STUDIO VISIT: DANIEL HOROWITZ
Daniel Horowitz’s studio (which he shares with fellow artist Rachel Libeskind) is a beautiful and imaginative space with equal doses of charm and grit. Located in DUMBO, Brooklyn the space has recently undergone a lot of changes. Daniel had previously worked alone in the space for 5 years and after a chance encounter took Rachel on as a studio partner. The energy in the studio is contagious, the environment is warm and welcoming. Daniel’s work is captivating in the sense that you feel like you are in a dream – distortions, twisted and stretched body parts, vibrant colors – channeling the surreal. While immersing one’s self in the work you realize it’s all very real, it invites us to examine our own lives and the conditions we live in and place upon ourselves. Daniel’s work has been shown world wide. The Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn, Christie’s New York, the Direktorenhaus in Berlin, and the Warsaw Museum of Modern Art have all displayed his diurnal series of 365 drawings. In 2014 Daniel had shows in Paris and Mexico City and was a resident artist at renowned non-profit arts space, Pioneer Works. Daniel was gracious to spend time with RE:DEFINE, walking us through his current body of work, his process, and shared what he has in store for 2015.
1. Tell us about your current body of work, what motifs are you exploring?
Lately I have been more interested in the intersection of chaos/randomness and order/structure. I show up with an intention though I also invite some of the unexpected.
2. Why is producing at the rate you consume important in your work?
When most of us are employed as full-time consumers in an ever expanding capitalistic model, artists as creators are arguably busy doing the reverse. I suppose rather than drown in propaganda that is emitted from every taxi cab and elevator monitor I strive to produce at a rate close to that with which I consume, in order to some how neutralize the effect.
3. Can you tell us a bit about 365? What does the project mean to you?
365 was precisely a marathon project, a discipline of one drawing a day for a year, which for the first time effectively pulled me from the passive stance of sitting at my computer all day. This project ultimately generating an entire library of ideas which I continually refer to even a few years on.
4. Your brush stroke characters (the ones that kind of look like slugs) are in a lot of your work, what do they represent?
The brush stroke character is anthropomorphized and often sits on a sort of psychoanalytical chaise and simultaneously represents the the ego and the super ego, though I also think of it as an archetypal brushstroke that at once symbolizes all of painting.
5. What is the reasoning behind a lot of your characters having distorted bodies/heads going into the ground?
I often try to not explain my work since it can be interpreted in a variety of ways. I suppose this sort of deformation is drawn from the given limitations of the physical body. Often my subjects are dreaming, or extracting themselves from a repressive circumstance, hence they become stretched as they yearn to escape.
6. How did the Lost Identity project come to fruition?
This series as with all my work, began with experimentation. I was painting on glass at the time and was trying to attain a perfectly reflective surface. I began a year long period of research into the use of silver nitrate to selectively mirror glass. I became at once fascinated with the beauty of the surface ,but also began to ponder the role of the mirror as an object in society, and what it meant to distort the mirror in the way that I was. Essentially creating the appearance that the mirror was melting or dripping. Ultimately, our sense of identity is in flux and is not something static, I believe that the mirrored works in Lost Identity “reflect” a more authentic self.
7. In October you had a solo show/residency in Mexico, Ceremony Interrupted, you made 7 oil paintings on site. What was that experience like?
Overall the experience was incredible. I was given an unprecedented opportunity to devote full-time to painting in a most surreal environment. I had my studio in a Haussmann era prewar building, full of eccentric characters and architectural flourishes. Half of my time was spent researching the cultural tapestry that is Mexico City, and the remainder channeling it into a new body of work.
8. You have had this studio space in DUMBO for the better part of 5 years, how did you and Rachel meet and decide to become studio partners?
Yes, I have had this precious storefront in Vinegar Hill for the better part of 5 years, and its purpose has evolved alongside my personal evolution. I had participated in a residency this past summer at Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation with Residency Unlimited, and a mutual friend had invited Rachel to the closing show. Though we had just met an uncanny familiarity was apparent. I had never really shared my working space with anyone before, though quickly offered that Rachel move in upon my return from Mexico City since she was also looking for a new space to work.
