Karin Weiner received her MFA from Hunter College in 2003 and recently relocated from Brooklyn, New York to Vermont. She has held solo exhibitions at ZieherSmith in New York, including the gallery's project for Art Rock 2006 at Rockefeller Center, and Lisa Boyle Gallery in Chicago as well as group exhibitions in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Vienna. Publications featuring reviews of her work include Frieze 101, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The New York Sun, The New York Times, and Artforum.com.
Her current exhibition So Many Daunting New Complexities (on view through June 16) marks Weiner's second showing with sixspace, features the large-scale tornado installation The Great Storm of 1971 made of craft/fiber materials and a new series of collages that reflect the contemporary experience by dealing with the reality and uncertainty of the present moment.
Caryn Colelman: A lot of artists today fetishize nature in their artwork because it's become an almost foreign concept. Can you explain how you relationship with nature in your work has changed since moving from New York City to rural Vermont? How has this changed your work?
Karin Weiner: I am aware of this trend, there is definitely a lot of nature happening in art today. It doesn't bother me to be part of something, but at the same time I get annoyed by the tendency to make nature cute; it ain't all cute that's for sure as the ferocious thing that killed my chickens the other night can attest to that. I must admit though when I lived in the city I did pine for nature, it was a mystery and perhaps I too was not aware of its potential and the possible dangers. Maybe it is cute to people who never get to experience it. A lot of my earlier work was about this very distant and hands-off approach to nature that you spoke of; I saw my nieces and nephews learning about the natural world through the computer or magazines but god forbid they go outside (and they live in the countryside). So early on I decided to use magazines, books and found images from Google as my source material; I guess I still am to some extent. The alternative would have been to draw directly from nature but this didnt make sense in light of what I was trying to say through the work.
It's odd now that I am surrounded by lovely green trees and animals making noise in the woods at night. I'm terrified. I don't remember having this response when I was younger and growing up here in Vermont. Perhaps I was hardened. I always thought New York would make me able to deal with anything....perhaps I was wrong. I feel like I am seeing my rural surroundings through city eyes...every branch that scrapes on the house is someone trying to get me. I am constantly questioning people who are nice at the supermarket, every helicopter that goes overhead is somehow suspicious and invasive. It's not that I am paranoid or mistrusting but it is very different here. So to actually answer the question, I would say that nature has become a very powerful force in the most recent work. It may have a lot more to do with the current environmental crisis and our political situation than with the move north, but that is another complicated topic. I definitely think that it comes out in the work though. There are ominous things happening that can't be explained like the pink sky in Something Amiss in the Northern Sky or roles seem to be reversed such as the huddled and nervous seeming lighthouses in Invisible Enemies as it almost feels apocalyptic (and maybe that is the way things are heading). I think that it makes sense too that there would be a general trend in art-themes having to do with nature. Arent the artists always known for being like fortune-tellers? Maybe people should wake up and smell the coffee because there is definitely something brewing and I think that mother nature is pissed.
CC: Do you find that being removed from the art wold helps your sanity?
KW: I don't think that leaving the city has really changed me, just like all of my childhood friends say that the city never changed me when I lived there. I was still just the same old Karin. But sanity I guess is a different thing. I think there is definitely some clarity and simplicity to living here that I was lacking in New York such as growing my own veggies and having chickens to take care of. It almost feels like some sick privilege here or a luxury but it's pretty nice to occasionally take stock of your life, figure out what is important, that the rat race is annoying and maybe recycling is cool. There are of course a lot of people up here that are pretty free and want to save the planet and all that hippy stuff and, don't get me wrong I could definitely get on that bus, but I don't want it to take over my life. I try hard not to be cynical but it can get overbearing. It drives me crazy...that and all the Grateful Dead on the radio. Honestly though, you can easily forget about these things in the city...it's easier to throw your trash on the street and if you leave your recycling out some homeless guy will take it away.
