backward glance

MIKE KELLEY

MoMA PS1

The one-time enfant terrible, Mike Kelley, was a veritable solar system onto himself -- a culture all his own. On view at MoMA P.S.1, Kelley's sprawling exhibition -- what would have been a mid-career survey if not for his 2012 suicide -- unfolds through a honeycomb of classrooms-cum-kunsthalle in a massive overview that is incisive and luminous. Taken altogether, the show is astounding. 

The Kandor Series was based on Superman's birthplace -- a city on Krypton, his home planet -- from which Superman believed he was the only survivor. In reality, Kandor still existed in miniature, having been

shrunken to miniscule size by an evil enemy. Superman rescued Kandor, keeping it inside a bell jar

in perpetuity, sustained by oxygen tanks and TLC. An apt metaphor for the psychic and

spiritual disconnect that Kelley mined throughout his fantastical career.

Recently, someone said it was fitting that Kelley's largest ever show was installed not at MoMA's tonier mid-town Manhattan location but at P.S.1, a former public school, trading on his middle class upbringing in Detroit and inferring an art world slight of some significance. I see the point -- he was an art world anti-hero for much of his career -- but P.S.1 is a perfect venue for Kelley, an artist John Waters referred to as "a terrorist and a healer." The unorthodox and meandering nature of the building allows his operatic body of work to unfold in stanzas. 

Perhaps more importantly, P.S.1 doesn't require the art to be subservient to the institution, its hallowed walls or its own grandness. To be more succinct -- while distinctive, the architecture doesn't get in the way of the art. It feels like a clean slate, which for this canon-bending artist, is a great fit.

Kelley's work was fiercely American. Trenchant, reflective, devouring, his constantly morphing oeuvre placed him squarely in the foreground of the modern dialectic. He called himself an avant-gardist, but he was living in the avant-garde-less postmodern era and this, in the end, added a layer of alienation to a body of work that aspired to aesthetic disembodiment.

From his 70s noise band Destroy All Monsters to his final work, Mobile Homestead, a replica of his boyhood home in the Detroit suburbs that now stands astride MoCAD, Kelley questioned everything, rewriting the rules and then breaking them one by one. He thumbed his nose at popular culture, victimhood, identity and memory, not so much eschewing these things as restaging them with the savage brilliance by which he came to be identified.

from the Kandor Series, 1999 - 2011

He explored America's cultural genetics as well as his own, and in this self-reflective, me-looking-at-you-looking-at-me way, Kelley was able to weave DNA strand over DNA strand into a synthesis of critical thought, discursive logic and biting imagery. His middle class roots inured him to popular culture and its subsets (like craft traditions and folk art), and in the transference of imagery and content from that world into his art, some of his most emotive works emerged. 

detail, Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites

The sumptuous, wildly popular Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites, 1991 - 1999, is super-loaded with associations to conspicuous consumption, fetishism, capitalism and childhood, and there, at the edges of this some-kinda nostalgia are the scuff marks and torn seams, the missing eyes and errant feet, and the tails and ears of abandoned, slightly soiled toys.

It's particularly ironic then, that the backed-up queue leading to the installation was mostly baby strollers and young parents. This is the feelgood gallery -- the opiate in the room -- where plushy orbs of pink and green stuffed-animals dangle like Christmas ornaments. A child's delight. 

Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites, 1991 - 1999

But among all the fluff and coziness is that funny/sad darkness that Kelley knew so well. Nihilism and heartbreak seemed to go hand in hand with what Jerry Saltz famously called Kelley's "clusterfuck aesthetics."

Kelley bristled at these "bad-boy" associations and in the end, it is his intellectual elegance and the convolutions of a restless mind that conjoin in a fictive, opera-like grandeur. Less prurient than his friend and frequent collaborator Paul McCarthy, Kelley's persona, while imprudent in the extreme, is more a commingling of Pierrot meets Goya than of Pierrot meets Caligula. 

Ahh...Youth, 1991, eight cibachrome prints

The artist's fictions wander through the work like stray dogs, redressing social structures, institutional abuse, dysfunction and forms of banality, subjugation and the cultural hazing that is such a large part of modern society. Though he denied abuse in his own childhood, he suffered from lifelong agoraphobia, a condition classically linked to unresolved trauma. Whether fictional or not, some of Kelley's greatest examinations in the dissociative properties of memory and repression were focused on his own history.

