Inside the Head of Lorenzo Pace

Installation and Performace Art

By Anthony Crisafulli

A Little Biography
Pace was born in 1943 in Birmingham Alabama the middle child of thirteen. As he describes it, I was just floating in there. His father, the archbishop Eddie Pace, was the leader in a Black Baptist church and he moved
the family to Chicago when Lorenzo was 13 years old. His mother, whom
Lorenzo always refers to as my mother, never referring to her by her
first name, he describes as, a woman who never slept and held the family
together until the day she passed away. Out of all his brothers and sisters,
he was the only artist. His eldest brother was a pilot, one of his sisters is a
professor at mathematics, and his youngest brother is going through the
seminary.
Lorenzo: I was supposed to be the minister in the family. The only problem was I could never make it through the entire Bible. I mean, who ever
wrote that thing needed to take a 101 class in Not Boring the Heck Out
of Humanity. (Pace laughs and slaps my hand)
My Thought
Crisafulli: Out of all the people I have met in life, Lorenzo Pace is the only
true shaman. He moves through the world with a gleeful innocences and
the wisdom of a of the ages. He notices and empathizes with all the
things, all people and all places that the rest of us somehow overlook.

Understanding Installation and Performance Art: A Conversation between Anthony Crisafulli and Lorenzo Pace:
Some Bar on the Mexican Fronteer
Pace: Did you ever read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?
Crisafulli: I saw the movie. Does that count?
Pace: No (Pace pulls an old tired paperback out of this bag and begins.)
Pace: What I am going to read you is the essence of what making art is for
me, because we are only here for a very short time. Listen and remember,
not all knowledge is clean knowledge.
Crisafulli: OK
Pace: It is important to note that suddenly, and against all probability, a
Sperm Whale had been called into existence, several miles above the surface of an alien planet and since this is not a naturally tenable position for
a whale, this innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with
its identity.
This is what it thought, as it fell:
The Whale: Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here?
Whats my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay,

calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my... well I suppose I better start
finding names for things. Lets call it a... tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, whats
this roaring sound, whooshing past what Im suddenly gonna call my
head? Wind! Is that a good name? It'll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. Im
dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? Theres an awful lot of that now,
isnt it? And whats this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat
and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like Ow, Ownge,
Round, Ground! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if itll be friends with
me? Hello Ground! [Splat]
Installation Art
Installation Art came to prominence in the late 1960s and 1970s, and was
an outgrowth of several different movements such as DADA, Conceptual
Art, Performance Art, Fluxus, and Happenings. What each of these movements had in common was that they liberated the notion of what modern
art could be. With few exceptions, art, prior to and including a great deal
of modernity, was presented for gallery viewing in two distinct ways.
Painting were either made of paint applied to wooden panels or stretched
canvas and were situated as framed focus points on neutral walls, while
sculptural objects were fashioned from primary materials such as wood,
stone, and metal, and were isolated on a base (pedestal) In both cases the
viewer was invited to discretely interact with each work of art in an exhibition from a distance. They could either locate themselves in front of the
painting or circumnavigate the sculptural form. Although the interaction
with the works can be immersive, it is passive in nature and it is unlikely
that the viewers lose their critical distance, as each piece is discrete from
another and rather than modifying the way a particular space is experi-

enced they act as independent agents that share a common environment.

Or in other words, each work of art is a gestalt onto itself rather than operating as a whole.
Definition: Gestalt Effect: The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming
capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition
of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and
curves.
Installation Art, unlike traditional painting and sculpture, is dynamically
immersive, as viewer experiences the installation from within, and is acknowledged as part of the larger gestalt. The installation does not have to
stick to painting or sculpture but can incorporate an inexhaustible range of
materials and medium such as sound, video, performance, computers, the
internet, found objects, found images, natural materials, printed matter,
drawings, live people, and anything else that the artist chooses to use.
Moreover, installations do not have to be in a gallery. They can be site-specific or any place the artist wants it to be.
Definition: Passive Immersion: Passive Immersion is the state of consciousness where an immersants awareness of physical self is diminished
or lost by being subsumed by an artwork through the act of viewing without influencing its existence.
Definition: Dynamic Immersion: Dynamic Immersion is the state of consciousness where an immersants awareness of physical self is diminished
or lost by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment whose existence the viewers presence alters.

