided to talk

28:30

about it in very academic terms,

28:32

you know, just to use this discourse, but

28:34

you know, it's just a guy on a stage

28:37

And was it more so that was maybe like

28:39

more of a performative gesture on here .

28:42

And in spite, you know, I wanted to say,

28:44

look, we can use this language to talk about anything.

28:48

Uh, and so I did, what I didn't know

28:50

is it was either Cathy Opie

28:52

was in that class or she would definitely be in the

28:54

class. Lyle Ashton Harris was

28:56

in that class. Uh , there was a few people

28:59

and it got back

29:01

to Ellen Sekula and Alan calls

29:03

me in his office and he goes, Oh, I heard something very interesting

29:05

about your past. And he said, and that's

29:07

when he said, you know, you should do a

29:10

deep dive into your archive of Michael

29:13

Jackson work and do a critique,

29:15

a photo text piece with a critique

29:17

on race, gender

29:20

and class. Wow . And then he gave

29:23

me this immense reading list and he says,

29:25

as soon as you've read all this stuff, come back to my office

29:27

and we'll start talking. Wow. So

29:30

then assignment, it was fantastic.

29:32

I mean, I resisted it, but it was really,

29:34

yeah ,

29:35

Yeah. I can understand.

29:38

Sure. Pretty much. He said, no , this is going to be a thesis

29:40

this, yeah.

29:42

So then did that help you kind of merge

29:44

your two selves? I mean, it's all

29:46

you, but those two, like you're saying that split between

29:49

art and commercial,

29:50

What it did was it made me self-aware

29:53

in a way that I haven't

29:55

experienced since this

29:57

whole phenomenon called mental colonialism,

29:59

which was that the basis

30:01

of microtears of my photographs. And that

30:03

was the critical lens that I viewed

30:05

the archive through was to

30:08

make this argument that Michael is ashamed

30:10

of his blackness. He's erasing all of

30:12

his African heritage to embrace a European

30:14

models. And that is phenomenon

30:16

of mental colonialism. And

30:19

right when I'm writing that down, I realized

30:21

that it's true with me also. And

30:24

that was mind blowing. That was absolutely

30:26

mind blowing. I had no idea that I

30:28

had been so compromised and that I had

30:31

actual an actual inferiority complex

30:34

and that the basis and

30:36

at the base of it was mental

30:38

colonialism and that I'm a second class citizen

30:40

and it just opened up a Pandora's box

30:42

of issues that I was unaware of. And

30:45

so through this project,

30:47

I became immensely self aware.

30:50

And so a lot of the repair

30:53

work that I needed to do to my consciousness

30:55

to be a whole human being. Cause I did not

30:57

consider myself whole, I was less than that.

31:01

It took some years of work, but

31:04

I was really now actually forms

31:07

the critical base of what I'm doing because

31:10

I'm almost on a mission to try

31:12

to spark that idea

31:15

in a lot of oppressed,

31:18

peoples women, people of color

31:20

and so forth the class, you know, that's why

31:22

those issues are so important to me.

31:35

It's Carla podcast is supported in part by the university

31:37

of Nevada, Las Vegas department of art,

31:40

inviting self-directed artists and designers

31:42

to apply for the fall 2020 masters

31:45

of fine arts program. The three

31:47

year MFA is studio-based and

31:49

research focused with an emphasis on

31:51

interdisciplinarity community engagement

31:54

and professional development schedule

31:56

campus visit and join us in Las Vegas

31:58

for the fall 2019 MFA open

32:01

studios on December 6th , from

32:03

six to 9:00 PM. For more information

32:05

on the program and application go

32:07

to U N L v.edu/art.

32:17

But I want to just sort of describe the

32:19

physicality of the work first,

32:21

before we get into the ideas, just for listeners

32:23

who might not have seen it before, and you're doing

32:25

this kind of stacking with the photograph.

32:28

When did that come into play? Well , that's,

32:30

that's a whole other story.

32:34

I mean, it's very specific. Carrie Mae Weems,

32:37

John comb , FRA Zanelli. I forget

32:39

what was an Ellie's last name was South African photographer.

32:42

They were all in town for an exhibition

32:44

at the Claremont colleges. And I'm

32:47

very, very, very good friends with Carrie maze

32:49

. So I had them over for dinner

32:51

cause they were, yeah, a lot of the

32:53

artists had flown in, so

32:56

they were at our house for dinner and

32:58

it was John [inaudible] who saw some

33:00

Michael Jackson Prince laying around. So

33:02

what's this with Jackson. And then I told

33:05

him and he goes, Oh, just like Stuart hall. He

33:07

says, Oh, this crew . So you're doing this critique like Stuart

33:09

hall. And I go, what? And Carrie may looks

33:11

at me and goes, wait, you haven't read

33:14

Stuart hall. And I said, no. And

33:16

she said, honey, you go back,

33:19

you read Stuart hall. And then you go back

33:21

into your archive and you remake

33:23

everything you're doing. You need to

33:26

totally, totally immerse

33:28

yourself in Stewart. Hall's thinking

33:30

and then go back. And so

33:32

after that I did, and what

33:34

I learned was Stuart hall was

33:37

saying that hegemonic power

33:40

is all encompassing. And our

33:42

power as subjects is in resisting.

