INTERVIEW Graham Hall

Is an artist based in Montreal.

'2013' will be showing at Monastiraki from April 3-27. 

******************************************************************

On 3 April, 2014, the year 2013 is revisited by a crowd of people relishing one of the first days of spring in Montreal. The window is full of fresh flowers in dialogue with a 5-foot-tall, 3-dimensional pyramid characterized by bold colors contained in a geometric style. The works on the wall are highly mathematical and controlled, but the order lends a sense of calm instead of restriction. Inviting its viewer to think about the past in its relationship to history, the present, and the future, Graham Hall’s work succeeds as both retrospect and potentiality. Once the crowd thinned out nearing the end of the night, I had the chance to talk with Graham about his work, steamies vs toasties, and Muddy Waters.

Just to open it up, tell us a bit about the body of work – any inspiration, challenges, etc?

Initially this work was inspired by a couple of postcards that I dug out of my files, which I had initially bought many years ago in Venice, which depicted some of the floor pavements in the Basilica St. Marco, attributed to Paolo Uccello – the Great Renaissance Master. I wanted to see if I could reproduce them in some kind of way. I liked the 3-D effects in them and I was attracted to trying to be very, very precise in the making of the work. It was kind of a personal challenge, I guess, to see if I could do it and see where I could take it after I theoretically would be able to do it. Because it’s very, very math-based, lots of geometry, and I’ve always been terrified of mathematics (laughter).

Do you think that there’s a specific time and place in the artist’s life when a personal challenge is necessary?

For me, it’s something that comes up constantly, but without realizing that I’m setting it up. I’ve produced several bodies of work over the years, that were very interesting to me initially, just to do, to make something that would hopefully be beautiful in the end, but that then required (as the series went on) a really serious amount of heavy work. A really, really tight, labor-intensive process. And I guess the reason that I follow through with it is because I either know that the end result will be great, because of the first couple of attempts, or I’m looking forward to what the result will be, which is an unknown. If I do this, and this and this and this, eventually I will come to an end and then I’ll have this thing, if all goes well (laughter).

Even if the end isn’t necessarily ideal, the piece still exists.

To me it matters that you get to that point. The work will often start in a very expressive way, and usually very, very quickly it turns into that labor-intensive process that has in its sights, in the end, the creation of a piece that I want to look at.

Why are there flowers in the window tonight?

Another inspiration for this body of work was the reading of Umberto Eco’s On Beauty, so I became interested in beauty and ideas of beauty. And flowers, I think it’s pretty generally agreed, are beautiful things, so that’s one aspect of flowers in the window. I had conceived of the idea of having an abundance of flowers in the window prior to the passing of my former professor, Maestro Peter Porcal, and since his passing, it sort of turned into this idea of not just celebrating spring and having joy in the beauty of flowers, but also, kind of a tribute to this great man who influenced me in so many ways.

What is your favorite Montreal food joint when you’re drunk?

Usually at home (laughter). But on the rare occasion that I am out on the town, getting shit-faced, very rare occasion, Chez Claudette is a hop, skip and a jump away from where I live, so I guess if I were to choose something, it would be something that is close to home, so that I can then stumble up the stairs with a belly full of poutine.

Toastie or Steamie?

Steamie.

Best new book you’ve read?

I’ve not quite finished it, but, I have been reading, very slowly, Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be?. Which is amazing. Sheila, I knew, not very well – friends of friends – back when I lived in Toronto. In fact, back then, she was the first person whom I didn’t know very well, who told me that they really enjoyed my artwork. So I felt it important to read one of her books. The funny thing is, I know a few people in the book (laughter). Not well, but I definitely know some of them, and I certainly know many of the places. It feels very familiar, and especially the situations that she’s writing about, for me, over the past couple of months, I very much identify with.

What music are you listening to?

Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of electric blues. I recently bought Muddy Waters’ 1968 electric album called Electric Mud, which is really awesome. It’s pretty clear that they’re just jamming away. There’s a really out-of-tune clarinet solo in one of the songs, which is a little bit off-putting, but most of it is this really great bluesy – well, not just bluesy – but full on Muddy Waters blues, fuzzed-out porno funk; it’s pretty awesome. I’m liking that. I’m liking Them with Van Morrison, and early Rolling Stones, and Yardbirds. And I always go back to Stooges, MC5.

What’s going on with the Malaysia flight? What does it mean for contemporary thought?

Well, it means that we’re reminded once again that we’re at the mercy of the universe. We like to think because we’ve got iPhones and all that shit, that we’re in control but obviously we’re not. I worry that it feeds into Bermuda Triangle garbage thinking, but a year or two from now they’ll find something just like the Air France flight that crashed off Brazil a couple years ago. It’s a tragedy, and it’s too bad that we immediately think, (gasp), “Oh, is it terrorism?” But tragedies happen, and random shit fuckin’ happens, you know? And that’s life. I know that very well (laughter).

Any closing remarks; something that has been running through your head recently?

Something that went through my mind last week – I was thinking about the fact that all this work in the show is from the previous year: what does that mean? And I thought, well, I think about history a lot. I thought, looking towards the past, is ultimately, a wish for hope in the future. And a search, or yearning for Romance in the present. 

Interview conducted by Tara Slaughter

INTERVIEW Emma Senft

-->

Is an artist based in Montreal, where she focuses on making objects and images, and obsessively pickling, preserving and fermenting food. Her practice focuses around drawing, printmaking, sculpture and installation. In 2011 she received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in Halifax, including a term at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland.

Casting will be showing at Monastiraki from 1 November to 1 December, 2013. You can find her website here.

