1 00:00:01,080 --> 00:00:02,480 [DRUMMING] 2 00:00:09,560 --> 00:00:11,040 [KEVIN BEASLEY] --There's not going to be a beginning... 3 00:00:11,040 --> 00:00:12,440 [DRUMMING] 4 00:00:32,260 --> 00:00:35,820 --I think that's enough to start. 5 00:00:36,340 --> 00:00:37,480 [DRUMMING] 6 00:00:42,880 --> 00:00:43,400 [CLAP] 7 00:00:43,500 --> 00:00:44,579 So right now, 8 00:00:44,579 --> 00:00:50,170 I've been putting a lot of energy into an exhibition at the Whitney, 9 00:00:50,170 --> 00:00:54,300 which is my first major solo exhibition here in the city. 10 00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:00,360 The project is multiple parts. 11 00:01:01,760 --> 00:01:04,860 There is a sound installation, 12 00:01:04,860 --> 00:01:08,780 that is rooted around a cotton gin motor, 13 00:01:09,340 --> 00:01:13,860 and three large sculptural works. 14 00:01:15,420 --> 00:01:19,450 The work really comes out of an experience I had at a family reunion 15 00:01:19,450 --> 00:01:24,040 in Valentines, Virginia, in the summer of 2011. 16 00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:27,600 I drove down from New Haven. 17 00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:34,680 The property has a meandering road that leads to the house. 18 00:01:35,860 --> 00:01:39,160 I look up, and I see the fields are planted. 19 00:01:40,460 --> 00:01:42,220 I stopped the car and I looked, 20 00:01:43,390 --> 00:01:46,280 and I was like, "Whoa, what is that?" 21 00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:51,040 And I rolled the window down, and I saw that it was cotton. 22 00:01:52,980 --> 00:01:57,520 It struck me in a way that I couldn't quite wrap my head around. 23 00:01:57,520 --> 00:01:59,220 Emotionally, it was too heavy. 24 00:01:59,220 --> 00:02:00,960 Mentally, it was too heavy. 25 00:02:01,400 --> 00:02:03,460 I felt like I hadn't reconciled something. 26 00:02:03,460 --> 00:02:06,320 I was like, "Why am I so mad at this plant?" 27 00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:13,160 This plant is not doing anything other than growing and being beautiful. 28 00:02:14,840 --> 00:02:19,520 I felt like, okay, there's a lot of unpacking that has to happen. 29 00:02:21,260 --> 00:02:26,200 --You know, I want to actually point to this cotton here. 30 00:02:28,200 --> 00:02:30,860 --This here has all been ginned. 31 00:02:30,860 --> 00:02:34,240 --This is all cotton from Virginia, 32 00:02:34,240 --> 00:02:36,520 --Valentines, Virginia. 33 00:02:36,530 --> 00:02:40,440 Using cotton, raw cotton, as a material is really important, 34 00:02:40,440 --> 00:02:45,110 because as materially-oriented as I am, 35 00:02:45,110 --> 00:02:50,200 it's all because there is a context for those materials. 36 00:02:51,320 --> 00:02:56,040 For the exhibition, there will be three large sculptural works. 37 00:02:56,040 --> 00:03:01,840 I've been calling them slabs, because of their relationship to architecture. 38 00:03:01,840 --> 00:03:05,230 They're made from wildly different materials. 39 00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:07,560 --This is a sweater. 40 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:11,260 --It's a Yale cotton, 41 00:03:13,060 --> 00:03:15,060 --really nice, preppy sweater. 42 00:03:15,760 --> 00:03:19,340 --And then these are some durags, some blue ones. 43 00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:23,260 --For this they're going to represent a river, 44 00:03:23,260 --> 00:03:26,460 --or some sort of flowing water. 45 00:03:26,840 --> 00:03:31,440 Every material has some sort of history or life that it's lived. 46 00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:33,640 They become ways of telling stories. 47 00:03:35,460 --> 00:03:42,280 --This is a collar from my cap and gown, when I graduated from Yale. 48 00:03:42,280 --> 00:03:45,040 When I think about cotton, it takes me everywhere. 49 00:03:45,040 --> 00:03:46,300 You think about politics. 50 00:03:46,300 --> 00:03:48,880 You think about social relationships you have. 51 00:03:48,880 --> 00:03:51,300 You think about economics. 52 00:03:51,300 --> 00:03:52,800 Reparations. 53 00:03:53,740 --> 00:03:57,940 It all just unfolds and is laid out. 54 00:04:01,140 --> 00:04:06,180 These pages come from an atlas of the Transatlantic slave trade. 55 00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:13,080 It's remarkable that these records have been kept for so long 56 00:04:13,090 --> 00:04:14,730 and in such detail. 57 00:04:14,730 --> 00:04:18,540 But it's also indicative of trade and commerce. 58 00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:22,810 You keep track of every single thing, every movement, 59 00:04:22,810 --> 00:04:26,160 because there's money and there's capital involved. 60 00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:29,080 But these were bodies. 