33:45

That's where our power is. And so

33:48

he, as I understood it, realize

33:50

that we're polymorphous

33:52

we're , we're not one thing we're not either

33:55

are or right . And not only that,

33:57

the one of the enemies is

33:59

normativity because normativity is

34:01

conformity and conformity. It makes

34:03

us easier to control through

34:06

culture and so forth. So I

34:08

really brought that to photography and

34:10

I looked at every aspect of

34:12

what a good photograph is and I questioned it.

34:14

Why do I automatically want to frame it behind glass?

34:17

Why does it have to have right degree angles,

34:20

corners eight by 10, so forth. So I started introducing

34:22

circles and ovals, and

34:24

then I thought, well,

34:27

why is photography flat? And

34:30

so just through this, asking why of

34:32

everything. I started stacking

34:34

, I started doing collage, but I decided

34:37

I did not want to do the traditional flat collage

34:39

that I really fell in love with during , uh

34:41

, studying.

34:42

Right. Oh my God. Yes. And

34:45

that so many people are doing now digitally.

34:47

Would that kind of digital photo manipulation?

34:50

Yeah.

34:51

I thought I would actually

34:53

stack photos on a frame them and

34:55

stack them on top. And then I said, well then why

34:57

am I using frames that

34:59

, um , are acceptable

35:01

to a gallery space or to the white cube?

35:04

That kind of gallery perfect frame.

35:06

Yes. And so I decided I was gonna

35:09

find frames that have a history. So

35:11

that's when I started going to Goodwill and

35:13

it was really this metaphor. Um , the black community

35:16

was saying that Michael is no longer,

35:18

it doesn't identify with us. And there was a shunning and

35:20

turning away of him in the early nineties

35:23

when he was going through all of the plastic surgery. And

35:25

I thought, you know what, I'm going to bring him physically

35:28

back into the house. So I went

35:30

and got frames at garage sales in South LA

35:32

homes, black people's garage sells

35:34

Goodwill in the area. And

35:36

so frames that were in the home

35:39

of a black person now contain images

35:41

of Michael Jackson. And then there

35:43

was a class signifiers as well. So

35:46

I , here I am, I'm bringing these kinds of frames

35:48

into the white cube, into the church of

35:50

the museum and putting

35:52

the domestic in those spaces. And

35:54

that's , that's really important. So there's all of these decisions.

35:57

I question , Oh, one thing I , one other

35:59

thing that Stuart hole also,

36:02

or I don't know if it was Stewart hall, but hegemony

36:05

is like water to a

36:07

fish,

36:08

Right? Yeah. Right.

36:10

Water is everywhere you ask and it's life

36:12

depends on the water, but you ask the

36:14

fish, they have no idea what water is, but

36:16

that's hegemonic power. And

36:18

a lot of that power is projected through

36:21

mass media through photographs.

36:23

Yes. Oh yeah. I mean, I

36:25

think a lot about the perceived truth

36:27

in photographic image and the history of documentary

36:30

photography. And even

36:32

today, we are trained

36:34

to think of photographs as this is real,

36:37

this happened just because of how we're used

36:39

to them proliferating in the media. But

36:42

we also all know that there's an app

36:44

on my phone that could like put my face on

36:46

your face or, you know, there's different ways

36:48

to just totally twist an

36:50

image and with Photoshop. So it's interesting

36:52

that we still have that in our brains that

36:55

we hold onto that kind of truth

36:57

and image.

36:58

Right. Right. Well, the veracity of photography

37:00

is also what I wanted to confound and confront,

37:03

which is also done

37:05

by stacking the images on top

37:07

of each other obscuring images. So the viewer

37:10

really is an active Leo

37:12

aware that they're creating meaning by

37:14

putting all of these pictures together,

37:16

the construction of meaning that

37:18

meaning is constructed, that really helped bring

37:21

that point home by. Yeah .

37:23

Yeah . So the viewer's response

37:25

to the work because you, as you said, are

37:27

always playing with meaning and looking

37:29

and searching and trying to kind of reconfigure

37:31

things. And so then you put that to the viewer

37:34

and the viewer kind of has like a parallel

37:36

experience almost as to you in a

37:38

way.

37:39

Well, also I offer questions.

37:42

I don't make statements or answers.

37:44

And that's what I really like about the work

37:47

because the viewer has to engage

37:49

and has to dialogue . Right . So I'm using one of those

37:51

mechanisms, that's that we're

37:53

hard wired into us and that is identifying

37:56

if this is a threat or not, is

37:58

it going to eat me or am I going to eat it? So

38:00

by covering things up, covering faces,

38:02

the viewer is the clutch.

38:05

Yeah. Right . The release

38:07

or something. Yeah.

38:08

They can have those questions answered.

