In A Forgotten Tongue: An Interview of Mattea Perrotta

Mattea Perrotta
Perdòno, 2023
oil on canvas
57 x 77 in
195.6 x 144.8 cm

interview by Lara Monro

Our primary means of conveying meaning is through spoken and written forms, as well as sign language. But what do we do when faced with language barriers, unable to verbally communicate with another/others? Google translate is one option, but what happens when we use our imagination? Or when we explore the imagination of others through our own unique lens?

The earliest civilizations used cave walls as canvases to share their knowledge, beliefs, and stories. For visual artist, Mattea Perrotta, art has become a way of conveying her secrets and vulnerabilities. It has also become a lexicon to connect with others, often from different countries and communities. During her time in Morocco, challenged with learning Arabic but keen to connect with her hosts, she started using drawings to engage with her companions. It was a familiar and natural way of interpreting the world around her. 

A diagnosis of synesthesia at an early age was the catalyst for Perrotta’s need to develop an individual language; mathematical formulas made sense when color coded, as did phone numbers. This subsequently translated into her art form, which began with abstract shapes, defining her earlier career. Perrotta’s practice evolved organically, and in recent years a figurative approach has occupied her canvases as she investigates, questions and challenges the canon of art history referencing the work of Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci.

This May, Perrotta is exhibiting in her hometown, Los Angeles, for the first time since moving to Europe five years ago. Her solo show, In A Forgotten Tongue, at Praz Delavallade, signifies a turning point for the artist, harking back to an abstract style whilst continuing her investigation into art historical movements; Baroque, Renaissance and Cubism. Each shape within a canvas, or tapestry work, takes on its own vocabulary, distinguished by color and size. As this is Perrotta’s secret language, we are left with subtle signals and our imaginations to interpret the work.  

In the following interview, the artist explains why she describes her paintings as being similar to lasagna and what she will be researching during her residency this summer at the American Academy Rome.

LARA MONRO: Can you tell me about how your early diagnosis of synesthesia impacted you creative practice?

MATTEA PERROTTA: School didn’t come naturally to me. Mathematics and spelling were incredibly difficult (and still are). I took exams in other rooms than my classmates to have more time. It was really embarrassing as a kid. I would get so nervous before going to school I would throw up. My mom found this hippie healer outside of Los Angeles to help me deal with my nerves and anxiety in elementary school. She asked me what I enjoyed doing in my spare time and I told her I loved to draw. During our meetings I would draw whilst we spoke. While I was drawing with crayons I told her that when I used a particular color I would see a letter or number—that was my earliest introduction into synesthesia. As I got older and understood what synesthesia meant, I began to use it as a learning tool in school. I essentially was able to cheat my way through academia because I created my own unique language through color that had direct associations with letters and numbers. For example, in math, I would color code on my arms equations or formulas. I still use it to this day when I need to remember phone numbers or how to spell something. Recently I began teaching and I share this with my students who  ]might have synesthesia without knowing how it can be used as a learning tool. 

Mattea Perrotta
Lingua Madre, 2023
oil on canvas
77 x 57 in
195.6 x 144.8 cm

MONRO: Do you see all your art as your secret language? 

PERROTTA: Of course. That's the power of abstraction. You can share your deepest secrets and emotions without giving too much away. It’s incredibly liberating. I resist revealing myself. I’m comfortable with secrets. Abstraction allows me to reveal myself, be vulnerable, whilst still having it be my own. I’ve created a language through abstraction where my secrets can breathe on canvas, but behind a veil of form and color. This is the age of diaries, the talk show, the autobiography, social media. Everyone is an online activist—this self and this experience of selfness in its guises and disguises as it addresses language and as it confers secrets and meanings.

MONRO: Can you tell me how your art form has helped you communicate in the different places you have lived over the years?

PERROTTA: The first memory that comes to my mind is when I was living in Morocco. I was an artist in residence below the Atlas Mountains in this very tiny town called Tahanaout. There were two local artists there, Mohammed Mourabiti and Mahi Binebine. Mohammed ran the residency and Mahi had a studio there. I recommend everyone to get to know their work. I lived on site and painted in another studio during Ramadan. We would gather in the evenings and have dinner together. They spoke in Arabic, I attempted to learn the basics as much as possible, but it wasn’t enough for me to communicate. We began drawing during our dinners to express what we wanted to say. One can imagine how long these dinners were speaking through paper and pencil. I’ll never forget it. We sat in a cave underneath his studio exchanging stories about our homes, and our practice. Art can be an amazing tool for communication when we’re in unfamiliar territory. 

MONRO: You will be showcasing a new body of work in your upcoming exhibition, In a Forgotten Tongue. Is the show connected to your last two exhibitions, which examined the canon of art history through the work of Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci? 

PERROTTA: Absolutely. My work always had a heavy influence from Renaissance periods and Picasso’s cubist period. My love for Renaissance painting comes from my time living in Florence after I graduated from [UC] Berkeley. While living there, I studied Renaissance painting and iconography at the Uffizi gallery. In 2018, I moved to Paris and lived near the Picasso museum and would frequent places that he and the surrealists, Dora Maar hung out at. I completely immersed myself in his world and became obsessed with his way of painting and playfulness. That time in Paris for an artist was so special. In recent years—the London years I say—I have been exploring a way to combine the two periods (Baroque and Cubist) into one lens. Research has always been a large part of my practice. Being a traveler keeps me eternally curious about studying the language, traditions and art of where I am, and incorporating that into the work. My paintings are a bit like lasagnas; layers of information I’ve been fed from various places. 

Mattea Perrotta
Lo Straniero, 2023
oil on canvas
77 x 57 in
195.6 x 144.8 cm

MONRO: It seems that the works presented in In a Forgotten Tongue are moving away from your more recent figurative pieces?

