Anything is permissible in collage, and multiple mediums like paint, paper cutouts, and found objects collide on and with the surface plane. The very selection and composition of incongruous materials reveals an attempt at order and meaning. In Saying Yes to Everything, source materials include glitter dollar signs, gold chain, penciled math problems, a rusted comb, comic-book cutouts, and a vintage stamp booklet cover. The boundaries of the medium are limitless, and therefore democratizing.

Alexis Smith. Kerouac Haiku, 1994; mixed-media collage; 27 x 32 x 2 in. Courtesy of Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles. CA. Photo: Elon Schoenholz Photography.

The exhibit opens with a narrative diorama by Alexis Smith titled Kerouac Haiku (1994), in which a chart of constellations is affixed with various childhood objects. Two deputy sheriff badges flank the moon, and with red paint, the artist complements the original title “Beautiful moonlit night” with “marred by family squabbles.” The map’s key notes the magnitude of the stars and brings attention to perhaps the distance of these memories or desires in relation to each other.

Amanda Ross-Ho. Untitled Wall Arrangement (TIMER), 2012; sheetrock, wood, latex paint, acrylic paint, graphite, framed lightjet print, single earring, found images, blank canvas, thesis rag, aluminum thumbtacks, vintage goldtone chain, yellow plastic thumbtacks, CNC acrylic triangle, laser print, red plastic thumbtack, vintage goldtone chain, single earring, Keinholz thumbprint test, aluminum thumbtack; 96 x 74 x 4 in. Courtesy of the Artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash. Photo: New York Photo.

Amanda Ross-Ho’s Untitled Wall Arrangement (2012) is striking. What is visible to the eye is minimal, despite the artist’s use of at least twenty separate materials. The objects of measurement here—the photograph of the timer, the sleeved cup, the acrylic triangle ruler, the box—are either immovable or missing a dimension, and therefore nonfunctional. Unexplained math computations in graphite suggest themselves to be outside the realm of this collage, speaking to an unknowable context.

Brenna Youngblood. History of the Cowboy, 2008; color photographs, spray paint, gouache, and found frame; 24 x 20 in. Courtesy of Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Photo: Joshua White/JWPictures.com.

Ray Yoshida’s Comic Book Specimen #1—Right Profile (c. 1965) is both earnest and humorous in its carefully cut study of comic-book characters. The portraiture profiles are cleanly cut from comic-book pages and presented in neat rows. Another standout in this exhibit is Brenna Youngblood’s History of the Cowboy (2008), in which both photography and paint are used. The piece is a play on and challenge to royal portraiture. Mounted in a found wooden frame and set against a blood-red background, Youngblood’s subject possesses distorted facial features and an enlarged body, wears a crown-like cowboy hat, and is set low in the frame.

Ray Yoshida. Comic Book Specimen #1 — Right Profile, c. 1965; collage on paper, 22 x 28 in. Courtesy of the estate of Ray Yoshida. Collection of KAWS, New York. Photo: Tom Van Eynde.

The works in this exhibition speak to the range of ways—conceptually, personally, impersonally, textually, visually, spacially, and through narrative—that American collage artists have addressed their experiences in the world since 1960. These works echo the original purpose of collage in the early 20th century, and demonstrate the progress of collage in American art history.

Saying Yes to Everything is on view at Honor Fraser Gallery through December 20, 2014.

N. Dash. Hammer Projects: N. Dash, 2014; installation view, Los Angeles. Courtesy of the Artist. Photo: N. Dash.

Dash’s floor-to-ceiling light boxes illuminate the pale wreaths of fibers floating in a cool, aqueous light that ripples almost undetectably. These suspended fibers were deconstructed by her hands over many hours in her daily routine, and she began photographing the twists of fabric in 2002 to make a physical record of her creative energy.

The documentation of her process through physical objects continues upstairs in the vault gallery with silver gelatin prints of various worked fabrics, each a testament and witness to the invisible but powerful reality of creative energy. These prints are featured beside her larger works made of adobe, indigo, jute, oil, graphite, wood, linen, and string, some of which are stapled directly into the museum wall in order to show each individual work’s journey through different spaces. Dash is particularly interested in “wear,” the accumulation of texture of an object as it passes through different spaces.

N. Dash. Untitled, 2014; adobe, oil, pigment, string, acrylic, linen, jute, and wood support. Courtesy of the Artist. Photo: N. Dash.

N. Dash. Untitled, 2014; adobe, pigment, string, acrylic, linen, jute, and wood support. Courtesy of the Artist. Photo: N. Dash.

Dash’s exploration of space, matter, and process stems in part from her visit to New Mexico in 2002, in which she visited an adobe house that had been built with the excavated earth beside it. The transformation of dirt—and the negative space that remained as a reminder of the structure’s autochthonic origin—greatly impressed Dash, who now uses the New Mexican earth in her works, often mixing and applying adobe by hand. All untitled, the larger works possess both feminine and masculine qualities in their structural geometry, earthiness, and sensuality.

Hammer Projects: N. Dash is on view at Hammer Museum in Los Angeles through January 25, 2015.

Leeah Joo. Flight of Crane Wives, 2013; oil on wood panel; 16 x 20 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

Robin Tung: Many of your collections emphasize curtains, windows, and lattice doors. What interests you about surfaces?