38:11

And I know that we're hard wired to think like

38:13

that and wanting to identify. And

38:16

so I make the act of identifying

38:18

complicated. Right. Yeah. And

38:20

problematize it. Right. And so that way I

38:22

know I'm going to have a dialogue with the viewer. And

38:24

then also that's the act of identifying, you know, a black

38:27

person on the street and is this a threat,

38:29

but these are other ideas that are in my

38:31

head that each I'm not expecting the viewer

38:33

to have, but these are some tangentially

38:36

that

38:37

It's in there. Yeah, for sure. So

38:40

let's talk about your current show. That's up at Pomona

38:42

college museum of art and Grigory

38:44

Euclidean, Grigory. Um,

38:47

first tell us about that title. Cause I think that's

38:49

a good segue into the imagery in

38:51

the work.

38:52

Yeah. Well, I was at

38:54

a residency at the

38:56

Rockefeller , uh, Bellagio

38:59

, uh , Villa. It's a 17th century

39:01

Villa and it's maintained in its

39:03

pristine. So there's about 20 gardeners

39:06

and the gardens there that's typical

39:08

European Royal garden. Yeah . And

39:10

I was very uncomfortable about that , uh

39:12

, because I knew I wouldn't be a welcome guest there,

39:15

Even though you were invited there. Oh,

39:18

I see.

39:19

I know the history of the legacy of that place , um

39:22

, would , is me. Yeah.

39:25

I would be, sir. I would be servant. That

39:27

would be the only way I would be there as if I serve . So

39:31

I was working out my discomfort

39:33

and that's when it really that's when I realized

39:36

these gardens that are so immaculately maintained,

39:38

immaculate are

39:41

representations of all sorts

39:43

of , um, values

39:45

and, and uh , uh, thinking.

39:48

But part of which is , um,

39:50

control, controlling nature , um

39:53

, controlling bodies , um,

39:55

uh, logic , um, systems

39:58

of math, rational thinking. And

40:00

I thought, wow, there are so many loaded signifiers

40:02

here. And that's when I hit upon photographing

40:06

European gardens were

40:08

a enriched through

40:10

historically through the slave trade or through colonization.

40:14

So I've been shooting gardens in

40:16

England and France and Portugal

40:18

and the Netherlands. Uh, and

40:21

I have to go back and there's some more that

40:24

you can ,

40:25

There's a lot of places that list

40:27

is long

40:28

And then pairing them up with

40:30

, um, uh, portraits of , um,

40:32

of African diasporic subjects

40:35

and specific African landscapes.

40:37

Right . So for me, right, the

40:40

Euclidean is this geometric

40:43

formula, this sort of mode

40:45

of thought, it's a rational.

40:48

And then , um,

40:50

It was like the size of the photo. Like

40:52

you were talking about that same, those same

40:54

parameters of control or like

40:56

understanding, right? Yeah.

40:58

And then the Grigory is the spirit.

41:01

The gree GRI is the,

41:03

well , you know, the Grigory is a talisman, right ,

41:05

Right. That was worn . It's like a luck chart

41:08

,

41:08

Something like that. Or you could hear in

41:10

you if you really want to

41:13

universalize it a crucifix.

41:15

Okay. Sure.

41:17

Medusa is Greek Greece , these

41:19

objects that have a lot of power. And

41:21

so in African culture, there is

41:24

Grigory there's Juju. Yeah . I

41:27

want, and I have pretty much

41:29

reduced that to my

41:32

thinking where Euclidean is

41:34

neck up thinking in Grigory,

41:36

his neck down. I went to

41:39

gut yes. Body. Yeah

41:42

. Something that I was taught in my postmodern

41:44

education, not to trust. Cause

41:47

these are romantic modernist notions.

41:49

And so here I am engaging

41:51

them .

41:52

Yeah. And then I've read that, like you were

41:54

in Africa working on some of

41:56

this work and you, even

41:58

after you had kind of gone through this thought process

42:01

and trying to show this idea of Grigory

42:03

in the work, and you realized that your

42:05

own thoughts or in a way

42:08

you were still thinking in a very Western way,

42:10

like trying to rationalize

42:12

or understand or like think very logically.

42:15

Right. Well, you know, I'm a product of the Academy.

42:17

And so even though it's a radical,

42:19

you know, Kelarts is a radical Academy, it's still the Academy.

42:22

Yeah.

42:22

And as you said, you went all the way up to the sort

42:25

of academic ladder. Right.

42:27

So I thought, how do I

42:30

distance myself from that? And

42:32

that's when I decided I have

42:34

to be more impulsive

42:37

act in the moment and

42:39

not run ideas and approve

42:41

them and then execute, just respond

42:44

immediately. And so I

42:46

thought I saw that as using my

42:49

body, being very sensitive to how I react

42:51

to something, how my senses are responding

42:53

to something and not just relying on

42:55

analysis through the brain, using language,

42:57

using English to process everything.

43:00

So how do I use my body to process

43:03

Without it sending the yeah.