PERROTTA: Indeed. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with galleries that allow me to take risks within my work. I’ve always been someone that’s gone against the grain of what is expected to an extent. I was lucky enough to have my first show with abstract paintings and have it be received well, but after that I wanted to continue to explore different realms. Again, traveling feeds me with so much information that I like to digest it in different ways in my work. In a Forgotten Tongue is a full circle period for me. It’s the first show I’ve done in my hometown in five years since I moved to Europe. It feels like the right time to go back to my earlier abstractions because Los Angeles was that for me. The architecture of the city, the light, the colors, history, immigration of cultures feels like one big abstract painting. Then I left and lived in a few different cities that had heavy influences of Renaissance art from churches to medieval cathedrals. Being able to make abstract paintings incorporating these earlier Renaissance traditions—periods of places I’ve lived through a contemporary lens—feels really on a par with where I am right now in my life and my family’s history.

MONRO: You have created tapestry pieces for this show. Were they created by the same weavers you worked with when living in Morocco in 2017? And, what drew you back to creating tapestry works? 

PERROTTA: While I was living in Tahanaout, I became fascinated with materials and mediums. Mohammed and Mahi worked largely with various materials, which opened the floodgates for me to think differently in the studio. On my way there, the airport confiscated my bag of oil paint, so when I arrived in Morocco I didn’t have access to supplies as easily. I began using pigments from the souk as paint. I’d take dirt from my walks and apply it to the canvas. I used the land as a medium. Then, I started thinking more existentially about the painting as a living and breathing being. Morocco is known for their carpets. I met the group of weavers whom I’ve now been working with for the last seven years. The first time I went there with my friend, we got lost three different times, hitch hiked, and had an entire village helping us find the studio. It’s in a very remote town outside of Rabat. I became interested in the way of turning the painting into a livable being, such as a carpet. How it can be enjoyed as a tangible object, eating on it, laying on it, how the painting becomes part of you in a more visceral way. I enjoy the challenge of bringing these instrumental paintings to life, such as my L’Ultima Cena series—making it an interactive and somewhat performative work of art. For the Cena show in Berlin last year, my dear friend Frank Maston composed my paintings into medieval compositions. We released a little cassette for the show. The audio played throughout the entirety of the exhibition. I loved the idea of a painting becoming an invisible feeling that only exists in the ethers. I wanted the paintings to have a voice. My other friend from Bronze Age in London printed a lithograph book of the paintings with text about each apostle. My mother made her famous pasta and we had dinner at the table I had installed for the show. It became a feast of the senses on every level. I really enjoy exploring different territories within my work.

Mattea Perrotta
Perdoni I, 2023
hand dyed, hand sewn wool
57 x 77 in
144.8 x 195.6 cm

MONRO: You will be artist in residence at the American Academy Rome this summer. What inspired you to apply and what will you be working on during your time in the program? 

PERROTTA: AAR has been a place where many artists I’ve admired have resided, such as Philip Guston, Bert Long Jr., Martha Boydenn, Jannis Kounellis, and David Hammons, to name a few. The program gives me an opportunity to live within an artistic community and learn about my peers’ process and practices, immerse myself within the history of those who worked there, and challenge myself to find new ways of approaching my studio time. Rome is one of the greatest cities in the world, the history, art, culture—there’s so much beneath those walls that can be explored 1,000 times over again and I feel as though I’ve only ever managed to scratch the surface. Being able to live and work there will allow me to further dive into my research of connecting the dots between Renaissance and contemporary narratives through art, history, and architecture.

MONRO: Being in different places is a huge part of your identity and creative practice; engaging with different cultures and communities. Are you planning to stay and work in Italy post residency? 

PERROTTA: I am. I’ll be living and working in Naples full time. My father is Italian and I recently got my dual citizenship. I’ve always felt connected to the culture and my family’s heritage. They grew up in a region called Campobasso in a small village as farmers. It’s a beautiful, tiny mountain town not far from a seaside town called Termoli. They value tradition, the piano piano lifestyle, which in Italian means “slowly, slowly.” I really like to transition into that after living in metropolitan cities, to immerse myself in the humility of it, and see where it takes my paintings. There’s so much more to explore and learn. People and places will forever humble and inspire me to be the best version of myself as a person and artist. I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to live in such a way and share it with others. 

Mattea Perrotta
Echoing Dialects, 2023
hand dyed, hand sewn wool
77 x 105 in
195.6 x 266.7 cm

In A Forgotten Tongue is on view through June 24 at Praz Delavallade 6150 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90048

Acrobatics Over Beats: A Conversation Between Torkwase Dyson and Derek Fordjour

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TORKWASE DYSON In your work, there are so many different movements. I’ll say acrobatics. To quote Brand Nubian a little bit, “acrobatics over beats.” 

DEREK FORDJOUR I really like the notion of the acrobatic. As you talk about the dexterity of bodies and being pushed, I think about the presence and absence of bodies in your work. This is really a big part of my attraction to your thinking and your work as it relates to mine, is the absence of the depiction of the body, but your keen awareness of bodies in space. I wanted to know from you: where is the body centered in your thinking absent from depiction of the body?  

DYSON Well, I understand consciousness to be experienced through the body, in this form as a human, right? As a human, sentient being, consciousness exists because of the body. And then the history of consciousness, liberation, Black liberation specifically, I understand that the brain and the mind are doing things that the body then follows, or catches up with, or responds to. What that does is that puts into ways of thinking and moving around instinct, around perception, around ideas of logic. I was thinking the other day about the differentiation between perspective and space. For me they’re indelibly tied; there’s no absence of the body ever. So, when the work is functioning, when I’m really functioning at a high level in the studio, when I’m drawing, when I’m painting, when I’m making sculpture, I am aware that the body is a place for my consciousness, and my consciousness is a place to understand past, present, and future, and that Blackness, in particular, is a condition of consciousness first for me. 

FORDJOUR And consciousness is a product of the mind it seems. When you think about the brain versus the mind, and for you, does Blackness also exist in this realm? 

DYSON Consciousness is something that happens between the brain and the mind in the human form. So you have the brain, which produces a consciousness. The brain, to a degree, is measurable. The consciousness is something that is indeterminable, that is formless. When we’re thinking about Blackness and being, and understanding those things, our experiences with body and mind are inextricably tied to the history of becoming Black, becoming human, becoming present. So, these things aren’t separate. 

