AIB Residency Summary, 1/7-1/17, 2011.

1/8)
#1.) Critique with Ben Sloat:
Improve your photo shop skills.The prints are boring. Branch pieces without artifacts are ok, but what
are the shapes about, ok, but why are they so scraggy. Look at Roxy Paine.
-For the stoneware logs, I don’t like them. They’re too static. Trompe-l’oei…(I felt a stab of pain) Try to
create the feeling of standing in the woods surrounded by trees without using trees. Look at Sarah Sze.
Think about installation of other materials. (I like this.)

1/9)
#2.) Critique with Hanna Barrett:
“The prints do nothing for me.” “The one with the soldier is actually “crossing the line” (in a
disrespectful way) It’s too much. “B.A.D. ”
Look at: Tracy Featherstone, Jackson Martin, Travis Graves…
About the branch pieces…”I don’t know,…maybe put some color on them”…(my hard drive is
crashing)…”look at Alan Brey.” ( head exploding) Did she say, put some color on them? Doesn’t she
know the implications of that? They would be just objects…(fragments landing on Hanna Barrett) They
are bacteria and viruses without the narrative. (I was never comfortable with narrative anyway.) Also,
paint could make them permanent. ( do I want this?) It would enable me to use welded internal bars to
build larger, take apart and reinstall easier. I don’t even have to use branches, but may do so anyway.
What I love most about it is the irony. The secret irony.
I go to Dick Blick. Paint two models .

1/10)
Group 1 to the ICA. I saw the perfect video of a wall of sugar cubes melting like global warming. It was
exactly my new assignment. A perfect small quiet scale thing.

Kamrooz Aram’s presentation was captivating. Paintings = gorgeous.

1/11)
Met my advisor for the first time. She was straight forward, direct, excellent. I heard later that she was
recently released from prison,( I am ok with that.)
1.) Contact a mentor before leaving Boston.
a.)Contact Reed Easley, an AIB Alumn in SF for mentor ideas.
2.) Look at Robert Gober, Jessica Stockholder, Martin Purier, Clause Oldenburg and note their uses of
materials.
3.)Reserarch artists who use non-traditional materials. Note how they do it. Maybe this is a good topic
for your paper?
4.)Talked about existing obligations and how I am planning not to accept any new, (or apply for any
new,) shows or artwork commitments until after the program.
5.) Divide up studio into three areas, 1) obligations, 2) something else and 3), secret AIB explorations.
( I agreed to do this.)

Igor and Svetlana Kopistianski . I still had jet lag and fell asleep… woke to the birds remixing.

1/12)
Snow day. Spent the day at 601 Newbury listening to crits.

#3.) Unscheduled critique with Melissa,( 3rd or 4th year painter of suburban houses from SF.) Look at
“Chuck Arnoldi,” SF multi-media artist. Melissa focused on the woven cardboard tree. This was the clear
winner. This was definitely the direction to go! Drop all the rest and go with that…( I was mixed here.
Something I liked and something I didn’t like…I feel there is something wrong with the woven tree
thing.)

1/13 )
Group 1 went to MFA. The contemporary wing was being remodeled. (disappointment) Saw a John
Singer Sargent that was pretty amazing. Modern Chinese calligraphy show, Fresh Ink. Lots of Blue and
white porcelain =love. Rearranged my work space again for tomorrow’s crits.

1/14
#4 Critique, Moira Barrett. Good conversation. Read “Flow” The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
Damian Ortega, artist.

#5 Critique,with Nuit, Very excited about the digital composits. About the branch pieces: “ You know,
maybe the world doesn’t really need these big pieces…. Maybe they aren’t the best way of representing
the ideas”…(Chemical reaction begins in my brain.) “Maybe these dioramas are better, more people will
see them” (but what about, “I am a sculptor?”) “Well maybe you don’t really have to be a sculptor,
maybe you can just be an artist” “What’s wrong with that? Lots of people are just artists” (Yeah, but
not me…I’m…I’m like I’m a 3-d person) “How long have you been that way? ( Jr high)
“Well, it might be time for a change. New media, expand horizons. Imagine the possibilities…sculptural
intervention” Sculptural intervention? ( I’m having a visceral reaction to this idea. I would just make
flat things? The hair is standing up on my arms!) I mention to her how I am feeling in the body.
Really?” “Well then you should write this down many times: “I don’t have to be a sculptor, I can just be
an artist”.…”Maybe that is your new mantra”…(cascade of cellular division…more hair standing up on
arms.) I could try. Maybe I could do both things. “You could, but, anyway…” You don’t have to be a
sculptor. I think you should definitely look into that.” (am I abnormal?) I didn’t know I was so like this.
“What kind of new skills should I learn? She doesn’t know about that.
Look at: Sam Durant, Iraq Memorial. Jane Benson, faux flora. Joseph Smolinski, nature/technology
interventions.