43:05

Kind of linear language to the brain, which

43:08

is very hard to do because

43:10

we think in language. Yeah ,

43:12

Absolutely. But the metaphor I use

43:14

was a jazz musician and I got this from

43:16

my father. It was really funny. Um,

43:19

um, cause I told my dad, I wanted to start

43:21

drawing and I, and I said, but I

43:23

, I can't draw well. And he goes, he

43:25

has this 90 year old man. He goes, son drawings,

43:28

art. It just do it. He

43:31

goes, he goes, you think miles is thinking

43:33

up there. You think John Coltrane, no

43:36

, they're there. They're doing it. He says

43:38

, you just jump off the cliff and you blow. And

43:42

that was that's when I decided

43:44

to

43:44

You're like, but dad, no, they taught us in art school.

43:47

Yeah . How do you know it's going to be good? No , no , no. You don't

43:49

think about that. You don't think about that. You just blow.

43:52

And that was really liberating.

43:54

And that's where the Greek Greek came in. As

43:56

when I thought of a jazz musician, improvising,

43:59

I've already done my scales for 30

44:01

years. I've done scales. So

44:05

now just blow.

44:06

Yeah. Wow. And then some

44:08

of that early experiences of, you know, shooting

44:10

the rolling stones on stage and being

44:13

impulsive and having to just kind of adapt

44:15

I'm sh I bet that kind of comes into play here as

44:17

well.

44:18

Well , Fluxus, I'm a , I'm a real fan of Fluxus

44:21

and how the moment it has some, every moment,

44:23

there's something you ha and you need to discover it and

44:25

you need to be sensitive to that. So I think that's

44:27

what comes into it. I think what

44:29

was really liberating for me was when

44:32

I did that year long performance

44:34

piece of wearing the clothes

44:36

of my good friend, Raymond Zerick for

44:38

a whole year after he died. Right . Men's

44:40

Eric, of course, was the keyboard is for the doors, the

44:42

music grip, the doors. And , um

44:44

, my good friend, Danny Sugarman was

44:47

their manager in any event. So I got,

44:49

I was introduced into the world, into the world of

44:51

the doors and I made this friendship. Yeah

44:54

. So for me, this was a Fluxus

44:56

performance.

44:56

Right. And that was part of maiden LA, right? Yeah

44:58

.

44:59

Um , I restaged it because I didn't

45:01

tell anyone when I did the performance

45:03

for a year. Right . But I knew it was

45:05

art and I, it was so

45:07

wonderful knowing every morning you woke

45:09

up, you're making work. Yeah

45:12

. It was just wonderful. I can't

45:14

tell you how late I was the first few months,

45:17

you know , as opposed to, I didn't get the studio

45:19

today. Bad art , bad artists, bad

45:21

artists , you know , but every day I put the clothes on,

45:25

yo , baby, I'm done, I'm done . I'm doing the work. I'm

45:28

doing it. And I thought that would be so fantastic

45:31

after this is over to get into that kind of

45:33

flow where you're not, because

45:35

I wasn't asking myself, is this good art

45:37

today? Is this bad art as it's successful a failure?

45:39

No, I'm just doing it. I'm putting on

45:41

the clothes. I'm doing the work. You

45:43

know, that's what I tried to bring

45:46

back when with the Grigory

45:48

, because that was a wonderful year

45:50

of making sure I made photographs.

45:52

But even when I wasn't making a photograph, as long

45:54

as I was wearing the clothes I knew I was, I was

45:56

performing. And that was fabulous.

45:59

Liberating. That sounds so liberating.

46:01

Yeah. But then, so

46:03

They were cool as hell.

46:05

Like I looked awesome. Yeah.

46:08

So people yeah. Probably responded to your outfit

46:11

differently and you probably put on a different air

46:13

or persona in a way

46:14

When you're wearing yeah. Yoshi,

46:16

I'm a Modo and he only

46:19

combed the Garcia . He only dressed , looked

46:21

very top end. I would oftentimes

46:23

get confused as a collector when I go to openings.

46:26

Cause the signifiers people would recognize

46:29

jelly or whatever those words are, whatever those designers

46:31

names are and they come, hello?

46:34

Would you like some something to drink?

46:37

That's so interesting. Okay .

46:39

Well, you know, I'm also drawing, I'm doing

46:41

this wall drawings and been expanding the wall drawings.

46:44

Oh yeah. There's a whole way. There's a back,

46:46

there's some galleries that aren't in use and I've been drawing

46:49

there and over the Christmas

46:51

break, it's going to, I'm going to be going back

46:53

and doing more drawing during the winter break.

46:56

So explain those drawings. They're circular patterns,

46:58

right? Yeah . Yeah .

47:00

Well, my mother, this comes back to childhood.

47:02

I engaged , I embraced photography because

47:04

I could not draw because my mother

47:07

was a good drafts person. She could

47:09

draw it and look like you're like the person.

47:11

Right. She was trying to draw for me.

47:13

It was stick figures always until I picked up a

47:15

camera. So I've always thought, no , you can't draw.

47:18

So when I was in South Africa at this residency

47:20

at the Nitrox residency and I was

47:22

at a place where the birth place

47:25

of humankind started world

47:27

heritage site. Wow. I decided

47:29

I need to honor

47:31

that and connect to my, okay.

47:34

Listen to this for a romantic. I needed to

47:36

connect to my DNA cause it's there somewhere

47:39

and make images that come out of that.

