HILLYER

HILLYER INTERVIEWS CAPITAL FRINGE PERFORMER JEREMY GOREN

This July, Hillyer is happy to host a Capital Fringe performance, Wistaria, a traveling meeting that questions our past and present through a hallucinatory amalgam of U.S. texts, traditional song, and actions both mysterious and banal. Wistaria appears in homes and odd spaces, searching alternative ways of living in art and society. Created in part during the 2013-2014 LEIMAY Fellowship, CAVE, Brooklyn, NY, the performance is a transgressive anti-narrative that jumps through U.S. history, from an imagined Masonic-ritual past all the way to the immediate present, following the transformations of the tent-revival Methodist hymn that became “John Brown’s Body” and then “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Wistaria incorporates one new actor in each performance, as well as a few audience volunteers – and the audience is given songbooks and invited to join in. “We sometimes present a musical guest as a second course – and we always serve deviled eggs.”

Performers at Hillyer will be Jeremy Goren, Stephanie Eiss, and Jenna Kirk have been working together since the beginning of 2013. They have performed Wistaria at several locations in New York, in collaboration with a changing cadre of artists. They will be joined by Richard Sheinmel, Laura Bernas, and Alexandra Zajaczkowski for these performances. This production is presented as a part of the 2014 Capital Fringe Festival, a program of the Washington, DC non-profit Capital Fringe.

Here we interview Jeremy Goren to give you a little more insight about Wistaria. Performances are on Friday, July 18th at 8pm & Saturday, July 19th at 2pm. Tickets are on sale now!

Hillyer Art Space (HAS): What does the “Wistaria” refer to?
Jeremy Goren (JG): In this case – and in this spelling – “wistaria” alludes to William Faulkner’s novel Absalom, Absalom. (The more conventional spelling is “wisteria”.) I’m obsessed with this book. I’ve read it several times over ten years or so, and each time I realize I’d previously understood nothing of it. Not even the basic plot. The structure, tone, poetry, and particular type of opacity masking a complex depth of meaning and mystery lie, for me, at the source of Wistaria. For me, it’s the kind of underground Bible of the USA – a dark current beneath the mainstream – pulsing out our history, the violent throws of a new kind of nation being born out of blood, slavery, tragedy – and with the grand depth, scale, and distance of a true creation myth.

HAS: Wistaria incorporates one new actor in each performance, how does this rotating role affect each individual performance?

JG: This means that each time Wistaria has appeared a different person has taken on the durational task of cracking and peeling hard-boiled eggs during the performance. Changing the performer each time started by chance but quickly became deliberate. The role has to do with the marginalization and servitude of different types of minorities in this country, simultaneously with the realization that these groups have actually been the creators of culture and, in many ways, the conscience of the nation. They look in at the folly of the mainstream and keep time in the darkness. And, their status outside the privileged spaces of the country hint at a kind of possibility of transcending the universe – thus the egg, a traditional symbol of universe, eternity, rebirth, pointing towards the ineffable place that words cannot reach and no tongue has sullied. But I saw this only in retrospect. It was not a calculation. On a less symbolic level, it’s interesting for us, as a small group working together for more than a year, to consistently welcome in a new playmate for a moment. In these performances at Hillyer, we’ll actually have several new performers. Guests in the home. Plus, you know, life is transient.

HAS: You put a call out on your Facebook page for volunteers to host a performance in their homes. How did this practice evolve and why are performances in homes significant to Wistaria?

JG: This practice evolved way before we came along, of course. Traveling performers appearing in private homes is a millenia-old practice. In this case, I started thinking about it while visiting my parents for Thanksgiving two years ago. We were driving through Potomac (Maryland) at night, out where all those huge houses sit brooding on large, well-groomed plots of land. And I suddenly thought of a medieval acting troupe, wandering through the countryside, happening upon a castle, and going in to entertain (or roast) the duke and his friends. I like it because it takes us further out of the Theatre Industry and its commercial, capitalist model – which predominates even in the “off-off-Broadway” world and the “experimental-theatre” world. And then I came across Jere C. Mickel’s Footlights on the Prarie, which details the wandering theatre troupes – particularly the traveling-tent troupes – that criss-crossed the USA in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I’d never known these had existed. But, this practice had been here – and clearly related to the tent-revival tradition, which, from my meager reading, really played a formative role in our society and its culture – particularly its music. I’m also interested in how this kind of circumstance of performance changes expectations and experiences for doer and watcher. What possibilities exist in this circumstance? Plus, it’s much nicer to hang in someone’s home than in a theater.