Leeah Joo: I have always been fascinated with narrative-driven artwork, from Man-wha (Korean manga) to Old Masters. In the Windows and Doors series, I refer to literature and a cinematic approach to canvas. For example, Hitchcock’s Rear Window and the seduction of voyeurism. We often find ourselves inadvertently peeking into neighbors’ lives with a passing glimpse of their lit windows. From these fleeting images, we weave a tale to satisfy our curiosity.

For me, my emphasis on the detail of the surface of the fabric, glass, wood is a way to draw attention, to pique your interest.  There is an ancient tale of two Greek painters, Parrhasius and Zeuxis, who had a contest: Zeuxis paints a bowl of grapes so realistic a bird tries to peck at the painting.  Zeuxis then turns to Parrhasius’ painting, which has a curtain draped over it. When Zeuxis demands the curtain be pulled back, Zeuxis discovers that the curtain is Parrhasius’ painting. I love this story because it combines the power of realism and anticipation created by the concealing curtain. In great storytelling, the buildup and the anticipation keep us interested, not the ending itself. I like to think my “surface” is the buildup.

Leeah Joo. Brass City, 2010; oil on canvas; 30 x 30 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

RT: How do you see concealment, multiple spaces, and views relating to bi- or multiculturalism?

LJ: In 1982, my family moved to the U.S. when I was in fifth grade. My school district in Indiana was predominately white, with very little diversity. Being an immigrant, non-native speaker in a large school district with hardly any minority students, let alone Asians, you try on different personas to fit in. Of course, all adolescents go through the chameleon stage at some point, seeking out their niche, but mine seemed to last forever.

In graduate school, I finally felt comfortable just being me. I was perceived as a painter first and foremost, regardless of my clothes, my accent, or my background. Now, my children are bicultural and they are learning to juggle the multifaceted background they have inherited. As I help navigate their path, similar thoughts seep into my studio.  Simultaneity is crucial to all aspects of these works; the fabric is a small still life and a vast ocean all at once, stories are historical and personal, and the myths are truths. And I tell my children, You are this and you are that, all at once.

Leeah Joo. Tincan Phone (detail), 2013; oil on wood panel; 12 x 80 in. Courtesy of the Artist. Photo: Leeah Joo.

RT: Could you speak to Tincan Phone and There Is a Season?

LJ: The long panel pieces like Tincan Phone are inspired by Korean Sagyong, illuminated sutras, traditionally drawn with gold or silver ink on black ink-soaked paper. They are usually only 6-8 inches high and span 10-12 feet. I’ve always loved the panoramic span of scroll paintings from China, Japan, and Korea, and the way the length of the scroll can provide a wonderful narrative platform to show the passage of time.

Tincan Phone refers to an incident this past summer when all lines of communication between North and South ceased. As I listened to the story on NPR while painting, I wondered about how they—the diplomats, politicians, even civilians—communicated across the DMZ. I had just made my children a tincan phone for their tree house, and they complained how it didn’t work. The long scroll-like panel was a perfect opportunity to show the great political distance between the two countries.

There Is a Season—the title comes from the well-known passage from Ecclesiastes about the passing of time and season, often heard at memorial services. The dome-like shape is inspired by traditional Asian burial mounds or tombs. This painting is in memory of a loved one passing. I selected a fabric with a color and design that embodied her spirit and I created a mound that is slowly seeping back into earth. I hope the mound is beautiful and foreboding at the same time.

Leeah Joo. There Is a Season, 2013; oil on canvas; 36 x 48 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

RT: What do you hope that viewers walk away with after viewing your work?

LJ: There is an abundance of Asian-influenced art right now. One hopes her approach is unique and memorable. I would love for the viewer to be drawn in by the fabric and become interested enough in one of the folktales or historical events to spend a few minutes Googling about it. It is my hope that someday these references will become more familiar and less foreign.

Melissa Miller. Flood, 1983; oil on linen; 59 x 95 in. Courtesy of the Artist

Robin Tung: The animals in your paintings take part in cultural myths (Flood [1983] and The Ark [1986]), fables, fictional and humorous narratives (Clowns [1983]), and masquerades (Lioness in Zebra Skin [1985]). What inspired these different themes and configurations?

Melissa Miller: With Flood and The Ark, I was doing a series of paintings set within a context of pending disasters. For me these narratives were metaphors for the human illusion of control over our lives and futures. Humans react as as if we are immune to twists of fate, sudden disaster, associations, illness, disability, or decisions made by others. Having lived my life experiencing Texas hurricanes, droughts, floods, fires, and tornadoes, I thought weather seemed a likely metaphor for unpredictable intrusion.

Occasionally I pull subject matter directly from newspapers, books, the internet, or art history. Clowns resulted in part from seeing Uccello’s Rout of San Romano (1438–40) face to face and simultaneously discovering the Japanese Choju Giga Scrolls. The paintings of animals dressed in each others’ skins (Lioness in Zebra Skin) came from an interest in depicting acts of deception. Both paintings are an example of depicting animals in positions beyond their anatomical possibilities. That’s about as cartoonish as I’ve ever ventured.

Melissa Miller. Red Pony, 2002; oil on canvas; 48 x 56 in. Courtesy of the Artist

RT: I particularly love Red Pony (2002) and Cluster (2003). These paintings in the context of your works communicate all facets of a full existence–harmony, demons, destruction, feeding, masking, humor, flight, rest. Can you tell us about Red Pony and Cluster?

