assume vivid astro focus: Spontaneity & Concentration | ART21 "Exclusive"

[assume vivid astro focus: Spontaneity and
Concentration]

[SUDBRACK] Me and Christophe have been working
together

since 2005.

I've never lived in the same city as Christophe

since we started working together.

At one point I lived in Berlin,

now I'm splitting my time between Sao Paolo

and New York.

And he lives in Paris, you know,

so we don't actually live in the same place.

[HAMAIDE-PIERSON] But you want to know the
truth?

I mean, I think sometimes we're like...

we know each other super well.

I mean, we've been apart for almost a year,

physically, on the same continent, we were, like...

[SUDBRACK] More.

[HAMAIDE-PIERSON] But since...

[SUDBRACK] April.

[HAMAIDE-PIERSON] Yeah, April.

[SUDBRACK] More than a year.

[HAMAIDE-PIERSON] Yeah, I mean...

my God, you're so picky!

Talking about, yeah, a year and a month!

[BOTH LAUGH]

I think our minds are connected,

but then this like physical thing

that we need to get used to again,

you know what I mean?

[SUDBRACK] I think we needed to focus more.

We needed something that was quieter.

When I was making installations before,

I was creating a space in which people could
actually

be as spontaneous as they would like to.

But the thing is, for me,

it was never absolutely spontaneous

because I had so much, you know,

production that I had to take care of.

We felt that we needed to

do less with other collaborators--

and dealing with emails and production issues.

And I felt like, okay, this is, like,

one of the reasons why I wanted to make paintings,

because that way, I can actually be more spontaneous myself.

I think it's also about getting older, too.

The pleasures are closer to you.

For this show in New York,

even though we influence each other,

we actually go into different directions.

I'm making this group of paintings,

and he's making another group of paintings.

He's going a more abstract, geometric way.

I'm thinking more about the figure.

I just wanted to bring that idea

that somebody can transform their bodies at
their will,

and that's an act of freedom.

In our show last year

in Sao Paolo,

we made these pieces called "Transgeometric"

which were half tranny bodies,

and half geometric shapes.

So somehow, I felt like these trannies

could be transformed into a full on

geometric shape with time.

[HAMAIDE-PIERSON] This is the position...

so, you have the...like, this part,

which is like the butt here.

And there's like a...how do you say, ball...

Like a testicle?

The two nails...

And here, you have like the other butt,

with the legs,

like the thigh.

Like one boob coming out of it.

And then here, you have the calf.

Yeah. Do you see it?

With like, this is like another boob coming
out of it.

And another one here.

And then you have the beginning of the foot,

of the heel here.

[SUDBRACK] I was looking for a different,
sort of,

representation of the female figure.

Different from what I usually look at,

which is like, the...the porn--

something that I always somehow

wanted to absorb in our installations,

to mix low and high references.

And now that I'm making paintings,

I feel like I have to do that

in one single, iconic image.

[HAMAIDE-PIERSON] It can be higher, I guess.

[SUDBRACK] No, I think it should be lower,
probably.

[HAMAIDE-PIERSON] No, but look...

I like how it's like...you know?

It's not a line, whereas this is below this one...

[SUDBRACK] This was pretty much

the very first positioning

we had come up with--

very quickly.

[HAMAIDE-PIERSON] But I think sometimes, like
the...

the more spontaneous you are [LAUGHS]

can be the better, and I think...yeah...

[SUDBRACK] So we went back,

we did a few adjustments--

that's pretty much the way we thought, at
first.

[HAMAIDE-PIERSON] There was a lot of debate
between us,

if we should just install the painting on
the white wall,

or if we should still conceive some sort of

special environment to place the canvas on
the wall.

And then we went for the mural,

which is like a continuation

of what we would have done in the past

with wallpaper.

[SUDBRACK] We start titling our shows

with these different combos,

according to the different combinations you
could do

with 'a' 'v' 'a' 'f'.

[HAMAIDE-PIERSON] The title of the show is

"adderall valium ativan focalin,"

which are, like, usually drugs which are prescribed

to cure, like, kids of attention disorder.

They cannot focus more than

half an hour in classes.

[SUDBRACK] It's a big change

to be concentrated on one media.

But, we both needed some time

that was just more devoted

to the actual making.

It's a lot of work,

but actually, I'm having a lot of fun

and pleasure

working right on the canvas.