HAS: What is the significance of the deviled eggs?

JG: Well, consider the significance of eggs I mentioned above. Now, add in the Devil, the idea of which has exerted a strangely prominent influence in the U.S. national mentality. Deviling food, as I understand it, began as such in England within the past several hundred years, meaning just a way of making your food spicy – hot, like Hell. Somehow deviled eggs became not only a rather emblematic U.S. dish, often associated with the southern part of the country, but many people we’ve encountered have deep personal associations with them and favorite recipes for them – and there is a great variety of ways to make them. I, for instance, thought they were Jewish food (until last year!) because my grandmother always served them at pesach. So, what does it mean as a national practice to take this symbol of rebirth and eternity, slice it in half, mash it up, send it to the Devil, and ingest it?

HAS: The performance is described as “a traveling meeting that questions our historical past and present through a hallucinatory amalgam of U.S. texts, traditional song and actions, mysterious and banal” as well as “an intimate meeting of people that questions and may threaten – through text, action and song – the story we use to placate our minds”. I guess my question would be does the performance seek to encourage the viewer to rethink their definition of “Americanness” and about America’s identity in international opinion? To re-imagine the histories we’ve been taught about what America means and our place within the international community? Do you come from a perspective of questioning our national identity?
JG: I don’t like to prescribe any experience or dogma to an audience. I feel that my job is to open a space for us as a temporary community and as individuals to perhaps become aware of something in ourselves and our society and to stimulate a reconsideration. To question, yes, but it’s less on a political or mundane level. To say it’s about questioning our national identity is right, but that’s only the surface of it, and if we stay there, we won’t get anywhere. That’s just a tool, a vehicle for questioning ourselves on a more significant level, to think about how we’re living and want to live, as individuals and as a society. It’s not about policy-making. Ultimately, it should move beyond a particular nation-state and touch on the possibilities of the universal and the eternal. Isn’t that what art is for? If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t have had to write any of the text you cite. That’s part of the negotiation with the venture-capitalist nature of art in our society – you have to market at least to some degree. As soon as I write those words, I know they become lies. So, you know, don’t take them too seriously.

HAS: Does holding a performance in Washington DC hold any particular significance to Wistaria?

JG: For sure. As the Congressional stenographer informed us recently: “The Constitution would not have been written by Freemasons!” But it was. This city is the seat of power, the heart of the official, national myth machine – and my native town.

Thanks Jeremy!

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WRAPPING LEONARD CAVE: ADVENTURES IN THE WAREHOUSE

Snugly sat against brown packing paper and rolls upon rolls of bubble wrap in the sedan of Hillyer Art Space’s Gallery Director, we (two Gallery Interns and a Gallery Director (don’t worry, this isn’t the start of a terrible joke)) headed to the warehouse in Baltimore where International Arts & Artists stores their artworks. Our mission: to prepare four Leonard Cave works for shipping.

