ART21: Tell us something about the backstory of the tree used in your installation, Neukom Vivarium.
DION: On the evening of February 8, 1996, a massive hemlock tree fell over a ravine in a small area of old growth about forty-five miles outside Seattle, in a protected watershed area. Therefore, it didn’t touch the ground and...
ART21: Is there an element of role-play or performance in the work?
DION: My work has a pretty complicated relationship to performance. Part of that is because there’s no traditional audience-performer relationship. But there is a Bouvard and Pécuchet element in my work: in a way, I’m working through the natural sciences as a...
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, "Le Baiser/The Kiss, " video still, 2000. Multi-channel video installation and projection, CD audio recording, and mixed media, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Max Protetch, New York.
ART21: Do you think growing up on three different continents has an impact on your work today?
ART21: When did you first come to the United States?
VON RYDINGSVARD: I came to this country in 1950, in December, and I started school right away. They put me in fourth grade. I don’t quite know why, because I was only eight years old. I was also in fourth again the following year, but I learned English in about six months. I...
ART21: Tell us about your four pieces, including Damski Czepek, that were installed in Madison Square Park in New York City.
VON RYDINGSVARD: I think the project at Madison Square Park evolved about three years ago. The urethane bonnet was extraordinarily time-consuming. I did the entire bonnet out of cedar first, and the...
ART21: What would you say making art is about, for you?
ADAMS: Recently I saw someone—I can’t remember who it was—who said that the essence of the creative act is determining what the question is. Once you have the question, then it’s all pretty much in the can. I believe if your list of questions is long, that shows you’re on...
"I use a lot of repetition. And it becomes a filmic way of talking because as you put the same image after the other, even though it’s the exact identical image, everyone sees something changing from one image to the next."