FORDJOUR I love the idea that there is never an absence of the body, that the body is always present. I was thinking about how drawing, to me, is very connected to thinking. It’s almost a form of thought mapping. I think drawing in your practice plays a significant role, whether it’s the drawn line or actual mapping/graphing. I thought about the fact that I use lots of charcoal—that’s how the work begins ... the drawn line, which is a form of consciousness as well. When you talk about the expansiveness of consciousness and how it is ultimately indeterminable, the vastness of potential at the beginning of a drawing, the openness of possibility, is what we are attracted to...potentiality. I really think alot about the role of drawing. I am aware of your practice of making a multitude of small studies and expanding the possibilities of line—I’m now thinking about that gesture as evidence of thought, and a kind of stream of consciousness. Do you think about drawing related to consciousness or thought? 

Torkwase Dyson
Distance, Distance (1919: Black Water), 2019
Acrylic, metal, ink, and gouache on wood
(diameter 98 inches/ 248.9 cm)
©Torkwase Dyson.

DYSON Remember when we were at the Graham Foundation and you participated in the drawing workshop, and you were drawing with chairs, and you were putting chair legs through pieces of paper, and you were making marks on them? Drawing in the expanded field is that kind of action where mindfulness, thought, improvisation, thinking through equation takes place. The act of the brain thinking one plus two equals three is different than just thinking of the number three, right? Those kinds of ways in which the mind and brain are capable of both linear thought, and instinct, and expression around knowing are always operational when drawing. When you’re in the studio, and you’re making, you can set yourself up for both. You can set yourself up to understand an equational theory. You can understand a kind of mathematical abstraction with geometry. You can set yourself up to understand the curvilinear and the rectilinear in an equation. You can also set yourself up for improvisation. You can set yourself up for ways of knowing through the body in a kind of immediacy. These capabilities are, if we think about understanding as a dialectical experience, then everything kind of goes. It’s those kinds of ways of working that put you in a position to exhaust the possibility of a form. 

FORDJOUR As you talk about the possibilities of setting up a kind of calculus in the studio, I think about your legend of shapes (box, bell, curve, etc.) I really loved that you not only had this legend, but you made it available for viewers. This could have remained limited to process or part of your enigmatic thought restricted to the studio, but you also made it available in the wall text. Was the creation of this legend, the genus of the work? Did you start with those elements, or did you react to the works and sort of discern patterns and then extract this legend? Did you ever have any concern about how people might apply it to reading the work in that it could become possibly reductive? 

DYSON Well, I don’t know if it works like that. First and foremost, I’m interested in, as a reductive kind of phrase, environmental liberation—the future of it, the past of it, and the history of it. I needed to, in my studio, create, I’ll call it a Black and eloquent equation to think about the strategies and the methodologies behind those futures. Because I believe it is the essence of those liberating acts in combination with the reality of indigenism that is going to save our future. The work is only about me thinking through that and making objects so that I can be in that conversation consistently and insistently, there is a level of comprehension around those possibilities that make me feel alive, and that regard all those histories as living histories, and regard the future of the human race as something that is unfixed and constantly changing, and for more improved living conditions. One doesn’t come before the other, I don’t think. I’m just trying to get at these things. Maybe they came at the same time, I don’t know, but what I landed on for that show is a solitary form. The curve, the triangle, and the 90º angle is where I started years ago, and now I’ve created a single form that I believe is my own. The trapezoid in relationship to the circle creates a trapezoidal prism and a volume. When I was, rightfully so, using the history of Black liberation politics to discover myself in the world and have conversations, I now landed on a form that, in itself, I can insert things in. Do you know what I mean? 

FORDJOUR Oh, absolutely. I want to go back to a point in an exchange we had this past summer. I asked you about Afrofuturism, and you gave a flat rejection of the presence of that kind of aspiration in your work. We don’t have to talk specifically about Afrofuturism, but this notion of futurity as something optimistic and hopeful. There’s always this kind of vacillation between historical precedent and events and also a sense of propositions for the future in your work. I would like to know whether your understanding of the idea of futurity, particularly how it emerges in your work, whether questioning or even conjuring it—is optimistic? 

DYSON I don’t work in those terms, I guess another flat rejection. I recognize them as ideas—propositions that other people use to move forward, but I think about ideas of impermanence, creativity, invention, and advancement. When I meditate, I think about change, and I think about advancement, I think about ancestors, I think about the specter, I think about horror, I think about peace—I think about these things, so I don’t use those phrases because...I don’t know why. 

FORDJOUR Because they’re limiting? 

DYSON Maybe not. Maybe they’re not limiting. I just entered this idea of the future through a different door. I entered a door through someone like Roscoe Mitchell, so when I see Roscoe Mitchell set up, ready to go, I don’t think about hope. I think about preparation, I think about skill, I think about risk, I think about transformation, and it gives me a feeling of velocity, and I know that things are always moving and expanding. 

DEREK FORDJOUR
STRWMN, 2020
Acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, oil pastel and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas
85 x 65 inches (215.9 x 165.1 cm)"
Image courtesy of the artist and Petzel Gallery

FORDJOUR This is how you approach… 

DYSON That conversation about Afrofuturism. Thinking about your work—I want to know what you think about imagination, and invention, and aspiration, and collective being. How do those things operate in your work?

FORDJOUR I really think about how inventiveness is a necessary aspect of the Black condition. To be an under resourced, largely oppressed people, or at least, people navigating the conditions of oppression, invention becomes a strategy for survival. As it pertains to my work, there is some degree of an element that might be read as whimsy, or a hint of the preternatural or the magical, the carnivalesque, which kind of pushes toward a kind of spiritual dimension. I’m really aiming at that sense of wonder around invention, and it happens for me in very practical terms when I encounter systems of oppression. Even prisons for example, how there’s an ecosystem within that system of oppression that can create all this contraband of many sorts that then has an economy. But then when I go to South Africa and go through a township and find out that there’s some sort of drug that’s been created by rubber in a lantern, and this other thing that creates another sub economy. I’m really interested in how—around the world, in order to thrive under oppressive conditions, people become inventive. We must become educated bodies, Black bodies in institutions, and still interested in liberation, and negotiating all the things that come with that. I think in this body of work, to more or lesser degrees, that sense of whimsy is reaching for that inventiveness that is a magical dimension that I associate with Black culture. 