Lumpenprole, 1991

In Lumpenprole, 1991 -- monstrous lumps writhe under the bed/blankets in a depiction of classic childhood nightmares. 

detail, Educational Complex, 1995

Educational Complex, 1995 is a sprawling foam core maquette of the schools the artist attended, with "blank" areas inserted here and there -- the places, Kelley said, he couldn't recall due to the lingering effects of repressed memory syndrome. The hypothesis: these were the places he'd been abused. The leitmotif that runs through this work, as through much of his art, facetious or not, is most evident here.  

Kelley's primary subject matter was not autobiography -- it was repression, and the fictions created in its long shadow.

detail, Day is Done, 2005, multi-media installation

above and below, from the Kandor Series

I keep thinking about Harold Bloom's famed assertion that Shakespeare invented human consciousness. In the labyrinth of Kelley's oeuvre -- at once haunting and comical, high and low, mordant and intimate -- there is humanness, and beauty, in reverse.

Memory Ware

More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid and The Wages of Sin, 1987

Mike, we hardly knew you.







MIKE KELLEY, on view at P.S.1 thru February 2, 2014

terra firma

Hiroyuki Hamada

at Lori Bookstein

#81, 2011-2013, painted resin, 24 x 54 x 25 in

Hiroyuki Hamada's new work, on exhibit at Lori Bookstein through November 9th, is a perfect amalgam of mutability and permanence. Pushing and pulling volume, surface, and line as if carving directly in space, Hamada finds a balance between the organic and the geometric -- the physical and the ethereal, if you will -- in a selection of works that are variously intimate, plastic, tactile and blithely unpredictable.

Associations run wild among angular plinths that are butt against spheres in a collision of flat and round. Henry Moore said that his viewers only needed to "feel shape simply as shape, not as description or reminiscence." Similarly, Hamada intuits form, inviting it to morph between the humanistic and the industrial in a fusion of the body's curves, mastaba-like stacks, swollen balloon forms and architectural landscape. Infusing irony and tenderness, the works are at once intellectual, emotive and they possess a sort of aesthetic benevolence that is sensuous and wholly diverting.

Earlier this week, Hiroyuki and I shared some thoughts about work, life, and questioning authority:

Janet Goleas: The anthropomorphism in the new work is luscious -- do the works relate to non-human form?

Hiroyuki Hamada: Well...I started to make things in order to explore the mysterious quality of seeing the profoundness and the striking familiarity in the unfamiliar things, the part in "art" that I see as essential and special.  I didn't start expressing because I had particular stories or issues. To me, what was interesting was getting to the depth and the richness of our direct relationship to our ability to sense the unknown and I believe that's the key to evolve and explore while very much grounded to "being human".  It's our cutting edge way to feel the edges of possibilities and solutions.  And it's about being connected to them -- the viewers -- through that mysterious place...sharing the attitude and the result as we live and feel the time and place we share.  

JG: You've moved from the iconic tablets, gumdrops and torpedoes to fleshy, bulbous forms. In some cases the work looks even fluid. 

#73, 2011-2013, painted resin, 46 x 70 x 25 in

HH: We are all human and we do have a root which we all can share and grow together. My approach has been to totally disregard the narrative elements, symbolic elements, or any other conscious efforts to tell stories, just to make sure that I stick to that special place. I'm theorizing -- as an afterthought -- that maybe I need more layers to express a complexity in matters as my life gets complicated with responsibilities of being an adult, living in a time of change, being a parent and so on. The shapes are more complex and they seem to have more directions. 

But they are not made to be metaphors. They are made to be the experience.

Foreground, #72, 2011-2013, painted resin (in work), 28 x 53 x 29 in, mid-ground, the artist

JG: In your earlier works, the surface treatment seemed almost language based -- like cuneiform tablets -- with subtle articulations that scored or striated the face and sculptural body. These are all but absent in the new sculpture. I'm interested in the way -- at least to some extent -- that form here overwhelms surface here.

HH: I think there is still a good amount of surface work in them. It's a way to incorporate an element of time and pulling and pushing of the surface by painting, texturing, shaping and etc. I have a painting background so it's something that comes natural to me. But you are absolutely right that I've been realizing the power of the 3D form. In a way, I am learning the very basic nature of "sculpture."