Who was Leonard Cave? Lenny was a local D.C. sculptor and leader of an artistic community. He was born in South Carolina, the third of four brothers. He studied Fine Arts at the University of Maryland, and after he completed his graduate work, became a professor at Georgetown University. After seven years of holding a position as an adjunct professor, he started teaching for public school districts in the DMV. He even established an Academy of Commercial and Fine Art for the Montgomery County School District. In addition to teaching, in 1984 Lenny founded and ensured the stability of the Washington Sculptors Guild, an organization dedicated to forging a space for sculpture and sculptors in the DC community. Though a southern boy at heart, Lenny helped to forge the DMV artistic and sculptural community that thrives today.
Upon his death in 2006, Hillyer Art Space and its parent organization IA&A, the president of which was a close personal friend of Lenny’s, were honored to be willed several of Lenny’s sculptures. Having only received them earlier in 2013, we are been planning to hold an event during Fall 2013 in order to offer the collection up for public sale. In the meantime, however, auction galleries in New Orleans requested a few of his pieces to be put up for auction. Happy to bring Lenny and his legacy back to the south, we planned a trip to our storage unit.
We needed to ensure the works would not be damaged in the drive to New Orleans (We shipped works 2, 12, 15, and 16. Those plus his other works can be found here). This meant we needed to bring out the big guns. And by guns, I of course mean loads of bubble wrap, packing tape, duct tape, and packing paper alongside other tools (like our new favorite sharpie, the magnum, which we didn’t even know was a thing until last Thursday). With all of that, we felt prepared enough to face the tall stacks and infinite corridors of CDS logistics. We rode on, arriving just outside of Baltimore in just over an hour.
After locating and cataloging each of Lenny’s sculptures, we enlisted the aid of the warehouse workers who operate the forklifts (you know, those vehicles on which, regrettably, we weren’t permitted to play) to carefully maneuver the pieces we needed.
As we watched, eager to get our hands on these large wooden sculptures, we became nostalgic and thought back to earlier months when we and Lenny were first becoming acquainted. So we made sure that we took photos with these wooden legacies of Lenny. We couldn’t help but appreciate the unique relationship Lenny has with HAS, but like a parent sending her child away from home, we were glad to be sending Lenny off into the world to be better appreciated.

After uncovering the sculptures from plastic wrapping meant to protect from accumulating dust layers, we re-wrapped them in paper and bubble wrap, cardboard corners and packing tape. Packing the smaller pieces in a box, we secured the sculptures in place by using smaller cardboard boxes, more packing tape, and more bubble wrap as buffer.

(You should know that the temptation to pop all of those bubbles was strong, but we triumphantly resisted.)

Though we didn’t get to pop the bubbles, we were able to put some play to use. Our Director, Sam, put to good use her knowledge of plastic wrap. Awkwardly twisting and winding our way around these large sculptures with various protrusions was a task, but one that we successfully accomplished.

After washing the dirt from our hands and knees, and after removing residual tape from places we didn’t even know we had it, we were ready to leave. Leaving the packages to be picked up by the shipping company the following morning (which we were notified safely arrived in New Orleans earlier this week), we said a temporary farewell to Lenny.

Until next time, Mr. Cave.

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REMEMBERING A DC ART GIANT: WILLEM DE LOOPER

Mr. Willem de Looper was one of those rare, incredible people who slipped quietly into the DC art scene and, over the course of 59 years, from his immigration here in 1950 until his death in 2009, changed it forever.
Born and raised in The Hauge during the second World War, de Looper was fascinated by American culture from an early age. During his childhood, he told Archives of American Art,
“My only art experience was – well, it’s not really art experience. It was exposure to the United States, and that took form in two ways. We listened as soon as we could after the war to the AFN… And so I became very early quite interested in America… I mean, also Americans – let’s face it – they were looked at – and Canadians and the British – they were looked at as liberators.”
This fascination grew until 1950, when de Looper –only seventeen years old– set sail on the New Amsterdam bound for America. It was during the subsequent years, while he attended American University, that de Looper’s ambition to be a professional artist solidified. Trying to be practical, he at first turned his talents toward illustration. Fate had another plan for Willem de Looper, however: just as he was hired to join the illustration staff for a department store catalog, his life was turned upside-down. “In retrospect again it looks like a total disaster – I got drafted in the American Army,” de Looper explained. “And without making a peep or anything or making any attempt to go into graduate school, I just went.”
De Looper drew and painted as much as he could during his two years in a transportation company of the US Army, and upon his return he found work as a security guard at the Philips Collection. Surrounded by art, de Looper’s painting went into overdrive. In his studio apartment on 20th and N de Looper spent every spare moment painting. His style slowly evolved from figurative painting to abstraction. In his own words,
“I painted in many styles, developing my first interest, which obviously had been born somewhat earlier, towards abstraction. And always, you know, it’s one of those things that people are constantly asking me about: do you – how do you start painting abstract paintings? You do that by learning how to deal with form and – but also you have to create not only the colors but also the form and all that sort of thing. And I did that, I think, by painting first landscapes and figures that became more abstract or – to use that word fairly loosely, as I went along from painting to painting.”

