WEBVTT 00:00:01.069 --> 00:00:02.397 (wind blowing) 00:00:06.841 --> 00:00:07.653 (birds tweeting) 00:00:09.509 --> 00:00:12.272 [Adam Milner, artist] 00:00:28.369 --> 00:00:31.452 (soft ambient music) 00:00:39.035 --> 00:00:42.204 I think people would think of me as a collector. 00:00:42.232 --> 00:00:43.943 (ambient music continues) 00:00:45.470 --> 00:00:47.960 I feel more like I'm just a magnet 00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:50.130 and objects are just flying at me all the time 00:00:50.130 --> 00:00:53.723 and then I have to then deal with them. 00:00:53.723 --> 00:00:55.931 (ambient music continues) 00:00:59.386 --> 00:01:05.224 [Adam Milner Takes Care of the Details] 00:01:12.350 --> 00:01:16.280 My artworks are always intermingling with personal stuff. 00:01:16.280 --> 00:01:22.239 So I turned to tidying philosophies or home decor TV shows. 00:01:23.180 --> 00:01:26.740 A lot of these philosophies are about getting rid of things, 00:01:26.740 --> 00:01:31.580 but I'm really interested in this idea of vibrant matter 00:01:31.580 --> 00:01:35.103 or this idea that everything is active-- 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:40.100 and how when we're done with something, 00:01:40.100 --> 00:01:41.763 it still exists in the world. 00:01:43.260 --> 00:01:46.759 Immediately I think of trash, and I love trash. 00:01:47.236 --> 00:01:48.870 (upbeat synth music) 00:01:51.330 --> 00:01:55.707 I will just walk around the neighborhood and look at trash. 00:01:55.707 --> 00:01:57.843 (upbeat synth music continues) 00:02:02.480 --> 00:02:05.630 A spilled bag of Cheetos on the sidewalk 00:02:05.630 --> 00:02:07.860 is a stunning composition 00:02:07.860 --> 00:02:09.732 that I have to take a photo of. 00:02:09.732 --> 00:02:11.830 (camera clicking) 00:02:11.830 --> 00:02:14.360 And then I come home and I start to use 00:02:14.360 --> 00:02:17.263 something I learned from those Cheetos in the work. 00:02:18.250 --> 00:02:22.501 I find their accidental compositions to be really exciting. 00:02:38.343 --> 00:02:39.810 (clanging) 00:02:44.176 --> 00:02:46.981 I like the flattening that happens in thrift stores 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:50.000 where there's functional things next to artworks 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:52.881 next to things that seem worthless. 00:03:04.376 --> 00:03:06.421 (glass tinkling) 00:03:08.689 --> 00:03:11.570 I get a lot of ideas and a lot of materials 00:03:11.570 --> 00:03:14.343 and a lot of objects from the people in my life. 00:03:17.230 --> 00:03:19.450 When my friend Jen from high school 00:03:19.450 --> 00:03:23.130 wanted me to cut off all her hair and keep it, 00:03:23.130 --> 00:03:25.460 it felt like a weird trophy. 00:03:25.460 --> 00:03:29.010 Now I've lived with that hair and protected it 00:03:29.010 --> 00:03:32.210 and cared for it for longer than it was on her head. 00:03:32.210 --> 00:03:35.370 So is it my hair now? 00:03:35.370 --> 00:03:37.660 Even as I approach something out of hair 00:03:37.660 --> 00:03:39.180 or closeness with a person, 00:03:39.180 --> 00:03:42.293 there's also kind of a domination or a control. 00:03:43.630 --> 00:03:46.390 It's always going to be Jen's hair, 00:03:46.390 --> 00:03:49.705 but it's now also been in the Warhol museum. 00:03:49.705 --> 00:03:52.705 (piano synth music) 00:04:00.570 --> 00:04:02.750 I'm realizing that arranging 00:04:02.750 --> 00:04:05.933 is kind of my primary discipline. 00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:18.880 I made this sculpture 00:04:18.880 --> 00:04:22.040 with these little things I had collected, 00:04:22.040 --> 00:04:24.940 and then I carved these stones 00:04:24.940 --> 00:04:27.423 that I would find to hold them. 00:04:28.600 --> 00:04:32.160 I think some of the items are safer in the stones 00:04:32.160 --> 00:04:33.706 than they were before. 00:04:33.706 --> 00:04:35.351 (ethereal synth music) 00:04:53.010 --> 00:04:56.192 It needs just a little bit of yellow, actually. 00:04:56.192 --> 00:04:58.376 (water running) 00:04:58.376 --> 00:05:00.500 (water dripping) 00:05:03.210 --> 00:05:05.050 The exhibition I'm working on right now 00:05:05.050 --> 00:05:07.200 is with a museum called Black Cube. 00:05:07.200 --> 00:05:09.334 (ethereal synth music) 00:05:25.270 --> 00:05:30.270 We're showing thirteen sculptures at a thrift store, a bodega, 00:05:31.270 --> 00:05:33.863 one sculpture is in my friend's car. 00:05:35.180 --> 00:05:39.150 This exhibition is about letting these objects 00:05:39.150 --> 00:05:42.640 have these temporary contexts that change how you read them 00:05:42.640 --> 00:05:44.780 and maybe help you access them, 00:05:44.780 --> 00:05:47.613 and that aren't just this white cube environment. 00:05:55.124 --> 00:05:58.207 (quiet violin music) 00:06:10.940 --> 00:06:12.680 Sometimes at an art museum, 00:06:12.680 --> 00:06:16.890 the brackets that are hand painted to look like marble, 00:06:16.890 --> 00:06:19.561 those hand-painted brackets are more exciting to me 00:06:19.561 --> 00:06:21.610 even than the bust. 00:06:21.610 --> 00:06:23.310 They're trying to disappear, 00:06:23.310 --> 00:06:25.440 but then they become even more conspicuous 00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:28.021 through this careful labor. 00:06:28.021 --> 00:06:29.584 (ambient violin music) 00:06:39.045 --> 00:06:44.260 A museum has its own rules of organization and display 00:06:44.290 --> 00:06:47.923 just like the store or the archive or the hoard. 00:06:50.040 --> 00:06:53.614 I'm interested in teasing out the similarities among them, 00:06:53.650 --> 00:06:55.793 disrupting that hierarchy a little bit. 00:07:03.372 --> 00:07:05.691 (drill running) 00:07:09.640 --> 00:07:14.010 I have a really fraught relationship with my things, 00:07:14.010 --> 00:07:18.423 and I realize that I'm, basically, defending the hoarder. 00:07:23.700 --> 00:07:26.770 With hoarding, you do blur with your stuff. 00:07:26.770 --> 00:07:29.994 Your body becomes part of the hoard. 00:07:29.994 --> 00:07:31.619 (ethereal synth music) 00:07:36.570 --> 00:07:39.220 I think everything is porous, 00:07:39.220 --> 00:07:42.699 and everything is always absorbing the thing next to it. 00:07:42.876 --> 00:07:45.000 (ethereal music continues) 00:07:48.598 --> 00:07:51.860 If it's confusing where things begin and end, 00:07:51.860 --> 00:07:54.513 it's a lot harder to divide and segment. 00:07:55.520 --> 00:08:00.050 I'm always trying to resist the clean category. 00:08:00.050 --> 00:08:02.848 I like when things are messier and blurrier. 00:08:02.848 --> 00:08:05.000 (ethereal music continues) 00:08:10.741 --> 00:08:13.741 (soft guitar music)