When I started to make sculptures, it was a great mystery why sculptors are so oblivious to the surface.  It was almost unthinkable to me that they just cast things, expecting that pouring material in the mold would take care of the surface. Now I feel the strength of 3D forms in space.  

#74, 2011-2013, painted resin, 24 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 57 in

One could argue that it is strong enough to carry the expressive burden while the material gives focus to the main event -- the "sculpture" -- the 3D form in space.

HH: There is an interesting mention about that in the Wall Street Journal review of the show. The text is extremely positive in general which I very much appreciate, but the reviewer sees my surface treatment as somewhat redundant. I am guessing this assessment comes from the tradition and the preconceived ideas about sculpture. To me, that's not really a consideration.


JG: Some of the new work is held inside, or feels as though it's held within or stands on top of leather or steel casements. This is a whole new language for you, yes? Do you have thoughts about uniting pedestal and form?

#75, 2011-2013, painted resin and painted plaster, 13 1/2 x 14 1/2  x 28 in

HH: Well, the ideas often go much faster and they can be quite adventurous.   I do have many different directions in my sketch books but only the practical ones and promising ones come out to be actual pieces.  Which is a shame. 

#78, 2011-13, painted resin

I still quite haven't figured out how to incorporate more spontaneous process in the making.  But dealing with the base for a piece like #78 has given me an opportunity to brainstorm a solution in a quite spontaneous manner. It was pretty immediate to have the idea of having a really angular, heavy looking bottom beneath the light, organic shape. And I think it went pretty smooth capturing the idea without damaging its essence during the process. I had a great time working with those pieces.

And in terms of steel parts, I learned about it from my friend artist Kim Matthew. She was painting her sculptures with this acrylic paint which had metal powder suspended in it. So when you apply activator, you can give it a real oxidized surface. It's really a versatile surface perfect in some of my current pieces. 

#79, 2011-2012, painted resin, 26 x 35 x 20 in

JG: Your new drawings are wonderful -- they're a little like found objects.

HH: I constantly draw. It's my way of brainstorming visual ideas. This has been an important part of the making process. I get lots of spontaneous ideas, and I use drawing to refine existing ideas. 

 


The digital drawings in the current show are a new development for me. I would start as I always do--a 2B pencil and a sketch book. Then I scan it to continue drawing in my computer.  It's very low tech though -- more like working with a black and white enlarger, which I also used to do.  

JG: Do you listen to music when you work? 

HH: Music really used to be a crucial thing in the studio but lately I am spending more time stopping, seeking different perspectives on the work, contemplating and so on without going with the flow of the music on a long stretch. But when I do listen, I opt for milder, contemplative music as oppose to aggressive, dynamic types.  I think I use music to get myself in the mood to focus. But I do love uplifting, exciting sort of music which I grew up on as well. Also, for the past years, since the internet has replaced TV and radio about current issues and things that matter...

I am really finding reading and contemplating as a very important process in grounding myself in the context of the time and the space.

I often let my phone read--there are apps that read texts for you--articles, essays -- or I listen to pod casts, radio shows and so on while I sort of look at the pieces and try to see what they need.

JG: Tell me something about your process. You've spoken so much about focus and contemplation -- is this something you learned or is it something that comes with being an artist?

HH: Making things is really a non linear process for me. I really think some children who have learning difficulties -- kids with ADHD and the like -- are born with natural tendency to be artists. Making a piece with a cohesive presence that encompasses the harmony of matters that are relevant to our real lives is extremely hard. 

You can't miss any clues that the elements are emanating to you. In the making process, anything else becomes secondary.

So when I hear about kids not paying attention to the teacher that's telling them to sit down, stop talking, do this or do that, it really hurts to feel that for those kids those orders are just absolute bullshit compared to what they have to attend to. And many of the things we learn at schools are in fact useless for us but very useful for people who try to control us. Anyway, that wasn't the topic here.

#76, 2011-2013, painted resin, 46 x 37 x 31 in

JG: Maybe the idea of surrendering to the creative process comes naturally to young people with certain learning disabilities. Maybe there is greater flexibility there.