MM: For the last fifteen or so years, I have been interested in how humans are reshaping animal habitats and forcing them into new juxtapositions and locations. There is a globalization of animals happening that is similar to that of humans. Having closely observed landscape and pastures and development in south and central Texas my whole life, there are startling changes. Not only do livestock and indigenous animals cohabitate, but multiple foreign species have been introduced. Either for reasons of conservation, commerce, hunting, or novelty, these new conglomerations have become rather common. Simply from the highway, one can see imported antelope, deer, giraffe, zebra, goats, etc. Llamas have become almost ubiquitous companions of livestock. Humans are also encroaching on habitats, changing animal and bird migratory patterns, driving some species into extinction, etc.

The animals in both Red Pony and Cluster may seem a strange combo, but actually, these mixes are based on reality. I photographed what I could tell (with some confidence) were a foreign breed of black goats off a back road to San Antonio. The horse in the environment with them would not be unusual, though the color of the little pony obviously is. I felt the painting needed that shot of highly saturated color and the narrative stretch.

The species in Cluster all appeared in a photograph together in a street scene from Southeast Asia. There was a small Asian Bear, on a chain, performing tricks for a crowd. In the background was a Brahma cow and Rhesus monkey. I based my menagerie on this actual juxtaposition. Their fiction is not far from the truth.

Both paintings are organized on a loose grid with a kind of stacked perspective, which is more commonly used in Eastern art (as opposed to Western perspective, in which objects diminish in size as they move back in space). I like this type of illusion of space and time because it seems to equalize the importance of each figure and vignette. Both this type of perspective and the gridlike structure support a sense of calm in both works.

Melissa Miller. Clowns, 1983; oil on linen; 56 x 76 in. Courtesy of the Artist

RT: What was your journey like when you began as an artist, and what motivated you?

MM: That art would be the focus of my life was never in question after I graduated college. (I did not attend graduate school.) I recognized, at a very young age, that it was the one activity that could remain a constant in my life. Despite relocations, separations, deaths, interruptions, etc., my creative impulse could be the one thing I could always turn back to and stand on. I never expected that it might, at times, actually be profitable. I was addicted to the pleasure, challenge, and discovery and was naive about the struggle and occasional heartbreak of it.

Wherever I moved or worked, I made sure studio space and production were the top priority. I first exhibited work in juried exhibitions and with small collectives. Linda Cathcart, who was the director at the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston in the early 1980s, gave me a big break: a small show in the basement of the museum. Simultaneously, I was fortunate to secure galleries in New York and Houston, and my career began.

Melissa Miller. Dive, 2003; gouache on paper; 8 x 7 /2 in. Courtesy of the Artist

RT: What is your approach when you begin work on a new painting or series?

MM: Most often, something sparks an idea and I make a note, do a sketch, or file an image. If the idea haunts me long enough, I will do more sketches and put them in my to-do file. I work extremely slowly, and so nine out of ten of my intentions are never realized. My slow speed has always been frustrating.

Once I commit to a painting, I do research on the animals and environment. I like to have as much visual information around me as possible, because I cannot always conjure believable anatomy in my mind’s eye. I may have a dozen different images available of each animal in the painting as I compose a piece.

My sketches for my paintings are not precious and are usually very crude. The real drawing and organizing happens on the actual surface of the canvas. I draw on the canvas with light ochre paint. I hold my brush in one hand and in the other hold a rag with solvent. I erase with the rag as I adjust figuration around the canvas. This part of the process can take a month or more on complex paintings.

Once I have the “drawing,” I paint over it with a very diluted layer of oil paint so as to become confident in my color arrangements and the tone of the painting. The painting stays very open through these early stages. and I am always making adjustments. Once I can more easily see my path, I start to paint with thicker layers of oil. My watercolor process is obviously somewhat different.

Melissa Miller. Cluster, 2003; oil on canvas; 40 x 40 in. Courtesy of the Artist

RT: What advice can you give to new and emerging artists today in light of your teaching experience?

MM: The art world is always shifting, and I don’t believe I am much of a player anymore. Therefore, my advice as far as the commercial side of the business is fairly outdated. I do tell students that it is a difficult field to make a living in. Therefore, I ask young artists to examine the role their creative process plays in their lives. If the activity is something that brings them pleasure and reward, then either they can segue that into some other creative field or find a way to keep it alive as they pursue other financially viable employment. If creating art is something they can’t possibly shut off or live without, then we discuss jobs that may pay reasonably yet will leave them time and energy to keep their focus on artistic endeavors. I tell young artists that no matter what road they choose, if they continue doing their art, it can become a personal measuring stick for growth and will always provide honest reflection. I also tell them that because the journey is difficult, they need to be supportive of one another. Finally, I strongly suggest they stay informed on issues and vote (often) to exercise the rights a democracy affords them.

Samson Young, "Biomechanics," 2013. Polypropylene paper, servo motor, 55 x 77 x 17 cm

This spring I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei to view The Innovationists, a show focused on new media art. The spectrum of technological works ranged from Ryota Kuwakubo‘s whimsical The Tenth Sentiment, which utilized a toy train’s LED headlight to project crisp then melting shadowscapes in a darkened room, and Samson Young‘s Dimension+, a floating spine-like structure of polypropylene paper, to Chris Honhim Cheung and the XEX GRP collective’s more dissonant and possibly migraine inducing Anadelta or Resonance Seed, an inverted triangle and hand wheel equipped with sensors that translated touch into flashes of light and sound.