Installation art uses sculptural materials and other media to modify

the way a particular space is experienced. Installation art is not necessarily
confined to gallery spaces, and can be any material intervention in everyday public or private spaces. Moreover, it incorporates almost any media
to create an experience in a particular environment. Materials used in contemporary installation art range from everyday and natural materials to
new media such as video, sound, performance, computers, and the internet. Some installations are site-specific in that they are designed to only
exist in the space for which they were created.
Allan Kaprow noted, If we bypass art and take nature itself as a
model or point of departure, we may be able to devise a different kind of
art out of the sensory stuff of ordinary life.
I
nstallation as nomenclature, a specific form of art onto itself, came
into use fairly recently; its first use as documented by the OED was in
1969. It was coined in this context in reference to a form of art that had arguably existed since prehistory but was not regarded as a discrete category until the mid-twentieth century. Allan Kaprow used the term
Environment in 1958 (Kaprow 6) to describe his transformed indoor
spaces; this later joined such terms as project art and temporary art.
Many trace the roots of both contemporary art and installation art
to earlier artists such as Marcel Duchamp and his use of the readymade, or
to Kurt Schwitters Merz art objects, rather than more traditional or craftbased sculpture. The intention of the artist and the idea of concept are
paramount to installation art, whose roots also lie in the conceptual art of
the 1960s. This again is a departure from traditional sculpture that places
its focus on form. Early non-Western installation art includes events

staged by the Gutai group in Japan starting in 1954, which influenced

American installation pioneers such as Allan Kaprow.
But its roots also extend back to German Opera. Richard Wagner in 1849
conceived of the idea in this operatic work of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the
conscious act of artistically addressing all the senses with regard to the
viewers experience. Wagner drew inspiration from the tradition of ancient Greek theater and its ability to commandeer all of the audiences
senses. His work left nothing unobserved: architecture, ambience, and
even the audience itself were considered and manipulated in order to
achieve a state of total artistic immersion.
In Art and Objecthood, Michael Fried derisively labels art that acknowledges the viewer as theatrical (Fried 45). There is a strong parallel
between installation and theater: both play to a viewer who is expected to
be at once immersed in the sensory/narrative experience that surrounds
him, and to maintain a degree of self-identity as a viewer.
The traditional theatergoer does not forget that he has come in from
outside to sit and take in a created experience; a trademark of installation
art has been the curious and eager viewer, still aware that he or she is in
an exhibition setting and tentatively exploring the novel universe of the
installation. A number of institutions focusing on Installation art were created from the 1980s onwards, suggesting the need for Installation to be
seen as a separate discipline. These included the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh and the Museum of Installation, London, among others.
T
he artist and critic Ilya Kabakov mentions this essential phenomenon in the introduction to his lectures On the Total Installation:
[One] is simultaneously both a victim and a viewer, who on the one

hand surveys and evaluates the installation, and on the other, follows
those associations, recollections which arise in him[;] he is overcome by
the intense atmosphere of the total illusion (Kabakov 256).
Here installation art bestows an unprecedented importance on the
observers inclusion in that which he observes. The expectations and social habits that the viewer takes with him into the space of the installation
will remain with him as he enters, to be either applied or negated once he
has taken in the new environment. What is common to nearly all installation art is a consideration of the experience into and the problems it may
present, namely the constant conflict between disinterested criticism and
sympathetic involvement.
Crisafulli: TV and Video offer immersive experiences, but their unrelenting control over the rhythm of passing time and the arrangement of images precludes an
intimately personal viewing experience. Ultimately, the only things a viewer can
be assured of when experiencing the work are his own thoughts and preconceptions and the basic rules of space and time.
The central importance of the subjective point of view when experiencing installation art points toward a disregard for traditional Platonic image theory. In effect,
the entire installation adopts the character of the simulacrum or flawed statue: it
neglects any ideal form in favor of optimizing its direct appearance to the observer. Installation art operates fully within the realm of sensory perception, in a
sense installing the viewer into an artificial system with an appeal to his subjective perception as its ultimate goal.

