Category: Uncategorized (Page 235 of 1086)

* (restored/expanded)

 

‘Todd Solondz walks through the door of a Cafe on 12th Street in Manhattan, looking, apart from his trademark lemon-yellow converse all stars, like a person in disguise. He wears a floppy khaki sun hat and oversized shades. As he walks through the room, he peels off the sunglasses and replaces them with equally large eyeglasses with thick, retro frames. He yanks off the hat to reveal his hair, which is gray and thinning and bordering on mad scientist. He looks, perhaps, like an oddball character in a Todd Solondz film. The waitress recognizes him and greets him warmly, and he does the same. He’s a memorable presence. Appearance aside, he sounds a bit like a Jewish grandmother, his voice comically nasal, his words unhurried and elongated by a childhood in New Jersey, an accent that 30 years in New York City has failed to undo.

‘Talking to Solondz, his brilliance is quickly apparent. In interviews about his films, when prompted to make some sort of analysis about the meaning of his work, he’s fond of giving a sort of verbal shrug, saying “Look, I’m not an academic,” before following through with something about the “infantilization of the modern man” that sounds decidedly erudite. Solondz teaches film at NYU, and it’s easy to imagine students rushing to record his words—he’s one of those people whose casual discussion of craft is effortlessly mind expanding. He is especially likable for his openness and dry self deprecation, speaking freely about his neuroses and personality flaws. He has referred to himself as “socially maladroit” and considers the experience of being on set and shooting his films to be nightmarish, a constant state of crisis. “I feel like my obituary is going to read ‘Mr. Solondz collapsed on the third day of shooting,’ ” he joked, unsmiling. Still, he’s praised for being an “actor’s director” with a talent for figuring out exactly what each actor needs from him in order to deliver the best performance within them. He also has a reputation for being exceedingly hands-on. In an interview within the DVD extras for Life During Wartime, Shirley Henderson recalls Solondz spending several hours with her in a salon while she was getting her hair done for the part of Joy Jordan, making sure it was just right. She also spoke of the physical proximity he keeps during shooting, joking that if he could be underneath her chair at that moment, he would be.

‘The controversial content in his work has naturally triggered a fascination for many about the director and his motivations, but for the most part he declines to self analyze. Solondz grew up in a Jewish household within a middle class New Jersey enclave of ranch houses. The second youngest of four kids, he insists that he had a relatively normal childhood. “Every family has its complications, but I don’t think mine stood out in any particularly memorable way against any other families in the neighborhood.” Solondz’s mother is a musician who attended Juliard before marrying Solondz’s father, an MIT graduate. He also considers himself to have been a relatively normal, and certainly untroubled, kid. “I was a pretty easy kid for my parents, I think. Never got into trouble. Didn’t make a girl pregnant, didn’t become a drug addict. Didn’t have car accidents. I went to Yale. I mean, you know, I was basically an easy polite little boy. I don’t think I had a bad boy streak in me.”

‘Although Solondz reigns over the black comedy corner of the independent film world, he considers himself to be a commercial director. It’s his treatment of his subjects, he explains, that falls beyond the parameters of the mainstream. He emphasizes that, for all the social and political commentary inherent in his work, at the end of the day it is meant to be entertainment, and he keeps his characters and narratives accessible enough that an 11-year-old would be able to understand what’s happening. “They might have a lot of questions about the social, sexual, political ramifications and so forth, but they would be able to follow the story.”’ — Maris James, Indiewire

 

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Stills

 

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Further

The Films of Todd Solondz
‘Todd Solondz: I’m Judd Apatow’s dark side’
‘Why is Todd Solondz returning to the film that nearly destroyed his career?’
‘Todd Solondz Looks Back on His Career’
Todd Solondz interviewed @ Tiny Mix Tapes
Podcast: ‘Todd Solondz Explains Later-Life Childhood’
Video: ‘The Ultimate Todd Solondz Tribute, in Three Songs’
‘Todd Solondz’s Toy Story: Director Denied at Toys”R”Us’
‘Todd Solondz’s Influence on American Independent Film’
Todd Solondz interviewed @ The A.V. Club
‘The Monstrous Masculine: Abjection And Todd Solondz’s Happiness

 

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Other

Todd Solondz: “My Movies Aren’t for Everyone”

Todd Solondz on independent film

In Conversation with Todd Solondz

Interview: Todd Solondz, Jordan Gelber, Selma Blair (Dark Horse)

 

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Interview
from The Believer

 

TODD SOLONDZ: You know what happened today? One of those giant roaches flew through the window into my apartment. I couldn’t believe it. At first I thought it was a bat.

SIGRID NUNEZ: A water bug! Oh, those are awful. Everyone’s afraid of them. But as far as I know, they’re harmless.

TS: Well, just the idea of having one flying around your house… Then of course I had to catch the thing and kill it.

SN: I was reading in bed once and I saw one run under the bed. I didn’t know what to do. I knew I couldn’t kill it. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

TS: So what did you do?

SN: I took a double dose of sleeping pills.

TS: Oh, no! But what I can’t figure out is this: I live on the eighth floor. How did it get up there? Does this mean, way up in the sky, roaches are flying around?

SN: My guess is it crawled part of the way, saw your open window, and flew in. You need to get screens.

But enough about cockroaches. Let’s talk about “Solondzian cruelty,” a phrase I just saw in a review of someone else’s movie. Every time you make a movie you get hit with the same mud: mean, cruel, perverse, hateful, misanthropic, et cetera.

TS: Yep. Every time. [Big sigh]

SN: You are one of the least cruel people I’ve ever known. So what’s going on?

TS: I think people have a lot of trouble figuring out what I’m trying to do. In particular, people have trouble understanding where I stand in relation to my characters, and very often this gets reduced to me making vicious fun of them. Ever since Welcome to the Dollhouse, whenever a new movie comes out with characters who are portrayed as “geeky” or grotesque or who are humiliated in some way, someone is sure to compare them to mine.