Gregory Chatonsky, "Telefossiles I," sculpture and film installation, courtesy of Xpo Gallery and the artist

The museum’s second floor was dedicated to the works of Gregory Chatonsky, where his triptych, Telefossiles I, presented a post-apocalyptic earth after human extinction.

Chatonsky created the archaeological excavation on site to display eerie fossils from our time: laptop, gas tank, tub, fragments of machinery. Overhead, lamps illuminated sections of the gray, grainy blocks accompanied by footage of earth’s dead surface, ashen and cold, despairingly lunar. Telefossiles I relies on viewers to remember the present as past, and conjure a future where technological artifacts serve as the last testaments of life on earth.

Gregory Chatonsky, "Telefossiles I," sculpture and film installation, courtesy of Xpo Gallery and the artist

Gregory Chatonsky’s Dislocation VI, at the end of the collection, turned out to be a viewer favorite. On a weekday afternoon, every viewer on the second floor interacted with the EEG headgear and chair projection. The installation operated in two ways: concentration raised the chair image on the screen and mental relaxation or inattention caused it to fall. The installation guide suggested that I think of something like an apple. I tried thinking of a banana, but realized immediately that thinking “banana, banana, banana” and switching to a visualization of the fruit broke concentration; in short, these were two different thoughts. And because I was merely thinking of a banana and not a specific banana, concentration waned. The chair rose a little, and then fell. But when I visualized the furred ears of my dog, opaquely red in the sun, the chair shot up and exploded. In all, it took me about three or four minutes to learn how the technology and brain would work together.

Gregory Chatonsky, "Dislocation VI: The Attentions," 2012. Interactive nstallation, courtesy of Xpo Gallery and the artist

From Paris, Gregory Chatonsky wrote to me: “Beyond fantasies of reading the brain, the idea that we can correlate mental states and brain states, what interests me is how these helmets are changing our way of thinking. Technology does not describe reality, technology produces it.” He went on to explain that he has been intrigued with the conflicting states of attention and inattention, which the installation makes visual.

With Moore’s law, the exponentially accelerated rise of newer, smaller, and more powerful technologies every two years, Dislocation VI is an important reminder, perhaps, of the eventual integration of technology and the body. Chatonsky added, “It isn’t really the headset that reads the brain, but the brain that reads the headset.” This is also quite true, though, let’s hope that the outcome isn’t anything close to Telefossiles I.

Gregory Chatonsky, "Telefossiles I," sculpture and film installation, courtesy of Xpo Gallery and the artist

Robin Tung: I was awed when I first saw “Devonshire.” Why did you choose to paint in the likeness of photography? And what inspired you to take on pointillist painting, such a time and labor intensive technique?

James Chronister: For years I painted B grade photo realist paintings and was never satisfied with the result. At best they just kind of looked like photographs. The way the paintings are made now, each mark is a separate, one-time incident. It is very hard to go back if I mess up. This gives the painting a feeling of being hand made despite the fact that they are essentially mapped out beforehand by the source material. There’s something poetic in recreating images that already appear in the thousands through the lens of an oil painting.

"Dreaming of Me (Devonshire House)," oil on canvas, 2011, 60"x60" collection of Howard M Steiermann

RT: Your bio says that you “grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons and walking through the forest listening to cassettes on [your] Walkman.” What were you listening to?

JC: When I was a kid growing up in Montana, I used to walk around in the woods listening to my dad’s old cassette tapes. Zeppelin, Stones, The Doors and maybe a little Pink Floyd. Stoner rock. The Led Zeppelin movie The Song Remains the Same was very influential. Especially the scene where Jimmy Page is climbing up the mountain side to meet the Psychedelic Wizard. The music and the landscape had a relationship with one another and the paintings are looking for that connection.

RT: Were you exposed to art as a kid?

JC: My grandmother, on my mother’s side, was into art and had a lot of old art books which my mom inherited. Reproductions of Monet, Manet, Rembrandt, Millet, Van Gogh and Picasso were my first exposure to art. My earliest paintings were basically studies in cubism and copies of Van Gogh.  That’s what I thought modern art was.  The lone genius smoking a cigarette, sequestered in his studio.

I like artists from Santiago Sierra to Aaron Curry to Kaye Donachie. Tons of people are making interesting art, clearly too many to mention. But music is also very influential. The experience created by sound correlates closely with the mental space I want in my paintings, with a lot less need for jargon.

"Wildness," oil on canvas, 60"x60", 2009

RT: What is your process from the inception of an idea to the finished piece?

JC: I like to look through the collection of old books I have when taking a break from the actual painting. An image will strike me as interesting for whatever intuitive reason and I will think about it for up to a year.  I think about how large the canvas should be given the size of the source image, what color the scene “feels like,” whether or not it makes sense with other paintings, and even what the sides should look like. When a painting is next in the queue, I’ll begin by constructing the stretcher, stretching the canvas, gessoing and sanding, painting the surface and sides black, and bringing the whole surface back to a hued white.  The source material and canvas surface have a matching grid and then it’s ready to be painted on.

RT: How long does it take on average to complete a painting?

JC: Not including surface preparation (layers of gesso and oil paint), a 40″x40″ painting typically requires one month of full time work. I like the 9-5 schedule just like a job.