Interactive Installations
Interactive installation is a branch of the installation arts category.
Usually, an interactive installation will involve the audience acting on it or
the piece responding to the users activity. There are several kinds of interactive installations produced; these include web-based installations,
gallery-based installations, digital-based installations, electronic-based installations, and so on. Interactive installations are mostly seen from the
1990s, when artists are more interested in the participation of the audiences where the meaning of the installation is generated.
With the improvement of technology over the years, artists are
more able to explore outside of the boundaries that could never be explored by artists in the past. The media used are more experimental and
bold; they are also usually cross-media and may involve sensors, which
plays on the reaction to the audiences movement when looking at the installations. By using Virtual Reality as a medium, immersive art is probably the most deeply interactive form of art. At the turn of a new century,
there is a trend of interactive installations using video, film, sound, and
sculpture.

The Project Background

Lorenzo Pace, a performance and installation artist whom I have admired
and known since the early 1990s, agreed to let me interview him about his
art and life. I explained to him that the interview would be the cornerstone for a new art appreciation book, whose primary objective is based in
the supposition that, newcomers to the field of art may have a greater appreciation of how art functions or what art is, if they better understood
those that make it Artists. It was essential, I told Pace, to be as honest and as open as possible, in order for this experiment to work. Being
friends with Lorenzo, I knew his response would be a resounding, Hey
man, in Lorenzo-speak this translates; I wouldnt give it to you any
other way.
I suggested, on the phone, that either we meet for the interview at my office or in his studio; whichever was more convenient for him. There was a
pause, then in his large inviting voice he bellowed out, Man how about
we go to Mexico and lets find somewhere we have never been before.
He arrived at my house an hour later and entered the front door without
knocking. He introduced himself with a Whats up? as he hugged me in
the vestibule. I asked him to wait a minute as I went upstairs to collect my
recorder and briefcase. When I returned he was sitting on my front porch,
with his eyes closed, holding my 3-month-old son. I waited 20 minutes
before I disturbed him. I asked him if he was ready, he opened his eyes
and looked at me and said, This is as close as you get to the divine. We
put the child back in the house and headed to my 1996 white Miata convertible. He took off his shirt, pointed to the tan lines on his African skin
and said, I got to get myself a little blacker.

We arrived at the Progresso border crossing a half hour later. We paid our
25 cents to walk over the bridge and began to walk in the opposite direction of the crowds. Lorenzo: This place reminds me of Africa, without
the black people. All the buildings are small and made of cinder blocks.
When I go somewhere I like to go and see what the scene is like where the
regular people live; you know, check out the scene. We saw a dog with no
hair, or at least with very little hair, we went into a church that could seat
no more than 20 people, and counted 13 dental offices on one block.
Along the way Lorenzo picked up a bottle cap and put it in his pocket.
But before he put it in his pocket and said, How are you? I think Ill take
you home. With our legs tired and his pockets filled we headed to an upstairs bar that I had come across two weeks prior. It was dark, clean and
patron-less -- a perfect place to open up. I turned on my recorder and had
the bartender bring us a beer and tequila each and we began.
The first half hour we avoided talking about art. We discussed the significance of the Obama candidacy and how much the world had changed
since the assassinations of Marin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Bobby
Kennedy. I talked to some of the cats from the hood about you and
where you are at. How your kids run up to me and hug me when I come
over and how your daughter, Mia, calls me your brother. Lorenzo went
on, And they said, this is a white boy? And I said, this is a white boy,
who wears a shirt and tie to work everyday. I never thought I would be a
friend with a white boy like you. But see, in life you never knoweven
white boys like you can change. Lorenzo grinned, grabbed my hand,
and laughed.
Hearing something like this made me feel strangely humble, partly because it smacked of the truth but mostly because of a late-night conversa-

tion Lorenzo and I had the last spring that completely changed who I am.
This probably requires an explanation.
The last time Lorenzo visited me he gave my children a very special gift, a
signed copy of his award-winning book Jalani and the Lock. Then he
said, I have another gift for you, but everybody needs to get up.
So, my three children, my wife, and I got up.
Now repeat after me, Lorenzo went on. Whatever I say, I want you to
say. And whatever I do, I want you to do. Lets practice.
He cups his hands like a megaphone, When I go Hey Hey. You go Hey
Hey. When I go Ho Ho
We responded in our best Lorenzo shout out voices, Ho Ho.
Lorenzo, good, now lets get started.
He open the book and read the first page like a Baptist Preacher on Easter
Sunday, A long time ago.
We repeated, A long time ago.
Lorenzo continued, No, a long time a time ago. We need to go way way
way way backTo the beginning. To where we all come from. You and me
and mommy and daddy. To where it all began. AFRICA!