DYSON Just thinking about the installation that I’ve seen of yours—I’ll bring up the specter again—where there’s an amalgamation of the meta, the exact, the specter, the in-between, the acrobatic, the practical, the mystical, but also this idea of the indeterminable, and a real sense of time in your work as well. I was thinking about one of your animatronic devices that circles, spins, and lights and moves, and the sense of time that it takes and steadiness that it takes to create a genius movement, to create something that’s at the edge of its absolute possibility. There’s something about your work that happens in that space without leaving behind the history and the terror of the carnivalesque—Black history specifically, and global history more generally. I’m really, really fascinated with each of your projects, how you continue and have a fidelity to the mechanistic while holding onto the quotidian. I know that in a few short years you’ve made these leaps and bounds. I’m super excited to see where it all continues to grow. The rigor in your practice really shows within experimentation, and invention, and materiality.  

Torkwase Dyson
I Am Everything That Will Save Me (Bird and Lava), 2020
acrylic and string on wood
36'' diameter
© Torkwase Dyson, courtesy Pace Gallery
Photography by Kris Graves

FORDJOUR Very much in materiality and the haptic, right? 

DYSON The haptic, yes. 

FORDJOUR The haptic as a way in. I think that the paintings now are much more active, that the figures are more animated. I haven’t really depicted much action, but I really wanted to respond to this sort of social action moment in which we currently live--this moment of activation around election, responding to death, and images of them, and all of the excitement even in young people around addressing the Black condition in a way that I have not seen in my lifetime--this convergence of social action. And there’s always been liberation work, there’s always been work toward revolution, but this sort of crystallizing moment where it’s at the fore and goes beyond the bounds of our community conversations, and now there seems to be a world community that’s motivated around Black liberation and seeing these things come to the fore. There’s an activation, and I really have wanted to have work that felt invigorated and that would probably explain the move toward the acrobatic. 

DYSON And pushing against fascism. 

FORDJOUR Certainly. Listen, absolutely. Honestly Torkwase, fascism was a theoretical idea or far off political concept for most of my life. It was something I accessed through  literature and learning. It was merely another form of government, but to experience that, to live it, to understand it, and to feel the anxiety around danger for bodies in a governmental system and that kind of thing—this is the first time I’ve really experienced that so keenly. The acrobatic—which is a great way to describe some of the physicality and the gesturing that happens with my figuration. It is the acrobatic toward a kind of discomfort and a contortion, a contorting within, thinking about the edges of the picture plane and activating portraiture or bodies. Some moments, of course, are very still, but I have moments that go in the direction of action, and I think it is informed by our moment of political action and awareness. One of the things I really appreciate about you as an artist, but also as an educator is your vast knowledge and appreciation of a multiplicity of practices. You are not an abstract painter. It is far too reductive for you. You are able to really plug into practices of a variety of modes, and your understanding of what’s happening in figurative work, my work, and my deep understanding of what’s happening in your work, but we fall into different categories, the objective and unobjective—I want to know about your relationship to figuration. You started from the mechanics of drawing, originally. You really refused this splintering that happens around figuration and abstraction. But I wanted to just hear you talk about your relationship with the figurative. 

DYSON In this moment of activation, and as you talk about witnessing firsthand, or being in close proximity to fascist, racist violence, brings us to a different kind of kinship of systems of global oppression. In thinking about the exhibition Freedom Principles, these are the principles which I am operating under, where there’s nothing too far, there’s nothing too distant, we’re all in this condition of the relational, and we’re all in this condition of consciousness together. Now there are registers of closeness, like my closeness to immediate death and violence. Am I far from what it means to have my child kidnapped from me and then held in cages? The politics of the human body are never without question, whether we’re talking about figuration or non-representation, or kinds of concrete abstraction, or didactic abstraction, all of these things are in consideration in terms of the way that I think about artmaking between the mind and the body. 

FORDJOUR I’m so happy you have a piece, by the way. 

DYSON Yeah, it’s right over there. You see it? 

FORDJOUR That’s like the first sculpture I ever made. 

TORKWASE DYSON Could you talk about your upcoming show? 

DEREK FORDJOUR I had a year knowing that I was going to do this show. I spent a long time thinking about it before actually doing anything. There’s a collaboration where I’m working with a puppeteer, Nick Lehane, so that required lots of meetings. I was also learning about the art form of puppetry, which I enjoy. And then there were sculptural elements that are happening in different places, due to Covid, which required thinking, fabrication, and various processes. I waited until those things were happening before the painting began. I found that the aspects of learning and the collaborative work helped activate many of the ideas I had been processing before. I had this list of painting ideas that was constantly evolving, but it wasn’t until I had these other things to react to that I really found an entry point. I probably work best extemporaneously, so maybe I was just creating the conditions for that kind of energy. 

Torkwase Dyson
Space as Form: Movement 1 (Bird and Lava), 2020
acrylic on canvas
40-1/4" x 48" (102.2 cm x 121.9 cm)
© Torkwase Dyson, courtesy Pace Gallery
Photography by Kris Graves

DYSON Can you talk about the title Self Must Die? I want to talk about code, I want to talk about autonomy, and I want to talk about presentation. Can you talk about the title? 

FORDJOUR Two things really brought this about. One, I was thinking a lot about death this year because I have been so proximate to it, just people struggling with how to pull off a funeral at this time, so there is the literal loss of life, people actually dying, this year. I also have a close relative who is dealing with a terminal illness, I have a son who is a twenty-two-year-old college student in Atlanta that was in the streets when protests were happening, and I watched two young people from the college he attends get dragged out of a car and tased violently by a mob of officers in riot gear, so thinking about his vulnerabilities as a young Black man at twenty-two years old. Also my father is in his mid-seventies, so as we think of end-of-life issues, I kind of sought safety in the middle, but then I realized that I am the same age as George Floyd at the time of his vicious murder. So I’ve been thinking about death in all these ways—the funerary, the absence of the funerary, living in the wake of death and also a very necessary ego death. 