47:41

And so I thought, well, how would one

47:44

draw? And I thought of the cave drawings

47:46

and I thought of all sorts of things. And

47:48

then I, what made me most comfortable was this circle.

47:51

I was not intimidated by making a circle.

47:53

So I said, okay, then just make circles

47:56

. You're not intimidated. You feel I could be

47:58

a jazz musician by just making social

48:00

circumstances blow. So

48:02

then I would make these circles in these entities,

48:04

these forms would appear. So I found

48:07

a conduit for my unconscious to reveal

48:09

itself. So I think it's really a union

48:11

kind of discipline and I'm very,

48:13

and that my brain kind of likes it because I can label it. Oh,

48:15

that's a whole union thing that you're doing, you

48:17

know, you're it , you're just expressing your ears.

48:20

Yeah. And then you can bring other people in on

48:22

it because we can all draw

48:24

a circle.

48:26

And I like the idea that you're drawing on

48:28

a museum wall, you would get, I would

48:30

get reprimanded for drawing on the wall as a child.

48:33

Right . You never draw, you know

48:35

, in the church wall of the museum. And

48:37

so when students or viewers come in, I say, yeah,

48:39

pick up some charcoal. Come on. Yeah .

48:41

Although they did tell me when I went in there , like don't

48:43

lean against the wall. You don't want to brush

48:45

the charcoal . Cause now it is

48:48

art. It's precious. And I love

48:50

, there's such a different kind of, there's a

48:52

contrast and that energy, that period

48:54

you're talking about with the drawings

48:56

and then the photographs, which have

48:59

a very composed

49:01

kind of quality to them. Right.

49:02

Right. Yeah . And I think that's also the

49:04

Euclidean and the Grigory . Yeah . And so

49:06

it comes, the , the gesture says

49:09

something about the

49:11

impulse one criticism I've had

49:14

and it's come up three times. It

49:16

says that the images are so beautiful.

49:18

It really overwhelms the horror that I'm speaking

49:21

of. And

49:23

the , because it's the horror is, is,

49:25

is the conceptual foundation of which

49:27

the whole broad check is based upon. Yeah . So

49:30

,

49:31

But in your interview with Carrie Mae Weems

49:33

in the catalog for your show, you talked about using

49:35

beauty as a weapon. Right ? So

49:38

I mean, I, I understand that critique,

49:40

but I also think beauty is

49:42

something that as artists, we're all

49:45

after, and it's such a tool to communicate

49:47

and draw people in.

49:49

But considering that I had

49:51

the classic postmodern education

49:53

at Cal arts where I was told

49:56

, uh , intuition is

49:58

not to be trusted and beauty,

50:01

if did something for beauty sake, that's empty.

50:04

Yeah . You know, and then of course in my

50:06

commercial photography, beauty was very important.

50:08

Right. So beauty was anathema,

50:11

you know, and I

50:14

know that I really love to

50:16

make beautiful things. And so I realized,

50:18

okay, I have to then use

50:20

it for my end, you

50:23

know , for my purpose. So I use it

50:25

to actually seduce or induce

50:27

something to bring the viewer in.

50:30

Yeah . But once they get in there, I'm hoping I can

50:32

offer conundrums and questions

50:34

and all sorts of problems

50:37

that they need to solve. Yeah.

50:39

You were talking about sort of this perfection

50:42

and sort of Euclidean gardens

50:44

and a way of thinking that like Western logical

50:47

thought and then the Grigory sort of gut

50:49

or intuition , um, which

50:52

is , uh , sort of an African

50:54

space in your work, right? Yeah.

50:57

So, but you're American, I guess.

50:59

Where do you see yourself? Probably

51:02

between the two as an American

51:04

and someone who's come from both

51:06

lineages in a way,

51:08

Actually back in the eighties, I was making work about

51:10

that , um , where

51:12

I was combining pristine

51:15

photographs. And then

51:17

I ha I created

51:20

this fictional Todd gray origination

51:22

story. So I would

51:24

get a map of Africa and get darts and

51:26

then I'd throw the dart where it landed. Then I go

51:28

to the library, the library and

51:30

I'd go and see what kind of artifacts were made at that region.

51:33

And if I didn't like the artifacts, I, I, reason

51:35

I couldn't have come from there, I wouldn't have made work. Like

51:37

that's not me, but I go back through

51:39

a dart again until I

51:41

came to a place where I said, yeah, that's the kind of stuff. Yeah.

51:44

That looks good. Well then clearly I recognize

51:46

that through my DNA and that was

51:48

in the eighties. And then I would draw those

51:50

, um, uh, um, uh,

51:52

masks and what have you onto my

51:55

photographs. So I

51:57

knew though that I made

51:59

my own history, so I know it was a

52:01

because my body is African, you know,

52:03

and I know I'm a dive sporks , uh,

52:05

subject. So it's been

52:08

important to reconnect

52:10

to the , the continent or to the

52:12

culture because I'm only

52:15

a half. Right

52:17

. I'm only connecting, I'm not connecting fully.

52:20

Right. Right. And do you feel

52:22

like having that connection and going

52:25

in this body of work, like, can you feel that in

52:27

you or what is it ?