Throughout the performance we clapped our hands, called out for freedom, sang the national anthem, drummed on the tables, stamped on the
floors, marched around the house, and danced with delight. I was truly
amazed watching my young children, void of inhibitions, celebrate
Jalanis message of universal freedom and human dignity.
Shortly after the performance several faculty members arrived at my
house to meet Dr. Pace. We talked about the New York scene and his
monument on Wall Street, and how he was affected growing up as a P.K.
(Preachers Kid]. My five-year-old daughter, dressed in a Dora nightgown
and fuzzy pink slippers, ran downstairs to say goodnight: while the other
two children peaked around the banister, she asked Lorenzo, Could you
read us the book again, I love this story. The generous soul that Lorenzo
is replied, I want everybody to get up. And for the next twenty minutes Professors and my children and myself shouted back Lorenzos
words, clapped our hands, danced around the living room, and became a
little bit wiser for the wear. And the Shaman of Brooklyn grinned like a
Cheshire cat.
After all the guests had gone home and the children were asleep Lorenzo
and I were at the sink, I washing and he drying. We were talking about
the evening, since it was fresh on our minds, and from nowhere I started
to speak out loud.
I said, Lorenzo as I handed him the next dish to dry, I realized tonight,
no, I realized right now, that slavery is my fault. And I want to apologize
to you cause I am deeply sorry.
He looked at me and his smile ran away from his face. For a second I was
scared, I had never seen Lorenzo so serious.
He turned to me and said, Thank you brother; no white man has said

that to me before. What you told me right now, Ive been waiting to hear
my entire life.
Cut back to the Interview in Mexico
When the Bartender returned with our drinks, we salted out glasses and
toasted to friendship.
Crisafulli: Lorenzo, I want you to tell me about the lock which keep appearing in your work.
Pace: In 1991 I went back to Birmingham, Alabama to bury my father.
After the funeral all the family came back to the house to eat and celebrate
my fathers life, as we knew him. My Uncle Julius Pace, who was 80 at
that time, began to talk about our family history and began to talk about
my fathers life. Then all of a sudden he asked my mother, Mary, do you
have the Uncle Julius made some hand gesture with his hands, that
I gave Eddie, 30 years ago. My mother went to the bedroom and came
back with a little brown bag. Uncle Julius opened it up and took out an
old lock. He placed it on the table in front of him and my uncle began to
speak.
Uncle Julius: This lock was given to me by my father Joseph Pace and it
was given to him by his father Steve Pace, who was a slave. This is the
lock that shackled him when he was a slave.
Everything stopped, the eating, the laughing, our mouths flew open,
Like What? When Uncle Julius was finished talking, he picked up the
lock, handed to me and said, I want Lorenzo to be the keeper of the fam-

ily lock. I didnt know why the family put this on me. I guess it was because I was the Artist.
So I took the lock back to New York and put it in the closet, because I didnt want to deal with it. It was too heavy. And as far as I was concerned
that damn lock could sit in the closet forever.
Crisafulli:
So how did you start to use the lock in your work? What was
the first piece you did with the lock and what inspired you?
Pace: Then one day, several years later, my 8-year old daughter asked,
Daddy, are we from slaves? It was a heavy question and I had never
thought I would have to explain to my sweet beautiful innocent child. Before my fathers funeral, we had never talked about slavery in our family.
So I gave her some answer, but she deserved a better one. I knew what I
had to do. So, when no one was around I went to the closet, pulled out
that little brown bag, sat down on an old wooden stool, took out my
legacy, and cradled the it between my hands. After a while, I looked at the
lock and said, Why was I so scared of you? And the lock said back to
me, I dont know; Julius sent me here to tell you something. What? I
said back. And in the voice of the ancestors the lock whispered, Now
you need to figure out how to tell the child about our history without her
feeling ashamed, and let her know that we are all more than we appear to
be. Over the next several hours the lock and I communed with each
other and by time we were done I was inspired to write the book Jalani
and the Lock. Afterwards I developed a performance piece based on the
story. Since then I have explored the significance of the lock as a subject
and catalyst for my work.
Jalani and the Lock is a story about a little boy from Africa who was play-