One thing I want to say: I don’t like victim stories and I don’t write them. For example, I never saw Dawn Wiener [the main character in Dollhouse] as a victim, or intended Dollhouse as a victim story. That is definitely a misunderstanding between me and a part of my audience. To be honest, I am often unsettled by the responses some people have had to my movies, and that includes many people who like them. There can be a blurry line between laughing at the expense of a character and laughing at the recognition of something painful and true. But blurry as it may be, it is nevertheless unmistakable, and sometimes the laughter I hear makes me wince. “Why do you make movies about such ugly people?” I’ve been asked. Well, I don’t see them as ugly. And this is why when Storytelling came out, I said: “My movies are not for everybody, especially for people who like them.”

Another unfortunate thing is the way some people see me as dissecting my characters in some kind of heartless, coldblooded, analytical way, when in truth making these movies is a passionate, intensely emotional experience for me. I’m detached from the characters only to the degree that I have to be in order to write honestly about them. I admit there’s an element of brutality in all my work—it’s part of the truth about human existence I always want to explore—but the last thing I’m trying to do is put on some kind of freak show, inviting people to get off on other people’s pain and humiliation.

SN: But there are also plenty of people who find your attitude toward your characters empathetic and compassionate. They might not crop up as often as cruel, but I’ve seen the words tender and poetic and sweet and even spiritual used to describe your films. And I’m thinking how the portrait of the pedophile in Happiness was described by the movie’s producer as “nonjudgmental,” which is certainly accurate, but for me and many others it was also an extremely compassionate portrait, because of the way you allowed this character to fall to the very bottom, morally speaking, without ever stripping him of his humanity.

I think what confuses people is that the films are all black or—since I know you reject that description—sad comedies. If we’re laughing while watching these characters suffer, it can certainly feel—much as you don’t want this—as though we were laughing at them. And though I know you want to have it both ways, not everyone in the audience is able to escape the guilty feeling of having belly laughed at someone else’s pain. Then there’s the matter of casting.

TS: Yes. Something that drives me crazy is when I hear people talk about some of the actors in my movies, or about someone I’m considering casting, and they say, “Oh, that person is perfect because he or she is so grotesque, so disgusting.” And they assume I share these feelings.

And that reminds me. There was this one particular guy who interviewed me once and who really seemed to like me when we met. Then I read his piece, and he just went on and on, about how funny-looking I was, you know, and how I was the worst dresser, making me out to be this bizarre freaky little character, in a way that I just wanted to punch him. Then there was this reviewer who loved Dollhouse but couldn’t stop himself from saying the most awful things about the way I look and about the way Heather Matarazzo [the actor who plays Dawn Wiener] looks. Someone in the audience at a screening one time yelled “Freak!” when I walked onstage, and there are people who, without blinking an eye, refer to me as “the geek director.” All these people—to me, they’re exactly like the seventh-graders in Dollhouse whose cruelty I was portraying. And they don’t have a clue!

When I want to show the kind of meanness people are capable of, to make it believable I find I have to tone it down. It’s in real life that people are over the top. And if I have a certain view of how people behave in this regard, it’s because I’ve been a target for a certain kind of comment all my life. Perfect strangers have always felt free to say things to me in the street, or shout things from passing cars.

 

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Todd Solondz’s 12 films

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Feelings (1984)
‘Todd Solondz’s first film shot with sound, Feelings is a two and a half minute movie made as an NYU film school assignment in 1984. Solondz himself takes the lead role of a sensitive young man who finds he can no longer endure life without his beloved (Jan Meredith). Photographed by Andy Day, the film is set to Todd Solondz’s personal rendition of the song “Feelings” by Morris Albert.’ — Mohammed Alhnaid

the entirety

 

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Babysitter (1984)
‘This absurdist short film by director Todd Solondz follows a young male protagonist as he recalls the babysitters of his youth.‘ — Geoff

the entirety

 

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Schatt’s Last Shot (1985)
‘A young Todd Solondz stars in the 10-minute short as geeky high schooler Ezra Schatt, a neurotic, primitive headcase of the young Woody Allen variety. Buried under thick, unseemly glasses and an endlessly dazed expression, Ezra’s worst enemy is basketball. Unable to make a single basket under the brutal pressures of his vulgar gym teacher, Ezra also fails at both impressing the cheerleader of his dreams and realizing his aspirations of attending MIT.’ — Geoff

the entirety

 

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Fear, Anxiety, & Depression (1989)
‘Despite Solondz’ dismissive attitude towards his debut, Fear, Anxiety and Depression is a great and decidedly funny movie (though perhaps not quite up to later films, especially technically), which deserves to be seen, esp. by anyone who considers him/herself a Solondz fan. Since Solondz’ biggest issue seems to have been creative control, perhaps a “director’s cut” – though obviously too late to change many problems – would at least allow Solondz a closer representation of the film he wanted… certainly a proper (indeed, special edition) DVD release of this film is called for in any case.’ — toddsolondz.com

the entirety

 

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Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
‘The title of Todd Solondz’s 1995 film, Welcome to the Dollhouse, serves as ironic commentary on main character Dawn Wiener’s situation (mc domain-universe)-neither welcome nor a pretty doll (mc thematic issue-attraction), she is put in her place and must stay there. Dawn is the eleven-year-old middle child of a middle class family in suburbia, New Jersey. Older brother Mark is a high school computer geek who concentrates on his college resume (objective story focus-certainty); younger sister Missy is a blonde ballerina and apple of mother’s eye. Dollhouse is a psychological (os domain) study of what happens to those who have ideas (os goal-conceiving) about what makes them unique-ideas that differ from the accepted (os solution) norm. They fail (story outcome).’ — Dramatica.com

the entire film

Excerpt

 

