T a l kin g Arc w i t h

Ali s on S a ar

btll hookJ: Alison, eefkin g abo ut your work, you have said , .., love rhe idea
that ma terials have memory, the idea of working with ma ter ials chat have
expe rienced more t han I have." T here is in each of us and in rhe object s
that surrou nd us a place of primal memory. I believe rhat we have memo-
ries t hat exte nd beyond what we have consciously experienced. That we
carry with in us ances tral memory. \"'hen I look at your art, I am ncr rrou-
bled by t he fact that you dra w upo n real ities you have not d irectl y expe ri-
enced.

Alison Saar: \Vle don 't JUSt rem em ber th ing s t hat we've expe rie nced.
Th ere are t he me mories that come to us in visions -as dream s. It 's simi-
lar to when you're g rowin g up and there's this playing and prerendi ng -c-
an inventing of worlds. T hat 's act ually also where I starred gett ing th ese
materials from , and so those sons of ga mes are things I cont inue to do, to
put m yselfin those places. Before I do a piece I spe nd t ime in th at imagi-
native space. For examp le. t he piece I di d abo ut Sout h Africa came to me
afte r I finished reading in the pape r abo ut the life of a boy there. I felt a
psychic connect ion with his story and b egan from there to invent.

bh: Imag ining as a way to be empat hic, to move into worlds we have not
experienced yet have come to unders tand, is a way of knowi ng reality t hat
is no longer valued in our cu ltu re. I found t hat cr it ics and reviewers com-
me nt ing on your wor k don 't discuss imag inat ion. T hey ar e mu ch more
fasci nated by you r fam ily history t han by th e way your imagi nat ion
works . And they often assume that your aest heti c vision is shap ed more
by family tra d it ion in art maki ng t han by your aut onomous engaSement
with t ha t imag inat ive realm you JUSt talked about. You ident ify wit h
some thing and create wor lds aro und it . It is often assum ed that if we have
an expe rience to dra w on. we do not need to rely on imag inat ion, that it
 T ALlON'C Aln wn-u AI. ISOl': SAAR n

JUSt son of comes nat urally to us in some way. \'Uhen I loo k at your arc
work, I see it as coming our of a powe rfu l imag ina t ion . I don 't assu me
t hat your expe rie nces as a black person and your use of black subject mat -
re r mean tha t you do not vigo rously wor k [0 cre ate . Eve ryone assu mes
th at Picasso was insp ired by African an that he imaged diffe rently . Yet
you r eng age ment wi t h Afr ican , Nat ive Amer ica n, and other c ult ures
conveys an ecrive. intellect ual seeking for inspi ring sub jec t matter that
can go unnot iced or be devalued . Your work is so dreamlik e.

A S: Someone asked me if I dream any of m y pictures. I don 't . Actuallr. I

dream all of my anxieti es about making art.

bh: T hat d reaming . tho ugh. is part of the creative process.

A S: W hen I' m working wit h specific ideas, inform ati on from cult ures
outs ide of my ow n. I seek to understand t hem th roug h my own perso nal
expe rience in relatio n ro everyt hi ng I feel: my pain . my unde rstand ing of
love or anger, what I hop e for and drea m abou t.

bh: The influence of dreams. whet her t hose t hat happen when we a re
asleep or dayd reami ng, is evidenr in your work in pieces such asSolletifitd.
whe re you see th is secr et preache r doi ng his th ing and . like a r iff in a
song , you rake it and fiy wi t h it , ta ke i t some where else. On one hand ,
you 're walki ng ar ound like a no rma l perso n and you see an image in
ever yday life , but all of a sudden you be gi n [ '0 have a vision abo ut t hat
image, a ki nd of waking d rea m. It has a m ystica l d imension, as t hough
you ta ke that conc rete im age and you have t hese X-r ay eyes or some-
thing, where that image begi ns to visually deconstr uct and the n is rein-
vented in t his imagi native space as somet hing sim ilar to what it was yet
di fferent . T hat process is happening throug hout your work.