So to get back to the question... life in general in the country is great but I am an outsider. Being on the outside is both bad and good. I do feel like I have some perspective on the crazy business of city living and the absurdity of the art world from up here on my mountain but at the same time it is very hard to self motivate when there are no other artists around. New York has this real sense of power and comradery - everyone is pushing each other even if they don't know it. I used to love just being in a studio building that was full of artists beavering away on their little projects...even if I went the whole day without seeing anyone. It's a big soup of some of the brightest and most creative people on the planet, it used to just make me giddy. But here there is definitely a lack of understanding amongst people here about what exactly the art world is all about. Not that people aren't educated or aware but it's different. I feel like people in New York absorb art and knowlege through osmosis. You don't even have to be part of the art world there and you will have some awareness of it from the newspaper, the radio, the galleries you walk by on your way home from work. Basically I am just trying to say that there was a lot less explaining to do there. People are constantly telling me how it would be such a great opportunity for me to show my paintings in the local cafe or craft shop...I usually just say, "I don't paint." But once again, I don't want to sound like a snob or that I don't care but I think that no one can imagine that what I do is viable. It's also odd to try and explain what installation art is everyone immediately makes the leap from artist to painter or sculptor and if you say either they take the next step to do you paint landscapes? or do you carve stone? I guess people just have limited knowlege which I will have to come to terms with. Maybe it's my job to educate them but sometimes even I think I sound nuts when I listen to myself try to explain what I do. But hey, it works for me and thats all that matters! It seems like a dream to be in the sticks yet living off the ecomomy of far away and much wealthier places.
As for my own sanity...yes I feel very grounded. It's a different reality to wake up with the birds at sunrise instead of going to sleep with them every night. I think I realize now how superficial and out-to-lunch most of the city dwellers can be. The diversity is beautiful but the tension level is through the roof. Now i can spend all day in my PJs if I want and I dont have to have those $300 shoes because frankly they would look pretty silly with the pajamas. I guess what I am saying is that all of that stuff that I love about the city and the art world can also be the stuff that makes you need pharmaceuticals.
CC: What sources (magazines, books, etc.) do you use for your collages and how do you find them? What are you looking for in these publications?
KW: Recently I have been using real estate magazines, buying several of the same cheesy lighthouse calendars, children's encyclopedia sets, field guides and nature books and, of course, the never-ending stream of National Geographics. I think I have multiple copies of every issue ever printed. It's a great magzine, there is a wall in my studio that's solid yellow from the spines of all the magazines. It's funny to look through some issues...it's like an old friend. I think I have seen every picture and a lot of times I could tell you what's on the next page or that you can go to June of 1984 if you are looking for and article on whales.
That's all beside the point but I am usually looking for specific things. I decide ahead of time to do a collage of rocks and minerals and my "assistant" and I go through every magazine until we find them. Or I spend a couple of hours on eBay buying every field guide available. Most of the other source materials are from yard sales, thrift shops, and used book stores. I very rarely go to an actual art supply store. I have to admit I am a bit of a hoarder. I am constantly on the look-out and it just works out nicely that my hobby, my entertainment and my art making all get taken care of in one shot. It seems very efficient to me that all of these things are linked. I have been critcized in the past for cutting up these artifacts or antiques (to some people) but honestly there is such an endless supply of crap out there in the world someone should be putting it to good use or altering its usefulness by turning it into a piece of art.
Right now I am obsessed with 70's craft books. I have hundreds at this point and they are such a great source of inspiration and, frankly, amusement. They remind me so much of my childhood and growing up with an art teacher as a mother. Ithink this is mostly where the ideas for the Great Storm of 1971 came from; the books, my history and memory. I think of that piece as somewhat autobiographical. There is all the craft that I did as a kid but also craft as a product of our culture and of domestic stability...it is a way to accessorize yourself or embellish your home. The hand-made object definitely has some kind of clout. So the installation may contain all of these signifiers but, then again, it's a storm. So at the same time it is talking about domestic bliss and security and productivity while it also refers to destruction and loss of that kind of stability.
CC: Your collages are super precise and flat - can you walk through your process of cutting out images and how they're laid out?