RT: What has your journey as an artist been like?

JC: I never thought I would be an artist when I was young. Something like a lawyer or doctor seemed like a better idea. I was planning on going to Law School but when it came time to study for the LSATs my brain was so far from this place I could no longer conceive of going on. So I took Drawing 101, was kind of good at it, switched my major (from sociology), and took a 5th year to complete my BFA. I then took a year off, worked at an ice cream store a block from my house in Missoula, applied to grad programs and got into California College of the Arts.

I moved to San Francisco, and was awarded an MFA in 2004. I spent the next five years trying to hang onto studios, working and generally surviving as an adult in California. In 2009 Eleanor Harwood gave me my first solo show at her gallery and to everyone’s surprise, it sold out.

RT: What’s your best advice to emerging artists?

JC: The main thing is to keep going after school. Matthew Higgs was around at CCA when I was getting my MFA and during studio visits he would always come back to “let’s see where you are in 5 years.” At the time I found it to be super annoying advice but in hindsight it’s absolutely true. Everything gets in your way when you get out of school, especially carving out time and space to keep making art. That’s the only silver bullet, to try to keep going. Eventually you’ll discover something interesting.

"Dreaming of Me (Hyde Park)", oil on canvas, 40"x40", 2012

RT: How did you connect with Lux Art Institute?

JC: Reesey Shaw (the Director of Lux Art Institute) first saw my work at the Scope Art Fair in New York City with the Eleanor Harwood Gallery (SF). Reesey and I made contact and we discussed the program with its focus on one artist at a time, his or her involvement with the community during the residency, the production of a work from start to finish during the residency and the accompanying survey exhibition of the artist’s work through the years. It sounded great to me! Reesey then flew up to SF to do a studio visit and view several paintings in the homes of collectors and the residency was confirmed.

RT: What will you work on during your residency? And where can we see you in 2013?

JC: At Lux I will be working on a painting of a Palace Interior. And a show at Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco whenever I can get the work together. Hopefully Lux leads to some other opportunities.

James Chronister will be in residency at Lux Art Institute from March 14 – April 13. His work will be on display there through May 18.

Susan Graham, Toile Landscape, 2010-2011

Robin Tung: Thank you for opening your studio. What are you working on while you’re here?

Susan Graham: I made a sugar toile piece previously, and I proposed making one here and expanding it with porcelain. I’ve been doing temporary sugar pieces that are large-scale. I have five weeks here and estimated that by making some pieces out of porcelain, I could come back in and expand the piece by adding sugar [while here] because sugar doesn’t really ship well.

RT: So the materials aren’t mixed—it’s either a piece of sugar or a piece of porcelain.

SG: Yes, it’s not sugar and porcelain mixed together. It’s sugar or porcelain. In the piece, it’s mixed, which is new to me. I’ve never put them side by side. So it’s different whites, a different way of doing an on-site piece.

RT: What do you mix the sugar with?

SG: It’s sugar and egg whites, an icing mixture. It’s something I started using a long time ago because I was in New York and didn’t have any money. I had gotten a studio though, but didn’t have tools and just wanted to start making things. I was looking for a material that would mean something to me.

There was nobody artistic in my family, really, but my grandmother had a craft club and she lived next door. They made bouquets of tiny flowers out of salt dough. And I thought they were amazing. For myself, I was thinking of something that seemed feminine, sweet and domestic, and also I wanted to work off material that was white.

Susan-Graham, 22 Deputy Single Action Revolver, 2002

RT: Themes of escapism or imagination with wide-open spaces, natural phenomena, and vessels like cars and planes, are often visible in your work. And it seems like there’s this binary to the pieces, like the gun made out of sugar.

SG: That’s something that I always do—with the binary you mentioned. It seems whatever I’m doing, I end up doing two opposing things at the same. With these photographs I try to take something that’s obviously very fake but because I’m using either really fast film and making it super grainy and flat, or pinhole images which give a sense of atmosphere, it makes the photographs seem like there’s a much bigger space even though it’s obvious that it’s tiny.

RT: You cited “Puzzle Bottle, 1995” by Charles Ray in an artist statement. How was that piece influential?

SG: I was curated into a show at the Whitney Phillip Morris. They had us respond to a piece in their collection. I didn’t ever really read what Charles Ray said about that piece, I just looked at it and imposed on that figure in the bottle what he’d done, and turned it around, depicting these big open spaces. Did you read what I wrote about that?

Susan Graham, Atmosphere satellites in clouds large, A Universe With Edges Would Be All Right If Only I Didn't Dream, Installation for "5 x 5" at the Whitney Museum at Altria, 2002

RT: You wrote about wanting to create what that figure was looking at, or imagining.

SG: What he was experiencing given his tiny little space. There’s this existential problem this little man has. There was a Shakespeare quote that was actually misquoted to me, and then I came up with something parallel for my title.

RT: A Universe with Edges Would Be All Right if Only I Didn’t Dream.

SG: That’s what I came up with though the Shakespeare quote is something different. Basically something about the universe in a nutshell.

RT: I like that it’s misquoted and then re-imagined to fit the work.

SG: It has a lot of layers, and the more time I get to think about it, the more complicated it gets . . . Everything that I make has a personal beginning.  It starts with imagination and associations, and then in a lot of the pieces, politics and things in the real world will start coming in. There is a playful element to it. I think everything I make is a little humorous. I manage all this stuff by making it a little lighter, and pretty harmless in the presentation.