AS: I make art about everyday experiences and often the concrete proces s
is very ordinary and mu ndane. I rake t he ordinary and go with it int o t he
surreal.

bh: Talkin g with you abou t your work is different from other inre rviews
I've done, because you are one of my girlfriends as well as a powerful arti st
2<1 AR T ON MY M IN D

whose work I knew, loved, and was moved really deeply by before I met
you, Our speaking together is a more inti mate thing , W hen I was writ-
ing my questions, I found myself prepari ng t hem d ifferently, like I'd
wri te, "Don't you just love it when Bessie Harvey says, ' W hen J fi rst
found him, he was a big limb, but I knew he was a beau tiful man: J knew
t hat when I pulled him om , I said to him, "Ain't you pret t y?" He said,
"G ranny, I ain't nobod y," but I saw him and I JUSt could n' t wait to get
him home." · I love th is statement - t here is JUSt somet hing so basic yet
deep in it. And irs JUSt t he eart h iness, t he maner-cf-facr tone of t his
statement made by a black woman folk art ist t hat leads rhe comp lexity of
vision behind t hat state ment to be ig nored, go unseen. W hen I t h ink
abo ut Bessie Harvey's work , I am remi nded of the Buddh ist rea cere-
mony: the way she takes something that appears ordinary and exposes its
elegance and g race. But she does so by bringin g it to a space of simpl icity.
A simi lar energ y is at work in your scuff, Both you and I love folk art; it
enchants us. I am enchanted by your work because of t his quality, t he way
t hat so much of it appears simple. but in act uality eme rges from a very
convoluted, complex visionary process.

AS: W hat's most amaz ing is that the piece was complete in Bessie Har-
vey's mind , and when she saw that thing , that piece was made.

bh: I know, that is so deep ,

AS: And t hat's how she makes it , that way is mysterious. Ot her peo ple
can't see it. T hat 's tru e of visionaries. T hey're just nat bogged down wit h
technical bullsh it in terms of how t he piece has to be realized. T hey JUSt
see thist hing. tie it together with wire,or Bloc it together with spit, or what-
not . T he fact tha t th eir m ind does not consciously reg ister t he process
doesn 't mean rhat it hasn't happe ned. Most arns rs canr work t hat way.

bh: All visio nary arrisr s risk ma ki ng wo rk tha t will not b e seen in its
comp lexity because rhey maybe lack the skills to adequa tely articulate
t he process. We can see t his in the way Horace Pippin's work was written
about for t he cata log accompa nying th e retrospect ive. Critics called
atte nti on to biog raphical details or t he social context wirhou r speak ing
di rectly about rhe image s. It's difficul t to desc ribe exactly what happens
 TA LK ING ART W IT H A L IS O N SAA R 2'

in visionary momenrs . J put a lot of sophisticated ideas inro my head that

come to me from books, from schooli ng , and from ot her pe ople . How-
ever, whe n J sir dow n ro write, often it 's as t houg h I'm cransponed to a
magi cal space. I do n'r always remember what happens. I have a mag ical
encou nter wirh word s where all of a sudden some t hing appears on my
page rhar is rcrally not in line with anythin.';; that I consciously t hought.
Arti stS like yourself, and ot he r folks who've gone to school and been
rrained , also have t hose moments where all t hat trai ning falls away and
you're at t hat visionary moment where you see it and can make it happen.
Int ellectu al eli tism , certain acade mic ways of think ing about creat ing
art , leads to t he insistence th at t he process of a folk art ist or a native artist
is SO rad ically differem from t hat of an artist who's been trained. Beca use
you have had academ ic t rain ing, th e folk ele ments in your work t hat
enable you to fuse th e ord inary wit h th e surrea listi c can be , and some-
rime s are, perceived by people as "cont rived. "