 

HH: I often think that it would be great if the schools could teach about the process since it is crucial in any creative endeavor. I feel the whole educational system needs to shift toward self reliance, creative solutions, cooperation and sharing away from obedience, following instructions, authoritative structure, competitions, and so on. Our kids need to cultivate the skills and knowledge to guide us and contribute to a healthy democratic process.  We really can't keep creating the mass which keeps allowing the powerful few to exploit and subjugate on a global scale.

JG: You're so so right. On another note, you mentioned having some visitors to your studio in advance of the show at Lori Bookstein -- Jack Youngerman, Bill King and Connie Fox -- all very seasoned and revered artists. Tell me about those visits.

HH: Well the very special thing is that the creative process is very slow and personal yet it is very much universal and timeless.  We do have a huge generation gap and the cultural differences, but as soon as we talk about art, we are standing on the same ground.  We are just people talking about something we feel passionate about.  I feel that to be the essence of humanity.  

JG: Thank you Hiroyuki. This has been thoroughly enjoyable.

HIROYUKI HAMADA at Lori Bookstein is on view thru November 9th

Karen Shaw at the International Collage Center

My interview with Karen Shaw, courtesy 

Studio Focus: Karen Shaw

Karen Shaw in her studio. Photo credits: Michael Parada Castro

The artist KAREN SHAW

featured in the collection of the

International Collage Center

in conversation with writer and artist

JANET GOLEAS

Janet Goleas 

You were a young mother living on Long Island in the 1970s. It was a heady time in America—the Vietnam War, civil rights, the rise of feminism. What was life like for you then?

Karen Shaw 

Well, I married right after high school and we settled in Flushing, Queens. When I was a junior at Hunter College I had my first son, David, and had to drop out for a year. The next year I got my BFA. By the time I had my second son, Stephan, we bought a house in the suburbs of Long Island. I was reluctant to live in the suburbs, but I didn't like Flushing so much either—it was neither urban nor suburban.

JG 

Did you want to live in the city?

KS 

Yes. The suburbs were boring to me, but it was nice for the children to have a yard to play in and to have kids nearby. I made my peace with the area. I became a part of a liberal political group opposed to the war. There was so much controversy and foment at the time. I was involved with civil rights and, a bit later, women's rights. This kept me engaged and busy, but I wasn't yet focused on making art.

JG

In what ways were you culturally involved?

KS

I went into the city nearly every Wednesday—the LIRR had a reduced ticket on Wednesdays—they called it Ladies' Day. The Women's Movement ended that! I'd go to museums or just absorb the crowds and the urban hustle. I started taking art magazines out of the library. When my youngest started preschool I signed up for a life drawing class in the neighborhood. That was the beginning.

JG 

Was there a turning point—a marker that you can identify as the point at which you became engaged as an artist?

KS 

I got a job working for a Vice President at NBC who lived in my town. He was working on a study on the effects of television violence on children. NBC didn't seem all that serious about the study—they hired some women in town who were able to work for very little money during mornings and afternoons. I'd bring Stephan with me—he was 2 1/2 then. We reviewed questionnaires that were filled out by teachers and the parents of the boys being studied. We assigned a two digit code to each questionnaire depending on whether the response was positive or negative. I learned from this experience how subjective statistics are, and how mutable language is. 

JG 

Their only subjects were boys?

KS 

Yes! And it enraged me and all the women I worked with—it was just as the women's movement had arrived in the suburbs. Unlike NBC, we took the study very seriously.

JG 

How did this coincide with your early work?

KS

My earliest work in this vein was after the NBC job. I called it Summations, and it was just that. I took poems by William Blake, W. B. Yeats and Shelley and summed them up by giving a number to each letter of the words in the poem. Then I added them up to reach one final number. The idea was that if you grasped this number you could possess the essence of the poem. 

JG 

And that notion is...ridiculous?

KS

Yes—all you really had was a number. I was trying to call attention to the fact that numbers were taking over our lives. With two young children at home, if I called the doctor I had to give them the chart number, my area code and telephone number, my social security number and my zip code. And, of course, the arbitrary coding of those questionnaires—it was all sort of alarming.

JG 

That such painstaking work could result in such beautiful irony is fascinating. 

Summation of the Gospel According to St. Matthew, 3 ways, 1973. St. James Bible, 

ledger, adding machine tapes, ink on wood book stand. 20 x 42 x 10 inches.