RT: Can you speak to influences or inspirations early on?

SG: When I was in undergraduate at Ohio State University, I was not allowed to study art and—

RT: Wait—why were you not allowed?

SG: Because it’s not practical. I’m the oldest kid. My dad, who worked for General Motors, told me what college I should go to, that I should be an engineer, and work for General Motors. My first semester I took chemistry, calculus, and art history. The second semester I took chemistry, calculus, and photography. I was influenced by a book of someone who had photographed carnies. It was a strange world. And I really responded to the black and white.

And, my dad had a gun collection when I was a kid. And my brother came down into the basement with a gun, he found one of them. That was a big childhood experience that was freaky because he was really little and the gun was really big.  It took me the longest time to recognize that guns were a giant part of my childhood.

Later after I became an artist, and my father cut me off financially, and I moved to New York City, the guns ballooned into politics between him and me, and I had to think about guns in American culture . . . I asked him for a list of his guns, and then I made a lot of the collection. He died about four years ago.

Susan Graham, Beautiful Ohio, Glazed Porcelain, Vinyl; approx. 6' x 12'

RT: I heard this quote that journalism’s responsibility is to tell you what happened, but art and fiction should tell you how it felt. I loved your photograph of the planes circling and suspended around the towers. It made me anxious.

SG: Right, nothing’s happening [in the photograph]. September 11 is so taboo I don’t really mention it. This is something I have not talked about during this residency, or for a long time. But, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council used to award raw space in the World Trade Center to artists. I was there during the session before September 11. After, the Council suddenly got all of this money and attention for artists who made work in the World Trade Center and a show was put together to travel to museums. It turned out that not one venue would touch that show. A lot of us had imagery with the World Trade Centers even though it had nothing to do with September 11.

Our studios looked north toward the Empire State Building. And I had read about a plane crashing into the Empire State Building . . . in the 40s, I think. So I was doing things with planes and buildings back then. I made the buildings out of sugar, and had them lean towards each other. It was very sweet actually. I also had images with the planes because helicopters would go below you when you were up in the Towers.

But those images mean something different now even though I didn’t intend that . . . And that’s it, it’s done. That’s one of those things where politics and what’s going on in the world changes really changes things. It made me aware of how I can’t really control the message of what I’m making. Because it’s ruined, it’s put away. I can’t show those photos.  Maybe someday. But they don’t mean what I meant them to mean.

Susan Graham, Flock 2, New Gardens, silver gelatin print, 11" x 14", 2011

Graham showed me around the museum installations and led me down into her living space below the studio so I could view her permanent porcelain gun brushed over with resin. The Lux Art Institute artist living quarters were spacious and designed with contemporary décor: antler candelabra, animal print throws on a leather sofa, streamlined kitchen appliances and a hallway leading into a minimalist bedroom with a king size bed. We returned upstairs shortly after so I could ask her my last two questions for new artists.

RT: What struggles have you seen for artists trying to emerge?

SG: If you’re trying to go some place with a lot of artists, an art market, and actually emerge, I think you have to really figure out what your voice is and what you can do on a long-term basis. It can’t be external. It has to be very self-driven and it has to be specific.

I was a guest artist at a college and and there would be graduate students still doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. You will never get anywhere working like that. Some artists can do a little bit of everything but they have an overarching idea that they can explain. I thought, You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t figure that out. Otherwise no one will know who you are because they’ll never recognize your work. You don’t have to be so eccentric to be recognized, but you have to commit to making something specific to you.

RT: Any other advice for young or new artists? How would you encourage artists to define success?

SG: The first success is to define for yourself what you want to do. And then figure out how to do it. Do you need a studio or not? Some artists that I know dispense with the studio because it’s expensive. On the other hand, not having a studio can make it so that you can’t do certain things. Figure out what you need to do what you want to do. And then start pursuing all those things available to new artists: art programs, studio programs, alternative spaces. For some artists, to not be attached to a commercial gallery with a brand works; you can float around showing in a lot of different places and situations. Show your art wherever you can. Get people to see your stuff however you can do it.

Make what you want to make, figure out how do that in a way that you can afford, and get people to see it.

Susan Graham’s work will be on display through October 27 at Lux Art Institute in Encinitas, CA. 

This August, I met with Kanjo to discuss the San Diego art scene, her advice for emerging artists, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Kathryn Kanjo

Robin Tung: You’ve been a curator at Portland Art Museum, Artpace San Antonio, and I read that your first curatorial appointment was here at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Kathryn Kanjo: I had been a curator at this museum in the early 1990s. With curatorial work you move to places to have a different size institution, collection, or a different place in the ranking. So I went to Portland, which was a general museum, but I was their contemporary art curator. Then I went to Artpace, which is a residency program in San Antonio, Texas, and that’s where I had the most experiences working with both emerging and established artists to create new projects.

RT: How would you describe the art scene in San Diego having seen art culture in so many different cities, states, and coasts?

KK: Art scenes are bolstered by both individuals and institutions. Obviously it’s about the individual artist living in a place but that place might be more or less accommodating to them [depending] on if it has a contemporary art museum, commercial gallery scene, or if it’s bolstered by universities. I think here in San Diego, the many universities from Point Loma to UCSD matter to the artist and I think why I’m happy to be here is because this institution matters. This institution’s been commissioning art since the early 1970s. We can be a primary patron to living artists and we’re also a repository of the tried and true. We’re the keepers of the art historical flame. I think San Diego is rich for that, for having particularly the graduate program at UCSD. It keeps seasoned artists here, it brings younger artists through.