KW: Just to clarify, they aren't always flat but yes they are fairly precise. There are all of the shadow box collages that I do where the images are repeated and then arranged in three dimensional space. They kind of look like mandalas or something. But to take you on a tour of my process... the cutting is very relaxing. It's what I did this year to get through the long winter but really it is contemplative. I do the cutting while I am thinking about bigger things, ideas, installations. I don't really think about the cutting itself and everything just kind of falls into place. For instance, the Something Amiss collage - I had envisioned a mountain form made of a compilation of images of people looking off cliffs or over the edge of something. So when it came down to putting it together and lining up all of the images I had found it, of course, was not a mountain but more of a valley or gully. The placement of things is left a bit to luck. I just keep moving things around on the paper until they seem to flow together. Sometimes it is scary how well they go together. One of my favorite examples of this is a piece I did with over 100 images of waterfalls and I connected up all of the water parts until I arrived at one huge 12 foot tall waterfall. Simple idea yet because of the similar element in each picture (the water) it was perfect, almost seemless. Though I must admit I am less concerned with perfection these days. I think it's nice when the combinations are a bit ridiculous and clunky or mismatched. But this is new for me. I have always been so anal about stuff that I wasn't allowed to get messy, but it's good and I think it's changing.
CC: Can you discuss the usage of usage of craft materials for your tornado installation and what you're exploring with the combination of this feminine materials and the concept of such a destructive element? And also, why are tornados so cool?
KW: I guess I kinda touched on the craft aspect of this already so I will skip to the juicy part of the question first. TORNADOS ARE COOL!!!! from every aspect...as just a phenomenon in nature they are truly amazing. The fact that they have so much power is astounding. I am kind of hooked on them. I'd like to have a pet tornado. I was having a conversation with a friend about spirit animals at my birthday party and how she was bummed to figure out hers was a chipmunk and how unglamorous that was. I was thinking afterwards that maybe I don't have an animal to guide my spirit but instead a weather formation...like a tornado. Okay so this is all just in jest...I dont realy take that stuff seriously but you would be suprised to know how many people here do!
Back to the point...I don't really want everyone to think that I'm sick and twisted but I really am kind of obsessed with natural disaster. Just the name itself; those two words don't seem like they should be in the same phrase. What I love is that there is something that we can't control. With all of our smarts and inventions and capability as humans we are still a bit doomed. I don't live my life accordingly, I'm not all dark and depressed. I'm not fearful either but there is definitely something cool about nature having one up on us. A lot of the recent work has been about these subjects - flooding, storms, massive amounts of snow putting a stop to things. Things can happen that take you by suprise, maybe even take away all of your worldly possessions. That's a serious reason to take stock of your life, eh? It really makes you wonder what it's all for - all these creature comforts we strive for. I think my favorite disasters are the long term ones that we create or set ourselves up for, you can see them coming for years and silly humans don't do anything about it. I think I would like to have Al Gore on my team and maybe Mike Davis the author of :City of Glass" and the new one that haven't read yet, "The Monster at Our Door." These guys have been talking for years about how we have been just setting ourselves up for a big bummer. I think we definieely effed up this time.
So as for the first part of your question, the part about traditionally feminine craft being combined with such a destrutive element... whatever it may be, you hit the nail on the head. I think it has a lot to do with my personal history, my feelings about family and domesticity. I don't want to whine but I had a rough childhood that I was fairly oblivious to because I think I was deep into fantasy and creating myself a nicer world out of fabric and yarn. It kept me busy anyway and relatively out of trouble. So I think that this piece The Great Strom of 1971 is a representation of that tension.