KS 

Yes, there was humor involved. After summing up some of the finest poems in English literature I turned to The Gospel According to Saint Matthew and summed it up. Since this piece was so large and took so long, I noticed that many words equaled the same number. It should have been obvious but it wasn't until I did this work that I realized this. I started collecting the words in a ledger book and that became the basis for Summantics. 

JG 

Like your Rosetta stone.

KS 

Yes, absolutely. Once I had a numerical dictionary I could turn the whole process around and turn numbers back into language. I thought this was much more humorous and humane.

JG 

What did that lead to?

KS 

Well, I could take almost anything with numbers and turn it into language. The most natural thing was to take things at hand—like my shopping receipts—and turn the numbers into words. 

JG 

I love this body of work and the ideas within it—the elevation of "women's work"—like grocery shopping—and its elevation to an art form was brilliant, and so timely given the cultural and political mood of the country.

KS 

It was very exciting to find out what I could make it say. I also translated baseball cards and sports photos from magazines and newspapers. I didn't have a studio. I did all this work on my dining room table.

JG 

The coincidence of Gematria—the cabbalistic system of interpreting scripture through numerical assignments to letters—and your work is interesting. Were you aware of it at this time? 

KS 

I had no notion of Kabalah or Gematria at the time. After I had worked with this idea for some time I began researching theories of language and linguistics. I only discovered it then. I liked knowing that my work had a basis in something so old and mysterious, but it was an absolute coincidence. I grew up in a secular home, so this sort of Jewish esoterica had no meaning for me. 

JG 

The Summantics were sometimes compiled in boxes or vitrines. These assembled word pieces have a very scientific feel. 

KS 

I loved the closeness of the words Etymology and Entomology. I used to get them confused. The study of insects and the study of words seemed like a perfect transformation—my work melded into another form. I bought entomological pins and boxes designed for insect collections. I printed lists of words on clear acetate and pinned them in the boxes. The idea of "pinning down" a word intrigued me because words are really so hard to actually pin down. I called these works my Entomological/Etymological Collections—they were words of a given number. One of the boxes was filled with only words that equaled 100. They're arranged into various parts of speech so that all the adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs in all tenses are grouped in separate sections. The words appear to float in space because the acetate is basically invisible. Entomological pins are very beautiful, by the way.

Etymological/Entomological collection =84, 2013. Cigar box, entomological pins, words on film, 9 x 6 x 9 inches.

JG 

And the cigar boxes were another tour de force idea.

KS 

They were also a lucky find. I found cigars whose brand names were actually a number as opposed to a name. I've found several of these number/name boxes and I still work with them as I find them. 

Unraveling Series, Baseball gown Extra Large, 2004. Collage, 20 x 16 inches.

JG 

You mention the baseball cards earlier, and in your work you've utilized sports metaphors and imagery over and over. Is organized sports related to politics in your mind?

KS 

I was never interested in sports, nor were my father or brothers. My sons aren't interested either. On occasion my husband watched baseball or football, but he always did so alone. My use of sports imagery was to give it another meaning. In fact, the series of works I did with sports figures were called Additional Meanings. I used the numbers emblazoned on football jerseys to find words; to interpret them as if they were hieroglyphs. Later, I devised a method of deconstructing sports shirts. I wanted to subvert the macho image of the athlete.

Unraveling, Installation view, Wurtembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart Germany, 

unravelled t-shirts on mannequins, 2002.

Baseball gown, Jetter and Basketball gown, Lin, 2012, 

installation view. Unravelled t-shirts and wire.

JG 

In the Unraveling series you literally unraveled that macho image. 

KS 

I was looking for a new way to address sports, as I had been invited to a show in Germany. I was told the space was quite large and most of my work is rather small. I bought a few t-shirts with numbers on them thinking I would somehow link them with language in a way that worked with my system. Mysteriously—and I say that because I really don't know how it happened—I began to unravel them string by string. They became these long lacey gowns. I called them "ball gowns" and showed them on male action-mannequins. They caused quite a stir! I also made collages of famous sports figures wearing these long, gauzy gowns. I used images from newspapers and magazines—I saw them as subversive gender-bending figures.

JG 

Your work is filled with ironies like this, and it is sometimes quite cheeky. This, in combination with your interest in politics fascinates me.

