Cornelia Parker’s PsychoBarn Plays On Incongruity and Cliche on Met Roof

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Psychoanalysis, barns, Hitchcock, and Hopper: Cornelia Parker’s contemporary art installation Transitional Object (PsychoBarn) is the latest in the Met’s Rooftop commission and, as has been true of other projects in the space, it struggles to achieve the nuance that the artist’s creates in the rest of their work despite its ambitions. As the title suggests, Parker drew on the Americana of the red barn and Hitchcock’s Bates Mansion in the 1960 film Psycho to create this 30-foot-high structure, which also references the lonely homes painted by Edward Hopper.

Edward Hoppe, House by the Railroad, 1925

Edward Hopper, The House by the Railroad, 1925

British artist Cornelia Parker is known for her incredible installations combining science, violence, the force of nature, such as Cold Dark Matter, which froze an explosion into bits of broken matter careening apart from a lit central point. This installation at the Met lacks that kind of dynamism, and replaces scientific overtones with psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is often maligned as a fuzzy pseudoscience, Perhaps similarly its hard to put my finger on whether Transitional Object (Psycho Barn) is the real thing. It’s certainly slippery.

Bates home as seen in Psycho, 1960

Bates home as seen in Psycho, 1960

The viewer first has the iconic impression of a seemingly full-sized house perched atop the cavernous terrace of the Met, as incongruous as Dorothy’s house in Oz, yet the intensely solid presence is revealed to be an illusion as the viewer walks across the terrace. The house facade is only that–it is open at the back, displaying sandbags, cavities, and metal supports of its construction. This mimics how Psycho was filmed–using only two facades and one camera angle to create the infamous scenes of the Bates house high on the hill. The artist plays brilliantly with incongruities of scale. Although certainly not small, perched on the Met’s large roof deck the structure appears miniaturized, and the backdrop of skyscrapers behind Central Park increases the dislocations of scale and place.

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Significantly, the artist went to great lengths over the materials for the structure. Rather than the plywood of a stage sets, Psychobarn was built out of recovered historic red barns from the country. The idea of the red barn implies a wholesomeness that contrasts with the horror of the Bates home and the loneliness of Hopper’s houses, adding to the incongruity of scale.

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To me, it recalls Rachel Whiteread’s 1994 House, a concrete cast of a row house in London scheduled for demolition that exhibited the ghostly presence of what was. Whiteread’s House figured as the indexical sign of absence and loss, rather than referring to cinematic illusion as Parker does here, but both are equally unreal. The uncanny affect in both cases are the result of a presence both familiar and strange, particularly in relation to domestic architecture, which often becomes the locus of the uncanny.

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Certainly the structure vacillates between two poles–that of solid and flat, reality and illusion, foreboding and wholesome, large and small. This dynamic equilibrium is a kind of mental construct as the viewer accommodates both aspects at the same time while sharing the terrace with it. Such a stance recalls the full title: Transitional Object (Psychobarn) is first labelled a transitional object. A transitional object is a term from psychoanalysis used for objects that children rely on as they separate from their parents (for example, a security blanket). It suggests that the viewer is in the process of becoming, and the perhaps the horror and comfort of the American psyche write large is visualized here. Yet for all the invoked clichés and allusions to the uncanny, the structure never dominates the large terrace, and its lack of dark depths denies the viewer a psychological entrance point.

Phone Tag: Interview with Monique Mouton

Untitled (a door? a door?), 2014, oil on panel, 28 5/8 x 17 1/4 inches

Untitled (a door? a door?), 2014, oil on panel, 28 5/8 x 17 1/4 inches

In May, I Skyped with New York-based painter Monique Mouton for the fifth Phone Tag interview. Monique makes abstract shaped panels and drawings whose tactile, uneven surfaces feel deliberate and off-the-cuff at the same time. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver and a Master of Fine Arts from Bard College–the same graduate school as the previous Phone Tag participant Ezra Tessler, who introduced us. Monique and I talk about making, introspection, and the usefulness of boredom, among other things, in this Phone Tag interview.

 

Phone Tag is a generative interview format, where I ask each participating artist five questions (plus others as the discussion meanders). At the end, I ask him or her to introduce me to a working artist whose attitude and work they find interesting and inspiring, who I then interview with the same five questions.

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Installation view, More Near, Bridget Donahue Gallery 2016

Installation view, More Near, Bridget Donahue Gallery 2016

LW: What are you working on now?

MM: Right now, I am working on a piece that I hadn’t finished before a show I had recently at Bridget Donahue Gallery. After a show I feel like it always takes a little while to get started again in the studio. There’s so much build up and so much mental, physical, emotional energy that goes into making it that there’s always this lag time. But I had a piece that I hadn’t finished, so I’ve been working on that, very slowly. It’s a big watercolor. So far it’s watercolor, ink, and chalk pastel on paper.