AS: Ir's peculiar, because. again, you know, t he separatio n of artis ts into
t hese t wo camps happens in art magazines li ke Art/ orum, where t hese
people arc considered g reat art ists because th ey're crazy, or because
t hey're roeally out there, and [he reality is t hat it's a ge nuine dear vision
t hat g uides their work. Many arrisrs, taught or untaug ht , still experience
t his magicdl process, but they are forced to demonst rate technical fi nesse
to fi t t he work inco t his rigid , linear format . It has to go on thi s rig id
creek that art dons have dictated art has to go along, It has fa go t hrough
all these mach inations where one thi ng precedes anothe r in a linear fash-
ion th at can be docu mented . Th ere's rhis assump t ion th at it's all cause
and effect , t hat thi ngs happen one after another, but t hey don 't always. At
times t hings happen simu ltaneously. My art comes to me from direc tions
t hat don 't always follow a ranonnl. Hnea r process.

bh: Th e critic Susan Cra ne writes tha t "Art is not simp ly t he dis cree t ,
de lectab le, bea ut iful object . but t he transcendent al power of creariviey,
t he alchemical potentia l of materials." T he primacy of material is always
high lighted in your work, rhe way [he ma terial work s on you. Unl ike
Bessie Harvey, you don't always have t he image in mind ; sometimes the
mate rial make s rhis dem and on you . It 's as t houg h t he re is t his ki nd of
spirit power. Daddy Gus, my gr andfa ther, used to say that t here was a.
!6 A RT O N M Y M I NI)

spirit Foroe calling out to us in every object. rnenmes J look at a piece of

yours and it's as th oug h t he material itsel said , "Alison Saar, th is is what
you're going to do." And it's not-as people seem to t hink when they're
writing about your work- t hat Alison Saarsays, ~ Wel l, O K, I'm going to
take my lit tl e journey to Mexico now, and I will ap propriate such and
such." It's not a conscious, premed itated process. Even moments of pre-
med itation are disrupted by the unexpected. I was st ruck by a criric saying
that they ger the feeling t hat you don't JUSt "use found ob jects," you use
"soug ht-after' objects, and I t hough t , well , but one can go seeking and
find somerhing that one was nor looking for. One can find something and
see in it someth ing that one has been seeking . The desire to flatten every-
thin g out into this binary model again and again is someth ing t hat really
blocks our understand ing of t he creative process. It is impo rtant, when we
loo k at th e work of any g roup of people who 've b een marg inal ized,
whether we're talking about white immi grants or eny of us, that t here be a
willingn ess to acknowledge complex- it)'- p rofund iry- mu ltilayered
possib ilit y. There is so much cult ural criticism t hat extols the virtues of
cult ural hybndi ry, tra veling, the notion ofbncolage. of moving bet ween
different environment s. border crossing, all these terms- yet I am fasci-
nated when crit ics don't bring these theoretical standpoints into t he dis-
cussion of your work. T hey continually q uote a phrase you once used where
you said you often fl,.'Cl as though you are "floating between tWOworlds't-c-
usually to refer to your having both African-American and Euro-Amencan
ancestry. Since you talk about this mixed background , critics often ignore
the significance of rhe "border crossings" you choose that are not "g ivens."
Much of the passion in your work is expressed as you celebrate those bor-
de r crossings that rake place in the imag inarion , in the mind as well as in
real life, and t hose journeys are not ralked about enoug h.

AS: Actually. when I first used that phrase, "float ing b etw een tWO
world s," I was tal ki ng about the rwo world s of realit y and magic. Yet
when cr it ics applied rhe statement ro m y backgrou nd. t hat made sense as
well. Meanings change. Pieces that I made ten years ago have very differ-
ent meani ngs for me now. W hen people ask me to help t hem understand
th is work , J have to state aga in and again that fat me the work means d if-
ferent th ing s at different li mes, dep endi ng on my exp erience and as I
accumulate knowledge.
 T"'l- KI NO ...Il.T WITtl ...L1S0 N S...... II. n

