- Art Organization: White Flag Projects
Michelle Grabner is an artist, curator, and professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is also the curator of Newtonland, the current exhibition at White Flag Projects. I had the pleasure of interviewing Michelle on the morning of the show’s opening; this is the third of four installments of that interview.
Lynna Borden (White Flag Intern): Yes, I found this idea of disconnection and the lack of traditional support and structure very thought-provoking. Would you be able to talk a bit more about why you think that’s relevant today?
Michelle Grabner: From a studio perspective, and as a painter, the idea of the support, the idea of edges, of contours, or boundaries, or limitations has been something that has been pushed at and is perennially challenged. In theory, we discuss rhizomes and topple vertical and stabilized position, so we’ve been playing with structure and the ideas about structures for years. One of the histories of modernism is based on a relationship of how we unravel, dissolve, and reinforce these kinds of structures.
But as of late, our relationships to networks, how we move through time and space, and how we negotiate our own narratives in the age of social-networking, has us re-evaluating old dependable structures and unable to recognize the ones that shape our current condition. I like to think that the dissolving of a boundary, or a surface, or a support is a critical gesture but that might be too idealistic.
Realistically, I think the renewed interest in mobiles is not a critical breaking down in a kind of post-modern execution or an undoing of frames; instead, it ends up being something that is much more external and reflects a network condition.
LB: I think it’s interesting that you talk about social networking because that’s not something I’d originally considered as an aspect of this show, but it makes a lot of sense. Now, you can have five minutes of real-time interaction and then continue your “friendship” through these various interfaces like facebook, text messaging, and twitter. It’s sort of disconcerting.
MG: Yeah, see, that’s really great because then you’re talking about these structures of time or just being in the physical space of somebody else before you can develop a friendship, those things have been pulled away. Space, time – those kind of organizational foundations are not necessary anymore, but then you have to talk about the quality of friendship.
LB: Right. It’s definitely not the same.
LB: The show also relates a lot to science, of course the title, Newtonland, the idea of gravity, and Painlevé’s compilation of films entitled Science is Fiction. What do you see as the relation between all of these elements?
MG: This is where I’m quite simple in terms of the idea of Newton and gravity. So we’re talking about some contours and structures that have been pulled away, but we still have this overarching natural, albeit weak, force called gravity. Within the deep seas, gravity and pressure is distorted, but here, in this space, gravity is literally being featured. The law of gravity takes the spotlight. Structures may be dissolving around us but things aren’t floating away quite yet, though they’re coming close.
Science is Fiction is a kind of wonderful thing too because there are other forces at play so there’s a kind of corrective element to Painlevé’s title of how he thinks. Again, it’s a construction of science, an investigation that doesn’t add up to a kind of truth, but the perception of truth.
So I value gravity and do not take it for granted. I need it as a law of nature to literally and figuratively get out of bed in the morning. There’s something welcoming about some universal truths and, as simple as gravity is, at least it gives you something to work with. A lot of the work in this show works through the poetics of gravity, harnessing it to create these beautiful systems of balance and movement within this natural force.
LB: Many of the pieces also recall Calder’s mobiles. Why did you choose to bring those back into focus right now?
MG: Right now, Gagosian gallery in Manhattan is hosting a big Calder show and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago has a collection of Calder’s works and they’re going to be opening in June along with contemporary artists influences by Calder. It’s funny, thinking about and seeing more suspended and dispersed work in contemporary art. A couple years ago, sculptors were thinking about the aggregate—pulling together, packing, compressing. Now we’re seeing this different kind of approach to organizing form. This is an interesting phenomenon—artists are choosing to do away with cohesion.
Calder’s stabile or mobile presentations are iconic, acutely negotiating, color, shape, movement, and balance. Calder hasn’t been rediscovered by contemporary artists—don’t get me wrong, his pieces are extraordinary, but there’s something beyond Calder, something within a greater context that I believe compels artists to the idea of suspension. Calder may be the grandfather, but why Calder was exploring this vocabulary and why artists are looking at this now isn’t comparable. The context is different, and I’m interested in exploring this trend and, hopefully, this show starts to ask those questions.
Michelle Grabner is an artist, curator, and professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is also the curator Newtonland, the current exhibition at White Flag Projects. I had the pleasure of interviewing Michelle on the morning of the show’s opening; this is the second of four installments of that interview.