The San Diego community is interesting with how many artist-run organizations there are, including Double Break and Space 4 Art. That’s when a community is interesting, I think, when you have that kind of artistic energy from the very grassroots level to the very established and academic levels. You need a healthy ecosystem.  San Diego also benefits from its proximity to L.A., and of course, there’s energy from Tijuana, too.

Doug Wheeler, DW 68 VEN MCASD 11, 2011. White UV neon light. Museum purchase, Elizabeth W. Russell Foundation and Louise R. and Robert S. Harper Funds. Photo by Doug Gates.

RT: What are some of your favorite pieces that have come through the Museum?

KK: The Phenomenal exhibition, which was fantastic for two things: it was a historical exhibition, and we were able to feature so many environments from artists like James Turrell and Doug Wheeler, but we also used that as an excuse to commission new work. And I was really pleased to be a part of commissioning Spencer Finch to create his overhead installation in the Axline Court. It was this minimal yellow disc that hovered overhead and filtered the bright white La Jolla sun that would come through the skylight and yellow sculpture, and it would create the warm quality of light that one finds in Rome. It’s scientific and poetic. We were able to bring Spencer Finch in and give him the opportunity to react to our space and to the history of light and space, so that was very satisfying.

I was very happy to come to this institution with its many types of architecture and do this kind of matchmaking again. I did it with Spencer Finch in La Jolla. And with Isaac Julien’s massive installtion to this beautiful baggage building—there was a bit of architecture for him to react to, but also just enough space to accommodate him.

Spencer Finch, Rome Pantheon, Noon, June 14, 2011. Scrim, aluminum, color effect filter. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Pablo Mason.

RT: You’ve curated work by Claes Oldenberg, James Turrell, and Robert Irwin among many other great artists. You’ve seen a vast number of artwork at this point. What attracts you? Is there a definitive thing that tends to be exciting?

KK: Many things can attract me to new art, and sometimes the thing that attracts you is that it doesn’t attract you, and that you’re put off by it, or that it’s something new and you haven’t seen it before, or that you don’t get it.  And that’s probably much more intriguing and provocative than seeing the familiar same old thing. As a contemporary art curator you look to be startled out of your complacency. There is a lot of stuff out there and there are a lot of art worlds, and you try to narrow your field while still keeping an open mind. So you try to look in the right places.

I love the idea that we tell the history of ourselves through this material stuff that we leave behind and I like the soulfulness of art rather than utilitarian objects. One piece isn’t going to tell you that this artist is it. Things play out over time.  And I want to see that an artist continues and ultimately can become influential.

RT: What do you love about being a contemporary curator?

KK:  The thing that drew me to contemporary art was realizing that I could be part of it, so rather than this passive observation, and conferring an opinion from a finite set of information, you could be in the mix. I’m not an artist, but I can be in the mix with artists. I can hear what they’re thinking about as well as see what they’re making. That’s exciting. There’s something authentic about it. You don’t have to be a curator or an artist, but you can come in and just look at this art because it’s of our culture and of our time period. We should be hardwired for it because it’s being fueled by all the content that we live with day to day.

Downtown Images: Downtown Jacobs and Copley Buildings. Photo by David Heald

RT: What advice would you give to emerging artists who are trying to get noticed?

KK: Sometimes regionalism is seen as a pejorative, like it’s not speaking broadly enough. But art starts in a place, in a region. I think artists should be mindful of where they are, and who they are with and exploit that, if you will. So even when you’re in school, know who your teachers are and what they’re doing, and try to see if there’s a community that comes out of your fellow students or studio mates. Build you your own community and be actively part of your place. Participate and know what those resources are.

[Have] realistic expectations. And this is cynical, but it’s not that I’m going to get an email or package from an artist and suddenly go “aha!” I’m a museum curator already burdened by all these institutional things so I’m more inclined to look for my introductions in galleries, graduate schools, and local artist-run spaces. That’s why I think you need to participate and be active.

RT: Who would you like to bring to the Museum in the next year?

KK: I like to work with artists and the space, and try to find something that works well with the history of the place, or the physicality of the architecture, so I’d love to work with Wangechi Mutu, an African artist based in New York. She takes on mythic themes through her large-scale and site-specific installations. So I’m excited to see if she can come to San Diego and create something special for our space.

RT: What can we expect in the next year at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego?

KK: The show to watch for younger artists is being done by my colleague Jill Dawsey and it’s called Approximately Infinite Universe. The title is from a Yoko Ono album. It’s going to be a dynamic group show that is coming out of a reaction of so many artists thinking about alternative universes and time/space travel. That’s going to be exciting because group shows help give a sense of the common pulse and what people might be interested in.

Approximately Infinite Universe will include work by Simone Leigh and Saya Woolfalk among others, and is scheduled to open next year at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Isaac Julien, Mazu, Silence (Ten Thousand Waves), 2010 Endura Ultra photograph, 180 x 240 cm Courtesy of the artist, Metro Pictures, New York and Victoria Miro Gallery, London

Isaac Julien’s Ten Thousand Waves made its west coast premier this year at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in the largest space yet to exhibit his nine-screen film installation. The film installation, open through December 1 at the museum, braids three strands of time and landscape together: the rural mountains of ancient China, the early Golden Age of Chinese cinema, and current day. Julien, who worked on the project for approximately five years, bears forth a delicately crafted tapestry of film that accesses all planes of time simultaneously.

