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David Brooks Hits the Pavement | Art21 "New York Close Up"

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    [David Brooks, Artist]
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    [New York Close Up]
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    Well, I grew up in a small town.
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    Brazil, Indiana.
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    I came to New York in the mid-Nineties
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    to go to school at Cooper Union.
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    ["David Brooks Hits the Pavement"]
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    And being a skater, I could just skate all
    around town.
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    So I would go to all the museums,
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    have my skateboard with me,
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    and just check it at coat check.
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    I was a little backwards.
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    In fact, only the year before had I seen
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    my first piece of historical artwork in person.
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    I do recall, very starkly,
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    going to The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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    and discovering the ancestral totems
    from the New Guinea area.
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    At first, they're very exotic looking.
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    But each one of those face is an actual person.
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    And when I realized what was behind them,
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    it definitely shattered a particular
    preconceived idea as to what art was.
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    There was both the life around the artwork
    during it being made.
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    There was the life around the artwork
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    and how it functioned in the society.
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    And there was a life around the artwork
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    as to how it got to the United States.
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    And so it's the life behind it
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    and the truth content within it
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    that is actually really quite extraordinary
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    and goes far beyond what it appears to be.
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    There was a piece I did at PS1
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    where I planted about fifty trees.
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    It's more of this, like,
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    cross section of an Amazonian forest.
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    And then we dumped, pumped, and sprayed
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    about twenty tons of concrete
    on the entire forest.
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    [LAUGHS]
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    It's more of an action
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    than it is a composition
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    or an object.
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    And it's one that is both horrifying
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    and has some beauty to it at the same time.
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    The forest then regrew over time,
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    as it would break through
    elements of the concrete.
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    And had a whole life cycle that went on
    for a year and a half.
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    We're so desensitized to imagery of violence,
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    both in terms of a landscape,
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    but also in terms of a culture.
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    So what the project really is looking at
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    is trying to find ways to tether reality
    right back to it.
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    Just like skating,
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    there is no ideology behind hitting the pavement.
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    That's just you and your body
    hitting the pavement
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    in a kind of reality check.
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    The skating started...
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    I was quite young
    and I was really bad at it.
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    And my brother, I remember,
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    made fun of me at one point.
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    He's like, "You've been skating that long
    and you still suck?"
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    So, there was a turning point
    at around the age of thirteen
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    that I became extremely disciplined.
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    I had this thing where I had to
    learn a trick a day.
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    I used to sneak out of the house,
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    like, at two in the morning,
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    and drive up to Chicago or...
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    [LAUGHS]
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    or drive down to Louisville.
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    So skateboarding, for me,
    was the most fulfilling
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    when you would find a new situation
    in an urban context
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    and you think of a different way to use it.
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    It propels one to want to actually
    go out in the world and explore.
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    [The Explorers Club]
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    The Explorers Club is a private club
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    that was founded in 1904
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    by a number of people that were embarking
    on these different endeavors
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    and they kind of needed a center
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    where they could come together
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    to have what they call a "smoker"--
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    where they would meet and discuss
    what kind of expeditions they've been doing.
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    So it was a place to disseminate information.
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    At the time of its founding,
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    there were people, of course,
    racing to the poles--
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    North and South--
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    trying to get to the top of the
    tallest mountain on earth,
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    Mount Everest.
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    Eventually, to get to the Moon.
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    But as these people were
    racing to the great firsts
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    they were kind of passing up
    all of the rest of life
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    along the way.
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    And so, I think now we've come to
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    a completely different understanding
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    as to how to perceive
    the definition of exploration.
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    Now it's really about those granular,
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    infinitesimal minutiae aspects of life
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    that really are the things that
    make up the world.
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    A combine is basically a piece of
    farming equipment
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    that cuts corn,
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    breaks the kernels of the corn off the cob,
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    and then sifts and rasps
    the cobs and the stalks,
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    but also cleans the grain.
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    The exhibition breaks apart this
    piece of machinery
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    into thousands of pieces.
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    It takes time and movement going around
    and looking at everything.
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    Just like an ecosystem, it's not really
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    something you can just show up
    and stand in front of and experience.
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    It's actually a number of processes that,
    over time,
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    you understand, experience,
    and you put it back together.
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    Taking the macroscopic hole
    into the microscopic details
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    that make up this one thing
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    that also does many operations all at once.
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    There's an infinite number of variations
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    of things one can do with a skateboard.
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    And it never quite ends,
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    so it will always keep going,
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    the more you put into it.
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    I thought that at one point
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    I was going to be a professional skateboarder.
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    But a girl broke my heart,
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    and I just started making art
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    quite intensely.
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    And I realized I was just better at
    making artwork
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    than I was at skateboarding.
Title:
David Brooks Hits the Pavement | Art21 "New York Close Up"
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"New York Close Up" series
Duration:
07:37

English subtitles

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