bh: Also, histor ical contex t changes . Much of your early work was very
prophetic in t hat you were creating art that articulated ideas ebou r bor-
de r crossing way before t here was all this fancy theory, before Bennerrc n
ads, before all of t hese t hing s. Yet cr it ics now acr as thoug h you do th e
"erhnic" th ing b ecause it's in sty le. And some of t hem demonize you by
suggest ing th at th e work ap propr'iares the folk or black underclass and
poor expe rience in an oppcreunis nc manner. Yet so much of your work
predates t hat kind of hedonistic consumerist approach to the "other" that
says, "O h, yes, now I have all t hese ethn ic shops where I can buy cool arri-
facts from Africa, Mexico, Tiber ." I had thi s experience yesterda y. I was
hang ins OUt wit h a friend who was looking for an apartment . He went
inro a bu ild ing where we knew an apartment was for rent, a bu ilding I
had once seen a South Asian woman exiti ng. So we went inco t he apart-
ment for rent . T here were all t hese Sout h Asian e reifacrs and little Bud -
dh ist th ings. I was expecting to meet the Sourh Asian woman I had seen
before. We opened the door to the bedroom , and t he tenant was sin ing in
t here. Suddenly I thoug ht about the assumptions I had made, rha r th ere
would b e t h is linear co rrelat ion between the int erior visio n all t hose
objects in space were giving and th e person who put t hem rcgerber. I
rhink it's rhar kind of longing for linear order that people have in a xeno-
phobic and crazy society. So many folks want to be able to identify, codify,
cont ain everyt hing . And we' re constantl y challenged when rbese fi xed
noti ons of ldennry are di srupred . I th ink rhere are some people who
would have been offended by t he facr rhar t here were no amfacrs in t his
space tha t came from white culture. To me, th at gap is interest ing . J don't
wa nr to p lace a SOrt of valu e judgment on a person, saying, "Oh, she's
ep propr ieving ; t hat's bad ." To me it is much mo re interes ting to know
what are the energ ies and long ings that move her to chose ob jects! And I
feel li ke chat same interest emerges when I see you r work, t he art ifacts
you borrow from d iverse cultures.

AS: Sometimes because of th e fact char I was doing my work long before
t here was any intere st in mu lt icult uralism. erc., people have come up to
me and said . "Oh , the Wh itney Biennial really JUSt pissed me off. because
here are all these artists of color being shown, and it was a barrage, and a
m ulticultu ral bandwagon sort of rhing." And I've pointed out to them
rhar man y of [he arti sts in chis show had been mak ing art for t went y
14 ART O NMYM I NI)

years . Yet it cakes be ing in t his show to leg iti mate t he art - to make it
more visible .

bh: T he mom ent wh ite peop le decide It's cool to "eat t he othe r," t he
response ro all our work changes. And sudde nly issues of eurhen nctey, of
"Wi ll the real black person please stand up ?" come into play.

AS: Rig ht. Ir's clear that people are very suspicious.

