ART21: Do you feel that your work relates directly to your life?
ALI: On some level you make things because you have to. There’s a kind of electrical energy in you that means you have to do this thing. I think that a lot of my creative output has to do with that. I have to have a place to put whatever electrical or chemical...
ART21: Do you think that the term portrait accurately describes your work?
ALI: Just the ones that I've recently done of single figures. The way that they're cropped is in reference to ubiquitous portraiture, formal portraiture. So, I call them portraits, but I mean a portrait that really isn't of someone who exists; these don'...
ART21: Can you talk about first making art when you moved back to New York in the 1970s?
APPLEBROOG: As I said before, now I consider myself a generic artist. When I started out, I came to New York in about ’74. At that time I didn’t know anyone. I was a New Yorker, but I’d been away for a long time. So, I came back and I...
ART21: Can you talk about how the Iwaki village in Japan has changed over time, from your visit many years ago to today, and how the boat piece, Reflection, came about?
ART21: Can you talk about the El Greco poster that’s hanging in your studio? Are his paintings an influence on your work?
CAI: Cultural exchange is very important. People are always asking, “What is it you’re interested in art, historically? Who has influenced you the most in art history?” These are repeated questions that I...
ART21: What is the role of the viewer in your work?
HUBBARD: Embedded in how we make and exhibit and how we think about these works is the requirement that a viewer participate in the authorship of the story. I don’t want you to lose yourself in the same way that you’re being taken on a rollercoaster ride, which is the common...
"Often when you're in the process of realizing an image, it's going somewhere else. If that tangent starts going off in a place that feels more exciting, that's what I go with."