I think that people tend to define themselves by what they have, money, cars, houses, etc. It signifies success and prosperity, health and happiness. I hate these things but to each his own. I just like that all of these really solid objects can be so fleeting. That something like a tornado could come and take it all away. But if there is an element of the feminist or feminine in the work, I think that it is located in the material. As women we are "supposed" to be able to do and to make all of these things out of this stuff - fabric, glue, paint, sticks, whatever. I guess what I am trying to say about this "stuff" is that by using it as a language I am intentionally pointing out that it can go both ways...criticism of it and the culture that has made us think this or putting it on a pedastal by using it to excess. I just think about a household (usually kept afloat by a woman) and a household as a productive entity. Things come out of it and are made in it and if it is productive, it is somehow healthy. Also, craft is one of the many products of a household. Basically all I am trying to say is what else would you make a tornado out of other than the very stuff it seeks to destroy.
CC: Did you make god's eyes when you were younger?
KW: YES!! Didn't you? I still hate the name though. I did find out that there is another name for it - it is the craft of OJO. I am basically saying that I am uncomfortable with the religious terminology being in the work, that's not territory I am ready to grapple with yet.
[CC]: In May 2006, you presented a large project at Art Rock in Rockefeller center featuring a community of houses suspended in a forest of trees. The release says "The project presents a collision of reality and fantasy, a new suburban landscape made of existing parts." Can you talk a bit about this presentation?
[KW] I have to admit I didn't write that but, yes, the piece was supposed to be a bit about utopia. It was also supposed to make reference to the hippy lifestyle and those tree hugging people who spend years up there as well as to childhood fantasy and the allure of the tree house to every American kid. In a lot of ways being a kid's first experience of ownership and privacy, separateness. It makes me think of forts - the kind you build in the living room with chairs and blankets. And it makes me wonder why is this experience so universal? So back to the piece...I wanted it to have a bit of a "Drop City"feel, idealistic yet ill. But it was also a criticsm of suburban expansion, of gated communities, of the priveleged few who will be saved when the water rises, of the way we have conducted ourselves as a race over the past 100 years and the blatent disregard for the the environment and how we just might have to move up into the trees if things on the ground get any worse.
CC: There are a lot of feminist exhibitions occurring in U.S. museums right now. What do you think about the representation of contemporary female artists in galleries and museums or is it something that you don't think about at all?
KW: I think it is great that we may getting our day in the sun. I wish I could make it to see all of these shows!! But more seriously...of course I think about it. I am a chick in what is apparently a guys' world but I really do think we are gaining some ground or should I say the dudes' ground seems to be slipping a bit. I don't know what the numbers are these days but the ladies definitely seem to be getting shown more; it doesnt seem so out of balance. Honestly, the most interesting, intelligent, subversive, beautiful, meaningful and pertinent work that I have seen of late has been made by women. I know I should provide you with a list of examples but these things are so subjective no one would ever agree with me. So really the stuff that I like, that my friends make, who are woman is pretty f-ing great and smart and that makes me feel pretty good and proud of my peeps.
But I think that the history sucks. I wish there was a way to make it better. I wish we could all read feminist theory and not get labled. I wish we could all sit down at a bar with the Guerilla Girls and learn a thing or two. I wish that it wasn't such an issue and that we didn't have to be constantly on guard. I think everyone could open their minds just a little bit more, stop being so fucked up and backwards and racist and sexist and whatever else we could throw out there. I personally don't understand why people are such haters...why everyone is so angry and sick and starting wars and being greedy, materialistic and self important.
I think I'll just stay up here in the sticks and meditate on that for a while. So, now that I've gotten down off my soapbox...I just want to say that in my work I try not to make a big deal of the fact that I am a woman artist. I would rather not be pigeon-holed and also, my gender hasn't really shaped my experience of the art world. I can't think of a time in grad school or the years that have followed, when I was shot down because I was a girl. I never had to sleep my way to the top and I guess I like to believe that I was chosen by my first gallery on the merits of the work itself and some notion of the concepts that I was dealing with being some how current and important. So, if i am any shred of evidence that things are changing in the art world, then so be it.
More information on Karin Weiner can be found at sixspace and ZieherSmith.
Images (top to bottom):
Something Amiss on the Northern Border, 2007
Collage and spraypaint
50 x 38 in.
A Year of Many Heavy Snowfalls, 2007
Collage, graphite, paint
50 x 38 in.