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Happiness (1998)
‘The thematic thread that permeates Todd Solondz’s Happiness is deviant masculinity, and each male in the film is burdened with a particular sexual dysfunction that gradually comes to light through displays of perverse or obscene behaviour. Situated among them is Billy Maplewood, the adolescent boy whose burgeoning sexuality emerges as the primary focus of the narrative. In mapping Billy’s horrific trajectory towards maturity, the film’s project is an abject representation of the specific rites of passage that he must undergo in order to accede to manhood. As both an application of, and a re-imagining of Creed’s concepts, Happiness addresses its theme of abject masculinity through the generic conventions of the horror film, adopting a fluid strategy that adheres to, and then traverses the boundaries of her thesis. Masculinity is constructed as monstrous in terms of the very characteristics that shape Billy’s experience of becoming a man; characteristics that are revealed as inherent in the development of his sexual identity.’ — Adam P. Wadenius

Trailer

the entirety

 

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Storytelling (2001)
‘Todd Solondz returns with a characteristically scabrous dissection of the confused motives that can lie behind ‘true-to-life’ writing and documentary film-making. He offers two separate stories (‘Fiction’ and ‘Non-Fiction’) that unfold amid the sadly comical terrain of college and high school. In the first, a young female student has a stranger-than-fiction sexual encounter with her creative writing tutor. In the second, a struggling documentarian sets out to faithfully record the life and thoughts of an ordinary American adolescent, but finds himself irresistibly drawn to the exploitative possibilities of the material.’ — tsc

Trailer

Excerpt

TS on ‘Storytelling’

 

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Palindromes (2004)
‘The Todd Solondz problem will always be in our faces because that’s where he puts it. He doesn’t have the nyah-nyah attack of such punk auteurs as Larry Clark or Harmony Korine—just the opposite: I can’t think of a filmmaker who combines so much aggression with so little affect. But he’s one of the few writer-directors who can earn an NC-17 rating for a movie without nudity or profanity; his films are just so conceptually grotesque that you wouldn’t want to show them to anyone below the age of … I was going to write “40,” but that would be too glib. I actually respect Solondz’s purity of vision and thought Happiness worked beautifully as a sicko sitcom. I also respect his obstinacy: No matter how much his distributors plead for a slightly softer product, he’ll always show us the world through shit-colored glasses. Does Solondz deserve a rating of his own? Say, NR-DS—”Not recommended for persons depressed or suicidal”?’ — Slate

Trailer

the entirety

 

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Life During Wartime (2009)
‘Elegant opening credits, written as if it were calligraphy on a wedding invitation, yield to a couple in blunt close-up—unhappy, interracial, tearfully celebrating their anniversary in a shopping-mall restaurant. After an unfathomable exchange, he presents her with an antique bowl he found on eBay and, after reciting a guffaw-worthy litany of sins, promises to turn over a new leaf. The waitress appears, recognizes the sinner, freaks out, and spits in his tearful face. Violins herald the title: Life During Wartime. Solondz understands the misery of children. But does the filmmaker have compassion or contempt for his characters? Is it possible to feel both? Solondz’s sensibility has obvious affinities to such masters of cruelty as Neil LaBute or, particularly since A Serious Man, the Coen Brothers—but he is less smugly punitive and more obviously tormented. A humanist he’s not, but he does seem allergic to hypocrisy.’ — J. Hoberman

Trailer

Excerpts & interview

 

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Dark Horse (2012)
‘Dark Horse is a psychodrama in the literal sense: Much of it seemingly takes place in Abe’s mind. It’s a terrain cluttered with demons, in the form of feel-bad consumerism, fear of Muslims, sexual neuroses, hypochondria, paternal expectations, sibling competition (Abe’s brother is “marriage material” in every way that Abe is not) and relationships with mother figures that are both stifling and seductive. The origami-like narrative is precariously hinged on a trope borrowed from midcentury soap opera, but its dismantling of otherness is graceful. If “graceful” is not a word you associate with the auteur of Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness, you owe it to yourself to see what Solondz has been up to lately. Dark Horse is the most mature film of his career, and maybe the greatest.’ — LA Weekly

Trailer

Excerpt

Todd Solondz interviewed re: ‘Dark Horse’

 

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Excerpts from the 3013-3014 website course dialogue of the Global Union of Chinese Vassal States (G.U.C.V.S.) Cinema Academy (fall semester) (2013)
‘For this year’s Venice Film Festival, 70 renowned filmmakers made 60-90 second short films. Their concept: Future Reloaded. They that were screened at the festival and just uploaded to YouTube. Well, Todd Solondz owned this little assignment. Remember Life During Wartime? “Are you seeing anyone?” “No, I’m more focused on China right now. Everything else is history, it’s just a question of time.” Todd Solondz presents: Excerpts from the 3013-3014 website course dialogue of the Global Union of Chinese Vassal States (G.U.C.V.S.) Cinema Academy (fall semester) in form of a faux digital interface. A thousand years in the future, Cinema Academy offers a look back at the seminal works of Pre-cortical Implant Western Cinema 1985-2025 by such masters as Michael Bay, Mel Gibson and Leni Riefenstahl, as well as the ancient craft of “writing” and “filming” “stories.”’ — Animal

the entire film

 

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Wiener Dog (2016)
‘Todd Solondz’s new film, “Wiener-Dog,” the story of a dachshund who is shunted between five different homes, is many things at once. It’s a film of anguished tenderness and of scathing derision, a trip from childhood to old age and from suddenly disabused innocence to bitterly remorseful knowledge; it’s a film of cold experience and gleeful parody, aching empathy and crabby prejudice, affecting drama and calculated symbol and freewheeling fantasy; it’s a loopy comedy that bares human strivings, cravings, and frustrations, and a lofty one that shows people as humiliated playthings of greater forces and their own impulses. It’s precise yet wild, exquisite yet imperfect, and its flaws (with one or two specific exceptions) aren’t simply detachable from the rest of the film—they’re emblems of one personality, one world view, in which the noble and the base, the visionary and the vain are inseparable.’ — Richard Brody