“I started really using my eyes when I was at the Phillips,” de Looper explained.By 1966, the security guard was showing his work in a solo exhibition at Jefferson Place Gallery, one of the premier exhibition spaces for the emerging Washington Color School. By 1975 de Looper had a solo exhibition at the Phillips Collection, where he was now an assistant curator. He was head curator of the Phillips Collection by 1982, a post he held for five years before retiring in 1987 to focus more on his own painting.
De Looper never stopped experimenting. His paintings phased through horizontal geometry in earthtones during the 1970s to freer brushstrokes of vibrant color during the 1980s, switching also between oil paints or water-based acrylic paints, canvas or paper. His various processes also shifted dramatically over the years, from pouring paint onto a canvas laid out on the floor to traditional easel painting to dyeing paper.
Willem de Looper died of emphysema on January 30, 2009, at the age of 76. He left an indelible mark on the Washington D.C. art scene, and is deeply missed to this day by his many friends and admirers.

International Arts and Artists, the parent organization of the Hillyer Art Space, is looking to sell Unknown, Willem de Looper, 1979 63″x 48″ acrylic on canvas (pictured above) to benefit the Hillyer Art Space. Please direct any inquiries to (202) 338-0680 or rachelw@artsandartists.org

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MEMBERSHIP SPOTLIGHT: AMY HUGHES BRADEN

Membership Associate Ginny DeLacey sat down with Amy Hughes Braden as she was installing her show, Red and Grey Paintings, in Hillyer’s NIN9 Members’ Gallery. Amy discussed her fascination with relationships, her issues with ownership and her love of collaboration. Amy’s show will be on view from February 1-25.

Ginny DeLacey: What is your background as an artist?
Amy Hughes Braden: I had supportive parents so I took art classes growing up. It never seemed like an unreasonable idea to be an artist. It was always just the track I was going down.
I went to Pratt right out of high school, but I ended up graduating from the Corcoran. I liked the Corcoran’s program because it was really open and I had a lot of freedom.
GD: Can you discuss the importance of relationships in your paintings and collages?
AHB: Personally, I find family dynamics very interesting. I’m interested in the relationship of relatives, of people you’re related to but you may or may not know. I have a stack of photographs of my grandma when she was about my age that I love to look at because I’m interested in exploring the artifacts of lives lived. Also, I’m a huge extrovert so I need to be constantly interacting with people, even if it’s within a painting.
I’m also into exploring relationships in a more formal way. My husband and I were just discussing how each of the works function more like a paragraph so when you see them all together they are understood in a different, perhaps more complete way.
GD: You’ve recently started mixing painting and collage, could you explain that transition?
AHB: I’ve always kept and collected bits of paper, interesting images from magazines or pamphlets. I have boxes of these papers and every so often I take them out, sort them and reexamine the images. Recently I’ve been using photocopied image. To me they bring up issues of copyright, ownership and authorship in the age of the internet.
I like to take other people’s work and use it in mine. I’ve stolen my brother’s sketchbook and built works on top of his art. I call it a collaboration, but sometimes he gets mad at me. I look at it as I’m not doing anything new, no one’s doing anything new so I think it’s silly to cling onto claims of ownership.
GD: What artists or artistic movements inspire you?
AHB: I’m so bad at answering that question. Francis Bacon and Philip Guston have inspired some of my recent work. The Dada movement has always been appealing to me; they were just fed up with everything. I think their ideas still have a lot of relevance today.
GD: When you start a work do you have a final painting in mind or does it evolve as you go?
AHB: Sometimes they evolve. One of the paintings in this show was originally a portrait that I had done for my thesis. I decided I didn’t want it anymore so I painted over all but one tiny section. I’m very reactionary when I paint, which can get me into trouble. I use source images for any figures that I include in my work, but I don’t usually have the whole composition pre-planned. Like I said, I’m reactionary. I’m very impatient when I paint, which is one reason why I don’t use oils. I work very impulsively and instinctually.
GD: How long does it take you to create a work?
AHB: It depends. I always work on at least three paintings at a time and then I always have a few collages going at once. I’ve found that this helps me make better decisions, or it keeps me from getting tunnel vision on one piece and overworking it. I made that painting [referring to Mrs. Henry White, above] in three hours. I was challenged to create a painting in three hours and that was the end result. There was a lot of energy going into it, knowing I had such a limited amount of time to work, and I became less inhibited. I only had time to execute my idea; there was no time to hem and haw over the process.
But then other paintings can take months. I don’t necessarily churn out works quickly, but I do like to make marks and paint quickly. Sometimes I’ll start a painting and then set it aside for a few months to mull over before working on it again. I didn’t always do this, but I’ve seen that it is a vital part of the process.
GD: When you work on paintings or collages at the same time, do they wind up looking similar?
AHB: Yes, because I use the same palette on each one so the colors are fairly consistent in each painting. When I paint, I paint whatever I’m thinking about. It’s very stream of consciousness so the works come from the same head space which makes them thematically similar by default.
GD: Do you think this show has an overall theme?
AHB: I didn’t have a theme in mind at the start so it’s hard for me stand back now and say, “Oh, this is the theme.” I’ve always worked with portraiture so formally these paintings are about trying to evolve from simply rendering faces on a canvas. I thought a lot about formal elements as I painted and also about how to incorporate collage elements into the paintings, while maintaining a level of refinement. Ideas about my family and relationships on all levels will always be a part of my work and I believe that shows here as well.
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Come visit Amy’s show Red and Grey Paintings along with John Reuss’ Mind & Matter and Marcia Wolfson Ray’s Rhythms on view in Hillyer until February 25.