52:28

This is, I I'd have to back up and tell you a little story.

52:31

Like when I first started going to Ghana here,

52:33

I was, I was a total black American

52:35

I'm back in the motherland and

52:39

they would call me old Bruni . I know

52:41

Bruni literally means white man. Every

52:44

westerner , they will call a broody until I found out I had somebody what's so

52:46

Bruni and go , Oh , that's white man. I went , Oh,

52:49

I'm being called white man . But basically

52:51

westerner, you know , if it was Japan,

52:53

I'd be called guy , Jean , Mexico, gringo, so

52:55

forth. And so I realized, no, I'm a westerner

52:58

I'm to these, to these folks. And

53:01

after three years, those

53:03

around us in the village where we live are places

53:05

by a fishing village, they would treat us

53:08

like normal people. I wasn't no Bruni . I was

53:10

taught like I was who I

53:12

was, but it took a couple

53:14

years of culture shock and

53:17

not understanding

53:19

where is my place because

53:21

America, I'm not completely embraced. And

53:23

over here I'm a foreigner. And so I'm

53:26

a , this floating into tea without

53:28

a specific country that

53:31

embraces me and that's

53:33

can be quite liberating also. So I chose

53:35

to look at it as an act of liberation so

53:38

that I could actually be an interloper,

53:40

I could go in and out and I can, I can

53:43

just see things that others don't see. And I could

53:45

be an art or a true artist because

53:47

I'm not beholden to any

53:49

Either rule or either culture.

53:51

Correct . Yeah. And artists, I feel

53:54

like often have that luxury to kind of float

53:56

between worlds in that way.

53:58

Yeah. I'm speaking of floating between

54:00

worlds in the work, you also have space

54:02

imagery, so you have

54:05

it's Hubble space photographs. Right? Tell

54:08

us about that and how that kind of enters

54:10

into this. Uh ,

54:12

Well, the first iteration of the work was

54:14

using images from my

54:16

archive of Michael Jackson and combining them

54:19

with images from my archive of Africa

54:21

, um , to really situate

54:23

him as a African black subject,

54:26

because as the most recognizable black person on

54:28

the planet, even though I obscured his face,

54:30

I guess

54:31

Just the hair, this jacket.

54:33

Yeah.

54:34

Um, that I wanted that dialogue to talk about

54:36

, um , blackness and African ness

54:39

and so forth. So when I was

54:41

making that work, I

54:44

thought that's when I also realized

54:46

his level of genius because

54:48

I've not seen another performer have

54:51

the ability to dance at such

54:53

a high level and seeing it at such

54:55

an , a level either, or they do the dance

54:57

or they can sing, but I haven't seen, and that's when I really

54:59

started giving it up and going, you know what? His

55:02

performance is genius. And

55:05

I thought, well, you know what, it's so

55:07

genius that he couldn't have come here from here. And

55:09

then I thought of sun RA Wilson rock came from Saturn

55:12

. And I said, you know what? He must come from the same lineage

55:14

of sun RA . He came from the stars.

55:17

And so I created an origination story

55:19

for him. And that's when I started using

55:22

, uh , uh, images of the celestial bodies

55:24

of cosmos in those photographs. Then

55:27

as I transitioned my work away from him

55:29

and I was talking about colonization

55:32

and so forth , um,

55:34

it became really a metaphor

55:37

of, of all the infinite possibilities.

55:39

How is it that black people

55:42

find it so very difficult to succeed?

55:45

How was it that black people are

55:47

persecuted so much or

55:50

in these situations when there's infinite

55:52

possibilities. So to sort of shine

55:55

a light in my head, you know, that's , that's what it represents

55:57

to me, the, how things are institutionalized

56:00

systematized and predetermined.

56:01

Yeah. In my interpretation

56:04

of those images, there

56:06

was sort of hope. It felt really hopeful.

56:09

Like I felt like you were drawing a line

56:12

between this kind of Western logic

56:14

and this more raw space and kind of finding

56:16

something in between. But , uh,

56:18

you know, we have so many issues in American

56:21

culture, God, where we

56:23

start, but I feel like by pointing up

56:25

like pointing to the stars and

56:27

outside, you kind of bring

56:30

in a hopeful , uh

56:32

, notion of the future.

56:33

It's wonderful that you have that read for

56:36

me. It's a little darker. No,

56:40

actually it's about our insignificance.

56:42

And I think if we can see how insignificant

56:45

we are, we may act a little differently. Right.

56:47

Because the level of hubris is just

56:49

immense and I would think,

56:51

and so from my thinking, we have to remember

56:53

that we are smaller than a piece of dust.

56:56

And then perhaps with that level of

56:59

modesty, we might

57:02

change our behavior. And

57:04

so that's what it's signifying.

57:07

Yeah. And then it just makes all this yeah . Dancing

57:09

we're doing just seems so insignificant. It's

57:11

all these lines, all, everything. It

57:14

just, just like what ?

57:15

I don't want to be fatalist, but yeah . Um,

57:18

it like the universe doesn't care if

57:20

earth explodes, universe doesn't

57:23

care, it's got billions upon billions upon

57:25

billions, more out

57:28

there.