Trailer

Excerpt

Todd Solondz Interview Weiner-Dog

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Jack Skelley, Hey, Jack. Yeah, lucky me indeed. Next time you go to Tokyo, it’s a non-miss. I’m heartbroken and shocked about Lahaina. I spent my summers every year as a teen at Napili Beach, staying in this little hotel called The Mauian, that’s still there weirdly, and going ‘into town’ to hang or shop or buy records or score drugs or whatever was Lahaina, so I was there a whole lot. Such a pretty little town. Unbelievable that it’s just gone. Really horrifying. I look forward to confabbing with S. and you whenever. Sounds like I have some catching up to do with you guys. Nice, where’s Thomas’s thing? Have book fair fun. And tell me everything. ** _Black_Acrylic, My pleasure, sir, obviously. I saw that Japan got whacked. That’s sad. I do like Sweden for unknown reasons, so I’m transferring my distant caring to them. You down with them? ** Misanthrope, I do know you like the galeries, and that is a kind of music to my … eyes. ‘Like a champ’: that’s what I like to hear. American English has a sweet, likeable side. Weekend’s a question mark at the moment, but it should be ok. The heat vamoosed, and it’s raining, which is my idea of a perfect summer day. ** Mark, I think it was to be in Kansas, yeah. Or wait, maybe slightly cheated in/near Kansas City, Missouri. You know Efteling. So great! It’s a theme park shaped dream. Thanks in advance for getting me into Luna Luna, man. A hit! Yay! Wow! I’m the subject of a hit! Crazy. I would be excited if I were visiting that Museum too. You’re going to have so much fun! Bring lots of sunscreen! ** Bill, Hey. I don’t know if McCollum’s stuff is polarising, but that would make sense. I’m the opposite. If I were a wealthy art collector, one of the very first things I’d buy is ‘Over Ten Thousand Individual Works’. It gives me the cerebral equivalent of a big boner. Oh, really, I’m more of an out-of-towner than you? I guess so. But, relatively speaking, as compared to other d.l.s here, I think you’re a jet setter. Maybe that’s what I was thinking. Or maybe because when you do travel, it’s usually to way the fuck far away. Awesome that you’re tweaking and practicing. Those are happy making words. As regards you. I hope I can shape these fiction things into things I’m okay with and that there’s enough of them for at least a chapbook. We’ll see. Looks good so far. Thank you, pal. ** Steve Erickson, I think antibiotics cam be slow growers, no? That’s my memory. No, I never wrote for The Wire. That would have been a total joy. I wish they occasionally asked writers to do an Invisible Jukebox. That would be a dream come true if I could do one of those. Sigh. Have you ever thought about writing for The Wire? ** Guy, Hi. Christophe is one of the weird townspeople who appear at the scene’s end and some of whom assault the two Krampus kids. He’s kind of the standoffish ringleader. He has one line: ‘We should take them back to town,’ He was one of the producers of ‘LCTG’, which is why he let us force him into being in it. Sounds like you’ll have raves at your fingertips when you’re in the mood. The interview was fun. We were interviewed by the great writer Derek McCormack who’s very funny and wise, so hopefully it’ll turn out ok. ** Cody Goodnight, Hi, Cody. No problem. Yeah, I grew up on the Twilight Zone. I’m sure it influenced my brain heavily in some fashion. You will let me know if I should watch ‘Kickassia’ because I couldn’t tell from your description. Good old Shaggs. I have to figure out what I’m going to do this weekend. Hm. I’ll do my best to make it a goodie if you do the same re: yours. ** Okay. Todd Solondz hasn’t made a film in what seems like a really long time, and I think this fact provided some of the impetus that made me want to expand and restore the blog’s antique Day about him. Have fun with it? It’s totally possible. See you on Monday.

‘After moving to New York from his hometown of Los Angeles in 1975, Allan McCollum devel­oped an artistic practice that integrated modern­ist painting, conceptual art, and legacies of the readymade as a means to interrogate the ontol­ogy of art. Applying the strategies of mass production to finely crafted handmade objects, McCollum carried modernist reductionism to its parodic extreme by determining and perform­ing the nominal means by which painting, photography, and sculpture are recognized as such. His multiple series of nearly identical paintings and sculptures, however, reveal that those conventions exist not only within the borders of the art objects themselves but also in the relationships and expectations generated by the objects and in the various contexts of art’s distribution and consumption.

‘McCollum began making his Surrogate Paintings in the late 1970s by gluing together wood and museum board to create objects that resembled matted and framed paintings. From these objects, he cast his Plaster Surrogates, now numbering in the hundreds, which are further distanced from painting by the reproductive process of casting and yet are each painted individually by hand. “I reduce all paintings,” McCollum explains, “to a single ‘kind,’ to a universal sign-for-painting.” What appear to be five small, variously sized rectangular black paintings with white mats and reddish frames in Collection of Five Plaster Surrogates (1982/1990) reveal themselves, on closer inspection, to be five solid objects painted with enamel to give the impression of having component parts. Singular and repeatable like a logo, surrogates signify as paintings by virtue of their generic attributes, their contexts, and the mechanisms of display, spectatorship, and sale. This particular Collection of Five Plaster Surrogates (though surrogates evidently disrupt discourses of particularity) appeared in Andrea Fraser’s 1991 performance May I Help You? at American Fine Arts, Co., in New York. Performers in the guise of gallery staff gave visitors a tour of an exhibition of McCollum’s Plaster Surrogates, expressing a variety of reactions, including exclamations of appreciation and distaste as well as incomprehension. Fraser crafted the script using statements about art by dealers and collec­tors as well as quotations from the subjects of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological study Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Fraser’s performance, like McCollum’s surro­gates, enlists the contexts of art—including the gallery space, viewer behavior, and critical discourses—as its primary subject, extending the deconstructive impulses enacted by the surro­gates to art’s institutional and economic frames.