9. Since becoming studio partners how has your practice evolved? What is the dynamic like as opposed to previous work environment?
We had never imagined how compatible our different approaches were, I think we have a similar world view and understanding of the roll of art, and we also share similar working materials. Although our work is very different, what I find fascinating is were it converges. We have already begun some collaborative experiments and we have plenty to learn from each other. We both agree that the magic of art is fundamentally in the journey itself. We almost never repeat ourselves and try to learn as much as we can even at the risk of destroying a work.
10. The studio is called the Department of Signs and Symbols, what does that mean to you?
We were looking for a name for the studio that would simultaneously illicit a sense of curiosity in the visitor, but not define or limit what exactly happens inside. The name suggests that we produce objects that are imbued with meaning, but ultimately it is up to whomever walks through the door to determine or recognize what that meaning is. In other words, we salvage signs and symbols from society and repurpose them.
11. What are you most looking forward to in 2015?
I find that my practice is very reactive and is fundamentally informed by the context in which it is produced. I am incredibly excited to be taking part in several residency and exhibition opportunities throughout Europe, including my participation in the Leipzig International Art Programme. I am exhibiting some works in a group show, Profil Perdu, opening at Gallery MC in New York on January 17th.
12. Song(s) that you currently can’t get enough of?
I listen to a great deal of Timber Timbre, it just makes sense some how.
Studio Visit: David Horvitz (Pioneer Works)
David is an artist that uses mail art, photography, performance art, water color and art books as mediums. He has also created some fascinating online projects, the “241543903/Head-in-a-Freezer” meme involved people taking a picture with their head in a freezer, uploading it to Google and tagging it with “241543903.” When you Google that sequence of numbers there is a plethora of images of heads in Freezers. David has exhibited at SF Camerawork, MoMA, the New Museum, Tate Modern and most recently The Brooklyn Museum.
1. How long have you been at Pioneer Works and what brought you here?
A few months. Clara Halpern, a curator from Toronto, is including some work of mine in a show there in a few months. I was on the west coast a lot over the summer and gave up my studio in NY. When I visited the space with Clara I thought it’d be a good idea to have a studio here to think about work for the show. And there was an opening. So I got in.
2. Can you talk to us about your upcoming show at PW?
It’s really Clara Halpern’s show. I’ll have some work. Maybe some enchiladas from Marfa. Maybe a bag of clothes left in Holland. Maybe solidified hours in the shape of vases. Maybe roses. Or lilies. Maybe a bicycle on the beach. Maybe windows. Honey locust trees.
3. One of the mediums you work with is the mail, what first inspired mail art projects?
When I was in High School I would go to the post office in El Segundo, CA every week and mail things to my friend Mia Nolting, who moved to Orinda, CA. I tried to mail her the craziest things I could think of. Usually giant pieces of cardboard. This was just me being a teenager and trying to do crazy things at the post office. Later I would learn about mail art.
4. One continuous mail art project involves MoMA, there are a few pieces in the studio that you’re getting ready to send. How has this particular project evolved over the last couple of years?
You are talking about MoMA Cubicle, a secret show in the administration offices of MoMA. There’s actually so much work in it that the show is now traveling to other cubicles inside the museum. This body of work is one of the works of mine that I am really drawn to. Mostly because it is something that happened organically and unplanned. It was just spontaneous, and over time it grew. I randomly started sending mail artworks to someone I know at MoMA who specializes in mail art. Over time I started to send more. It evolved. Things changed. I was told that anything I sent to her was automatically considered property of the museum since it was an artwork and she was an employee of the museum. So that added another layer to it. At one point all of the works went to a show in Den Haag. And then back to MoMA. Over the year people have visited it, some have written about it. It just happened. It’s a work that I wouldn’t really be able to plan out, or to outline in a future proposal. It just came together over time. And none of it is mine anymore. Which is nice. I don’t like clutter. I don’t like having things around.