DEREK FORDJOUR
Pall Bearers, 2020
Acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, oil pastel and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas
100 x 72 inches (254 x 182.9 cm)
Image courtesy of the artist and Petzel Gallery

Ayako Rokkaku: The Spirit Of The Artist

interview by AUTRE
photographs by Roman Maerz. Courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin, London, Seoul and Vienna.

The large, expressive eyes peering out from Ayako Rokkaku’s paintings seem to mirror the viewer, as her work inevitably evokes a sense of wonder and joy that beckons the gaze. The self-taught artist paints using her bare fingers and hands to layer the figurative and the abstract in clouds of color, resulting in dynamic, imaginative imagery that draws from impressionism, abstract expressionism, and the kawaii aesthetic of Japanese manga. We spoke with Rokkaku about her inspirations, her practice, childhood, and her new works which will be shown at Frieze LA, presented by König Galerie.

As a self-taught artist, when did you realize that working with your fingers and hands helped you produce your painterly, impressionistic visions on canvas? 

When I was 20 years old and when I hadn't got my style yet, I participated in an event in Tokyo for amateur artists for the first time. I did live painting there. I prepared some materials (brush, pen, crayon, paper, etc) and tried some methods of painting. I was painting on the used cardboard on the floor with acrylic paint on my hand and it came to me. I felt that I was able to leave a trace of something like an improvisational and primitive impulse on the cardboard and it fit me well.

Your paintings are fully realized and mature, but there is a very childlike freedom to them. Did you paint when you were a child and what did you paint or draw? 

I liked drawing when I was a child, and I remember I liked putting colors more.

It feels fun when the paper gets vivid and lively as I put more colors on it. But it was after I grew up when I started to look carefully and think more about children’s drawing. I’m trying to keep the impression of pureness and freedom like children’s drawing in my works.

Who are some Japanese or international artists that inspired you growing up?

I’m impressed by Cy Twombly, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning. I also like Monet, Klee, Matisse, etc…

There has been a tradition of artists painting as performance. For instance, Yves Klein — is there a particular difference between painting in front of a crowd versus the solitary environment of a studio? 

I'm happy to be able to share the time and process when a painting is born, not only a finished work with the people there. It makes me feel like I'm drawing with the energy of the people there. And it is fun for me, by continuing to paint without thinking too much and without fear of failure in a limited time, sometimes unexpected techniques and motifs are born. On the other hand, when painting alone in the studio, it feels like playing — catching the energy ball between the canvas and myself.

Do you see yourself following in a similar trajectory as the Superflat artists of post-war Japan, or do you categorize your work in a totally separate arena? 

I've never been conscious about it. Maybe I’m in the trajectory, but personally, I don’t feel I’m in any group.

What have artists like Takashi Murakami taught you about painting. Is there a particular lesson that sticks with you? 

When I was 24 years old, Takashi Murakami invited me to join the Kaikaikiki booth in the Volta art fair in Basel. At that time he taught me that just liking painting is not enough to survive in the contemporary art world, and how he is fighting so hard with keeping the spirit of the artist. He never taught me about any technical things, but without him I might not have chosen to continue as an artist.

Do you see your work changing over the years—becoming more or less impressionistic, or abstract, or have the colors evolved?

It is getting less improvised, part graffiti-like, and the number of colors and layers has been increasing. Before, concrete figures such as girls and abstract parts were often more clearly separated. Nowadays, sometimes there is a girl behind the abstract layer, or the skirt or hair are directly continuing to the flow of clouds, so the border between abstract and object is becoming less. I think that the intention to create upward and free energy in the works has not changed.

How has Japanese anime and manga inspired your work? You have recurring symbols, like clouds and childlike figures. What do these figures represent?

It was not uncommon that anime, manga, and something cute (kawaii in Japanese) were more or less blended into daily life throughout my childhood in Japan. Cute characters, or characters with a strong and gentle heart, can be close to any person's heart. We can synchronize with them and they will lead to various new worlds. I maybe want to make the girl, the clouds, or abstract shapes as a way of expanding the imagination.

You also make sculpture. Is there a different approach that you take with the three-dimensional? 

I have less experience in sculpture than in painting, but like my painting, I don't make a plan for what it will be in the beginning. It´s like the shape is gradually decided while I enjoy the feeling of the material, such as wool, cray etc, and searching for a wired but cute, and interesting shape.

What do you think is the most understood thing about Japanese artists from an international perspective? 

I’m not sure. A tendency to cherish subtle emotions, atmosphere, and transitions?

Has the pandemic changed the way you make art or think about art?

It hasn’t changed, but re-recognized, it is important for me that people can see and feel the art works directly. 

As a young, creative person—with all the political and climate uncertainty in the world—does the anxiety of the zeitgeist creep into your work at all? 

I don’t use specific political or climate issues directly as my concept, but I believe in any age, childlike pureness or the kinds of questions we have as children, are necessary for keeping ourselves together psychologically. I hope my work serves as a reminder of that.

Your new series represented at Frieze, can you talk about them a little bit - is there a specific correlation or connection between them? 

I will show six paintings that are continuing to each other. There are girls, each are in the different layers — one is in the very front, or one is almost hiding behind clouds, or between. And also, each color is in different motifs in the other canvas, so object and abstract changes in different canvas. So, people may get a feeling of floating in the clouds in the layer outside of canvas.

What do contemporary Japanese artists think of Los Angeles? 

I like the city where I can easily go walking or take a bicycle around small streets, Los Angeles is so huge for me! But also it is nice to get inspired by its vastness of scale.

Bedtime Stories in a Mental Asylum: In Bed with Tobias Spichtig

interview by Janna Shaw
photographs courtesy the artist

When was the last time you stood up on a mattress, off-kiltered, aware of your balance, or lack thereof?  When was the last time you jumped on a bed with friends? When was the last time you jumped on a bed with strangers?  When was the last time you played childhood games? Cuddled in a group clad in coats and cloaks? Watched a couple kissing horizontally? Were read a bedtime story late into the evening, with snow falling gently outside?  

The KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin is hosting Die Matratzen, a week-long exhibit by Tobias Spichtig, with a nightly changing cast of poets and text-based artists reading their works aloud to an audience perched upon mattresses and sheets, sourced from friends and various collaborators of the artist.

Over the course of Spichtig’s installation, the mattresses are lived in and take on new forms, shifting from their original placement, absorbing the shapes and sounds of their dwellers and run-uponers. In one corner of a mattress, a tiny faded blood stain. Next to it, a rip from a Balenciaga heel, courtesy of that evening’s impromptu game of Tag. The sheets themselves have a collective abstract quality to them, marred with scuffs, prints, and static marks of movement. On view from above, the blocks of foam and springs morph into a perfectly assembled jigsaw puzzle, spanning the full space in its entirety, corner to corner. From here, one can clearly see that the work does not consist of objects in a room, it is the presence and experience of the guests that are on top of them that complete the work. It is an interactive performance.

Janna Shaw spoke with Tobias Spichtig on his opening night of Die Matratzen after a kickoff reading with Karl Holmqvist. 

JANNA SHAW: I say this with a sense of peculiar intrigue: you seem a bit of a hoarder. Other exhibits of yours have also included immense amounts of furniture and appliances: tables, fridges, empty bottles of beer, etc. Is this habit of collecting (and later presenting) a form of personal sentimentality, or is it a questioning of use, and of our own existential placement? 

TOBIAS SPICHTIG: I like images and objects. I would love to be both them all the time myself. The mattresses in particular are quite loaded and empty at the same time. It’s really abstract and it’s not at the same time. It’s always something more personal than any abstract level can translate. This is what I think objects have as their unique quality. 

SHAW: What led you to the concept of archiving objects of rest, rather than curtains of privacy, or cigarette butts of habit? 

SPICHTIG: These assemblages kind of stem from wandering through my own apartment during sleepless nights. When I get up and go to the fridge. When I sit at the desk. When I go back to the couch. The places I go when I’m thinking about things. 

SHAW: You are a painter as well as a conceptual artist. How would this installation translate onto your canvas? What might that look like?

SPICHTIG: I think all painting is conceptual, and I think works of art are sooner or later about painting. The mattresses are something in between painting and sculpture. It looks like a painting once one looks at it from above or once it is photographed. There is a parallel that runs between objects in real life and painted objects—that parallel is quite abstract, but also where one imagines things. I recently did a series of paintings depicting sunglasses, and now I am working on abstract oil paintings that look a bit like ornaments. I am also doing some portraits.

SHAW: What else are you painting these days?

I recently did a series of paintings depicting sunglasses, and now I am working on abstract oil paintings that look a bit like ornaments. I am also doing some portraits.

SHAW: Do you place importance on sleep and dreaming, or is it simply a necessary function? What is your ideal bed situation? I’m talking look, feel, time, place, activities, smells…

SPICHTIG: I don’t like to go to bed. But then, I also hate getting up. I dream a lot. Sometimes I even sing during sleeping. Is there a medical term for this?

SHAW: There is a whiff here to the opening paragraph of Guy Debord’s 1967 The Society of the Spectacle:

“The whole life of a society in which modern conditions of production prevail, presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacle. All that was directly lived has become mere representation. Commodities are now all that there is to see.”

There is something rather rebellious to the constructed situation of various mattresses on the ground, placed there for the simple purpose of observing others deriving pleasure. Do you think our society has lost touch with its primal pleasures in our pursuit of greater accumulation and distraction? Or does this world of influx only make us crave our instinctual joys more? 

SPICHTIG: To be present with both body and mind, to be more without a screen than with, has become a huge luxury. I love that. I guess everyone craves to be IRL more and more. Reality is the biggest spectacle.

Click here to learn more about Die Matratzen, including it’s late night accompanied live reading program. https://www.kw-berlin.de/en/pause-tobias-spichtig/

Installation images courtesy the artist and Jan Kaps, Cologne; Photos: Tobias Spichtig

The Grandeur of His Epic: An Interview With Choreographer Jay Carlon

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interview by Summer Bowie

photos by Oliver Kupper

Defining a culture that comprises 7100 islands, centuries of colonization, and an overwhelming desire to assimilate is profound and Sisyphean. Unlike a migration that takes place over land, the ocean seems to wash away all evidence of the traveled path. The historical narrative that has framed Filipino-American immigration is fraught with this eternal question of identity and belonging. Being part Filipino myself, I learned very little about my grandmother’s life story while she was alive. It wasn’t until after she passed away and my grandfather published her memoirs that I learned just how harrowing her journey had been.

After attending the world premiere of FLEX, a dance theater piece that explores primarily the story of choreographer, Jay Carlon’s father and his immigration from the Philippines to the States, I realized that the erasure of these stories is rather commonplace. Jay’s father was not only a senior citizen by the time Jay was born, but it seems that he liked to let others tell his story for him. It wasn’t until his father passed away that Jay started to make heads and tails of the man versus the myth, and the role that he and other Filipino-Americans played in the United States throughout the 20th century, from World War II, to the Labor Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and beyond. The work explores the story of Honorio Carlon and his immigration to the States, as well as that of several other Filipino-Americans and their children. This pastiche of memories serves as a paean to those whose stories have been lost in the shuffle of sublimation. In the following conversation, we discuss everything from the Filipino sartorial sensibility, to the homoerotic Renaissance paintings of “Jacob Wrestling the Angel” in the book of Genesis, to the implications that result when one must prioritize survival over preservation.

SUMMER BOWIE: First, I want to talk about your upbringing as the youngest of 12 children, and what that’s like to have such wide age gaps between both your siblings and your parents. Were you all very close?