Inspired by transnational immigration and the 2004 Morecambe Bay tragedy in which Chinese cockle collectors were drowned by the sudden tide on the Lancashire/Cumbrian coast, the film opens with Mazu, the Chinese goddess patron of fisherman and sailors, descending upon 1930s Shanghai. This sets the anachronistic pattern for the film, which challenges the Chinese fastidiousness to historical, artistic, and mythological authenticity. The film weaves through Chinese fisherman traversing mountainsides haloed in white mist; a beautiful, troubled woman riding a trolley through 1930s Shanghai; actual footage from the rescue helicopter searching for the cockle pickers; a sea of soldiers in white marching; the deep ocean rolling like the monstrous skin of something alien. The original score by Jah Wobble performed by the Chinese Dub Orchestra and Maria de Alvear, and Wang Ping’s poem “Small Boats” float through the film like gossamer.

Isaac Julien TEN THOUSAND WAVES (2010) Installation view, The Hayward Gallery, London Nine screen installation, 35mm film, transferred to High Definition 9.2 surround sound, 49′ 41″ Courtesy of the artist, Metro Pictures, New York and Victoria Miro Gallery, London

In the second half of the film, Mazu is pulled before a green screen, suspended by a harness, her hair blown back by an industrial fan. A master calligrapher letters upon glass with crewmembers arriving soon after to clean and polish the pane. The streets of 1930s Shanghai are denuded as small sections of a wall are pushed across the tracks by modern day crewmembers. The peeling back of the scenes to reveal the production references Isaac Julien’s own deconstruction of our collective consciousness of Chinese mythology, landscape, history, and art.

Isaac Julien Chameleon (Ten Thousand Waves), 2010 Endura Ultra photograph, 180 x 240 cm Courtesy of the artist, Metro Pictures, New York and Victoria Miro Gallery, London

Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego Kathryn Kanjo stated that Isaac Julien “equated his own practice to poetry,” and true to his approach,  Ten Thousand Waves works like nonlinear, sensory-rich poetry. High-definition images lap at each other from screen to screen, the voices, poetry, and music form a chorus, the motifs swell and disappear. “He doesn’t give us a straight narrative,” Kathryn Kanjo added.  “He says, ‘Reality? Why bother?’ He lets the viewer be active. He’s complicating the potential of the narrative with all of these permutations even as he’s making it essential and more pure by repeating motifs or echoing refrains of poetry or music or film images…The abiding the theme is journey and efforts to make a better life.”

James Turrell Wedgework V 1975 Flourescent Light dimensions variable, approx. 276 x 287 x 143 in. Courtesy Abstract Select Ltd, UK Copyright: James Turrell, Photo by Philipp Scholtz Ritterman

In Beau Lotto’s 2009 TED Talk, he takes the audience through a small series of examples and visual exercises to illustrate the gap between reality and perception. Colors are created through layers of shaded panes, films, shadows, and the positioning of objects. Scientifically speaking, the mind collects and stores these visual images, creating patterns so that images in the physical world are readily discerned: a red apple, blue stained glass, a field of flowers.

James Turrell has been working with light and space since the late 60s, and has completed projects like Skyspace, a Quaker meetinghouse in which a square of open sky replaces the ceiling. In Wedgework V, on view now at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, Turrell further manipulates perception by defying set visual patterns.

Wedgework V by James Turrell at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Photo by Sam Hodgson.

Wedgework V is an experience that begins with an open, door-sized entrance. Except for the reflective strip on the black wall, the corridor leading into the work is pitch black. The blind walk may be used to create a blank slate, a type of enforced sensory deprivation to prepare the viewer for the work. Once inside the room, an entire wall glows red with manifold planes set back from one another. The installation challenges viewer perceptions of depth, color, light and space. It is initially unclear whether Wedgework V is a flat projection, colored screens, or an entire room of translucent materials and artificial light. Light glows around the border of the first and second planes, and seems to emanate from behind the third. In reality, the installation is a room equipped with fluorescent light and light-reflective paint. The first plane, or window, that the viewer sees is merely a square cut out of the wall. Wedgework V was created in 1975, but its relevance to contemporary culture holds philosophically with our trend towards pluralism and spiritually in our fascination with mystery and syncretism.

from Rodencrater.com

Currently, James Turrell is working on the Roden Crater, an architectural dome built above a 400,000 year-old extinct volcanic cone. Turrell is using natural phenomena and other sources to illuminate the structure, which will contain some twenty spaces. The Roden Crater, inspired by Machu Picchu, the Egyptian pyramids, and other ancient structures draws on natural surroundings in order to bridge time: “I wanted an area of exposed geology like the Grand Canyon or the Painted Desert, where you could feel geologic time…I wanted to make spaces that engaged celestial events in light so that the spaces performed a ‘music of the spheres’ in light.”

The Roden Crater is still under construction, and will not be completed for a few years. But the creation of this project continues to reflect the spirit of contemporary culture—building environments that support and draw on natural phenomena, and seeking continuity with the past and future.