bh: Alison. we were always involved wit h Frieda Kahle's work. I've loved
Frieda Kahle 's work since I was a little g irl, bur then when it became t his
ki nd of hip sig n of cool, I began to feel somehow like my claim to a rela-
tionsh ip to th at work is validated not t hrough my experience as a South-
ern black g irl involved in spi ritual mysticism or interested in Mexico or
what have you, but filtered t hroug h t he validation Kahl o now receives
from wh ite folks; validared by Madonna, saying in some mag azine th at
she's int erested in t his. It becomes th is wacky th ing , because there's a
part of us that want s then to pu ll back and let ou r fascination wit h that
artist go, because you don't want folks to see it as coming OUt of t his cui-
rure of consumerism - where everyone want s to "eat t he ot her." Let's face
it , t he cultu re of consumerism that eats the othe r has indeed made Frieda
Kahle a household word in places where she mig ht never have been heard
of, and t here's a vulga rization of work and process there. However, ro sub-
ve rr this, all of us who have loved her work and who think crit ically about
it have to lay claim ro ccn rexrualize those moment s in our lives when t hat
work first came to us. T he same is tr ue of your work. A lot of your work
calls for a recogn iti on of t he importance of sub jugated knowledge. Your
work and your being were act ualized at a histor ical moment when there
was th is real demand on th e parr of African4American people in resis-
tance aga inst racism for t he recovery of subj uga ted kno wledge . T hat
process of recovery wasn't rben related to class pcst noneliey at regi onal
srerus-c- wheeher yO ll are a Sout hern black person or a Northe rn black
person , whether you grew up in a rich or poor neig hbo rhood . lr was
related co the collecti ve yearn ing to know more abou t ourselves as black
people in t he dias pore. tr's as t houg h we were sayi ng, "T here's thi s
knowledge t ha t we do n 't have," and none of us have it. So much abo ut
black life- black bisrory-c- bas only recently been docum ented. Nobody
 TAI .KIN G ART WITH Al.l ~ON S AA R ?'i

had al l the informat ion . It 's not as ifpoor people were sitt ing on it , and
rich people went and took it from them or what have you; t hat just was
not the case. Can you talk abou t you r experience searching for sub jugated
knowledg e? W hat did you want t ha t know ledge to do in your life? I
know when I Went to Stanford Uni versity, I bega n 10 see rhe rural Sout h
that I ca me from in a new way. I went bac k to those art ifacts t hat I had
often taken for granted in my life and saw the m in a new way. J hear that
same shift when you tal k abo ut go ing to roots, both real and imag inary,
that you might not have thought about in Laurel Canyon .

AS: Yeah, for example, I did thi s p iece abo ut the Sout h, and I' ve never
lived in t he South, I can say that my rnorher's people came from t here; bu t
it was never a concrete part of my experie nce, Yet when I went chere, I Saw
t his p lace as a part of my heritage that I di d not know anyt hing about. To
me, the South was Hollywood versions of it, Gont u-itb Iht \Vind ancl soon.
I was shocked to find that when I Went there I felt a deep kin ship, a con-
necnon to these su rrou ndings, t hat was rransformar ive,

bh: And the reasons you felt that intense spiritual connect ion canne r be
explaiu ed c-- t bcy a rc part of life's mystery, You know, I've bee n in love
with t his man who lives in another count ry, and I was w-iring him a letter
in which I said, "You return me to the Sourh , even thoug h you 've never
been th ere," That his presence doe s this is pure mystery, T he da nger of
identity pol it ics, and of 100 m uch narrow essentialist value be ing placed
on d irect experience, is 1b.1.1 it denies t he realm of magic, of myst icism .

AS: Everyone out there is JUSt highl y suspicious of :lny bond between cul-
rure s and folks t hat can't be documented and expla ined by liard facts, by
d irect exper ience. Most folks don 't want to feel the magic happen. When
ind ivid uals see m y work and feel alie nated , usually it 's beca use t hey want
my connect ion to th e places to be explained in a way tha t mak es sense,
The work doe sn't exactl y work t har way.

bh: No matter how m uch folks in the academ y validate new espis eemolo-
gies- ways of knowing that transcend reason c-- rnosr folks want eve ry-
th ing expla ined in a linear, rationa l way. For example, maybe rein-
carnat ion info rms our sense of connect ion ro places , people, ob jects we
3ei ART ON MY MI N D

know nothing about. T his is a realm of experience that many people in

our societ y migh t say they don 't believe in. j ungs notion of the collective
unconscious is so tied co African diesporlc notions of ancest ral knowledge
and ro a belief in ancest ral memory that lives with in people. Wh ile many
Afrocentric thinkers are eager to eckoowledge t hat there are real arrifacrs
t hat docume nt African cu lt ural retent ions in th e so-called New World ,
specifically from the culrure of West Africa, t hese same individuals refuse
ro acknowledge psych ic connecti ons t haI bin d pe ople. lha t t ranscend
time and space.