LW: Is it something that originally you thought you would include in the show, or is it different from that body of work?

MM: I was thinking about including it in the show, but I felt like it needed more work and more time in the studio. So I just kind of dropped it and kept it around, which has been a nice way to have a thread to pick up on.

 

More Near (I), 2015, Watercolor, chalk pastel, charcoal, gesso, tempera paint mounted on sintra, 56 x 55 inches

More Near (I), 2015, Watercolor, chalk pastel, charcoal, gesso, tempera paint mounted on sintra, 56 x 55 inches

LW: Who has influenced your practice?

MM: That is a question that I always find difficult because for me it’s a wide net. Everybody influences it in one way or another, whether it’s subtle or more obvious. But I think I’ve resisted answering that question to myself. Maybe part of my resistance to having a list of artists who have been influences is that it is a particular way of constructing a narrative around the work, and a lineage. That is something that, when I first felt like I was onto my long-term project – however long I am making art, I see it as a continuous practice – and when I was first discovering what that was, I was consciously avoiding narrative in the work. It was really important for me to remove any obvious clues to a story, because I wanted it to have a less linear effect in the way that a person viewing it would be able to take it in. So, unconsciously, that got into the part of me that thinks about influences.

That said, a way I’ve come to think about it relates to something that Charline von Heyl said in a talk she gave out in LA. She was talking about how when she’s making paintings, she has a cloud of images that she might draw from. Rather than there being this linear structure, it’s more like there’s this field of things floating around that she then picks from and pulls into her painting. For her I think she has actual folders of things that she’ll group together and then might destroy after completing a particular project (if my memory serves me). All the teachers that I’ve had, and the places that I’ve lived, and my family even, could be in my version of the cloud. They come forward and recede.

LW: And them as much as any particular artists or works that you’ve seen?

MM: Yes. Sometimes it surprises me when an influence comes to the forefront that I didn’t know that I was thinking about. One example is my dad’s side of the family. They’re Cajun. He has 15 siblings. He was born in New Orleans. When I was young and throughout my life I would go to these giant parties down in Texas, in Galveston, that were just kind of whatever in terms of sleeping arrangements. Like pieces of foam on the floor and random sheets and people just sleeping wherever. Everything was sort of cobbled together. After I had been working on my art for a while, I went back to this beach house in Galveston, which my dad built with his siblings and my grandpa out of a lot of salvaged materials. There was this aesthetic of things that just did the job—that maybe was not the first or most obvious choice. Like a piece of cloth covering the card table with a corner that didn’t quite make it that was fine because it worked well enough. These odd little edges to things. Everything functioned, but in this way that was precarious. I think my art is sometimes like this. It’s like it’s almost a painting and you’re not sure if it’s doing it or not, or where it came from, but it stays and it works.

artist's friend looking at Moon Room, 2016, oil on panel, 5 x 9 inches

Friend of artist looking at Moon Room, 2016, oil on panel, 5 x 9 inches

LW: For you, is art making a very introspective process?

MM: Yes, I think that is true for me. I’m interested in how something that is very internal or introspective materializes for an unknown audience and what that action could possibly affect or mean in our present culture. That’s the most broad way of thinking about it.

LW: There is something about your work that seems kind of removed from present culture as such, like they are separate things.

MM: That’s interesting. What do you mean?

LW: Well, that they don’t seem to have a specific referent, certainly. But not just because they are abstract—abstract paintings can certainly evoke very particular places and times and styles. There is something essentialist about them. They seem very much themselves.

MM: Maybe that is part of what a very introspective process produces. …You know, sometimes there will be something in my paintings that is not abstract. There is one that I think of—the first one after many years of only totally abstract paintings—a painting with a fish in it. Sort of a memory of a fish, that is, I didn’t base it off of a picture of a fish. For me, occasionally, putting these things in like a fish, which is so generic but could also relate to so many things, where there’s a lot of symbolism that could be attached to it or it could be just a very common animal in the world… I think I’m making these paintings that feel very stripped down, yet somehow there’s an accumulation of time in them or maybe there’s a mark or a color that reminds you of something from somewhere but doesn’t quite reference it. You’re right—there are no particular reference points.

What I’m thinking about in terms of all of that in relation to it being viewed in the present moment is that removal, where it doesn’t feel like it is quite present, actually causes friction. Because then you’re thinking about ‘OK, what is going on here? Because it’s not directing me in the usual ways in terms of how to look at it.’ But it’s also not totally hermetic. I do think that there are cues in the work that help place it in relation to other things that are happening now. I think I try to twist it or put things in sort of an awkward balance where it doesn’t quite hit you in the same way.