The Great Storm of 1971, 2007
Mixed media installation
The Great View, 2006
Art Rock installation
Her current exhibition So Many Daunting New Complexities (on view through June 16) marks Weiner's second showing with sixspace, features the large-scale tornado installation The Great Storm of 1971 made of craft/fiber materials and a new series of collages that reflect the contemporary experience by dealing with the reality and uncertainty of the present moment.
Caryn Colelman: A lot of artists today fetishize nature in their artwork because it's become an almost foreign concept. Can you explain how you relationship with nature in your work has changed since moving from New York City to rural Vermont? How has this changed your work?
Karin Weiner: I am aware of this trend, there is definitely a lot of nature happening in art today. It doesn't bother me to be part of something, but at the same time I get annoyed by the tendency to make nature cute; it ain't all cute that's for sure as the ferocious thing that killed my chickens the other night can attest to that. I must admit though when I lived in the city I did pine for nature, it was a mystery and perhaps I too was not aware of its potential and the possible dangers. Maybe it is cute to people who never get to experience it. A lot of my earlier work was about this very distant and hands-off approach to nature that you spoke of; I saw my nieces and nephews learning about the natural world through the computer or magazines but god forbid they go outside (and they live in the countryside). So early on I decided to use magazines, books and found images from Google as my source material; I guess I still am to some extent. The alternative would have been to draw directly from nature but this didnt make sense in light of what I was trying to say through the work.
It's odd now that I am surrounded by lovely green trees and animals making noise in the woods at night. I'm terrified. I don't remember having this response when I was younger and growing up here in Vermont. Perhaps I was hardened. I always thought New York would make me able to deal with anything....perhaps I was wrong. I feel like I am seeing my rural surroundings through city eyes...every branch that scrapes on the house is someone trying to get me. I am constantly questioning people who are nice at the supermarket, every helicopter that goes overhead is somehow suspicious and invasive. It's not that I am paranoid or mistrusting but it is very different here. So to actually answer the question, I would say that nature has become a very powerful force in the most recent work. It may have a lot more to do with the current environmental crisis and our political situation than with the move north, but that is another complicated topic. I definitely think that it comes out in the work though. There are ominous things happening that can't be explained like the pink sky in Something Amiss in the Northern Sky or roles seem to be reversed such as the huddled and nervous seeming lighthouses in Invisible Enemies as it almost feels apocalyptic (and maybe that is the way things are heading). I think that it makes sense too that there would be a general trend in art-themes having to do with nature. Arent the artists always known for being like fortune-tellers? Maybe people should wake up and smell the coffee because there is definitely something brewing and I think that mother nature is pissed.
CC: Do you find that being removed from the art wold helps your sanity?
KW: I don't think that leaving the city has really changed me, just like all of my childhood friends say that the city never changed me when I lived there. I was still just the same old Karin. But sanity I guess is a different thing. I think there is definitely some clarity and simplicity to living here that I was lacking in New York such as growing my own veggies and having chickens to take care of. It almost feels like some sick privilege here or a luxury but it's pretty nice to occasionally take stock of your life, figure out what is important, that the rat race is annoying and maybe recycling is cool. There are of course a lot of people up here that are pretty free and want to save the planet and all that hippy stuff and, don't get me wrong I could definitely get on that bus, but I don't want it to take over my life. I try hard not to be cynical but it can get overbearing. It drives me crazy...that and all the Grateful Dead on the radio. Honestly though, you can easily forget about these things in the city...it's easier to throw your trash on the street and if you leave your recycling out some homeless guy will take it away.