5. How might one go about viewing this work at MoMA?
It’s a secret. If I said how to do it on the internet someone would get mad at me. You have to know whose cubicle it is. Then you send her an email or call her, and she gives you a tour. It is by appointment only, unless you happen to be inside MoMA’s offices. I’m not saying what department it is in. Or… What departments… But if you see me in person, I’ll tell you who it is you have to email. Word of mouth only…
6. This past spring/summer you had a show at the New Museum titled Gnomons. In one of the pieces titled Let Us Keep Our Own Noon, 47 performers collectively ring bells and disperse around the city and museum until they couldn’t hear the other bells, what did you want the viewer to take away from this?
This piece is actually on view at the Brooklyn Museum right now. Well, what do you mean by viewers? People who view the performance? Or just view the installation? Or the participant as viewer? The 47 bells were made from a French church tower bell that was made in the 1740’s. It used to ring the hours of the day. The bronze was melted down to form the 47 bells that hang in the installation, bells that are the same style as the big bell, and that fit inside of the palm of ones hand. This bronze had rung the time of the day for centuries, this literal metal. I was trying to think of a way to hold time in your hands. Here the bell is a materialization of this past time. But its also this melting and fragmenting of this old bell. So I’m thinking about subjective time. About your own time. YOUR OWN TIME! Not the time of schedules or centralized time telling devices which dictate your behavior - but a time that is yours.
7. Your film The Distance of a Day was also exhibited at the New Museum, you filmed the sunrise from the Maldives and your mother filmed the sunset in LA (locations half way around the world from each other) at the exact same time. Can you tell about the significance of this project to you? Was there a particular reason you chose your Mother to film part of the event?
I wanted one video to be shot in California from the Palos Verdes Peninsula, a place I used to make work when I was younger. So it was about my home in a sense, where I am from. It’s watching the sun go down in California, and imaging being on the otherside of that. So I traveled to the other side. And since it was about where I am from, my mom, it just made sense that I should ask my mom to do it.
8. A lot of your work deals with space and time, what attracts you to these themes?
Because no one has time anymore.
9. So far what has been the most rewarding part about your time at PW?
Sunlight.
Studio Visit: Robyn Renee Hasty (Pioneer Works)
Robyn is a multi-faceted artist whose work spans photography, installation, printmaking, sculpture and the streets. She employs obsolete technology and pre-industrial practices, juxtaposing fine craftsmanship and the unpredictability of these outdated methods.
How long have you been at Pioneer Works and what brought you here?
I’ve been teaching at Pioneer Works since Summer of 2013, and became a resident in March 2014. I met Gabe,the Director of Operations, when he took my Introduction to Tintype class at 3rd Ward. He mentioned that Dustin had a few antique cameras that he’d like to refurbish to use as equipment for the Pioneer Works photography program. I started refurbishing the cameras, teaching tintype courses, and eventually I started using the cameras I had refurbished. This led organically to my residency at Pioneer.
What current motifs are you exploring in your work?
My practice deals with cycles of crisis, revolution and transcendence. Particularly, how these are processed inwardly, and become manifestations of emotional landscapes and social structures in the physical world. My current body of work at Pioneer deals a lot with sexuality through the precarious balance of empowerment and vulnerability. I think this is coming from my own internal process of dealing with my father’s death, who was a lifelong sexual abuser. I am trying to present something that disassembles that baggage, and hones in on an aspect of our sexuality that is pure and free, the element that is neither a victim nor a predator, that wants to connect to others through the body in a totally essential manner.
You use obsolete and labor intensive technology to take a lot of your pictures (i.e. the portraits hanging to the left), why is this important to you?
I think the struggle against the material world is part of the artistic process that really excites me. I like that the chemistry is always slightly beyond control, and that it can surprise you no matter how well you know your technique. The labor-intensive aspect appeals to me because it is impractical and inefficient, and therefore is difficult to assimilate into a world of mass-production and commerce. These are one-of-a-kind images that cannot be reproduced, and they are objects with a distinct physical presence. It is a mode of producing imagery that exists in refreshing opposition to the digital process.
In addition to using out of date cameras, can you talk about the ways you’re exploring photography as projections, sculpture, and altering how lighting techniques can change the way we perceive images?