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MEMBERSHIP SPOTLIGHT: MATT MALONE

Membership associate Ginny DeLacey sat down with member artist Matt Malone as he installed his exhibition Hot Pink in Hillyer’s NIN9 Members’ Gallery. Matt discussed the inspiration for his series which features photographs of deflated, pink balloons strategically placed in urban sites. He explained the way the juxtaposition of a pink party balloon in an unexpected setting can transform a scene into a completely different image. Matt’s show opens December 7 and will be on view until December 21.

Ginny DeLacey: What is your background as an artist?
Matt Malone: I began making art in 2003. I studied printmaking and painting at VCU. I had originally studied business at William and Mary, but one of my professors encouraged me to do art which led me to VCU.
GD: Do you work as an artist full-time?
MM: No, I used to work at the Philip’s Collection but now I have a regular 9 to 5 job. I’ve been doing this series since 2005 and I also am working on a collaborative project called Duly Noted Painters with Kurtis Ceppetelli where we paint on the same canvas at the same time.
GD: What’s the inspiration for this show? How did you come up with the idea of using pink party balloons in urban environments?
MM: I was really influenced by the artist Andy Goldsworthy who goes into nature and finds things like colored leaves, for example, arranges them, takes a photograph and then leaves them to revert back to nature. In art school you get strange assignments, once we were given a word and had to create a project around it. My word was “celebration.” So I thought about the word for a while and thought of a party store. When I went to a party store these pink balloons immediately stood out, as they do in the photographs, so I decided to work with them. I wanted to do what Andy Goldsworthy did but in an urban environment by contrasting these balloons with their surroundings.

Most of the environments were construction sites which are always changing. They’re also hard to get into, you can’t go when people are working so you have to sneak in after hours. I would pass by these sites on a daily basis and get inspiration, but if you don’t act almost immediately the opportunity for a certain shot is gone. You have to act on impulse. Also light is key in these photographs. The play of shadows is very important. That one there [referring to Division, above] would look totally different at any other time of the day.