61 00:04:30,760 --> 00:04:35,300 Being a Black person in this current state, 62 00:04:35,300 --> 00:04:39,480 that’s what you're encouraged to do-- is to move on. 63 00:04:39,480 --> 00:04:41,880 Like, "Ok, there's been time." 64 00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:43,560 "There's been space," right? 65 00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:44,820 It's a false narrative. 66 00:04:44,820 --> 00:04:48,260 But it also is one that you feel the pressure from. 67 00:04:48,660 --> 00:04:52,580 That to me is an essential aspect of making sculpture. 68 00:04:53,280 --> 00:04:56,080 You have to deal with its materiality. 69 00:04:56,420 --> 00:04:59,380 These works, I think, they demand that. 70 00:04:59,660 --> 00:05:02,980 They demand you to confront them, 71 00:05:04,100 --> 00:05:06,000 because they're confronting you. 72 00:05:07,300 --> 00:05:10,580 [DRUMMING] 73 00:05:25,780 --> 00:05:27,400 [DRUMS STOP, SILENCE] 74 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:29,410 I was searching for a cotton gin. 75 00:05:29,410 --> 00:05:31,460 I had cotton, and I was thinking, 76 00:05:31,460 --> 00:05:34,620 maybe I could make t-shirts, or I can make garments. 77 00:05:35,240 --> 00:05:37,050 I went on eBay, 78 00:05:37,050 --> 00:05:40,610 searching for a small hand-held, hand-cranked thing, 79 00:05:40,610 --> 00:05:46,620 and the first thing I came across was an ad for this large cotton gin motor. 80 00:05:47,820 --> 00:05:50,420 I felt like it was telling me what I needed to do. 81 00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:55,480 The cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney in 1794. 82 00:05:55,900 --> 00:05:59,740 What it does is it separates the fibers from the seeds, 83 00:06:00,120 --> 00:06:04,340 which was the most time-consuming part for slaves. 84 00:06:05,400 --> 00:06:09,120 People thought that it would decrease the number of slaves. 85 00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:11,270 But it actually had the opposite effect, 86 00:06:11,270 --> 00:06:14,580 because more land was acquired, plantations got larger. 87 00:06:14,980 --> 00:06:17,880 It actually increased the number of slaves. 88 00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:24,840 The cotton gin motor is encased in a sound-proof glass chamber, 89 00:06:25,060 --> 00:06:29,760 and primarily came out of this decision to be able to experience 90 00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:32,640 and see the motor running, and not hear it. 91 00:06:38,260 --> 00:06:42,900 That came out of a conversation with the former owner, 92 00:06:42,900 --> 00:06:46,550 where, when I asked him about what it sounded like, 93 00:06:46,550 --> 00:06:47,550 he couldn't articulate. 94 00:06:47,550 --> 00:06:51,490 He didn't have the words to really describe that sound. 95 00:06:51,490 --> 00:06:54,700 It was really something that you had to experience for yourself. 96 00:06:59,400 --> 00:07:00,280 --Okay. 97 00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:03,720 Sound has always been important to me. 98 00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:10,560 It has increasingly become a way for me to process the world. 99 00:07:11,960 --> 00:07:16,080 Sound is just as physical and tactile as any other material. 100 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:19,040 [PROCESSED SOUND OF COTTON GIN MOTOR] 101 00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:37,400 [SILENCE] 102 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:50,360 How do you deliver that physicality, or that tactility of something you can't see, 103 00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:54,100 or something that you don't feel in a traditional way? 104 00:07:55,340 --> 00:07:57,000 [PROCESSED SOUND OF COTTON GIN MOTOR] 105 00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:07,280 It shakes your insides. 106 00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:08,840 You feel the vibrations. 107 00:08:10,060 --> 00:08:13,371 Do people want to sit and listen to this? 108 00:08:13,371 --> 00:08:16,650 Do they want to take the time to consider 109 00:08:16,650 --> 00:08:20,000 what that sound is, and where it is coming from? 110 00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:31,140 I'm interested in people asking what their relationship is to this material-- 111 00:08:32,110 --> 00:08:37,340 to see a wall of cotton that comes from a really specific place, 112 00:08:37,349 --> 00:08:38,869 the American South-- 113 00:08:38,869 --> 00:08:42,440 just to think about what their relationship is to that, 114 00:08:42,440 --> 00:08:45,960 and how do they feel implicated, if at all. 115 00:08:51,300 --> 00:08:55,200 Are we really taking the time to process and understand these things? 116 00:08:58,200 --> 00:09:04,269 So I think setting up a scenario where people can take the time 117 00:09:04,269 --> 00:09:07,400 is as much as I can really offer.