So to get back to the question... life in general in the country is great but I am an outsider. Being on the outside is both bad and good. I do feel like I have some perspective on the crazy business of city living and the absurdity of the art world from up here on my mountain but at the same time it is very hard to self motivate when there are no other artists around. New York has this real sense of power and comradery - everyone is pushing each other even if they don't know it. I used to love just being in a studio building that was full of artists beavering away on their little projects...even if I went the whole day without seeing anyone. It's a big soup of some of the brightest and most creative people on the planet, it used to just make me giddy. But here there is definitely a lack of understanding amongst people here about what exactly the art world is all about. Not that people aren't educated or aware but it's different. I feel like people in New York absorb art and knowlege through osmosis. You don't even have to be part of the art world there and you will have some awareness of it from the newspaper, the radio, the galleries you walk by on your way home from work. Basically I am just trying to say that there was a lot less explaining to do there. People are constantly telling me how it would be such a great opportunity for me to show my paintings in the local cafe or craft shop...I usually just say, "I don't paint." But once again, I don't want to sound like a snob or that I don't care but I think that no one can imagine that what I do is viable. It's also odd to try and explain what installation art is everyone immediately makes the leap from artist to painter or sculptor and if you say either they take the next step to do you paint landscapes? or do you carve stone? I guess people just have limited knowlege which I will have to come to terms with. Maybe it's my job to educate them but sometimes even I think I sound nuts when I listen to myself try to explain what I do. But hey, it works for me and thats all that matters! It seems like a dream to be in the sticks yet living off the ecomomy of far away and much wealthier places.
As for my own sanity...yes I feel very grounded. It's a different reality to wake up with the birds at sunrise instead of going to sleep with them every night. I think I realize now how superficial and out-to-lunch most of the city dwellers can be. The diversity is beautiful but the tension level is through the roof. Now i can spend all day in my PJs if I want and I dont have to have those $300 shoes because frankly they would look pretty silly with the pajamas. I guess what I am saying is that all of that stuff that I love about the city and the art world can also be the stuff that makes you need pharmaceuticals.
CC: What sources (magazines, books, etc.) do you use for your collages and how do you find them? What are you looking for in these publications?
KW: Recently I have been using real estate magazines, buying several of the same cheesy lighthouse calendars, children's encyclopedia sets, field guides and nature books and, of course, the never-ending stream of National Geographics. I think I have multiple copies of every issue ever printed. It's a great magzine, there is a wall in my studio that's solid yellow from the spines of all the magazines. It's funny to look through some issues...it's like an old friend. I think I have seen every picture and a lot of times I could tell you what's on the next page or that you can go to June of 1984 if you are looking for and article on whales.
That's all beside the point but I am usually looking for specific things. I decide ahead of time to do a collage of rocks and minerals and my "assistant" and I go through every magazine until we find them. Or I spend a couple of hours on eBay buying every field guide available. Most of the other source materials are from yard sales, thrift shops, and used book stores. I very rarely go to an actual art supply store. I have to admit I am a bit of a hoarder. I am constantly on the look-out and it just works out nicely that my hobby, my entertainment and my art making all get taken care of in one shot. It seems very efficient to me that all of these things are linked. I have been critcized in the past for cutting up these artifacts or antiques (to some people) but honestly there is such an endless supply of crap out there in the world someone should be putting it to good use or altering its usefulness by turning it into a piece of art.
Right now I am obsessed with 70's craft books. I have hundreds at this point and they are such a great source of inspiration and, frankly, amusement. They remind me so much of my childhood and growing up with an art teacher as a mother. Ithink this is mostly where the ideas for the Great Storm of 1971 came from; the books, my history and memory. I think of that piece as somewhat autobiographical. There is all the craft that I did as a kid but also craft as a product of our culture and of domestic stability...it is a way to accessorize yourself or embellish your home. The hand-made object definitely has some kind of clout. So the installation may contain all of these signifiers but, then again, it's a storm. So at the same time it is talking about domestic bliss and security and productivity while it also refers to destruction and loss of that kind of stability.
CC: Your collages are super precise and flat - can you walk through your process of cutting out images and how they're laid out?