***********************************************************************

On 1 November 2013, Monastiraki was warm with bodies and voices orbiting the front of the gallery, interacting with Senft’s work. And it wasn’t the glance-hmmm-nod type of interaction (that’s altogether too bourgy, and we all know that). The knit-like patterns evoke a trance of sorts; eyes doing infinite loops while remaining grounded in the soft, sinewy line work. The pieces are at once taxing and sedative, a quality of art that creates a rare sense of breathing room for the viewer. Following the patterns is a commitment, yet pausing is an acceptable and, perhaps, essential facet. It’s quite clear that Senft won’t be a starving artist (she pickles). As the night was coming to an end, Senft and I spoke about untouchable art, pig noses, and people who don’t have secrets.

In your artist statement, you mention taking your drawing ‘beyond the page.’ Can you talk a bit more about that?

My dad was a sculptor, so I grew up in a metal shop. When I did end up going to art school, I didn’t take any sculpture classes. I still haven’t really acknowledged or found where that resistance laid. So that led me into other venues – a lot of which was printmaking. That’s where I really learned paper, surface, line, that kind of thing. And when I left school, a lot of that translated to drawing, because that was what was affordable and accessible .and easy Once I start to look back, I realize that everything I make or have made is this obsession with surface, materiality, form, line. And all that goes back to, really I think, love of sculpture, and that being the initial education. So I think that’s where my desire to take it [my work] ‘beyond drawing,’ comes from. It’s like, “Yeah, I made this drawing,” and then I’m interested in it, but I want it to be more. I want to make things that are 3-D or malleable or more physical. And bigger or touchable.

Which seems to be embodied by your installation in the window. The changing shadows throughout the day was a great surprise.

That piece is about the material but it’s also about the surface it hangs on. Because it casts multiple-layered shadows, so it’s really about how it interacts with the surface behind it. I’ve always hung it on a wall and made sure it was lit in an interesting way. But now it’s hung on a surface that has two sides, so it’s doubled in that sense where it has that extra layer, which is really exciting.

Tonight, we’ve seen people touching the installation, adding a third element to the piece. What are your feelings on viewer interaction; should people touch art?

This is really my dad – I grew up [with the idea] that you touch art, that’s what you do. If there’s a sign that says, ‘Don’t touch the art,’ that’s bullshit. Now when it’s a print or a drawing, I don’t necessarily believe that. You know, if you have clean hands and you’ve handled paper before and you know what you’re doing – great, touch it. But it’s hard to let the general public touch a drawing because it’s going to be destroyed. [The installation in the window is made out of] EPDM, but it’s like sheet rubber, essentially. It’s pretty durable, and everybody sees it and they have no idea what it is, and they’re so interested. So I’m always telling people, “Touch it, here, just feel this, you know? Move it around.” They’re like, “Really, are you sure?” “Yeah, please, this will give you an understanding of what you’re looking at,” you know? This explains the sculpture if you realize what the material is. I’m very for touching sculpture, touching art.

 Also in your artist statement, the word subtle seems to be a driving force in your work. You express a need for patience when dealing with your artwork, and enjoying pieces that ask the same of the viewer. In that same vein, how do you feel about people who don’t have any secrets? Does that make sense?

I work in service, [at a] café, and something that I struggle with or come up against a lot is people just asking questions about your life. As if it’s never occurred to them that you don’t work in a café because you want to be a public icon, you work there because it pays you. Right? And, I don’t want to tell this stranger what neighborhood I live in. People who don’t have secrets is like the same thing to me, I don’t relate. I like to be social, I like to talk and hang out and meet people but I also really like to have that separation between private and public life. [This translates into the art world when,] for some people abstract work is problematic: “What am I supposed to be seeing here?” Versus why I’m so drawn to making something that is abstract  and that I want people to spend time [with] and see whatever they want; I think that’s a parallel. What I go through in making this work – because they’re kind of process-based drawings, they’re meditative – that’s not necessarily what’s on display. What that drawing is about for me is not what that drawing is about for that viewer.

When you were young, was there something you found yourself habitually drawing?

The way that I drew noses as a kid was pig noses – so the two dots and then a circle around. Any figure that I drew human, alien, otherwise had a pig nose. Which is really nice. My dad, being a metal sculptor, he would sometimes take a drawing and turn it into a sculpture. So there’s this amazing drawing that I did age 3 or 4, and it’s my cousin crying. It’s kind of like a sun head – it’s a blob. And then there’s lines coming out of it – hair – and then these eyes that are crying and this pig nose, and a wide open wailing mouth. And then just two legs, with lots of toes. So this exists now in forged steel, and it’s amazing – the best collaboration I’ve ever seen. It’s my cousin being a drama queen at age 5. Family portraiture.

Is there anything you’ve been reading or listening to that’s worth putting on record?

Something that I’m really excited about that just started is Perish Publishing, out of Toronto. I think they’re making art books.

I read this book recently that I really loved, and I’ve been recommending it to everybody since then but I think, ultimately, I should just recommend it to young women I know. It’s called How Should a Person Be?  by Sheila Heti – I think she’s from Toronto, she’s pretty young. I relate to it on this level of what-the-fuck, and I’m a young artist trying to make it sort of thing. But I don’t know why or how. But at some point in the book she buys a tape recorder and approaches her best friend – she’s trying to write a play and she’s really stuck. She wants to record all the conversations she has with her best friend who’s a painter. And her best friend flips out, she’s like, “You can’t put me into this concrete thing where everything I say is now archived forever, that’s horrifying.” And that’s how I felt when Billy told me we were going to have this interview, I was like, “Oh no!” So it’s good, I’ve overcome a fear today.

Interview conducted by Tara Slaughter