All of that is to say: I want to make art that works on you in that way because looking at art is a very specific activity. It’s somewhat odd and specific, especially if you pull out the whole commercial consumer aspect of it, which I like to do when I’m in my studio and when I’m looking at art. Outside of that, what does art do for us as a society? Painting especially, which has gone through various periods of death and irrelevance without every truly becoming irrelevant. There’s something about it that is special. I think it’s mysterious. It’s mysterious to me even as a painter. I’m kind of interested in that idea: That something that doesn’t really make sense manages to live on and change and hold our attention even despite everything that’s going on in the world, you know?

In the studio

In the artist’s studio

LW: Speaking as a painter, maybe you could walk me through your process. An ideal day in the studio—what does that look like? Do you ever have one?

MM: An ideal day is probably rare. Days in the studio tend to always have their ups and downs. I’m a morning person and I like being in the studio early in the morning, just because it’s quieter and I have fewer distractions at that time. So, in an ideal day, I’d probably come to my studio early and do some reading or just look around, at whatever I’m working on and then go from there.

I often nap in my studio, which I’ve decided is ideal. I think the best naps are not too long and maybe have some dreams, whether I remember them or not. It’s like an altered state. Just waking up from a nap is a shift that is useful. Definitely lunch and lots of snacks. Spending a lot of time.

I like to leave my studio before dark. I don’t all the time—I will spend late nights. But for me I like to end my day earlier so that I have a timeframe to work within, which makes me more productive, and it gives me some space before coming back the next day.

LW: Are you in your studio now? Can I see?

MM: I’ve been rearranging it since my show so it’s kind of messy. That’s the door.

LW: Cool. Do you work on the wall?

MM: On the floor.

LW: Oh, on the floor. I see now. That’s awesome. Have you always had a studio since you’ve been living in New York?

MM: Yeah, I got this studio about 6 months after I moved to New York, so since late 2012. I’ve left town during that time and sublet it. Like when I was teaching in Richmond, Virginia for 9 months I was able to sublet. So I’ve had this space for a while.

Blue Margin, 2014, oil on panel, 47 x 36 inches

Blue Margin, 2014, oil on panel, 47 x 36 inches

LW: Final question: Is it better, do you think, as an artist, to be in a place like New York where it has a big art scene but it’s crazy, or to be in a smaller place, like Richmond, where there’s a slower pace of life and you can focus on making?

MM: I don’t know. That question is one that I think about because I have a tendency to want to do both things. For me the ideal is maybe to do both. Because it’s definitely helpful to live in a community where there’s enough happening to see other people’s work and show your work and talk about it.  

New York is so hard. It’s hard physically. There’s so much coming at you all the time; there’s no personal space. That can be energizing and it can also wear me out. Sometimes it’s hard to even know where I’m coming from in the city, because there’s so much going on. I feel like it can be really helpful to be outside of that, because then you can be not as distracted. I find getting bored helpful to working sometimes. I feel like boredom is really useful for creativity. Because you get to a point where you’re so exasperated that you have to do something of your own initiative; it can be a real spark. The most breakthroughs that I’ve had in my work is when I’ve have that kind of space, of boredom. Where I just had to figure it out. It’s really hard to have that in the city.

One thing I do want to say about New York: it is like no other place. But I also find it problematic that New York thinks that it is the only place. I’m sure people would say, ‘No, that’s not true.’ But I think it does, there’s a feeling here. It’s a bubble. It is its own world. I think that other places in the world, big and small, are really important to everything, including art.

LW: Everyone has a different answer to that question.

MM: It’s very individual. It depends what kind of artist you are. I feel like being here has definitely helped me grow a lot as an artist in ways that I wouldn’t elsewhere. That’s true of everywhere I’ve lived though. 

LW: Well, thank you so much for participating. Those are all my questions.

MM: OK, great. It was nice meeting you!

LW: Likewise!

Tea, Tradition, and Tom Sachs at the Noguchi Museum

Installation shot, Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony, Noguchi Museum

Installation shot, Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony, Noguchi Museum

Participating in a tea ceremony at the Noguchi Museum as part of Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony felt like a highly controlled experience from the beginning, as are traditional Japanese tea ceremonies. There were many instructions: fill out a form at least a week in advance, watch three videos detailing Sachs’ studio process (enjoyable spoofs(?) on rules: Ten Bullets, COLOR, and Love Letter to Plywood), show up an hour before the event, and then wait to see if you receive a text selecting you to participate. So for unprepared me, this meant a hurried bike ride to the Noguchi Museum on a Sunday morning and not a little bit of anticipation after such investment. “Greetings” came the text around 11:45 am: “You have been selected..”