KW: Just to clarify, they aren't always flat but yes they are fairly precise. There are all of the shadow box collages that I do where the images are repeated and then arranged in three dimensional space. They kind of look like mandalas or something. But to take you on a tour of my process... the cutting is very relaxing. It's what I did this year to get through the long winter but really it is contemplative. I do the cutting while I am thinking about bigger things, ideas, installations. I don't really think about the cutting itself and everything just kind of falls into place. For instance, the Something Amiss collage - I had envisioned a mountain form made of a compilation of images of people looking off cliffs or over the edge of something. So when it came down to putting it together and lining up all of the images I had found it, of course, was not a mountain but more of a valley or gully. The placement of things is left a bit to luck. I just keep moving things around on the paper until they seem to flow together. Sometimes it is scary how well they go together. One of my favorite examples of this is a piece I did with over 100 images of waterfalls and I connected up all of the water parts until I arrived at one huge 12 foot tall waterfall. Simple idea yet because of the similar element in each picture (the water) it was perfect, almost seemless. Though I must admit I am less concerned with perfection these days. I think it's nice when the combinations are a bit ridiculous and clunky or mismatched. But this is new for me. I have always been so anal about stuff that I wasn't allowed to get messy, but it's good and I think it's changing.
CC: Can you discuss the usage of usage of craft materials for your tornado installation and what you're exploring with the combination of this feminine materials and the concept of such a destructive element? And also, why are tornados so cool?
KW: I guess I kinda touched on the craft aspect of this already so I will skip to the juicy part of the question first. TORNADOS ARE COOL!!!! from every aspect...as just a phenomenon in nature they are truly amazing. The fact that they have so much power is astounding. I am kind of hooked on them. I'd like to have a pet tornado. I was having a conversation with a friend about spirit animals at my birthday party and how she was bummed to figure out hers was a chipmunk and how unglamorous that was. I was thinking afterwards that maybe I don't have an animal to guide my spirit but instead a weather formation...like a tornado. Okay so this is all just in jest...I dont realy take that stuff seriously but you would be suprised to know how many people here do!
Back to the point...I don't really want everyone to think that I'm sick and twisted but I really am kind of obsessed with natural disaster. Just the name itself; those two words don't seem like they should be in the same phrase. What I love is that there is something that we can't control. With all of our smarts and inventions and capability as humans we are still a bit doomed. I don't live my life accordingly, I'm not all dark and depressed. I'm not fearful either but there is definitely something cool about nature having one up on us. A lot of the recent work has been about these subjects - flooding, storms, massive amounts of snow putting a stop to things. Things can happen that take you by suprise, maybe even take away all of your worldly possessions. That's a serious reason to take stock of your life, eh? It really makes you wonder what it's all for - all these creature comforts we strive for. I think my favorite disasters are the long term ones that we create or set ourselves up for, you can see them coming for years and silly humans don't do anything about it. I think I would like to have Al Gore on my team and maybe Mike Davis the author of :City of Glass" and the new one that haven't read yet, "The Monster at Our Door." These guys have been talking for years about how we have been just setting ourselves up for a big bummer. I think we definieely effed up this time.
So as for the first part of your question, the part about traditionally feminine craft being combined with such a destrutive element... whatever it may be, you hit the nail on the head. I think it has a lot to do with my personal history, my feelings about family and domesticity. I don't want to whine but I had a rough childhood that I was fairly oblivious to because I think I was deep into fantasy and creating myself a nicer world out of fabric and yarn. It kept me busy anyway and relatively out of trouble. So I think that this piece The Great Strom of 1971 is a representation of that tension.
I think that people tend to define themselves by what they have, money, cars, houses, etc. It signifies success and prosperity, health and happiness. I hate these things but to each his own. I just like that all of these really solid objects can be so fleeting. That something like a tornado could come and take it all away. But if there is an element of the feminist or feminine in the work, I think that it is located in the material. As women we are "supposed" to be able to do and to make all of these things out of this stuff - fabric, glue, paint, sticks, whatever. I guess what I am trying to say about this "stuff" is that by using it as a language I am intentionally pointing out that it can go both ways...criticism of it and the culture that has made us think this or putting it on a pedastal by using it to excess. I just think about a household (usually kept afloat by a woman) and a household as a productive entity. Things come out of it and are made in it and if it is productive, it is somehow healthy. Also, craft is one of the many products of a household. Basically all I am trying to say is what else would you make a tornado out of other than the very stuff it seeks to destroy.
