WEBVTT

00:00:00.937 --> 00:00:03.214
I want to start with a question.

00:00:03.238 --> 00:00:05.171
Where does an artwork begin?

00:00:06.119 --> 00:00:09.095
Now sometimes that question is absurd.

00:00:09.119 --> 00:00:12.683
It can seem deceptively simple,

00:00:12.707 --> 00:00:16.397
as it was when I asked the question
with this piece, "Portable Planetarium,"

00:00:16.421 --> 00:00:18.215
that I made in 2010.

00:00:18.239 --> 00:00:20.104
I asked the question,

00:00:20.128 --> 00:00:23.624
"What would it look like
to build a planetarium of one's own?"

00:00:23.998 --> 00:00:25.831
I know you all ask that every morning,

00:00:25.855 --> 00:00:28.182
but I asked myself that question.

00:00:28.562 --> 00:00:30.196
And as an artist,

00:00:30.220 --> 00:00:33.141
I was thinking about our effort,

00:00:33.165 --> 00:00:38.714
our desire, our continual longing
that we've had over the years

00:00:38.738 --> 00:00:41.539
to make meaning of the world around us

00:00:41.563 --> 00:00:42.967
through materials.

00:00:43.492 --> 00:00:46.967
And for me, to try and find
the kind of wonder,

00:00:46.991 --> 00:00:52.252
but also a kind of futility
that lies in that very fragile pursuit,

00:00:52.276 --> 00:00:53.728
is part of my art work.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:53.752 --> 00:00:57.244
So I bring together
the materials I find around me,

00:00:57.268 --> 00:01:00.546
I gather them to try
and create experiences,

00:01:00.570 --> 00:01:04.229
immersive experiences that occupy rooms,

00:01:04.253 --> 00:01:07.229
that occupy walls, landscapes, buildings.

00:01:07.253 --> 00:01:10.320
But ultimately,
I want them to occupy memory.

00:01:10.847 --> 00:01:13.379
And after I've made a work,

00:01:13.403 --> 00:01:18.053
I find that there's usually one memory
of that work that burns in my head.

00:01:18.077 --> 00:01:19.617
And this is the memory for me --

00:01:19.641 --> 00:01:22.281
it was this sudden
kind of surprising experience

00:01:22.305 --> 00:01:25.696
of being immersed inside that work of art.

00:01:25.720 --> 00:01:28.760
And it stayed with me
and kind of reoccurred in my work

00:01:28.784 --> 00:01:30.322
about 10 years later.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:30.346 --> 00:01:34.291
But I want to go back
to my graduate school studio.

00:01:34.315 --> 00:01:37.752
I think it's interesting, sometimes,
when you start a body of work,

00:01:37.776 --> 00:01:40.787
you need to just completely
wipe the plate clean,

00:01:40.811 --> 00:01:41.986
take everything away.

00:01:42.010 --> 00:01:44.621
And this may not look
like wiping the plate clean,

00:01:44.645 --> 00:01:45.845
but for me, it was.

00:01:46.208 --> 00:01:50.006
Because I had studied painting
for about 10 years,

00:01:50.030 --> 00:01:51.712
and when I went to graduate school,

00:01:51.736 --> 00:01:54.911
I realized that I had developed skill,
but I didn't have a subject.

00:01:54.935 --> 00:01:56.442
It was like an athletic skill,

00:01:56.466 --> 00:01:58.512
because I could paint the figure quickly,

00:01:58.536 --> 00:01:59.702
but I didn't know why.

00:01:59.726 --> 00:02:02.063
I could paint it well,
but it didn't have content.

00:02:02.087 --> 00:02:06.047
And so I decided to put
all the paint aside for a while,

00:02:06.071 --> 00:02:08.848
and to ask this question, which was,

00:02:08.872 --> 00:02:12.592
"Why and how do objects
acquire value for us?"

00:02:12.616 --> 00:02:17.671
How does a shirt that I know
thousands of people wear,

00:02:17.695 --> 00:02:18.902
a shirt like this one,

00:02:18.926 --> 00:02:20.839
how does it somehow feel like it's mine?

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:20.863 --> 00:02:22.490
So I started with that experiment,

00:02:22.514 --> 00:02:26.229
I decided by collecting materials
that had a certain quality to them.

00:02:26.253 --> 00:02:28.903
They were mass-produced,
easily accessible,

00:02:28.927 --> 00:02:32.276
completely designed
for the purpose of their use,

00:02:32.300 --> 00:02:33.603
not for their esthetic.