KS

I wasn't overtly thinking of politics in the 70s and 80s—not with the Summantics. I was personally involved with Women's Liberation and the anti-war movement, but it didn't affect my art. In later works, specifically the work I've done with maps, my interest in politics became overt.

JG 

Did Feminism affect your development?

KS 

I was very involved in the Feminist Movement. I joined a consciousness raising group around 1970. It helped me find the confidence to speak up for what I wanted and needed to do. We stayed together for years.

JG 

How did that confidence manifest itself?

KS 

Well, I didn't really know any artists—male or female—so I didn't know how difficult it could be to get one's work noticed, let alone exhibited. I basically floundered in. When I felt I had a body of work to show, I went to SoHo and just walked into galleries. In those days, you could actually bring in work and get to see someone without an appointment. 

JG 

So your first show was at OK Harris—and this was from walking in unannounced and showing your work?

KS 

Yes, I had a very fortunate case of beginner's luck. 

JG 

That's amazing—and groundbreaking. Were your family and friends supportive? 

KS 

Everyone was so supportive—especially my husband, who supported me right from the beginning. When I teach, I tell my students that after having good work, having a supportive spouse is the next most important thing. 

Summantic Receipt,: =933, 1976. Collage on ledger paper, ink, 11 x 8 1/2 inches.

Summantic Receipt,: =1061, 1976. Collage on ledger paper, ink, 11 x 8 1/2 inches.

Summantic Receipt,: =1708, 1976. Collage on ledger paper, ink, 14 x 8 1/2 inches.

JG 

What did you exhibit at OK Harris?

KS

I showed enlarged dictionary pages that I reordered numerically and the cash register receipt poems. At the time, I remember that Mel Bochner had worked with numbers and Hannah Darboven had exhibited pages and pages of numbers. She was often brought up in connection to my work, but I felt we were coming from very different influences. In reality, there was no one doing anything similar to what I was doing.

JG 

What excited you in the art world—were there any special influences?

KS 

I was entranced by any work that had text. I loved Duane Michaels' work with photos and text—all of Jasper Johns' alphabets—and Alfred Jensen's symbols. But the greatest influence on my work was Marcel Duchamp. He and the Dadaists gave me the confidence to use humor and to amuse. When I first developed what came to be the Summations and Summantics, originally I did it for my own amusement.

JG 

Speaking of Jasper Johns, he was one of the first artists to elevate the numeral/letter to the status of subject or visual icon. Your work has a different departure point, but do you relate to the idea of the word or subset of words as the subject/object in your work?

KS 

Well, I love Johns' use of stencils and everyday materials; it was such an inspiration to me. And Alfred Jensen's mystical grids still thrill me. I think of my work as being a form of translation. I see a list of numbers and just imagine what they can say and what meaning I can pull out of this bunch of ciphers.

JG 

Both Johns and Rauschenberg were great collagists, using the methodology in very different ways. How does the art of collage lend itself to your work and your thinking? 

KS 

I like collage for the ability to move things around. To be tentative until everything is just right. I got my BFA in sculpture and, in my case, I was making assemblage. To me, collage was just a 2-D form of assemblage.

JG 

At some point you were awarded a studio at P. S. 1. in Long Island City.

KS 

Yes—having a studio changed my life completely. Just getting it was another lucky break as it was very competitive. There, every day there was a community of artists in residence to talk with and share ideas. A lot of collectors, curators and gallerists visited from all over the U.S. and Europe. Several were interested in my work. It gave me an opportunity to travel and exhibit abroad. 

JG 

How did your work change under these circumstances?

KS 

Around 1981 I had several shows overlapping, so I had to create a tremendous amount of new work to cover all those walls at the same time. After that experience I thought I might never want to see another number again—I felt more like an accountant than an artist. I stopped doing that work temporarily.

JG 

Was it hard to move away from this early, dominant focus?

United Shapes of America, 2011. Painted paper collage, 72 x 48 inches

KS 

No, not at all. It opened up a whole new body of work for me. I was showing so much that I was traveling all the time and I started looking at maps. I would notice funny coincidences. Certain shapes were similar—for instance, India and Texas have almost the same shape and they also have Brahmin bulls in common. But where one culture worships the animal for its spiritual value, the other worships it for money. I started looking at the world in this way. Around the same time I got a job as a visiting artist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. They gave me the largest studio I ever had. I wanted to take advantage of it, so I began making very large paintings of states. It amused me that Colorado and Wyoming were just about interchangeable. 