AS: T hat is why the work of an untraditional scholar such as Roben: Far-
ris T hompson has meant a lot to some of us. He's willing to look beyond
the rational explanatio n. The fi rst time I saw him. 1 must have been sev-
enteen yeats old. After stru ggli ng with art histor y. seeing it through the
eyes of Germans. of the English, seeing rhe limited way t hese g reat, pow-
erful. wonderful art objects were ta lked abou rc--so cold ly and wit hout
passion or cenderoessc--I was delig hted to see a professor who was willing
to rake his tie ofT and put it around h is waist to show what a di fTerem pos-
ture in another cu lture looked like. Wh en he talked about diespo ric con-
necrion sc--a link bet ween African music and the blues-folks d id not
want to hear it mixed up. really. They questi oned how these connections
could be documented .

bh: And connectio ns th at can't be scienti fically document ed are nor rec-
ogn ized as meani ng ful by t he academy. Yet when we do enter t hose sub-
cultura l worlds in t he United States at Saneer ie, or in Yoru ba, we ent er
inro a world where people are tota lly comfortable wit h nonons ofe border
crossing that 's nor concrete. t hat emerges from spirit possession. In those
worlds. the idea tha t you can be ent ered by a force and spea k a language
you don' t know, all of t hese t hings, is accepted. Many of the white folks
who talk end lessly about multicu lturalism would be uncomfortable with
tr uly accepun g ways of knowing that challenge the privileged place t hat
reason occupies in the \'\Iest . We lack ways of talk ing abour t hat sense of a
connection with an art ifact from aoorher culrure th at feels primal , like
my obsession with altars. As a littl e child. I Was d rawn ro altars. On e of
my favorite ch urch songs was one t hat asked, "Is your all on the alta r of
sacrifice laid ?" And it was sung with t h is ki nd of sp irit of angu ish and
 TA LKIN!: ART W ITH ALI SON SA AR ~1

lo ng ing t hat in t ri g ued me. I wa nted to see alta rs -to know w hat
rhey meant in out lives cross-c u ltu rally. I let t hat passion lead me to
whe re altars can b e fou nd. T hat pa ssion for alt ars t hat su rfaced in a
Sou t hern b lack chu rch, i n a li tt le to w n , led me t o France, to
Mon tserrat, whe re I sa w t he sh ri ne of t he b lack Madon na, wh ere I
sawa ll t hese white hands st roking t hat shrine . Rather t ha n see ing no
eonnecricc be tween t he alta r of th at Sout he rn black chu rch and th e
shrine of rbe black Madonna , I see it as a pa limpsest . where t here's a
t hread t hat 's wov en t h roug h our li ves rhar p ulls us to ward t h ings .
And yo u ate lu cky, Ali son , b ecau se yo u were g iven some of ehe se
th read s early in l ife.
When you talk about your dad being interested in pre-Colum bian art
and African art and da Vinci , he was offer ing a world where you could
make certain connect ions.

AS: T hat 's tr ue.

hh: And wh at's exci t ing about your wo rk is th e way you mak e bo rde r
crossing a sacred yer playful rit ual. T har spi rit of playfu lness rhar I see
in you as a person , t he way you like t o m ix t he del ighrfu l wi th t he
de ad ly serious , is there in you r work . The spi rit of play in folk art or
prim iti ve art is so rarely talked about as ri t ual istic, as evoki ng a vision
of li fe, an ontology, th at we can use to apprehend reality. I see t hat rit -
ual play in specific fig ures you have created , like T he Tobacco Demon or
The Col/on Demo» , where , on th e on e hand . rhere is p layful ness, yet
th ese fig ur e s are co ns t r uc ted to embod y evil , everyt h ing we mighr
d read.

