Monday, May 7, 2012
Country Life Joan Didion, Mike Kelley and Paul Cezanne: 10 Questions for Christine Rogers
Posted by Laura Hutson on Mon, May 7, 2012 at 9:33 AM
What's the last show that you saw?
The last show I saw was Bombino and William Tyler at the VFW Hall on Charlotte. It was completely amazing and I felt lucky to have been present for such a wonderful event.
What's the last show that surprised you? Why?
The last show that really surprised and dazzled me was the Mary Reid Kelley's The Syphilis of Sisyphus at Fredericks and Freiser in New York. I love her work, the first time I saw it was at Site Santa Fe in a drawing show even though I would describe her work as video art. Her work is mind blowing and she is a quintuple threat: an amazing poet, actress, costume maker, director, scholar. Any time an artist so fully realizes a world vision I am in awe of their talent. I also can't resist her nerdiness and bookishness. Anytime my contemporary art is that genuinely smart and adept at referencing literature and history to that extent I'm pretty enthralled.
What's your favorite place to see art in Nashville?
I don't have a favorite place in particular, but from lectures, films and various shows I feel busy and fulfilled seeing art here.
Where are you finding ideas for your work these days?
The Internet, YouTube, previous projects of mine that felt unresolved, friends, walking, driving around, films, fiction and poetry.
Do you collect anything?
Not really, I don't like to own a lot of stuff particularly, but I do have a hard time throwing away receipts for some reason and get kind of nostalgic when I go through them to finally throw them away. It makes my wallet and purse a little ridiculous at times.
What's the weirdest thing you ever saw happen in a museum or gallery?
The word weird is tough here, but some of the more memorable things I've seen in a museum or gallery would either be Mike Kelley's Day is Done show at Gagosian or Marina Abramović's retrospective at MoMA. I had a friend once who was a gallery guard at the ICA in Boston and she told me that she saw a father once rip off part of a sculpture because he thought it might hurt his son. I wasn't there, but that was definitely the weirdest, craziest thing I've ever heard of happening at a gallery.
What's your art-world pet peeve?
I am trying to have less peeves these days...
Do you have a gallery/museum-going routine?
None in particular.
What's the last great book you read?
After years of being way too obsessed with James Joyce's "Ulysses," I read "Play it as it Lays" by Joan Didion one rainy and cold summer afternoon in Boston. I love Joan Didion. Not unlike Joyce and Dublin, I have always loved the idea of an artist owning a particular region in terms of their ability to encapsulate it in a description. Her description of L.A. and the landscape between Las Vegas and Los Angeles feels like that for me, and as a lover of that region, I hold her books, particularly this one, in high regard ... "When that failed she imagined herself driving, conceived of audacious lane changes, strategic shifts of gear, the Hollywood to the San Bernadino and straight on out, past Barstow, past Baker, driving straight on into the hard white empty core of the world. She slept and did not dream." - Joan Didion
What work of art do you wish you owned?
Either Cezanne's "Apples and Oranges" or Roni Horn's "Pink Tons" would be quite nice to own.
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