00:02:33.627 --> 00:02:37.077
So things like toothpicks, thumbtacks,

00:02:37.101 --> 00:02:38.635
pieces of toilet paper,

00:02:38.659 --> 00:02:43.680
to see if in the way that I put my energy,
my hand, my time into them,

00:02:43.704 --> 00:02:48.593
that the behavior could actually create
a kind of value in the work itself.

00:02:48.617 --> 00:02:51.887
One of the other ideas is,
I wanted the work to become live.

00:02:51.911 --> 00:02:54.019
So I wanted to take it
off of the pedestal,

00:02:54.043 --> 00:02:55.410
not have a frame around it,

00:02:55.434 --> 00:02:58.395
have the experience not be
that you came to something

00:02:58.419 --> 00:03:00.180
and told you that it was important,

00:03:00.204 --> 00:03:03.489
but that you discover
that it was in your own time.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:03.513 --> 00:03:07.381
So this is like a very,
very old idea in sculpture,

00:03:07.405 --> 00:03:11.896
which is, how do we breathe life
into inanimate materials?

00:03:12.405 --> 00:03:14.604
And so, I would go to a space like this,

00:03:14.628 --> 00:03:15.834
where there was a wall,

00:03:15.858 --> 00:03:17.997
and use the paint itself,

00:03:18.021 --> 00:03:19.695
pull the paint out off the wall,

00:03:19.719 --> 00:03:22.315
the wall paint into space
to create a sculpture.

00:03:22.339 --> 00:03:24.395
Because I was also interested in this idea

00:03:24.419 --> 00:03:27.780
that these terms, "sculpture,"
"painting," "installation" --

00:03:27.804 --> 00:03:30.766
none of these mattered in the way
we actually see the world.

00:03:30.790 --> 00:03:33.320
So I wanted to blur those boundaries,

00:03:33.344 --> 00:03:36.548
both between mediums
that artists talk about,

00:03:36.572 --> 00:03:40.254
but also blur the experience
of being in life and being in art,

00:03:40.278 --> 00:03:42.148
so that when you are in your everyday,

00:03:42.172 --> 00:03:44.453
or when you are in one of my works,

00:03:44.477 --> 00:03:48.087
and you saw, you recognized the everyday,

00:03:48.111 --> 00:03:52.373
you could then move that experience
into your own life,

00:03:52.397 --> 00:03:55.786
and perhaps see the art in everyday life.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:56.386 --> 00:03:58.148
I was in graduate school in the '90s,

00:03:58.172 --> 00:04:01.149
and my studio just became
more and more filled with images,

00:04:01.173 --> 00:04:02.323
as did my life.

00:04:02.347 --> 00:04:05.720
And this confusion of images and objects

00:04:05.744 --> 00:04:09.664
was really part of the way
I was trying to make sense of materials.

00:04:09.688 --> 00:04:12.458
And also, I was interested
in how this might change

00:04:12.482 --> 00:04:15.363
the way that we actually experience time.

00:04:15.387 --> 00:04:17.807
If we're experiencing time
through materials,

00:04:17.831 --> 00:04:22.749
what happens when images and objects
become confused in space?

00:04:22.773 --> 00:04:27.082
So I started by doing some
of these experiments with images.

00:04:27.106 --> 00:04:30.863
And if you look back to the 1880s,

00:04:30.887 --> 00:04:34.831
that's when the first photographs
started turning into film.

00:04:34.855 --> 00:04:39.965
And they were done
through studies of animals,

00:04:39.989 --> 00:04:41.146
the movement of animals.

00:04:41.170 --> 00:04:44.276
So horses in the United States,
birds in France.

00:04:44.300 --> 00:04:45.983
They were these studies of movement

00:04:46.007 --> 00:04:48.487
that then slowly,
like zoetropes, became film.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:48.511 --> 00:04:51.307
So I decided, I will take an animal

00:04:51.331 --> 00:04:53.077
and I'm going to play with that idea

00:04:53.101 --> 00:04:57.619
of how the image is not static
for us anymore, it's moving.

00:04:57.930 --> 00:04:59.113
It's moving in space.

00:04:59.137 --> 00:05:03.077
And so I chose
as my character the cheetah,

00:05:03.101 --> 00:05:07.101
because she is the fastest
land-dwelling creature on earth.

00:05:07.125 --> 00:05:08.364
And she holds that record,

00:05:08.388 --> 00:05:10.363
and I want to use her record

00:05:10.387 --> 00:05:14.267
to actually make it kind of
a measuring stick for time.

00:05:14.291 --> 00:05:17.646
And so this is what she looked like
in the sculpture

00:05:17.670 --> 00:05:19.029
as she moved through space.