JAY CARLON: I suppose this question is difficult to answer succinctly. My dad had 3 wives and my mom was the last. Let me provide some context: My dad, Honorio Carlon, immigrated to America in 1932 during the Great Depression, while the Philippines was under US occupation. Filipino immigrants were almost exclusively men due to gender expectations in the workplace. These immigrant men started bachelor societies for solidarity. Due to anti-miscegenation laws (anti-interracial marriage laws) these men found it difficult to start families in America. Despite this, my father married twice and had 6 children. It wasn’t until the 1970s when my dad was able to make it back to the Philippines to eventually meet my mother and bring her back to the US. Now back to the question, my siblings: 6 of them are my half siblings and the other 5 are my full siblings. Naturally, because of age and generations, I am closest to my full siblings. The strange thing is some of my half siblings are older than my mom, which is a weird dynamic having half-brothers older than your mom. My relationship with my father, however, was somewhat distant. Ever since I was born, his death was imminent. He was 74 when I was born. He kept to himself; perhaps my expectation of him as a father was to simply maintain this “Big Fish” legacy and the grandeur of his Epic, being among the first wave of Filipino immigrants in America. He lived through the Great Depression, World War II, the Labor Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, etc. He never talked to me about his experiences, also I was a child, so I couldn’t really understand why any of this was important/interesting. However, doing all the research I’ve done for FLEX, I’ve been able to fill in some of these gaps in his memory, his narrative.

BOWIE: I grew up in a suburb of San Diego with a large Filipino population, and my being only a quarter Filipino meant that I had a lot of Filipino friends, but I was never Filipino enough to call the parents of my friends Auntie and Uncle the way they did with each other. Did you grow up with that idea of the extended cultural family?

CARLON: I grew up in a large Filipino community and both my parents are from the same very small island in Philippines. My dad immigrated here with a group of about 8 men, some his cousins and some his friends. Those 8 men stuck together and worked as migrant workers throughout the Southwest. Every Labor Day Weekend, they would all come together and have a fiesta. This tradition has been going on since the ‘50s and still happens today. From those 8 pioneers, there are now over 500 descendants, and we all still gather in Santa Maria, California. All those 500+ extended family members are my uncles and aunties, whether I’m related to them or not! 

BOWIE: It seems like you did an extraordinary level of research into your father’s life while in the process of creating this work. Do you feel like you see your father in a different light now that the work has been fully actualized?

CARLON: Like I stated earlier, a lot of my knowledge surrounding my father’s history was from oral stories told by uncles, and aunties, and cousins. Some of these stories seemed to be conflated or exaggerated, as most memories are. 

Last year, I was interviewed by an Asian periodical and was asked how my work was influenced by my identity as a Filipino American. The question really caught me off guard and I felt uneasy and confronted with this responsibility to be more or less Filipino. I am a contemporary dance choreographer. Some of my work is abstract, some of it is conceptual, and some of it is expressionistic. The general topic of my work was often surrounding migrant issues and labor rights, but as far as a direct Filipino relation to my work, I was stumped. I thought of an article that I came across by Miguel Gutierrez in BOMB Magazine called “Does Abstraction Belong to White People.” The article resonated with me and elicited introspection: as a Filipino-American abstract choreographer, what am I doing here, and why, and how did I get here? Soon after being asked the question about my identity and coming across this article, L.A. Dance Project asked me to be their first recipient of the MAKING:LA Residency, a new work by a Los Angeles-based artist. I knew I wanted to make an unapologetic work about the diverse tapestry of Southern California. My father’s, mother’s, and my story seemed to be the perfect backdrop for that opportunity to create and share a hella Filipino [untold] history.

To return to the question: the process of researching my father’s history and filling in the gaps of his narrative allowed me to create a more human understanding of who he was. My dad was this historical figure to me once I was born. I wouldn’t say we were emotionally close. I have few memories of him, some of which include dropping me off to kindergarten with whiskey on the dashboard. (Laughs), it was a different time I suppose. But I never had conversations in length with my dad. Doing all the research I’ve been doing has made him become a more human and tangible person in my life. This research has also served my relationship with my mother, who is still alive and thriving. I seem to understand her better; why she is the way she is. My mother and I never had conversations beyond the weather or my financial situation, but now we talk about memories, family back in the Philippines, and emotions (which, for a Filipino family is huge).

BOWIE: You grew up training as a competitive wrestler. How did you find dance, and how do you think your wrestling background has influenced your approach to choreography?

CARLON: My first introduction to physicality was wrestling at the Boys and Girls Club. I followed my older brothers, who joined the wrestling team to stay out of the streets. I was 5 years old when I started wrestling and competed throughout my teens. I learned partnering and momentum, strength and velocity, and nuance between force and flow. I loved these concepts, but hated competing. Wrestling is brutal. I watch videos on YouTube now and think, “Goddamn! I grew up doing that?” I found the arts in high school, first with architecture, then voice (choir), and eventually the body (dance). I knew that I could channel these learned skills into a different medium.

I am also inspired by the image of “Jacob Wrestling the Angel” (Genesis 32:22–32). The story has been depicted by many Renaissance artists in painting and sculpture form. The artworks inspired by this scripture tend to look very homoerotic. I wanted to use this image as inspiration for FLEX to represent the Filipino peoples’ resistance to colonization, and perhaps the obedience as a result of colonization. The image also reminded me of Filipino male affection, and I wanted to use this image as a way to display the way different cultures showcase affection.

BOWIE: FLEX tells the stories of several Filipino-American immigrants and their children. There’s a very militant scene, it feels like boot camp and the dancers are counting in Tagalog, I believe. Can you talk a bit about that scene and the story behind it?

CARLON: I love that scene. I wanted to integrate Filipino languages in the work. I don’t speak Visayan (my family’s dialect), but counting seemed to be a natural and relatively easy way to integrate Tagalog (the national dialect of the Philippines) into the work. We made 16 gestures/movements and gave them each a number. I noticed the sequence of movements with the counting in Tagalog sounded very militant. This section made me think of the Philippine American War (1989-1902), where the Philippines fought for their freedom and independence from America.  I wanted to create a scene where the wrestling drills, something I grew up doing in America, paralleled the guerilla warfare in the Philippines.

BOWIE: The dancers you cast for this piece are all incredibly athletic, they’re poetic with their movement, and they’re multi-talented. At times they lend voice, either in narrative or song, and your choreography demands a certain versatility as well. How did you go about casting the work?