Garden shoes for the Tea Ceremony performance

Garden shoes for the tea ceremony performance

I had applied for a 12 pm Tea Ceremony with Johnny Fogg because it appealed to my interest in Tom Sachs and how his work would translate into this kind of event, but honestly I had no idea what was involved. As I learned, these tea ceremonies, held Tom Sachs-style and hosted by Johnny Fogg, present long-standing and complex Japanese ritual in new guise, complementing the Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony exhibition on view in the rest of the Museum. The small retrospective of Sachs’s imperfect, detailed work shows culturally appropriation run rampant with motifs of NASA and McDonalds and objects in plywood, resin, and Sharpie.

I and the other guests were invited to don a garment like a cross between a lab coat and a kimono. We surrendered our phones to a locked box. We removed our own shoes and put on tabi socks and “garden shoes” to prepare ourselves to enter the tea garden. Our host Johnny Fogg introduced himself and led us outside. The tea garden (in this case, the first semi-outdoor rooms of the Noguchi Museum) featured the clearly distinct sculptural work of Noguchi and Sachs. Noguchi is present in minimalist works made from natural materials. Sachs applied his distinctive assembly of mass materials to create a plywood shelter and bench marked United States and three angular “rocks” of grey wood coated in resin. We sat down on them, looking over at a resin-coated cardboard pagoda and lit stove with tennis balls serving as feet for the structure.

Installation view, Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony, Noguchi Museum

Installation view, Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony, Noguchi Museum

Johnny Fogg introduced us to what was about to happen, encouraging questions about the ritual we were about to undergo. While formal, this ceremony would not follow all the rules of a traditional ceremony and that we as guests were not expected to come to it with any degree of knowledge of how to behave. Lucky for me! He offered us ceremonial tobacco, demonstrating the beautiful ember hidden in a mountain of ash, but there were no smokers in our group. The tea ceremony attracted a small group of onlookers who followed us as we paraded across the tea garden in our white coats and strange shoes to a gate. There were also lanterns, a koi pond and, perhaps less clearly related to Japanese tea gardens, an airplane lavatory.

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We were formally led through the gate and instructed in how to cleanse our hands at the hand washing station. Then we were led to the tea house. Leaving our garden shoes outdoors, we entered through the low door on our butts and sat on tatami mats in a 9 x 9 foot room. A plastic kettle, a scroll painting featuring Muhammad Ali for a small shrine called a tokonoma (reading in characters: “It Ain’t Bragging If You Can Back It Up”), and a white plywood contraption labelled with numbers were the other objects in the room. We paused to meditate, the timer Johnny set to 90 seconds ending with a loud BUZZ.

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Space Suit, 2007–11, Tyvek and mixed media

Finally, after this preparation, the tea ceremony could begin, not with tea–as I expected–but with sake. It appeared on a tray through the door behind our host in neat resin cups and saucers. Next came a Ritz cracker with a smear of peanut butter (“the brown wave”). Then Johnny Fogg placed an individual Oreo on its own small platter before us (“the sun at midnight”). Each course came on its own tray and required individual presentation. Then we arrived at the matcha–matcha, fine green tea powder, is blended with hot water to create a cup for each guest. The cups were uneven, handmade white ceramic vessels with NASA across the front, not particularly matched. One was simply all black. Johnny made each guest a cup of matcha, going through several steps of dusting off the already clean equipment, pouring water, and sifting matcha. It involved many pieces of re-purposed equipment, including a Yoda PEZ dispenser. We each drank in turn. We discussed the history of tea ceremony in Japan and, for newbies, our impressions of matcha. The watching crowd dispersed over time, and the quiet sounds around the room–of birds or wind–became more apparent. I felt more open to the other participants sharing this intimate space with me.

Installation view, Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony, Noguchi Museum

Installation view, Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony, Noguchi Museum

Finally, we played games. This was not a competitive environment. We each raked a rock garden in turn  and admired what others did before and after us. Then we were handed a Sharpie, presented brand-name toward us, and a sheaf of white paper. The game was to do whatever we wanted with these materials. I made a paper airplane, then started drawing. And kept drawing. Eventually Johnny’s voice rather than the buzzer interrupted us–he hadn’t wanted to stop us since we were all so intent, so he had turned it off. The tea ceremony was over, we exited, put back on the garden shoes, walked to the entrance, removed our gear, and said goodbye.

Installation view, Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony, Noguchi Museum

Installation view, Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony, Noguchi Museum

Japanese tradition and the forces of modernity appear both in the work of Noguchi and Sachs, albeit materializing in very different aesthetics. Yet it is invigorating to the Noguchi Museum to create room for such a comparison in their space. And the performative element of the tea ceremony really allowed the space itself to breath, creating an awareness of you the viewer in the space and the object before you, a consciousness that feels very in tune with Noguchi’s work.

Tea ceremonies with guest participants will be performed through July 24 as part of the larger exhibition Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony on view at the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City.