00:05:19.053 --> 00:05:22.367
This kind of broken framing
of the image in space,

00:05:22.391 --> 00:05:25.145
because I had put up notepad paper

00:05:25.169 --> 00:05:27.644
and had it actually project on it.

00:05:27.668 --> 00:05:30.831
Then I did this experiment
where you have kind of a race,

00:05:30.855 --> 00:05:33.403
with these new tools and video
that I could play with.

00:05:33.427 --> 00:05:35.301
So the falcon moves out in front,

00:05:35.325 --> 00:05:37.149
the cheetah, she comes in second,

00:05:37.173 --> 00:05:39.977
and the rhino is trying
to catch up behind.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:40.001 --> 00:05:41.747
Then another one of the experiments,

00:05:41.771 --> 00:05:42.984
I was thinking about how,

00:05:43.008 --> 00:05:47.231
if we try and remember
one thing that happened to us

00:05:47.255 --> 00:05:49.688
when we were, let's say, 10 years old.

00:05:49.712 --> 00:05:53.386
It's very hard to remember
even what happened in that year.

00:05:53.410 --> 00:05:55.783
And for me, I can think
of maybe one, maybe two,

00:05:55.807 --> 00:06:01.073
and that one moment
has expanded in my mind

00:06:01.097 --> 00:06:02.518
to fill that entire year.

00:06:02.542 --> 00:06:05.717
So we don't experience time
in minutes and seconds.

00:06:05.741 --> 00:06:09.577
So this is a still
of the video that I took,

00:06:09.601 --> 00:06:11.371
printed out on a piece of paper,

00:06:11.395 --> 00:06:14.869
the paper is torn and then the video
is projected on top of it.

00:06:15.323 --> 00:06:17.028
And I wanted to play with this idea

00:06:17.052 --> 00:06:20.910
of how, in this kind of
complete immersion of images

00:06:20.934 --> 00:06:22.776
that's enveloped us,

00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:26.697
how one image can actually grow

00:06:26.721 --> 00:06:28.329
and can haunt us.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:29.030 --> 00:06:30.284
So I had all of these --

00:06:30.308 --> 00:06:34.408
these are three out of, like,
100 experiments I was trying with images

00:06:34.432 --> 00:06:35.638
for over about a decade,

00:06:35.662 --> 00:06:37.107
and never showing them,

00:06:37.131 --> 00:06:42.282
and I thought, OK, how do I bring this
out of the studio, into a public space,

00:06:42.306 --> 00:06:45.459
but retain this kind of energy
of experimentation

00:06:45.483 --> 00:06:47.819
that you see when you go
into a laboratory,

00:06:47.843 --> 00:06:49.747
you see when you go into a studio,

00:06:49.771 --> 00:06:51.938
and I had this show coming up
and I just said,

00:06:51.962 --> 00:06:55.141
alright, I'm going to put my desk
right in the middle of the room.

00:06:55.165 --> 00:06:57.458
So I brought my desk
and I put it in the room,

00:06:57.482 --> 00:07:01.491
and it actually worked
in this kind of very surprising way to me,

00:07:01.515 --> 00:07:06.614
in that it was this kind of flickering,
because of the video screens, from afar.

00:07:06.638 --> 00:07:08.466
And I had all of the projectors on it,

00:07:08.490 --> 00:07:11.022
so the projectors were creating
the space around it,

00:07:11.046 --> 00:07:14.094
but you're drawn towards
the flickering like a flame.

00:07:14.443 --> 00:07:16.506
And then you were enveloped in the piece

00:07:16.530 --> 00:07:18.847
at the scale that we're all
very familiar with,

00:07:18.871 --> 00:07:24.174
which is the scale of being in front
of a desk or a sink, or a table

00:07:24.198 --> 00:07:27.563
and you are immersed, then,
back into this scale,

00:07:27.587 --> 00:07:31.523
this one-to-one scale
of the body in relation to the image.

00:07:31.547 --> 00:07:33.300
But on this surface,

00:07:33.324 --> 00:07:37.768
you had these projections on paper
being blown in the wind,

00:07:37.792 --> 00:07:40.656
so there was this confusion
of what was an image

00:07:40.680 --> 00:07:42.164
and what was an object.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:42.188 --> 00:07:45.450
So this is what the work looked like
when it went into a larger room,

00:07:45.474 --> 00:07:47.276
and it wasn't until I made this piece

00:07:47.300 --> 00:07:52.299
that I realized that it effectively made
the interior of a planetarium,

00:07:52.323 --> 00:07:54.261
without even realizing that.

00:07:54.285 --> 00:07:58.815
And I remember, as a child,
loving going to the planetarium.