‘McCollum has pursued a comparable mining of the mediums of photography and drawing. In 1982 he began his Perpetual Photo series by photographing his televi­sion screen whenever he spotted a framed picture within the diegetic space of the scene. He then photographically isolated and enlarged the overlooked picture, which had been distrib­uted instantaneously as light rays to millions of television sets, to produce a highly abstract photograph, reframed and hung on the wall. He also attached to the back of each framed piece the snapshot of the TV screen showing the framed picture on the wall, the source for the enlarged and cropped Perpetual Photo. The large-scale photographs of murky black-and-white patterns frustrate the physical claims of the photographic index through a simulacral process of transmission that traffics in light, distance, time, and the process of close looking.

‘McCollum began his Drawings project in 1989 by creating custom-designed stencils from a set of forty curves, which form the basic vocabulary of all the drawings. Using the stencils, he has produced by hand hundreds of different graphite drawings (ensuring that no two are the same), which he displays in groups numbering in multiples of thirty. A group of 120 was included in the exhibi­tion. Continually straddling the margins of singular/multiple, beautiful/banal, and deci­pherable/indecipherable, McCollum’s many series critically occupy the place of art in a world of mass industrial production.’ — Ruth Erickson

 

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Further

Allan McCollum Site
AM @ Petzel Gallery
AM @ Galerie Mitterrand
Book: ‘Allan McCollum
An Interview with Allan McCollum
Michelle Grabner on Allan McCollum
Allan McCollum wants the drama of quantities
Piece Piece: Interview with Allan McCollum
Harrell Fletcher by Allan McCollum
A Conversation with Allan McCollum: Mass-Producing Individual Works
Allan McCollum: The Book of Shapes
Allan McCollum: Early Works
Oral history interview with Allan McCollum, 2010 February 23-April 9
Art and Its Surrogates: Allan McCollum at Petzel Gallery

 

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Extras

Allan McCollum on Collectibles

Allan McCollum: “Over Ten Thousand Individual Works”

Artists at the Institute: Allan McCollum

 

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Interview

 

D.A. Robbins: The surrogates are clearly “fake paintings,” imitations of paintings. I’m curious as to whether you have contempt for painting.

Allan McCollum: Well, to begin with, I don’t think that it’s only my surrogates which, are imitations of paintings – paintings are imitations of paintings in some way, aren’t they? With each one reflecting every other one? No, I don’t think I have contempt for painting; that would be like having contempt for culture. Paintings are everywhere you look; they’re all over the place – like cars, or buildings.

There is some parody, I think, in the way I reduce all paintings to a single “kind,” to a universal sign-for-a- painting; the gesture can be read as an ironic mimicry of modernist reduction, for instance, or as some kind of reference to the relations between modern art and modern industrial production – people can make these associations. But my interests are much more centered on discovering what kind of an object a painting is in an emotional sense, without the patriarchal noise of aesthetics intruding into the relationship. What is it we want from art that our belief in “content” works to hide from us?

DR: When I visit a gallery or a museum, I am seeking out objects to meet a need. That need is fulfilled through a pseudo-event engaged in with a real, physical object. I believe the surrogates catch me in the act of seeking out this emotional connection with inanimate objects, and force it back onto me. They do not allow for the same kind of release that the conventional art object is made to transact.

AM: Well, that’s just what I’m trying to do, to frustrate the habitual mislocation of meaning within the objects, yes; and that’s why the paintings are so “reduced,” you see, that’s why I reduce them to simple tokens of exchange. The other day I read a remark by the psychoanalyst and pediatrician D. W. Winnicott which I thought was nicely put, in which he claims that there is no such thing as a “baby,” because “if you set out to describe a baby you will find you are describing a baby and someone.” It’s the same with the art object, of course, and I’m interested in locating the meaning of my work – and the emotional content of my work – somewhere within those transactions which occur between the various “someones” who are involved in the artwork’s circulation. To do this, I have to try to dislocate the object’s so-called content. When we speak of a content as residing somehow within the art object, we disregard the object’s meaning as an item of exchange in the real, social world, and replace this with all sorts of imaginary constructs.

DR: What do you think a person is really “looking for” when he or she walks over to look at a painting?

AM: Well, that’s a big question. My theory is that one approaches an artwork to displace some anxiety, or to achieve some feeling of safety and security – freedom from fear. Through artworks people for themselves an imaginary sense of freedom. But this feeling of freedom can be constructed in lots of different ways, of course. On the most conscious level, I guess, it can be evoked through illustrative devices, in an overt way: pictures of “nature,” nudity, leisure activity, travel, that sort of thing. Freedom from moral conflict may be suggested by images of innocent children, animals, happy peasants, righteous patriots, religious heroes, “artistic” eroticism, and so forth. We shouldn’t forget the moral purity of “pure form,” either, the ideal space of the “non-representational.” There are the expressionisms, too, which invite the viewer to identify with the spontaneity of the artist himself, his freedom from the strictures of tradition, his freedom to be creative, to express rage and passion, etc.

But I think these are all fairly obvious devices, and they don’t really accomplish too much by themselves – the cinema does most of this so much better than painting anyway. The real sense of imaginary freedom we seek out through art comes through our wishful identification with the forces of money and power which we associate as supporting it, or underwriting it. We identify with the art’s patronage; we find a feeling of safety and security by imagining that we belong to an elite group of some kind: a group whose tastes we share and who will protect us from harm. If one has money and power on one’s side, we believe we are free from all significant anxiety.

DR: So art in general represents a pleasurable suspension of conflict.

AM: Yes, I think so. But because art works to contain anxiety, it also comes to represent anxiety, to invoke it, to speak for it. An effective work of art can render out of us anxieties we never knew we had, and in turn, mediate the repression of these anxieties in an orderly, socially acceptable way.