AS: I think I have to do that, mix the sacred and rhe pro fane in my work;
it's a process of exorc ism. If I d id n't do ie in the work, I'd JUSt jump off a
cliff. T hese are const ruct ive ways of facing t rag ic, painful expe riences.
And char's how t he slaves sur vived all that pein -c- cbrougb creati ng , by
making music , dance, poetry. T hat's how, you kno w, we survive in Haiti,
in Mex ico. You JUSt some ho w rurn it aro und; you're up agai nst deat h,
t hen you make death thi s buffoon, this tr ickster. and t hat 's how you dea l
with what you face, and th at 's how you su rvive it, b ecause ot he rwise
you'd JUSt lay down and die.
n "'R T O N M Y M I N O

bh: I reme mber when I first learned in hig h school about carni val in ot her
cu ltures , Wl e did nor lea rn its deeper m eaning , about "e at ing of t he
flesh. " t hose layered metaphysical di me nsions. th e issues of life and dea t h
th at are a part of th e carni val. Inste ad, we we re taught to t hink of carni val
as prim itive p lay, Fo r tOO lo ng in t his cu ltu re we have had to w itness
African art an d Afr ican-Am e rican art ta lked abou t in ways th at de ny
t here is some t hin g happ e ning in th e work that is deep- not o bvious -
that wha t you see on t he surface may be a sm iling face, but t he smi ling
face m ay b e rilted in a man ner that speaks to suffering , rhar change s the
mea ning of th at smile. T hat willin g ness to crit ically engage art by black
folks in all its profund ity is st ill very difficul t in a cult ure of do m inat ion
wh ere pe ople do not le arn to look be nea th the surface, For exa m ple,
many folk s look at your piece T~ SN4kt Charmer and see it as G race J ones.

AS: It 's curio us, he becomes G race J o nes, in people's eyes, because of hi s
hairdo. But as I produced t he p iece, in my ima g in at io n, it was a snake
char mer, a m an who had t hese po we rs , who co uld hold the s nake sus-
pe nded in his mcu rh. W hethe r he was a shaman or a g ypsy, he co uld go
bet ween people and sur t hin gs up.

bh: You're arti culat ing t har there's this ru pt ure bet ween a rt istic in ren-
ncnah ry a nd what is cult ura lly rece ived , Maybe so me whe re in your
unconscious you created t his piece, which you envision as ma le, in a like-
ness s im ilar to a woman. And aud iences associate that pie ce with Grace
J ones. I even bega n ro chi nk of it as her, or of her as a m yster io us fi g ure
like a snake charmer. I di dn 't have problems seeing t his image in m ult iple
ways. Agai n, it goes back ro breakin g out of th e cult ure-o f-do m ina tio ns
insistence on binaries: it has to be e ith er/or, it has to be what you int end ,
t here has to be th is co ntrol. And I t hin k wh at we've bee n addressi ng
today is t hat art is in teract ive in the sense th at th e pieces aren't JUSt your
int ent iona lit y. Th ey aren't JUSt even your life experience- they are all of
t hese d iverse elements co m ing toge t her.

A S: Th e peo ple who see (hat piece as G race j ones are add ressing issues in
t heir own lives. And I t hin k it 's really great tha t th ese images are so pow-
erful th at pe ople are immediately d rawn to them and th at someho w t he ir
lives are being addressed by th ese images,
 l ',H K 1N G A n ' W lT ll ALI SO N SA A ll H

bb: On one hand , folks proj ect onto you r work much t hat you did not
int end; on th e other hand , th ey don 't always pay att enti on to what is
there. I am fascinated by t he proactive sexual images in your work. Pieces
such as Fearand PdSJion, Lot 't Potion *9 , and QJlt'f!n ol Slxha evoke pleasu re
and dan ger , and des ire. Romance and desire not as t he boy -meet s-girl
stu ff, but as faral eeerecrions of erotic passion rhat dri ves folks wild , You
make a link in the work between obsessi ve longing and suffering .