00:07:58.839 --> 00:08:00.503
And back then, the planetarium,

00:08:00.527 --> 00:08:03.990
there was always not only
these amazing images on the ceiling,

00:08:04.014 --> 00:08:07.958
but you could see the projector itself
whizzing and burring,

00:08:07.982 --> 00:08:11.125
and this amazing camera
in the middle of the room.

00:08:11.149 --> 00:08:15.371
And it was that, along with seeing
the audience around you looking up,

00:08:15.395 --> 00:08:18.172
because there was an audience
around at that time,

00:08:18.196 --> 00:08:21.133
and seeing them, and experiencing,
being part of an audience.

00:08:21.157 --> 00:08:24.926
So this is an image from the web
that I downloaded

00:08:24.950 --> 00:08:28.148
of people who took images
of themselves in the work,

00:08:28.172 --> 00:08:29.322
and I like this image,

00:08:29.346 --> 00:08:32.481
because you see how the figures
get mixed with the work.

00:08:32.505 --> 00:08:36.926
So you have the shadow of a visitor
against the projection,

00:08:36.950 --> 00:08:39.688
and you also see the projections
across a person's shirt.

00:08:39.712 --> 00:08:43.150
So there were these self-portraits
made in the work itself,

00:08:43.174 --> 00:08:44.325
and then posted,

00:08:44.349 --> 00:08:48.181
and it felt like a kind of cyclical
image-making process.

00:08:48.205 --> 00:08:49.934
And a kind of an end to that.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:49.958 --> 00:08:53.529
But it reminded me and brought me back
to the planetarium,

00:08:53.553 --> 00:08:54.855
and that interior,

00:08:54.879 --> 00:08:56.831
and I started to go back to painting.

00:08:56.855 --> 00:09:01.061
And thinking about how a painting
is actually, for me,

00:09:01.085 --> 00:09:03.919
about the interior images
that we all have.

00:09:03.943 --> 00:09:05.688
There's so many interior images,

00:09:05.712 --> 00:09:08.688
and we've become so focused
on what's outside our eyes.

00:09:09.204 --> 00:09:12.701
And how do we store memory in our mind,

00:09:12.725 --> 00:09:15.546
how certain images emerge out of nowhere

00:09:15.570 --> 00:09:17.618
or can fall apart over time.

00:09:17.642 --> 00:09:21.118
And I started to call this series
the "Afterimage" series,

00:09:21.142 --> 00:09:25.347
which was a reference to this idea
that if we all close our eyes right now,

00:09:25.371 --> 00:09:27.950
you can see there's this flickering
light that lingers,

00:09:27.974 --> 00:09:30.117
and when we open it again,
it lingers again --

00:09:30.141 --> 00:09:31.656
this is happening all the time.

00:09:31.680 --> 00:09:37.161
And an afterimage is something
that a photograph can never replace,

00:09:37.185 --> 00:09:39.415
you never feel that in a photograph.

00:09:39.439 --> 00:09:43.106
So it really reminds you of the limits
of the camera's lens.

00:09:43.130 --> 00:09:46.304
So it was this idea of taking the images
that were outside of me --

00:09:46.328 --> 00:09:47.482
this is my studio --

00:09:47.506 --> 00:09:51.990
and then trying to figure out how
they were being represented inside me.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:52.014 --> 00:09:53.400
So really quickly,

00:09:53.424 --> 00:09:57.600
I'm just going to whiz through
how a process might develop

00:09:57.624 --> 00:09:58.776
for the next piece.

00:09:58.800 --> 00:10:01.347
So it might start with a sketch,

00:10:01.371 --> 00:10:03.716
or an image that's burned in my memory

00:10:03.740 --> 00:10:04.903
from the 18th century --

00:10:04.927 --> 00:10:07.175
it's Piranesi's "Colosseum."

00:10:07.830 --> 00:10:10.196
Or a model the size of a basketball --

00:10:10.220 --> 00:10:11.839
I built this around a basketball,

00:10:11.863 --> 00:10:14.974
the scale's evidenced
by the red cup behind it.

00:10:14.998 --> 00:10:17.998
And that model can be put
into a larger piece as a seed,

00:10:18.022 --> 00:10:20.378
and that seed can grow
into a bigger piece.

00:10:20.402 --> 00:10:23.735
And that piece can fill
a very, very large space.

00:10:24.077 --> 00:10:29.456
But it can funnel down into a video
that's just made from my iPhone,

00:10:29.480 --> 00:10:33.085
of a puddle outside my studio
in a rainy night.