Now that I have a pretty strong body of work at Pioneer, I’m starting to explore the physicality of the images, their existence as objects in the world. The Ambrotypes–images made with silver on glass— are very strange in the sense that they are both extremely ephemeral and extremely physical. If you hold them over a white wall, the image practically disappears. You can project them on the wall using a lens and a clip light. They can be stacked and produce a kind of layered “multiple exposure” effect. They have a dimensionality more like sculpture than photographic prints. I want to push the object quality of these images because it highlights the basis of photography in simple physics and chemistry. It’s a process that directly captures light in a chemical substrate. It almost feels like witchcraft.
What photography projects do you have in the pipeline?
I’ve been thinking about the way the collodion process can dramatically shift skin-tone, a project that documents New-Orleans 10 years after Katrina, photographing Native-American reservations, taking the Collodion rig to Antarctica. Some of these might be more pipe-dreams.
Your work extends far beyond the studio, you are part of the Miss Rockaway Armada Collective, can you tell us how you got involved in the project and what the experience of traveling down the Mississippi for 1,000 miles by raft is like?
I got involved with the MRA by complete serendipity. It’s a thing that maybe happens once in a NYC lifetime. I was doing 3 different things separately, and all of a sudden the separate people and projects became connected. I answered the call of lady fortune and ended up on a greyhound out to Minnesota to catch up with the raft. My first stay was short, but I was utterly awed. I was involved from the beginning the second year, and spent 4 months building in the backyard of a biker bar, traveling down the river putting on vaudeville-esuqe variety shows with the crew, and crash landing in St. Louis. A typical day might go like this: wake up to rafts beached in 2 ft of mud, spend 1 hour prying them off with poles, cook lunch for crew of 30 while underway, motor for 6 hours going 15 miles downriver to to a new town, fill up water barrels with buckets that have to be carried 100 yards and over gangplanks, dumpster food, give tours to curious passerby, make flyer for the show, cook dinner and sing songs, wake up in the middle of the night to torrential rain, lower tarps and secure lines so we don’t float away. It was completely insane and amazing. It also really exposed me to radical culture in a way that continues to inform my way of life and art practice. DIY culture, autonomous zones, alternative social systems and economies, all continue to overlay my work and how I engage with the art world.
You have also undertaken work on the streets, murals and wheat pasting – how does this work differ from your studio practice/or how is it similar?
There’s a common thread of altruistic belief in the ability of art to move people, and therefore the capacity of art for social change. I think this was one of the reasons I started to do street art and public art. I liked the democratic nature of the street, and bringing art into a more accessible zone outside of institutions. It was a little bit about reclaiming the streets for the individual as well, in a world where advertising and commerce controls the imagery we see on the street. I think these ideas still inform my practice, I’m just experimenting with different media, and exploring aspects of the capacity of art to produce social change that are more intimate and emotional.
Tell us about the collective/space you are planning to build in the Rockaways this spring?
I’m working on a project called Stilt City, which will be an art and community space rebuilt in a vacant bungalow in Rockaway Park that was flooded by Superstorm Sandy. It’s an ambitious project, and I’ve had a lot of support so far, especially from my collaborators, Jaklitsch / Gardner Architects. They have created a design that maintains the bungalow character, makes the space more versatile to diverse artistic uses, opens the space architecturally to be more inviting to public participation, and redesigns the structure to make it more resilient to future floods. The idea is to run the bungalow as an artist residency and gathering/exhibition space that will develop programming around some of the issues the Rockaways are facing post-Sandy. We are launching a kickstarter campaign on November 20th with a fundraising goal of $100,000, about half of the construction costs. If you’d like to know more or support the project, you can go to the project website at http://www.stiltcity.org
What has been the most rewarding part of your time at Pioneer Works so far?
Developing relationships with a community of talented artists who both challenge and support my work has been an incredibly rewarding experience. Being able to create my own work and teach the process on-site is also a very unique aspect of working at Pioneer Works. I also appreciate the open-studio layout, which allows the people passing through to give feedback on in-progress work, an experience you can’t have in a private studio.
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