AS: My experience wit h passion is t hat it C3n easily turn inro somet hing
really self-destruct ive. It's very scary and , at t he same time, it 's alluring ,
seductive. I made t his piece DailfeU'ilh D'mgtr, and it 's t his woman doing
a really hot dance, and there's t his male fig ure t hat at one angle becomes a
skeleton, and it 's desire depicted as Iife-and -de arh Struggl e, as ali-con-
suming , I've always been str ugg ling with how f.1.r I can go our the re to t he
edge without really endangering myself, without falling off, T he dange r
isn't just physical; it 's mental, psychic da nger. We Can let go or become so
obsessed with a thing that it can reall y kill us and just d rown out every
rational though t in ou r heads. My work explores the tension between t he
wildness wit hin , th e primit ive, and the rat iona l an imal. There is t hat
dual quali ty within all of us. And bcr h are really im porrnnr aspects of
who we are.

bh: The re is this teasing, sed uctive q uality in your work when you come
face ro face with da nge r, You present an image that is ord inary or arcbe-
typal. like t he heart -using it to sym bolize romance and desire, T hen
you expose t he da rker side, t he vision of b eing d riven mad by des ire,
When I think officnonel wor k t hat is akin to your art , works like Mar-
guerite Du ras's Tlx Rm'hhing ol LQI Stein and Clarisse Lispeceor's writings
come to mind , Like these writers, you create a world where people 's long -
ings are SO inrense they th reaten [Q consume the self.

AS: T hese pieces emerge from personal st rugg le. It was initially very d if-
fi cu lt for me to ma ke t hose pieces, because it felt li ke I was walking
around naked,

bb: I parti cipated in Shu Lea Cheung's installat ion T bose Plulltring Objem
01Desire, which was at the \Xlhitney, T he museum was not prepared for
H A RT O N M Y MI N O

the responses it engendered. In the installation, you could put a qua rte r
into these red phones and talk. I read a very intense, passionate love lett er
that I wrote to a man in my life, and I was really st unned by the number
of people who Hsreoed to it over and over and over. T here was even some
tension in the museum about the fan tha t th ey were acq uiring so many
q uart ers . And peo ple were raising th e q ues t ion Is thi s art ? or Is it tOO
much like the real thing ? I mean , you're d ialing 1~900 . 0 ES J R E , But I
t h ink what p eopl e heard on t hose phon es th at we do n't often hear is
angu ish , an aspe ct of lovi ng tha t we don't often talk abo ut. African-
American expressive cultu re, parti cularly mu sic, has always g iven voice
to rrag tc dimensions of love, We rarely set' an equiv alent in art , We do in
your work. Your sculpture Sapphire is an erot ic, sexualized image. It artic-
ulates black female notions offemale desirability, t he sense that the bira-
cial woman, or wh ite-looking black woman, is trul y sexual, tr uly exotic,
but always ror cured. In you r work you expose the inner cont radic ti ons
th at may not be man ifest on the outside. T here's the oute r sur face and
t hen t here's t his inner world that is full of inrerweavings and coruplexi-
ties , We can all d raw that heart shape, yet you open up t hese figures and
ther e's so much going on , In you r Black Snake B/ueJ, who is t hat mysteri-
ous lady on the bed ?

AS: T he idea for t his p iece came to me from t he song "Black Snake
Blues," It's abo ut a black snake crawling on th is lad y's bed -and it's a
way to talk about infidelity, t ransgression, The woman's long ing for some
black snake to come into her bed is exposed. She needs and desires more.
People aren't really ready to deal with f ierce female passion,

bh: The politics of passion and desire t hat is articulated t hroug hout your
work needs to be d iscussed more by critics. Wle need to do more (0
describe t he naked black fi gure. \VIe need (0 talk abou t the vulne rabi lit y
in t hese images- the passion of remembrance. T hese longi ngs that we
know to be universal in p eopl e, t he long ing to connect , to exp erience
com m unity, to embrace the mysterious. Your work calls us aga in and
again to t hat realm of mystery.