ing in the forest. Then one day a big man came along, put him in chains,
sailed him across the ocean and sold him into slavery. Jalani was sad because he was never allowed to play, ever again. Many years later when
Jalani was freed, he kept the lock that held the chains that held him in
slavery. When Jalani died he gave the lock to his son and asked him to
pass it to his children when he left this world, so that his family would
never to forget where they came from.
Crisafulli: What kind of artist are you?
Pace: What do you mean, man?
Crisafulli: Are you a painter, sculpture, do you deal with found objects?
Pace: I do all those things but I see myself as an installation artist and a
performance artist.
Anthony: What is installation art?
Pace: Installation art isnt like painting and it isnt like sculpture. Installation isnt something you can hang on a wall or put on a pedestal. When
you look at painting you understand it through your eyes. Its a one-dimensional understanding; on the other hand, sculpture -- you can move
around it but its still very sight-oriented. The goal of installation art is to
engage all five of your senses or at least more than one. All art is an experience but it is different type of experiences that define the genre the art
falls into.
Crisafulli: Explain what you mean by all art is an experience.

Pace: If you buy a drawing by Picasso, what are you really buying?
Crisafulli: Do you want me to answer that?
Pace: No its rhetorical. Your buying what came out of an artist experience.
The act of Picassos artistic drive, his direct contact with the act of drawing
itself was the artists moment or in other words it was the art. The drawing that you purchase is a result of the artistic moment, a sort of record of
what he was thinking, feeling, of what he was in the process of creating.
Crisafulli: So where does this artistic drive or, another word, the artist
emotion come from?
Pace: Its an instinct; the artist has an artistic instinct. This instinct is developed and nurtured over time through making art, studying art, and experiencing art. Maybe an analogy could be this: lions instinctually hunt,
would you agree with this?
Crisafulli: Yes.
Pace: But before a lion hunts he play hunts.
Crisafulli: What do you mean by play hunt?
Pace: He pre-enacts the hunt through play.
Crisafulli: So what you are saying is that play and instinct, in an artistic
sense-- some how the lines are blurred in the beginning.

Pace: Exactly. Most people underestimate play. Play is how we learn

everything. Little kids play house, they color, they freely embrace their
imagination.
Crisafulli: Are you saying that artists get to know themselves through a
sort of play that engages their imagination?
Pace: Imagination, creativity, and instinct are the stuff that we are made
of; it is the authentic part of us.
Crisafulli: Sounds kind of dangerous.
Pace: Whenever you are liberated it can be dangerous but its real, its
true.
Crisafulli: So are you saying that art is about truth?
Pace: Not exactly. Im saying that truth is about art.
Crisafulli: Sounds like a slippery slope to me.
Pace: Im not talking about the kind of truth that is on the surface of
things. Im talking about a truth from a highly individual perspective. Its
not about a Platonic truth thats not very interesting. Its about how my
truth is different from your truth, how my aesthetic is different from
yours. Art finds its value in the individual rather than the consensus.
Thats why its real tough for folks to understand. We are brought up not
only to ignore our instincts, but also to find value in things that we create

based upon other folks finding value in them. You cant base your work
on other folks expectations and acceptance. I mean we all like to get paid
but at what cost. I guess that is kind of ironic to say because the kind of
work that I focus on, Installation Art, subvert art market because it cant
be sold; it can only be experienced.
Crisafulli: So when did installation art come into prominence?
Pace: Installation art starts to creep into the scene in a major way by the
early 1970s. It was a natural outgrowth of the conceptual art of the 1960s.
Thats not to say it wasnt influenced by earlier artists such as Marcel
Duchamp, and his invention, or should I say convention, of readymade.
Crisafulli: The Readymade?
Pace: The readymade, or in French object trouve, refers to a type of art that
is constructed from everyday objects being used outside of their context.
The artist modifies or interprets or adapts an object. It can be a personification or a metaphor for a larger idea. The artist re-contextualizes the object by naming the object, designating it as art. It is art from the artist as
much as it is by the artist.
Crisafulli: Can you give me some examples?
Pace: Sure, most famous examples are Duchamps 1913 Bicycle Wheel and
his 1917 piece The Fountain, which is an upside down urinal he signed R.
Mutt. There were other folks who also explored the boundaries of art,
such as Man Ray. Man Rays most well known piece is called the Gift.
These are still all just objects but these folks paved the way for installation

