WEBVTT

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(wind blowing)

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(birds tweeting)

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[Adam Milner, artist]

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(soft ambient music)

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I think people would think of me
as a collector.

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(ambient music continues)

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I feel more like I'm just a magnet

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and objects are just
flying at me all the time

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and then I have to
then deal with them.

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(ambient music continues)

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[Adam Milner Takes Care of the Details]

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My artworks are always
intermingling with personal stuff.

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So I turned to tidying philosophies
or home decor TV shows.

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A lot of these philosophies are
about getting rid of things,

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but I'm really interested in
this idea of vibrant matter

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or this idea that everything is active--

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and how when we're done with something,

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it still exists in the world.

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Immediately I think of trash,
and I love trash.

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(upbeat synth music)

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I will just walk around the
neighborhood and look at trash.

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(upbeat synth music continues)

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A spilled bag of Cheetos on the sidewalk

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is a stunning composition

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that I have to take a photo of.

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(camera clicking)

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And then I come home and I start to use

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something I learned from
those Cheetos in the work.

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I find their accidental compositions
to be really exciting.

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(clanging)

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I like the flattening
that happens in thrift stores

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where there's functional things
next to artworks

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next to things
that seem worthless.

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(glass tinkling)

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I get a lot of ideas
and a lot of materials

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and a lot of objects from
the people in my life.

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When my friend Jen from high school

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wanted me to cut off all
her hair and keep it,

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it felt like a weird trophy.

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Now I've lived with that
hair and protected it

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and cared for it for longer
than it was on her head.

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So is it my hair now?

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Even as I approach something out of hair

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or closeness with a person,

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there's also kind of a
domination or a control.

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It's always going to be Jen's hair,

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but it's now also been
in the Warhol museum.

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(piano synth music)

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I'm realizing that arranging

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is kind of my primary discipline.

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I made this sculpture

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with these little things I had collected,

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and then I carved these stones

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that I would find to hold them.

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I think some of the items
are safer in the stones

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than they were before.

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(ethereal synth music)

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It needs just a little
bit of yellow, actually.

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(water running)

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(water dripping)

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The exhibition I'm working on right now

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is with a museum called Black Cube.

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(ethereal synth music)

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We're showing thirteen sculptures
at a thrift store, a bodega,

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one sculpture is in my friend's car.

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This exhibition is about
letting these objects

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have these temporary contexts
that change how you read them

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and maybe help you access them,

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and that aren't just this
white cube environment.

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(quiet violin music)

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Sometimes at an art museum,

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the brackets that are hand
painted to look like marble,

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those hand-painted brackets
are more exciting to me

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even than the bust.

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They're trying to disappear,

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but then they become even more conspicuous

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through this careful labor.

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(ambient violin music)

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A museum has its own rules
of organization and display

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just like the store or
the archive or the hoard.

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I'm interested in teasing out
the similarities among them,

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disrupting that hierarchy a little bit.

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(drill running)

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I have a really fraught
relationship with my things,

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and I realize that I'm,
basically, defending the hoarder.

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With hoarding, you do
blur with your stuff.

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Your body becomes part of the hoard.

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(ethereal synth music)

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I think everything is porous,

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and everything is always
absorbing the thing next to it.

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(ethereal music continues)

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If it's confusing
where things begin and end,

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it's a lot harder to divide and segment.

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I'm always trying to resist
the clean category.

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I like when things are
messier and blurrier.

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(ethereal music continues)

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(soft guitar music)