CC: Did you make god's eyes when you were younger?
KW: YES!! Didn't you? I still hate the name though. I did find out that there is another name for it - it is the craft of OJO. I am basically saying that I am uncomfortable with the religious terminology being in the work, that's not territory I am ready to grapple with yet.
[CC]: In May 2006, you presented a large project at Art Rock in Rockefeller center featuring a community of houses suspended in a forest of trees. The release says "The project presents a collision of reality and fantasy, a new suburban landscape made of existing parts." Can you talk a bit about this presentation?
[KW] I have to admit I didn't write that but, yes, the piece was supposed to be a bit about utopia. It was also supposed to make reference to the hippy lifestyle and those tree hugging people who spend years up there as well as to childhood fantasy and the allure of the tree house to every American kid. In a lot of ways being a kid's first experience of ownership and privacy, separateness. It makes me think of forts - the kind you build in the living room with chairs and blankets. And it makes me wonder why is this experience so universal? So back to the piece...I wanted it to have a bit of a "Drop City"feel, idealistic yet ill. But it was also a criticsm of suburban expansion, of gated communities, of the priveleged few who will be saved when the water rises, of the way we have conducted ourselves as a race over the past 100 years and the blatent disregard for the the environment and how we just might have to move up into the trees if things on the ground get any worse.
CC: There are a lot of feminist exhibitions occurring in U.S. museums right now. What do you think about the representation of contemporary female artists in galleries and museums or is it something that you don't think about at all?
KW: I think it is great that we may getting our day in the sun. I wish I could make it to see all of these shows!! But more seriously...of course I think about it. I am a chick in what is apparently a guys' world but I really do think we are gaining some ground or should I say the dudes' ground seems to be slipping a bit. I don't know what the numbers are these days but the ladies definitely seem to be getting shown more; it doesnt seem so out of balance. Honestly, the most interesting, intelligent, subversive, beautiful, meaningful and pertinent work that I have seen of late has been made by women. I know I should provide you with a list of examples but these things are so subjective no one would ever agree with me. So really the stuff that I like, that my friends make, who are woman is pretty f-ing great and smart and that makes me feel pretty good and proud of my peeps.
But I think that the history sucks. I wish there was a way to make it better. I wish we could all read feminist theory and not get labled. I wish we could all sit down at a bar with the Guerilla Girls and learn a thing or two. I wish that it wasn't such an issue and that we didn't have to be constantly on guard. I think everyone could open their minds just a little bit more, stop being so fucked up and backwards and racist and sexist and whatever else we could throw out there. I personally don't understand why people are such haters...why everyone is so angry and sick and starting wars and being greedy, materialistic and self important.
I think I'll just stay up here in the sticks and meditate on that for a while. So, now that I've gotten down off my soapbox...I just want to say that in my work I try not to make a big deal of the fact that I am a woman artist. I would rather not be pigeon-holed and also, my gender hasn't really shaped my experience of the art world. I can't think of a time in grad school or the years that have followed, when I was shot down because I was a girl. I never had to sleep my way to the top and I guess I like to believe that I was chosen by my first gallery on the merits of the work itself and some notion of the concepts that I was dealing with being some how current and important. So, if i am any shred of evidence that things are changing in the art world, then so be it.
More information on Karin Weiner can be found at sixspace and ZieherSmith.
Images (top to bottom):
Something Amiss on the Northern Border, 2007
Collage and spraypaint
50 x 38 in.
A Year of Many Heavy Snowfalls, 2007
Collage, graphite, paint
50 x 38 in.
The Great Storm of 1971, 2007
Mixed media installation
The Great View, 2006
Art Rock installation
zoetica:
Karin Weiner received her MFA from Hunter College in 2003 and recently relocated from Brooklyn, New York to Vermont. She has held solo exhibitions at ZieherSmith in New York, including the gallery's project for Art Rock 2006 at Rockefeller Center, and Lisa Boyle Gallery in Chicago as well as group...