57:28

Yeah. And then we'll explode and create more

57:30

startups.

57:32

That's another thing we may explode, but we're still

57:34

there. And so that's, that's, that's

57:36

what the whole , you know, that's the one my mom

57:39

died a few months ago and

57:42

, but it really, you know,

57:44

we're , we're here, but she's here. And

57:46

also we're all, we're all gonna

57:48

die. We're born, we die. And so

57:51

it's a cycle, so where do we come from? Where do

57:53

we go? We're still, we're still going to beat.

57:55

We're still here in this universe.

57:57

Yeah. And then floating around

57:59

as start us . There's no borders

58:01

or no country. Like, it's just one. We

58:03

all share that. Yeah .

58:04

And we're definitely started us. We're made of Stardust

58:07

literally. So it's, it's, it's really

58:09

now . No, now it is very hopeful. Yeah.

58:11

Right . It does. I thought so.

58:14

Yeah.

58:15

Yeah. It turns around, it definitely turns out that ,

58:18

Um, I also noticed in the work, the stacking

58:20

, um, almost becomes figurative.

58:23

And I wanted to ask if that was an intentional,

58:26

but I mean, you're putting things on faces

58:28

sometimes like other round images

58:30

on people's faces. Right . But I feel

58:32

like even without a figure present, sometimes

58:34

just the way the compositions are

58:37

enacted, they almost feel like a

58:39

figure just with the frames and the,

58:43

If, so that is part

58:45

of what attracts me to the

58:47

resolution as I am

58:50

in my studio and reconfiguring

58:52

all of these photos and different positions

58:55

to come upon something where I go Hm

58:59

I'm searching for. Yeah . And

59:01

I, that's the Greek word actually.

59:03

I mean, it's not like this works and this is why,

59:05

and then I can check one, two, three, no. It's

59:08

how do I vibrate? Yeah.

59:10

And I'm really sensitive to how I

59:12

feel when I get to

59:15

a collage and the items

59:17

just, Oh man, it just

59:19

works. You know? So if

59:21

it mimics the figure or

59:23

the body comes, it's not my

59:26

intent and I don't even know

59:28

which ones might. Yeah . I just know

59:31

it , it comes together. It's holistic.

59:33

It just comes to , yeah .

59:36

Yeah. I don't want to like be labor that,

59:38

but um, it's let me

59:40

go there for a second. Interesting. To think

59:42

that in a way,

59:44

you know, that , um, kind of theory

59:46

that we just want to see ourselves, we want to

59:48

see the familiar, we want to see a figure

59:51

in the world and things like that. So I

59:53

wonder if there's something in your psyche that when you

59:55

position the photos, just so

59:57

it brings that like instant recognizable.

1:00:02

I think that's part of it. And sometimes I must

1:00:04

say when I see the

1:00:07

certain , uh, evidence

1:00:09

of it forming I'll push

1:00:11

it, like the image that was at the Whitney museum,

1:00:14

the biennial, that what the red jacket

1:00:16

. Yeah . That definitely, I

1:00:18

consciously made a figure. And

1:00:20

then the garden , um, that

1:00:22

, that I put on its side, was it

1:00:24

the spine? I mean, yeah. I , I

1:00:27

very much objectively

1:00:29

put that once I recognize some things are happening,

1:00:32

then I went in and I emphasized it. Got it.

1:00:34

Because I saw that

1:00:36

it would be a good

1:00:38

point of entry for the viewer and

1:00:41

that, so I tightened it up that

1:00:43

way. I knew that the space

1:00:46

of though would be resolved if

1:00:48

the viewer, even if they weren't conscious that

1:00:51

they saw a , a complete figure, they,

1:00:54

part of them would, would, would recognize that something

1:00:56

in there

1:00:57

Right. In that same way and just feel that

1:00:59

like, Hmm.

1:01:00

Right. Yeah. It's resolved.

1:01:03

Definitely. Um, to switch a little bit,

1:01:05

you have, I don't know the titles, but there's

1:01:07

a work in the current show and I think it's a

1:01:09

picture of wildfire speaking

1:01:12

. I mean, just today, we're in the midst of wildfires,

1:01:14

like what, 15 miles away.

1:01:17

Um, and it's kind of placed on top of a

1:01:19

plinth in what I'm assuming as a European

1:01:21

garden.

1:01:22

Yeah. In Paris. Yeah. The

1:01:25

wildfire image , uh, came

1:01:27

from South Africa from , uh,

1:01:30

Cape town and it was the Hills

1:01:32

of Cape town burning where the vineyards are and

1:01:35

it was just billowing smoke. And I got out of the car

1:01:37

that I was in and took a picture and

1:01:41

I thought I probably would never

1:01:43

use it because it was just too

1:01:46

graphic. I thought it was far too graphic and image

1:01:49

and limiting. And so self-defined, but

1:01:51

then it's funny because , um , it

1:01:53

was a winter day when I took that photograph and

1:01:55

you'll see the people in that photograph have overcoats

1:01:58

and so forth. And then it looked

1:02:00

like once I put around, I

1:02:02

had around image on it before

1:02:04

and it started to look like a trophy. Yeah

1:02:07

. And then it also looked like

1:02:09

an African , uh, uh

1:02:12

, figure there's an iconic shape

1:02:15

with a circle that's used

1:02:17

as a , uh, to signify a body something. Yeah

1:02:19

. And so all these things came on and then

1:02:21

I thought, wow, this is Anthropocene. I

1:02:23

mean, this is really a really good metaphor

1:02:25

for the Anthropocene .