Construction sites are great because there are tons of weird things that you don’t see on a day-to-day basis. For example, that one with the drill bit, most people don’t see that every day. Artists are always searching for inspiration and it’s good to see new things and generate new ideas.
GD: Have you ever been caught sneaking into a construction site?
MM: I haven’t been caught by anyone who’s kicked me out. I’ve had people stop and watch what I’m doing for a little while. I try to be careful.
GD: What would you say is the over-arching theme of the series?
MM: I think one theme is the idea of using an object in a different way than is intended. When I started the project I knew that I didn’t want to blow up any of the balloons. When I shoot these images I carry around a bag of 100 pink balloons, which is a lot so I don’t always use all 100 in each image. This may sound weird, but once I arrange them each balloon begins to take on an individual personality and characteristics. They start to personify things, what they personify isn’t always clear but they absolutely take on a life of their own. It would be easy, actually it would be hard, to make each balloon look the same but I don’t really fret about that. I like the way that none of them looked the same.
GD: Are you still making works for this series?
MM: I’m still making them. The last one I took was of a power reader outside of Hillyer [above, first image]. I did it at night, which is a new thing for me that I may try to explore more. I was trying to show my process. I put my bag of balloons on the wall and shot it so it looks like my shadow is holding the bag.
GD: Was it different shooting at night?
MM: It was completely different. The light doesn’t change since it’s all artificial. I also didn’t light them myself, I just relied on the existing light. But even though the light doesn’t change you still have to balance the light and shadow.

GD: Could you explain the process of making one of these photographs?
MM: I live up in Brookland where there’s a lot of construction. So I’ll pass a site and get an idea, but it’s not fully formed until I get onto the site later on. I usually go to these sites when the sun is setting because, as most photographers will tell you, it’s the most dynamic part of the day. At midday when the sun is directly overhead the shadows and light don’t move but at sunset they are always changing.
Depending on the shot, it usually takes me 10-20 minutes to arrange the balloons. If it’s windy it takes longer because the balloons will get blown down. Then I have to anticipate when the shadows will be right and wait until the sun moves into the perfect position. I usually take four to five images at different times. Each one can be very different depending on how the sun and shadows were at that exact moment. Of course some images don’t rely on the light and shadows as much, but a lot do.
GD: Are all of these shot in DC?
MM: I started making them in Richmond. My first one was called “Holed Up” where I placed balloons in two pot holes. Then I moved to Vienna which also has tons of construction. I would see things along 66 commuting into work and stop to arrange shots.
One from along 66 features a huge six foot high graffiti of the word “Showtime” spray painted on a power reader. It was painted over two weeks later, but it’s preserved in my photographs.
You can see, especially in this image, how the balloons can also act as an indicator of scale. They show just how huge this graffiti actually was.
GD: How important is the idea of juxtaposition?
MM: Before I got started on this series, I would take a picture of just a site. Which is fine, but I needed to bring something more to it, to add something to it. In that way I use the balloons as drawing tools to highlight different passages just like you highlight different passages of text in a book. Works have to have something to catch your eye, for me that’s balloons. But it’s a fine line between being cheesy and…
GD: Artistic?
MM: Yeah. I don’t want to be cheesy.
GD: I like the way you’ve stuck with one color of balloon, it unifies all the works even though you use the balloons in such different ways.
So you’ve been doing this series since 2005?
MM: Yeah, off and on since then.
GD: Has your process or the images evolved since you started?
MM: After a while you start to run out of ways to arrange balloons and you need to take a break. I’ve made them concave, folded them over but it gets harder to stay creative. I don’t want to fall into the same patterns.
When you draw, say with charcoal for instance, you find different ways to depict line and shape, or how to direct the eye. It’s the same with the balloons, now that I know how to use them it’s easier to make the images turn out how I want them to.
Every time I move I come back to the series. I moved here from Richmond in 2007 and have moved five or six times since then. When I move to a new environment I get new inspiration.
GD: Have you ever experimented in a more natural site?
MM: No, not really. Not all of the sites are construction. One is a crate that you see every day in the street. A few are from an old gas station that was about to be torn down. I’m not really interested in experimenting in nature, it’s not what I see on a daily basis and I like the contrast of the balloons and the urban scenes.
GD: What would you like viewers to take away from this show?
MM: I hope that it helps people start to look at their daily environment differently. To make them think, oh if I had pink balloons on hand, or whatever object they like, I could put them here. It’s a challenge to be inspired by what you see every day. Finding an idea is a big part of making art, the execution is the biggest part, but the idea is very important.

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