It is the expectancy of this transformation that I’m trying to effect in a viewer, without offering its fulfillment. I’m trying to create a susceptibility, a vulnerability, to that sort of emotional deferral, but stopping short: trying to create the experience of subjectivity rather than creating subjective experience.

DR: How did this come to be the focus of your work?

AM: Well, I think this focus originally grew out of an interest in the idea of “defining” painting, the notion of reducing painting to a simple set of essential terms, and then “expressing yourself’ within those terms. This was what a lot of painters seemed to be thinking about in the late Sixties and early Seventies. I began to see this sort of thinking as really absurd, somehow. It seemed to me that every conceivable description of a painting that one might offer to define its “essence” or its “terms” could always be found to also define some other, similar object which was not a painting – except for one: a painting always has the identity of a painting; a painting is what it is because it is a convention. It exists precisely because the culture makes a place for it. As a definition, of course, this is a lot like saying, “a painting is something often found over a couch,” and yet it was exactly this sort of common sense definition which I felt was missing in all that other formalist debate. The “terms” of painting are the terms of the world-at- large! An artwork is related to every other object and event in the cultural system, and the meaning of an artwork resides in the role the artwork plays in the culture, before anything else.

DR: Art as a distinctly non-transcendent activity.

AM: This seemed like an important truth to keep in mind, and yet I found it difficult to think of a painting as simply a term within a whole set of other terms precisely because I couldn’t picture a painting that didn’t aspire to be a world-in- itself. Such paintings didn’t seem to exist. So I took it upon myself to create a model, a standard sign-for-a-painting which might represent nothing more than the identity of painting in the world of other objects.

DR: As if creating an advertisement for painting, or better still, art object.

AM: Yes, like an advertisement, or a logo. I wanted to install a useful image in my mind and in the minds of others. My first impulse was to make only one painting, and exhibit it over and over again, to create a sort of archival object – like the government’s Bureau of Standards maintains the standard “inch” in platinum. But this solution eliminated the possibility of exchange transactions – and how could a thing represent an art object if it couldn’t be bought and sold?

I ultimately decided to use a single but repeatable image, one which I could vary minimally in size and proportion, but which remained essentially the same: a frame, a mat, and a black center. I made many of these out of wood from 1978 until 1982, at which time I began to cast them in plaster from rubber molds. At this point I dropped the designation “painting” and began to call them “plaster surrogates.”

DR: So you’ve fabricated a sort of generic painting. Was your decision to use molds related to increasing the volume of your production?

AM: Sure, but also because plaster as a material carries with it the connotation of artificiality, and I needed this nuance to accelerate the theatricality of my installations. Without really anticipating it, you see, I was becoming something of an installation artist. After mounting a few exhibits, I learned quickly that the surrogates worked to their best effect when they came across as “props” – like stage props – which pointed to a much larger melodrama than could ever exist merely within the paintings themselves. The surrogates, via their reduced attributes and their relentless sameness, started working to render the gallery into a quasi- theatrical space which seemed to “stand for” a gallery; and by extension, this rendered me into a sort of caricature of an artist, and the viewers became performers, and so forth. In trying to objectify the conventions of art production, I theatricalized the whole situation without exactly intending to. But, even so, there it was.

At this point, I think, I let myself become the victim of my own thesis, so lo speak. The artificiality of the work functioned pretty well to displace content, as I intended, but it also gave me no outlet for the very real desperation that underlay my drive to make art in the first place. I think it was the nightmarishness of this no-exit situation that triggered the exaggerated and obsessional repetitiveness of my work as it exists now. By removing the possibility of catharsis through the work itself, I led myself into a kind of madness of production.

DR: Which, given the international nature of the art world’s structures, and the production demands made on artists to supply those structures with objects, seems a very appropriate “madness” to engage. You engaged your work over into psychoanalysis.

AM: Yes, I think so. Once I began to locate the content of my work as dispersed throughout that whole behavioral complex of exchanges and meanings that is the art world, I began to discover the powerful grip of all those emotions which go into making, showing, buying, selling, and looking at art. There’s a lot more at stake in these transactions than meets the eye, so to speak. You and I participate in a sect, a sect in which all the action pivots on this single token, the art object; but it’s the emotional politics surrounding this token which provide the meaning and the value. The artwork is always just a substitute, a surrogate.

DR: The fetishistic center of our attention.

AM: Yes, the artwork is a kind of fetish – a kind of substitute for real power, or maybe I mean a kind of sign representing imaginary power. Like I said, we look at art for security, security against loss or death. I’ve tried to design these surrogates to invite a fetishistic attachment, the kind of attachment one might develop towards a literal sign, like maybe the old Coca Cola sign, for instance. Remember how adolescent boys liked to steal public street signs and hang them in their bedrooms? Appropriating the signs which emanate from authority? I make my work smooth and shiny, with many coats of enamel, to humanize them. Their corners are slightly rounded, they’re small, they’re nice and solid. One can carry them around, one can put them in a purse, one can wash them…

DR: They’re user-friendly.

AM: Well, maybe. But anything designed to function as a fetish shouldn’t be trusted, I suspect. I think a fetish inevitably represents the fear of the absence it is meant to replace, and is therefore a kind of scary object. A fetish is a function of fear. It is in this area that I try to Draw parallels between the art object and the object produced for mass- consumption; both rely on fear for their circulation. Advertising works to make us insecure about what we lack, and then offers us the fetish-object designed to displace this anxiety: the product. All the while, the vast economic powers which underwrite the entire system of industrial production work to intimidate us from above, creating the insecurity and feelings of helplessness which make us susceptible to this kind of ploy in the first place. So the mass-produced consumer product, then, as a fetish, both threatens us and offers us freedom at the same time. We are seduced, of course; it’s just a cheap trick.