#6 Critique with Carolyn Rordan. Discussed technique, the temporality of it all, Installation disasters and
the realistic fantastic.
#7 Critique with Cynthia Newman. Very positive. Talked about how to do AIB and still have a life. Anne
Baumgartner. She cried remembering Anne. Anne had once sent her a postcard.

Critical Theory. The last critical theory class. Excited to see some women artists. So far, nothing but
males. Tired of males. Tired of phallus, tired of Freudian theories. Still sore about the slight from
previous class… I want to see Mary Miss and Nancy Holt! Instead I saw Shigeko Kubota birthing some
blobs onto the ground. The woman who puts the scroll inside her, later to pull it out and read it to a
crowd of women. Next woman has clitorises fashioned out of gum all over her face, and breasts.
Revolting . These are the women that DeKooning paints!!! Vanessa Beecroft is ok. I ask outloud in class
“what about Eva Hess, Mary Miss?” “Well, Eva Hess died kinda young”…I cry,”Do you mean young like
Gordon Matta Clark? ( I am in love with GMC) Like Robert Smithson?” Teacher shrugs his shoulders. He
is tired. It has been a long class.
Smoldering. Outraged. This is terrible. Not only are we learning how the art world subverts women
artists, but I am watching it happen in 2011. Our teacher is reinforcing the very sexism that we have
been reading about in the texts. He has chosen a ridiculous group of examples and then belittles them.
These women are overtly emotional in their displays. The school of Vitto Acconchi . Shock value
substituted for ideas. The work is in response to discrimination. This may not even qualify as art. The
work is all about the men. (A flush of humiliation.) This work is ineffective. I resent the choice to include
only these in the Critical Theory Survey. We watch Mathew Barney for 30 minutes. I cannot watch as
he kills the feline in the Guggenhiem.
Resove to talk to Judith Barry.

Group 1 dines at the Indian Restaurant and goes to the grad show in Cambridge. I notice a little video in
a black box. It is so B.A.D. As days go by I cherish the memory of it. The vulnerability of it. The intimacy. I
make a plan to steal it. Its badness moves me.

1/15
…Meet with DTW . We discuss scale. She suggests I explore different ways to create the same scale
affects without the literal physical scale dynamic I have been using. (This is interesting)
#1, “Create quiet small space using scale.” ( I am not thrilled by small or quiet and the both together
don’t sound too thrilling) Think about how a person can be reduced to shreds by a single word or look,
especially teenagers…( I understand what she’s saying now)
#2, Read about: Monumentality, Comparative analysis, ie…girl psychological warfare…how a look, or a
word, or a glance, can tear a person up inside. How a person shrinks in psychological scale in response to
stimuli. How psychological stimuli can shrink a person…
Look at Mark Tansey – scale of relations. Hiedi Flasnacht – catastrophy.
Remix, elective is fantastic! I learn DTW is transgender.(Did this occurred before or after prison?)
Excellent survery of female artists!!! Cindy Sherman demystified. Sherri Levine, Sandy Skogland,
Marjorie Frank, Tarin Simon, Nicki Lee, Justine Cura, Dana Hoey,(wife) Katy Granon…3 girls from another
planet..Kim Keever, Loretta Lux. All new to me. All excellent.

#8.) Critique with Stuart Steck. He doesn’t like the yellow models. Understands the “objectness” of
sculpture
1.)Recommends some investigation into the shapes and behaviors of bacteria and viruses. Contact
University of Washington..how they spread, find patterns of growth and reaction to stimuli. Reactions to
vaccines and medicines, patterns of global warming? Population growth and mapping information.
systems of. Scientific facts.
2.)Recommends Sol Lewit’s 122 permutations of a cube…(my favorite)
3.)Read Lawrence Weiner, formal analysis.(his favorite)
Patterns of projected viruses. This is good. This is scale.

I need a plan of actions. This is a huge ball of string to untangle.

I send Claudia Fitch an invitation.