WEBVTT

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[Bushwick, Brooklyn]

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Photographic things are about controlling
really tiny amounts of light.

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[New York Close Up]

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A few years ago,

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a friend was doing me a favor looking for
something in the darkroom,

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and I asked her to open some boxes

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and one of the boxes was a roll of unexposed
paper.

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And she says,

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"Oh there's nothing in here but this peach-colored
mural print."

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[Mariah Robertson, Artist]

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And I'm like, "It’s not a print! No!"

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Suddenly all the keys on the piano being
like, "No!"

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["Mariah Robertson's Chemical Reactions"]

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[4 Years Ago]

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I started fiddling around with that paper
that was "blown".

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Either this paper was gonna go in the trash

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or I was going to play with it.

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At the end of each workday

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I would just sort of douse it with leftover
chemicals.

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There's always a bit of that, like, chemical
mess at the edge of prints

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when you're working in a darkroom.

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It's just normally considered a flaw

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or something that you crop off.

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I always enjoy trying to make something out
of the unwanted thing

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and go deeper into the disaster.

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[MATTHEW DIPPLE] You..are you speaking...are
you speaking to me through a mask?

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[ROBERTSON] I am!

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[DIPPLE] Okay.

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Yeah, I just called her.

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She said she can’t pick up the phone,

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[48 Hours Before the Opening]

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but she's gonna be done at 3:30.

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Things are a little bit delayed today.

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It's maybe slower that it would have otherwise
been.

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[Matthew Dipple, Gallerist]

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[ROBERTSON] When you're young, there's nothing
to stop you

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from always working up to the last minute.

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The mental locomotive is really pumping.

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Scattered ideas that were all over,

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they're suddenly, like, crystallized and form
new things.

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The language for describing these

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either comes from photography or from painting.

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But there are no optics involved in making
them.

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There's no brushing on top of things.

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They're just a series of chemical reactions
on this one flat piece of paper.

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Paper was wet and then I sprayed it

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so all these little droplets, like, hit that
spray

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and then just slid down.

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Developer is like black

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and fixer is like white,

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and when it's just one of them you can...

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you know what’s going to happen.

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But then as they mix with water in varying
strengths of each one,

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then things happen.

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I can coax them to happen,

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but they won't happen on my command.

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Slowly there started to be some, like, purple
magenta.

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There started to be green when the developer
was cold

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or when the fixer and developer would mix

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there would be some yellow and orange.

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Sometimes there are areas where I don't know
what's happening,

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and it makes this lavender-hippie-rainbow-unicorns
color.

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It's a fleeting mystery.

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I go in there with a plan,

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but the good ones are ones where they sort
of exceed the plan.

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I don't even know, like, what's happening
on 75% of it,

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and then it's done, and I wash it and I'm
like, "That's amazing!"

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"Who did that!?" [LAUGHS]

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[DIPPLE] It's about creating some sort of

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educated or controlled chaos

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and then seeing what can come from that

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and whether it's beautiful or successful or
unsuccessful.

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And I think she’s very conscious it--

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it's not always going to be successful.

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[ROBERTSON] No!

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It's fine.

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No, it's so...

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Please don’t touch it!

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It's so...don’t...

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No, no, it’s fine.

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I don’t know how to explain what to do!

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[American Contemporary]

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[The Bowery, Manhattan]

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[LISA] Anything else?

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[ROBERTSON] I've got some wood that's all
taped up together.

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It's so different....

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[WOMAN] Matthew Dipple.

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[DIPPLE] Hi, very nice to meet you.

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She frames them using the frame as a kind
of a sculptural element.

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[ROBERTSON] I really wanted to work with metallic
paper.

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But, by the time I got around to

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being able to do anything serious with it,

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they stopped selling it in sheets,

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and it only came on rolls.

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And I didn't have a way to cut the paper down

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to, like, 16 by 20,

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in the dark.

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And they were coming out all...

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all wacky.

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And it took me way too long to realize,

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"Oh, I could make this any size I want."

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All of the edges became really special.

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It seems like in your work

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you can express some part of your personality

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that you’re maybe not consciously aware
of all the time.

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Like maybe your better self.

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I have heard similar things like,

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"They feel free and joyful and positive and
optimistic."

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And I'm like, "Oh really?"

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"'Cause I'm so anxious and like…" [LAUGHS]

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"I mean, like, living,"

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I’m like, "Whaaaa!,"

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like, "That's good that that comes out like
that."

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I had been thinking I could do a long one,

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and then finally it clicked.

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I'm like, “Oh just take the whole box,"

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"Like, as it is, don’t cut it.”

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Like, it’s already been cut at the factory.

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It’s already one real long rectangle.

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It’s a bit of a technical challenge

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to try and process it by hand.

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Exposing it is pretty mellow.

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But then once the chemistry comes out

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you're just stuck doing it.

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You've got to go until you process the whole
thing.

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The long ones that have images,

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they start at, like, 15 hours.

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The next day is usually devoted to, like,
sleeping and crying.

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Like... [LAUGHS]

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And then, I just didn't quite know how to install it.

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It's just so big.

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What do you do with it now?

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Matthew from the gallery called and said,

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"Mariah, would you be willing to sell one
of them long pieces to an institution?"

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And I'm like,

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"What does that mean?"

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"Yes. Fine...get the...you know,"

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"like, fine, sure, sure.” [LAUGHS]

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[Midtown, Manhattan]

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He didn't say who it was.

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If he had, I would have said, "Give them for
free." [LAUGHS]

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"Give them three of them. Please."

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I remember, as a kid, I'd get one-hour photos
done

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and I would throw the negatives away because
they were meaningless to me,

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and my grandmother would keep those.

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I had no idea.

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I'm like, "What are these little like orange
things? Yuck!"

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"I want this 4 by 6 picture."

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And it feels so powerful when you have a photograph
in your hand,

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like, this will last forever.

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I have this piece of time in my hand.

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I have control over it.

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There's a lot of information you can have
on that paper,

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but it's also very delicate.

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Like, its ability to record is also its vulnerability
to damage.

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When those long pieces are done and when they're
beautiful,

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there are so many tiny chemical reactions--

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chance things that are coming together that
can never be replicated.

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And it's all on one big vulnerable thing,

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and then it's just installed, out for the
air,

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in the least safe way possible,

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over those, like, trapeze bars.

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[Roxana Marcoci, Senior Curator]

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Roxana Marcoci said something really good,
looking at it.

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She said, "We try to control everything but
we can't."

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It reminded me that that's what this is about.

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All your attempts are going to fail at controlling
life,

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so you should let that go so you can actually
see what's happening.