 

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Plaster Surrogates, 1982 – 1990

Two Hundred and Eighty-eight Plaster Surrogates

 

60 Plaster Surrogates (No. 3)

 

Fifteen Plaster Surrogates

 

Five Plaster Surrogates

 

One Plaster Surrogate

 

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Lost Objects, 1991
‘Lost Objects features 240 cast concrete bones replicated from the fossil collection of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. This sculpture links the contemporary artwork to the natural wonder, establishing a connection between the art institution and its eighteenth century predecessor, the cabinet of curiosities. These bygone exhibition spaces offered an eclectic assortment of oddities, such as dinosaur bones, alongside artworks. Central to McCollum’s work is this rub between artifact and artwork.’

 

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Visible Markers in Twelve Exciting Colors, 2000

 

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A Symphony for the Hearing Impaired in 1000 Each-unique Movements, 2019-2021

 

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Over Ten Thousand Individual Works, 1987/88
‘Over Ten Thousand Individual Works consists of over ten thousand hand-sized cast plaster (Hydrocal) shapes, each 2 inches in diameter and varying in length from 2 to 5 inches. The shapes were created from rubber molds the artist made from a few hundred found objects, such as bottle caps, toys, door pulls and other parts of mass-produced items. The parts were pieced together using an arithmetic system in such a way that no two would be alike. The works were hand cast and hand painted by dozens of helpers working for months in different small loft spaces in New York City. The specific width and depth of the table the objects rest upon is changed to suit each location, but the Individual Works are always placed in a dense, orderly array.’

 

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Lands of Shadow and Substance, 2014
‘Allan McCollum viewed the original Twilight Zone episodes from 1959 to 1964 on his laptop computer, capturing screenshots of scenes that included landscape paintings. Images of those paintings were digitally edited, printed, and custom framed to create the series entitled Lands of Shadow and Substance. Each of the 27 works in the series has been printed proportionally to its original televised incarnation.’

 

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The Shapes Project, 2005/06
‘In his Shapes Project, McCollum designed a system to produce and keep track of unique graphic emblems for every person on earth.’

 

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Perfect Vehicles, 1985 – 1990

 

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The Writer’s Daughter, 2021
‘A few years ago, I became hypnotized looking at a page on which a highly intelligent two-year-old named Minu Mansoor-McKee, the daughter of a writer friend and art historian Jaleh Mansoor, had attempted to write letters and words before she fully understood the concept of language and the way it can be written. As with all of us, Minu’s attempt to record meaning on paper took time and effort.

‘Jaleh let me have a page of Minu’s attempts at writing. I have spent years looking at it, feeling enchanted by the way the child searched for meaning and how I continue to try to understand my life. Each one of her 108 different attempts to construct little shapes of letters became symbols for me.

‘Without fully understanding what led me to do it, I started scanning the shapes, enlarging and tracing them onto papers with ink, and framing each one. Framing things invites greater meaning to be discovered in what finds itself inside the frame, and the meaning will evolve more over time.’

 

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The Dog From Pompei, 1990
Polymer – Modified Hydrocal

 

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The Shapes Project: Shapes Spinoffs, 2005-2014
Hand-lathed ash wood

 

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Double sided postcard, 1980

 

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An Ongoing Collection of Screengrabs with Reassuring Subtitles, 2015-ongoing

 

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THE EVENT: Petrified Lightning from Central Florida (With Supplemental Didactics), 2000
‘McCollum spent the summer of 1997 triggering lightning strikes by launching small rockets with hair-thin copper wires trailing behind them directly into storm clouds as they passed overhead. The triggered lightning bolts were directed down the wires into various containers prepared by the artist that were filled with Central Florida minerals donated by a local sand mining operation. The bolts instantly liquefied a column of sand with temperatures up to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit. This immediately recongealed into a column of naturally created glass that exactly duplicated the path of the lightning bolt. These were then dug out by the artist in a manner similar to the way a paleontologist might remove a fragile fossil from its matrix. The result is the fulgurite, or what is sometimes referred to as petrified lightning.

‘Using a mixture of epoxy and zircon, 10,000 fulgurites were cast from a single mold. Through this process, McCollum specifically explored the creation of objects by lightning. In this way he also deconstructed commonly held ideas of instant production of objects, and popular metaphors that are often used to describe the processes of creativity, as with our fantasies of receiving “illumination” from above, being “struck” with an idea like a “bolt from the blue.”

‘As another element of the installation, he produced a series of 10,000 small booklets on fifty subjects related to fulgurites and lightning. This arrangement provided the equal balance between the visual and scientific content that was integral to the exhibition.’

 

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Perpetual Photos, 1982 -ongoing
‘When I see a picture frame that contains an indecipherable image in the background of a television scene, I take a snapshot of the TV screen. I then enlarge this indecipherable image photographically, and put it in a new, larger frame of my own. The source of the Perpetual Photo – the original snapshot taken from the TV screen – is pasted on the back of the frame, only to be viewed by removing the Perpetual Photo from the wall and turning it around. What I find poignant in the Perpetual Photos is that no matter how many times you enlarge the little blurs in the picture frames, you’re no closer to any answers to any questions. Part of the beauty the images have for me is the way they invite a futile impulse to use logic in an attempt to discover an emotional truth. And because these pictures are in a constant state of appearing and disappearing.’

 

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Shapes from Maine, 2009
‘Since 1995, Allan McCollum has designed a sequence of projects involving various regions of the world, exploring ways in which people construct and identify themselves and their communities with emblems and symbols, sometimes based on local traditions, regional history, and geological or geographic distinctions. 2005 Shapes Project — a system he created to produce (and keep track of) enough unique graphic emblems for every person on the planet, without repeating — he began to think about the Northeast of the United States, where he himself lives, and especially the state of Maine, which he has visited only once. He became attracted to the pride Maine’s inhabitants take in the traditions of homecraft, and decided to research artists and artisans of the state who offer custom creations to the public through maintaining their own websites, and who run small businesses out of their homes.