CARLON: I only cast people I trust. Trust is a very important component of my work, for the performers, the audience, all the natural and simulated elements, etc. I have worked with all my collaborators in the past on projects at REDCAT or The Annenberg Community Beach House. In my process, I like to [safely and consensually] push physical and emotional boundaries. I also like to work as a multidisciplinary director and see how I can integrate each and every individual's skill[s] into the work.  The cast of FLEX is incredibly dynamic and I had a wonderful time learning about their multiple talents and how I could incorporate them into the work.

BOWIE: Your dancers seem to go through a marathon from the beginning to the end of the piece. Some of their faces were dripping within the first 3 minutes, and you see the way that the movement becomes increasingly more demanding, pushing them into a deeper synchronicity with one another. What is the warm-up and rehearsal process like for a project like this?

CARLON: I often like to focus on sensory improvisational tasks to begin a process. I like to work with eyes closed to privilege the other senses, especially touch. We start with an improvisation with eyes closed while being guided through the space. The participant with the eyes closed will recall a memory and tell that memory to the person guiding them around the room safely. This mode of embodiment and memory primes the dancers for the process of creating FLEX.

BOWIE: There are two very deep Americana references that you included in this piece, the first being the opening monologue from Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, the second being Patti Page’s “Tennessee Waltz.” The Tennessee connection seems coincidental, but can you talk a little bit about those choices, and the Filipino rendition of the song that you included? Where did it come from?

CARLON: I wanted to create a 1950s Filipino American ballroom, a place in which my father and his comrades found solidarity--the only place they could escape and have fun without judgment. My dad loved the Cha Cha and music from the ‘50s. The Tennessee Waltz was incorporated into the work because the lyrics reminded me of the loss of their home. 

We also changed “Tennessee” to “Philippine” in the live version of the song. I did this because I wanted it to be clear that these Americana attributes were coming from a sense of otherness, or perhaps reappropriation.

I was dancing with my darling to the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see
I introduced her to my loved one
And while they were dancing
My friend stole my sweetheart from me

I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz
Now I know just how much I have lost
Yes, I lost my little darling the night they were playing
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz

BOWIE: The musical score was really beautiful. I think Alex Wand did a phenomenal job. How did that collaboration come about, and what was it like?

CARLON: I began working with Alex Wand on a previous project that took place in a parking lot with my car about mental health and stability. We used audio recording from the iconic moon landing as well as solar system sonifications (using the orbital speeds of the planets and creating a sound score). After that project, we became obsessed with sonifications and played with amplifying sounds of a cardboard stage, we made synth sounds activated by waves by putting Wii controllers in a buoy at the beach, and made a resonant frequency plate that used sand to predict the vibrational sound, etc. Prior to FLEX, Alex went on an epic bike tour across the Mexico-American border, biking from LA to Michoacan (the Monarch Butterfly migration path). We used field recordings from his bike ride for the ambient and environmental sounds in FLEX. I love finding parallels with Alex’s interest in ecological sustainability, like with the Monarch Butterfly migration and my interests in immigrant stories, and visible vs. invisible borders.

BOWIE: The costumes were really lovely. I understand that many pieces were from your father’s wardrobe. There’s one story you tell, called The Filipino and the Drunkard by William Saroyan. Can you talk about your father’s sartorial sense and the role that the costuming plays in this piece?

CARLON: My dad, though being a strawberry picker for over 50 years, never left the house without a suit. He never wanted people to know we were poor. He wore pressed suits and tailored clothes daily.  He taught me how to shine my shoes and slick my hair back. I always felt that Filipinos had this sense of showing off, and I never understood why. When I heard The Filipino and the Drunkard, it brought to light the complexity of Filipinos not wanting to look poor, to assimilate. This is one factor why I decided to call this work FLEX--slang, to show off.

Over 70% of the costumes were sourced from my father’s wardrobe. However, the garments were quite large and boxy. Ching Ching Wong, soloist for FLEX, also served as a costume production assistant and tailored the costumes to fit the performers. 

BOWIE: Throughout the show, there are times when characters can be seen in the back folding, unfolding, and refolding jackets. You also have a previous work literally called, Fold, Unfold, Refold. Can you explain this theme a bit?

CARLON: The integration of the folding in the background came out of this notion of hidden labor.  I integrate labor a lot into my work. The work Fold, Unfold, Refold was a work about monotony, and repetitive gestures, and the performance of labor. I’m obsessed with the performance of labor. The folding in the background of FLEX was inspired by my mom’s immigration story. My mom lived in the shadow of my father’s epic and I wanted to pay homage to her. I thought about the invisibility of domesticity within our Western culture. I tried to incorporate as much folding in the background as possible to remind the audience of a sense of forgotten work.

BOWIE: The history of Filipino-American culture and its contribution to American development has been widely overlooked. However, Filipinos are the second-largest population of Asian-Americans, second only to Chinese-Americans. Why do you think this history is so easily overlooked?

CARLON: The Philippines is such a uniquely eclectic culture that is constantly evolving and trying to understand itself. From the 7,100 islands within the archipelago to the large amount of immigrants all over the world, Filipinos are great at adapting to cultures while still maintaining their own culture. There are so many influences, mainly because of colonization, but it’s hard to pinpoint what a Filipino is. I think assimilation, the desire to fit in, is a result of our culture being forgotten. I also think erasure is just a part of the Filipino diaspora; through centuries of resistance, the Filipino mentality is primarily survival, not preservation. That’s why I think it’s important for more Filipino stories to make their way into pop culture, and media, and academia. I think we’re getting there.

BOWIE: Where else would you like to take the work from here? It’s so emotionally compelling and educationally-rich that I could see it playing at a number of different venues.

CARLON: My dream is to share this story with other Filipino-Americans. I want to focus on touring this work throughout California, to start. From San Diego to the Bay, California is home to the highest number of Filipinos outside of the Philippines. I would also like to take the work to New York and other Filipino populated cities. It would, of course, be a dream to even take this to the Philippines.

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Follow @carlondance on Instagram to learn more about FLEX.

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