JG 

And this lead to the Drawing Borders series? 

KS 

Yes, I was spending more and more time in Europe and made friends there. My son David was very interested in maps and was collecting atlases, some of which I brought him from abroad. I loved the coincidence of shapes and how borders were conceived—how they change and the politics that created these changes was fascinating to me. I did a large piece called Terra Cognita in which I arranged all the sovereign nations of the world in alphabetical order and selected colors to represent the different regions of the world. I was still working with the idea of ordering systems. The installation was very colorful and it attracted a lot of attention in Paris. I made the work specifically for that show.

JG 

That reception must have been wonderful. Was it different showing in Europe than in the U.S.?

KS 

Europeans are much more knowledgeable about geography than Americans are. And they seemed to pay much more attention and spend more time looking at art. Especially with my early work, which took time to read and figure out, it seemed to me that Europeans liked to puzzle through the system. My work has always been met with enthusiasm in Europe.

JG

Your art is idea-driven, and over time you've migrated through numerous bodies of related works that are dense with meaning, irony and political content. Can you discuss the political aspects in your art?

KS 

The politics in my early work was more or less incidental. But with the maps, it became overt. In the 1980s I began worrying about the environment. Acid rain, the destruction of the rain forests, the death of the Great Lakes and nuclear proliferation—this was always in the news. I dealt with these issues in my work. I did installations about environmental disintegration. I noticed the Great Lakes had a "leafy" look and since they were said to be dying I likened them to autumn leaves. I did a large installation on this subject Southampton College. In the Netherlands I did one on environmental problems in which I deconstructed Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony as part of the sound track.

                                                                                                                                            String of Words, Web, 2006. 

                                                                                                Thread, words on film, collage on paper. 24 x 20 inches.

  

String of Words, Talking Heads, 2004.                                                                                                                            Heard on the Street

Thread, words on film, collage on paper. 24 x 20".                                                          Collage, ink on paper, 24 x 20 inches.

JG 

How did the String of Words series come about?

KS 

It was accidental, but was also a reaction to the technological world. When cell phones started to proliferate, overhearing disjointed bits and pieces of conversation became an everyday soundtrack. I had a lot of leftover words from previous work that were something like these broken phrases. I thought of stringing them together to represent this new sort of urban language. I found the sheets of heads in Chinatown—they were like talking heads to me.

Body Language Series, Golden Ear, 2004. Painted latex, acupuncture needles, words on film, 12 x 9 x 4 inches.

JG 

You've used other body parts, too. Your series Body Language is such a perfect confluence of idea and form.

KS 

My son Stephan was dating a student of acupuncture and for my birthday they gave me a rubber hand that the students used to practice on. All the acupuncture points were numbered. It was another opportunity to use my system. I printed out words on clear acetate, pinned them on long acupuncture needles and applied them to the correct numbered point. They moved in the air and gave a kinetic aspect to the work that I liked very much. After buying all the body parts I could find, I found life size mannequin parts to work with. I studied acupuncture charts to get the points in the right places. I saw them as a form of poetry; my system overlaid on an ancient healing system. 

Masterpierces, Christ, 2011. Painted collage on canvas, acupuncture needles, words on film, 16 x 20 inches.

JG 

And the Masterpierces? 

KS 

These came directly out of the Body Language series. I chose works of art that seemed in need of healing. Mantegna's St. Sebastian, images of Christ on the cross, Frida Kahlo in her hospital bed, etc. It gave me a new way of working with coincidences in art history.

JG 

That your name, Karen Shaw, equals 100 is the greatest irony! You use it on your website—karenshaw100.com. That must have been an intoxicating coincidence.

KS 

I loved that—I found it out early on, when I first started adding up words. It made me laugh.

JG 

Thank you, Karen. Your body of work is fascinating and unique—it's a treat to hear some of the back stories and to learn more about your development. I can't wait to see what's next.

KS 

Thanks—it's been a pleasure.

Janet Goleas is an artist, curator and writer. Her popular blog, Blinnk.blogspot.com, offers insights, interviews and ideas on contemporary art in and around New York City and the east end of Long Island.

thank you INTERNATIONAL COLLAGE CENTER