00:10:34.457 --> 00:10:38.444
So this is an afterimage
of the painting made in my memory,

00:10:38.468 --> 00:10:42.118
and even that painting can fade
as memory does.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:42.142 --> 00:10:45.690
So this is the scale of a very small image

00:10:45.714 --> 00:10:46.967
from my sketchbook.

00:10:46.991 --> 00:10:48.752
You can see how it can explode

00:10:48.776 --> 00:10:51.776
to a subway station
that spans three blocks.

00:10:52.149 --> 00:10:54.593
And you could see how going
into the subway station

00:10:54.617 --> 00:10:58.880
is like a journey through
the pages of a sketchbook,

00:10:58.904 --> 00:11:04.039
and you can see sort of a diary of work
writ across a public space,

00:11:04.063 --> 00:11:06.753
and you're turning the pages
of 20 years of art work

00:11:06.777 --> 00:11:09.007
as you move through the subway.

00:11:09.031 --> 00:11:12.666
But even that sketch
actually has a different origin,

00:11:12.690 --> 00:11:18.918
it has an origin in a sculpture
that climbs a six-story building,

00:11:18.942 --> 00:11:22.125
and is scaled to a cat from the year 2002.

00:11:22.149 --> 00:11:25.268
I remember that because I had
two black cats at the time.

00:11:25.617 --> 00:11:28.395
And this is an image of a work from Japan

00:11:28.419 --> 00:11:30.705
that you can see
the afterimage of in the subway.

00:11:30.729 --> 00:11:32.498
Or a work in Venice,

00:11:32.522 --> 00:11:35.387
where you see the image
etched in the wall.

00:11:35.411 --> 00:11:39.696
Or how a sculpture
that I did at SFMOMA in 2001,

00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:42.188
and created this kind of dynamic line,

00:11:42.212 --> 00:11:45.141
how I stole that to create a dynamic line

00:11:45.165 --> 00:11:48.117
as you descend down
into the subway itself.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:48.141 --> 00:11:50.768
And this merging of mediums
is really interesting to me.

00:11:50.792 --> 00:11:54.435
So how can you take a line
that pulls tension like a sculpture

00:11:54.459 --> 00:11:55.862
and put it into a print?

00:11:55.886 --> 00:11:58.425
Or then use line
like a drawing in a sculpture

00:11:58.449 --> 00:12:00.734
to create a dramatic perspective?

00:12:00.758 --> 00:12:04.251
Or how can a painting mimic
the process of printmaking?

00:12:05.013 --> 00:12:08.173
How can an installation
use the camera's lens

00:12:08.197 --> 00:12:09.952
to frame a landscape?

00:12:10.308 --> 00:12:15.300
How can a painting on string
become a moment, in Denmark,

00:12:15.324 --> 00:12:17.202
in the middle of a trek?

00:12:18.180 --> 00:12:20.601
And how, on the High Line,
can you create a piece

00:12:20.625 --> 00:12:23.649
that camouflages itself
into the nature itself

00:12:23.673 --> 00:12:27.298
and becomes a habitat
for the nature around it.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:28.729 --> 00:12:31.776
And I'll just end with two pieces
that I'm making now.

00:12:31.800 --> 00:12:33.688
This is a piece called "Fallen Sky"

00:12:33.712 --> 00:12:37.180
that's going to be a permanent
commission in Hudson Valley,

00:12:37.204 --> 00:12:40.450
and it's kind of the planetarium
finally come down

00:12:40.474 --> 00:12:42.744
and grounding itself in the earth.

00:12:42.768 --> 00:12:46.280
And this is a work from 2013
that's going to be reinstalled,

00:12:46.304 --> 00:12:49.978
have a new life in the reopening of MOMA.

00:12:50.280 --> 00:12:53.804
And it's a piece that the tool
itself is the sculpture.

00:12:53.828 --> 00:12:56.526
So the pendulum, as it swings,

00:12:56.550 --> 00:12:59.426
is used as a tool to create the piece.

00:12:59.450 --> 00:13:02.335
So each of the piles of objects

00:13:02.359 --> 00:13:07.912
go right up to one centimeter
to the tip of that pendulum.

00:13:07.936 --> 00:13:11.871
So you have this combination
of the lull of that beautiful swing,

00:13:11.895 --> 00:13:15.808
but also the tension that it constantly
could destroy the piece itself.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:16.474 --> 00:13:19.736
And so, it doesn't really matter
where any of these pieces end up,

00:13:19.760 --> 00:13:22.547
because the real point for me

00:13:22.571 --> 00:13:25.625
is that they end up
in your memory over time.

00:13:25.649 --> 00:13:29.177
And they generate ideas beyond themselves.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:29.817 --> 00:13:30.968
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:30.992 --> 00:13:37.612
(Applause)