1:02:26

Definitely. Yeah. That really

1:02:29

like touched me when I saw it a couple of days

1:02:31

ago, just in the midst of ecological

1:02:33

collapse. I mean, that's like a whole other thing, but

1:02:36

I feel like that's in the work

1:02:38

and that piece was so potent kind of against

1:02:40

these like very crispy European,

1:02:42

like perfect garden .

1:02:44

Yeah. A few years ago with a studio

1:02:46

visit with Christine Kim, she brought

1:02:48

up this term called Anthropocene and I'd

1:02:50

never heard of it. And then she explained it to

1:02:52

me and I have been

1:02:54

sensitive to it. And

1:02:56

although I didn't specifically

1:02:58

try to engage an image,

1:03:00

I mean, make an image that engages with that.

1:03:03

It's opened up a whole another

1:03:05

door for me, a whole nother

1:03:07

area of investigation. So

1:03:10

no doubt there might be some other images coming

1:03:12

down the pike that , uh , uh,

1:03:14

that make the

1:03:16

point to that direction.

1:03:19

Can't wait. Yeah.

1:03:23

Um, yeah, it just seems like with your work,

1:03:25

you know, we think of artists as

1:03:27

focusing energy on the object

1:03:29

and like putting this intense focus

1:03:32

on the physical thing.

1:03:34

And I, you sure do as well

1:03:36

because your objects are gorgeous and beautifully

1:03:38

produced, but it seems like for you, it's more

1:03:40

about being out in the world

1:03:43

and kind of collecting knowledge

1:03:46

and experience and place.

1:03:48

And , uh, then

1:03:50

the work almost becomes like a vessel for those

1:03:52

things

1:03:53

That also becomes , um , autobiographical.

1:03:56

And so it is a

1:03:58

log of my past. And

1:04:01

then however, I reconfigure it,

1:04:03

like we reconfigure our reconfigure,

1:04:05

our memory, right . And

1:04:08

so I reconfigure and depending

1:04:10

on your mood and time and place, we

1:04:12

remember things differently. You see what I'm

1:04:14

trying to do as the work grows

1:04:16

is get further away from

1:04:19

, um, linguistic resolution

1:04:21

through the , um,

1:04:24

uh, language that I use in my brain, because

1:04:27

the language that I use in my brain is a

1:04:29

direct result of, of Western thought and

1:04:32

culture. So the

1:04:34

way for me to do that again, is

1:04:37

to be very open that the work

1:04:39

is going to reflect this moment. And there's

1:04:41

a truth in this moment. So I need to be wholly

1:04:44

present and I need

1:04:46

to quiet the chattering monkey and the mind.

1:04:49

So in that way, sometimes when I'm

1:04:51

doing the work, it's a very meditative process.

1:04:53

Can I ask if you meditate, I'm

1:04:55

a F I'm a, I'm a failed

1:04:58

meditator. I

1:05:00

meditate prone lying in bed

1:05:03

That I do the sleep one sometimes,

1:05:06

which I don't think that counts, but it helps.

1:05:08

Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:11

But anyways , so you think of the work as a type of

1:05:13

meditation or a meditative state

1:05:15

When I get to the flow state.

1:05:17

Absolutely. And I'm

1:05:19

just moving pictures around being

1:05:22

very impulsive. And

1:05:24

it's funny, cause sometimes the brain will chirp up. Like,

1:05:27

don't use that picture. That's bad. That's like a

1:05:29

bad photograph. And

1:05:31

then I have to go, Oh, okay. Then I'm

1:05:34

absolutely using it because my brain

1:05:36

said don't use it. So I have to

1:05:38

be a contrarian because that's setting up limits

1:05:40

of the work .

1:05:41

Or even I can imagine like going

1:05:43

through you've as you said, gone through the

1:05:45

Michael Jackson archive several times, but just

1:05:47

going through old images and be like, Oh, I can't use

1:05:50

that here because that's different than this new

1:05:52

series. And this is the new series

1:05:54

that I did of these gardens and the old one is,

1:05:56

you know,

1:05:57

Make rules, break rules, make

1:05:59

rules, break rules. Yeah . Yeah. That's

1:06:01

really the mantra. And so when

1:06:04

there is a limit, when there is a rule, when

1:06:06

there is something that my brain comes up and says, no,

1:06:08

you can't, or that's not correct. Well

1:06:10

then I gotta break that because

1:06:12

I need to push past my lip , the limits

1:06:14

of thought, I need to push past the

1:06:16

limits of what I think good taste is and what

1:06:18

good art is because of the idea of good art

1:06:20

is very limiting

1:06:28

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1:06:29

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