because they broke the boundaries of the artist having to create everything
themselves. What they also did was force the viewer to disconnect from
the traditional art context. This opens a floodgate. Artists have the liberty
to do anything they want to.
Crisafulli: Like what?
Pace: Like site-specific installations of Walter De Marias Earth Room,
Gordon Matta-Clarks Splitting Four Corners or Smithsons Spiral Jettie.
On the black side, some artist that really affected me was David Hammons
and Martin Purrier. They pushed boundaries of aesthetic expression and
helped to define my generations commitment to the creative exploration
of self-identity outside the traditional context of art.
Pace: DHam has been showing everywhere for over thirty years. So, its
2002 and I got a card stating that Dham was doing something local. And
by local I mean in New York City. Cause New York is the place for artists.
So I head down to Hudson Street to check out the installation Concerto in
Black and Blue. Just to find out that there was nothing to see, except the
beam of light that was emitted from the flash light I was caring as I
walked through a completely darken gallery space I thought, where the
hells the art, did I miss it? Then I realized that I was part of the art. One of
DHams tricks again. In a strange way it reminded me of an installation
we collaborated on two years earlier in Tribes Gallery in New York City; it
was me and Dham, Gerriald Jackson. The Show as called The House of
Blue Lights and it was to honor the great jazz musician Charlie Parkers on
his birthday.
I love Dham. His has always been crazy, the good kind of crazy. I think its
because the craziness liberates him. I remember this one piece he laided

out, called Flying Carpet (1990). It was this Persian rug with all these
chicken bones attached to it. Well I got it. It was the Chicken Bone Express that brought black folks from the South to start a new life in the
North.
Crisafulli: The Chicken Bone Express?
Pace: Yes, The Chicken Bone Express! Thats what we called the northbound buses and trains in the 1950s and 1960s. The north had jobs and
opportunities. So if you were a poor black person from the south, like my
family, you would save your money for a ticket and Mama would pack
you some chicken, in a brown bag to eat on the trip. And mamas chicken
was so good that you would be eating it before you could tell old Jim
Crow good-by.
Crisafulli: Where did Jim Crow first come from?
Pace: You. (Pace laughs and slaps my hand.) He was born in New York in
1808 and died in 1860, before the civil war. Jim Crow did Thomas Dartmouth, Daddy Rice, play a black stage character. He was this white
song and dance man who performed in black face. He is considered the
father of American minstrelsy. But folks have been doing the black face
thing as early as 1441 in Portugal. Even Shakespeare has Othello.
But, minstrel shows were more than white actors playing black forks.
They lampooned blacks as ignorant, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, carefree, and musical. A typical show was broken up into three acts. The first
act was characterized by dance routines, wisecracks and singing. The second act consisted of small skits and stump speech, pun filled rants. And
the last act was most often a slapstick one-act play that took place on the

plantation. The show had stock characters that developed over time. They
were the slave and the dandy, Mammy and Old Darky, Mullato the slut,
and the Black Solider.
We dont know where the name Jim Crow originated. We believe that
Thomas Dartmouth got it from over hearing a black performer sing the
chorus: "Weel about and turn about and do jis so, Eb'ry time, weel about,
jump Jim Crow. He may have gotten more, he may have gotten less, and
he may have made some up. The tune became very well known not only
in the United States but internationally; in 1841 the USA ambassador to
Central America, Lloyd Stephen, wrote that upon his arrival in Merid, Yucatan the local brass band played "Jump Jim Crow" under the mistaken
impression that it was the USA's national anthem. Maybe it was.
The name was so popular that it was adopted to refer to state and local
laws between 1986 and 1965 that mandated the segregation of public
schools, public places and public transportation, and the use of restrooms
and restaurants for whites and blacks in the South. I went to one of those
one room segregated schools with little or no books, when I was a kid in
Alabama. I remember those distinctive signs that read color and white.
But all that changed when United States Supreme Court determined Jim
Crow unconstitutional in the 1954 ruling of Brown v. the Board of Educa
tion and the Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965.
Crisafulli: You have a piece by Hammons in your studio. It looks like an
American Flag but the colors are different.
Pace: Thats right, the colors are different. The American Flag is red white
and blue but Hammonss Flag is Red, Black and Green. On August 13,
1920, Marcus Garvey (a Jamaican-born black-nationalist leader who

founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914) introduced the Universal African Flag to the world. The colors red, black, and
green all have special significance. Red symbolizes the "color of the blood
which men must shed for their redemption and liberty," black, "the color
of the noble and distinguished race to which we belong," and green for
"the luxuriant vegetation of our Motherland."
But Hammons though that, Garveys flag, looked like the Italian flag except that it is red, black, and green. But it is so abstract, so pure, that the
masses were frightened by it. I made my flag because I felt that they
needed one like the U.S. flag but with black stars instead of white ones.
But then who needs stars when we have Michael Jackson."
Hammons explained, "I feel it is my moral obligation to try to graphically
document what I feel socially."
Crisafulli: Is this what you are doing when you incorporate a readymade
in your work. ?
Pace: I dont usually work with ready-mades but I do use everyday objects in my work. Most of the time I find these objects when Im walking
around the streets of New York or wherever I am at the time. When I rescue these objects from somebodys garbage or a flea market or wherever I
find them, I dont know what Im going to use them for. I just bring them
back to my studio and let them age. Then when Im making a piece or an
installation I start to play with them, like a poet does with words.
Crisafulli: When did you start working with found objects and readymades?

Pace: While working on my doctoral degree at Illinois University I had

come to a crossroad in my life and work; I had to take a walk. One day I
walked into the cornfields in search of a direction where I wanted to go in
my life and work. I came upon a simple and beautiful twig that screamed
out to me, Whats up, bro?
(Pace laughs) I stopped and responded and picked it up and answered
back, Whats up? Our conversation began, Do you want to take me
back to your studio? and Pace replied, Why not? So I took it back to the
studio, put it in the corner and said, Ill deal with you later. One day the
twig said, Hey man, you didnt bring me over here to put me in the corner, did you? I said, No. It said Then play with me so I began to play.
Then with that simple twig I put it on the wall and began to wrap it and in
the process I began to go back in time. What was it like for my ancestors in
Egypt? I began looking at how they dealt with the afterlife and mummification. What really got me was that I went to an exhibition, The Little
Boy King Tut at the Arts of Egypt. It made me wonder, what was it like
for the mummification now that he is in this world? How did they, as
Egyptians, prepare themselves for the afterlife? Which began my search
through performance, installation, and sculpture. It all started with a simple conversation with a twig.
Crisafulli: I love the monument that you were commissioned to build in
New York. How did that come about?
Pace: About the time I started to write Jalani and the Lock, an African
burial ground was uncovered in lower Manhattan. It was 5 block from
Wall Street and 4 blocks from the World Trade Center. If this were true it
would be the oldest burial grounds discovered in America.

When I read the article in the New York Times I immediately went to the
site and jumped over the fence and began to take photographs. The city
was shocked because they didnt know that we in New York had the history of slavery. It was a shock for me because I had in my possession an
icon that goes back to the founding of this nation, the lock. Now I felt
good enough to tell my daughter our history without feeling ashamed.
Trying to reconstruct my history was a step-by-step process; I had to go
back to look at where I came from. It was a very challenging and grueling
process because I had to look at my history through books, exhibitions,
Metropolitan Museum, and so forth, for me to get the courage to reconstruct my history. In that process I started to write about a little boy, reflecting on myself -- where did I come from and how did I get here? I had
to reconstruct myself through the tears and agony, the frustration and research, to be honest to myself and honest to my daughter, so came the
story. After weeks, months, I was finally able to construct a complete story
of my existence. Painful, yes, but I was determined to get to as close as the
truth as possible and to convey in the simplest terms for my daughter to
understand, for the kids of the future. It also became for family, adults,
and myself. To reconstruct yourself from scratch you have to be willing to
go where you have never gone before. It is painful to reconstruct yourself,
to go into the unknown; you are confronted with fear, anger, frustration,
but also with the determination to move forward.