‘Without ever meeting in person, and after much back-and-forth email conversation, four of the home-based business owners expressed interest in working with him, and he ordered a selection of custom, hand-made “Shapes” objects for the present exhibition. The folks from Maine who helped McCollum produce the over 2200 one-of-a-kind works in this exhibit are:

‘Holly and Larry Little, founders of Aunt Holly’s Copper Cookie Cutters, in Trescott, Maine, designers and makers of copper cookie cutters; Horace and Noella Varnum, founders of Artasia, in Sedgwick, Maine, designers and makers of wooden ornaments using scrollsaw techniques; Wendy Wyman and Bill Welsh, founders of Repeat Impressions in Freeport, Maine, designers and makers of hand-crafted rubber stamps; and Ruth Monsell, founder of Artful Heirlooms, in Damariscotta, Maine, portrait artist and maker of hand-cut silhouettes.’

 

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Website, 2020

See it here

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Charalampos, Hi. Okay, I understand. Interesting. I kept a diary for a while when I was teenager, but I burned it because I found out my mom was snooping in my room and reading it secretly. Efteling is quite large in scale with a lot of great rides and attractions. It’s my favorite amusement park. You’d need at least a full day. The last time I went I stayed in the theme hotel and spend 1 1/2 days in the park, and that seemed about right. Thanks about ‘God Jr.’. Like I think I’ve said, the last section of that novel is my favorite thing I’ve ever written. ** Jack Skelley, Hey, J-j. Tokyo DisneySea is voted the greatest amusement park in the world every year when the theme park enthusiasts make their collective favourites list. I went there. It’s pretty fucking great. That big fake mountain the middle with rides hidden inside is really something. Yes, RIP Robbie Robertson. I think the first two Band albums are as great as rock has ever been. And the third one is very good. Not to mention ‘The Basement Tapes’. I think the second self-titled Band album is an absolutely perfect album, that rare thing. Yeah, let’s talk with Sabrina soon. When’s good? I’m available, and I presume she is as well. Love, me. ** _Black_Acrylic, I saw that UK coaster story, of course, relentless me. I like that new psychedelic kit even better. Stylin’. ** Mark, Hi, Mark. I just wrote back to you, email-wise. Yeah, there was an ambitious WoO park planned in the midwest that never got off the planning stage sadly. For one. A trip to Efteling where ‘Danse Macabre’ will be located is highly, highly recommended. Best theme park, for my money. Cool about Luna Luna. Wow, next year, you say? So, how is the fair and how was the opening? Damn, pain inside at missing that. ** Nick Toti, Oh, yeah, that Sigmund Snopek doc sounds so very interesting. Really best luck with the finishing. There are some effects in our film that we just can’t begin to do, even though I think they’re pretty simple to realise by movie effects standards. We’re hunting an effects person who’s good but very inexpensive. Prayers, etc. We need to get a viewable if un-finessed version of the film ready to submit to three festivals in late September -> October. To actually finish the film with adequate sound mix/design and pro color correction, we’re hoping to get one of the grants we’re applying for. The idea is the film would be absolutely finished by, oh, December, mid-December at the latest. That’s the plan/hope. Do you have a deadline for yours? ** Misanthrope, When it comes to you, I somehow have powers of prescience. Fun birthday? Yes, yes, say yes. Being right twice a day is actually pretty good, let’s face it. ** Dee Kilroy, Hi. I love roller coasters, but I totally get it. Don’t be afraid of dark rides. Or most of them. They barely effect your brain much your body. I’m like you are with coasters in movies but about the space station, space walks, etc. I literally have a mini-nervous breakdown when that stuff comes onscreen. ** Steve Erickson, Yes, that’s very true about Shiraishi’s take on the cosmic. Excellent eye-brain-combo, as usual. I suspect that taking LSD anywhere in mainland China would be a huge mistake for all kinds of reasons. Sinus infection, could be worse, I guess? My ear is … a little better. I really have to start putting my one earphone in the other ear. There are a few websites devoted to discovering and listing future theme parks and their attractions. I look at them occasionally, no surprise. So I found stuff there. And via some specific searches re: location, ride type, etc. ** Bill, Hi. Well, Zac and I hope/plan to go to Japan once the film is a real thing, so I’ll hit up all of the Japanese ones. And the two in France. The German one is shortish drive, so maybe that. And any within reach of LA, of course. I’ve never been to Cedar Point, insanely enough, so a trip to Ohio for that is guaranteed. You’re about to head off again. What’s that old, awful but applicable song … uh … oh, ‘Lord, I (or in this case you) Was Born a Traveling’ Man’. If you get your site online in time, do let me/us know please. ** Guy, Hi! Honore is in Zac’s and my film ‘Like Cattle Towards Glow’. Not for long, but he’s there. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. He’s in the snow/Krampus scene. No, ‘Room Temperature’ is in English. Gosh, thank you, pal. I hear you about the bureaucracy, I’ve needed to get a certain kind of visa for ages, but I keep procrastinating. French bureaucracy is famously especially dense and torturous. Go to the rave. Or I hope you did. I’d go to a rave if there was one. Nice. I’m gonna work and then Zac and I are being interviewed about ‘Room Temperature’ for a magazine. That’s my immediate future. xo. ** Darbz 🐦, Hi. The reception from your planet to mine seems pretty sterling. NYC in the 80s was complicated. AIDS killed a lot of friends, and that was beyond horrifying. The city itself, or parts of it, was fun, wild, still kind of raw. ‘Intense’ is a good word for it. I guess ‘really fucked’ is too. Fuck those losers with a ten foot pole. Make it a hundred foot pole, although I guess ten would be sufficient. And, yes, now you’re here. Or you were yesterday. I’m okay, things are bit fucked, but I’m ok. I’m just working on the film and still trying to see if I can fix up enough stray short fiction pieces to make a little book of them. I obviously hope you finish the all but finished draft. But drawing is good too. Duh. See you, see you, see you! ** Okay. I’m very fond of Allan McCollum’s work, so I gave him a show in my little galerie without even asking him. That’s it. See you tomorrow.