Notes from Salon Contra with Brian Jungen

Last night's Salon Contra with Brian Jungen and Henry Thaggert was one of the best artist discussions I've ever attended!  It felt like just a really good conversation between an art collector and art fanatic that I admire very much and and artist whose work is appealing on so many levels. Henry asked the kinds of questions that we art enthusiasts want to know when we talk to artists. A summary of my rough, scribbled notes below.

I love Jungen's work a lot but I didn't realize we would have such a huge response to the evening. Even though we had a packed house, we still had to turn away well over 100 people. Besides the physical space limitation of Pink Line Project HQ (a.k.a. my living room), the whole idea of the Salon is to be small so that everyone has a chance to speak directly with the artist and to provide a comfortable and casual setting. We're planning many more Salons this year so keep an eye out. If you want to be on our mailing list, email us at saloncontra@pinklineproject.com.

Many thanks to Paul Chaat Smith, the curator of Jungen's show, for bringing this great show to DC and for introducing me to Brian.  Thank you to the National Museum of the American Indian for providing yummy food from their awesome cafeteria for the event.  And mostly, thank you Brian and Henry who made the evening a huge success with their insightful and engaging dialogue.

PB: What I love about art is that we can each have our own personal experience with it. I first saw Brian Jungen's work a few years ago at the Chelsea Art Musuem and was immediately drawn to its cross cultural message, which appealed to me as a mixed-race person. Tonight I am excited to fill out my knowledge of his work by hearing what Brian has to say about his own work and Henry's insights as well.

HT: Kara Walker talks about her work as therapy in dealing with issues of race and sexuality.  Do you see your work this way?

BJ: My early work was explicitly confrontational about issues of sexuality and race.  I was influenced by artists like Mike Kelley and Raymond Pettibon.  I drew a lot and I was into cartoon drawings. But after Kara started doing the silhouettes, nothing could top that and so I stopped. At the same time, I started exploring other methods of expression and I started looking at objects like the trainers and later plastic lawn chairs, plastic lunch trays, and other everyday objects.

HT: Are you trying to evoke something traumatic in your culture?

BJ: Native identity is very different in Canada from the U.S. We're much more involved in the contemporary art world in Canada. My tribe, the Dunne-za, are from the northern part of British Columbia and Alberta.  We are hunter-gatherers and we don't eat salmon and make masks, which is the way most people think of natives from Western Canada. Making masks out of the Nike Air Jordans is about the way the shoe has become an iconic symbol in the same way that masks are iconic of all Western Canadian Natives even though the masks aren't even part of the Dunne-za culture.

HT: Did you see much art making as a child?

BJ: Music, not visual art, is a big part of our culture. Drums and guitars and a native form of country western music. I was into drawing, so my family was a little disappointed in me.

HT: Were you a consumer of American culture?  Did you watch "Who's the Boss" and television shows like that?

BJ: We lived in a pretty remote part of Canada but I watched a lot of American television. We couldn't buy the stuff we saw on television though.  Lots of kids bought skateboards but they couldn't skate because we didn't have pavement.

HT: How did the Air Jordan masks come about?  I read that you saw a display of Air Jordans in the Niketown in Manhattan and on the same day you saw an exhibition of Native American art at the Natural History Museum.  I also read that you saw the shoes as corpses.

BJ: I wanted to show that the trainers were made by hands. When I deconstructed them before making them into the masks, I would find handwritten notes inside the seams. But the trainers had never been used before I made them into my art objects. They were dead and erased of life, like a corpse.

HT: Have you heard from Nike? Have they ever offered to supply you with shoes?

BJ: Nike wanted images of the masks for their archives, but they never offered to give me any trainers.  I made a mask for Michael Jordan.

HT: The Air Jordans hold almost a talismanic power. You take them and repurpose them into something that holds power in your culture. It will be interesting when kids won't know who Michael Jordan is.  They'll only know the shoes.  And then after some time, they won't even know about the shoes.  The masks are displayed in the vitrines just as the shoes were displayed in Niketown.

BJ: There are conservation reasons for keeping the masks in the vitrines.

HT: The masks are a good symbol of globalization.  They are made in Asia and sold to young Americans.  Then you take them out of that context and repurpose them into a Native American icon. Then they are sent out into the international art world.

BJ: The masks were a launching pad for this idea of globalization, but then I started looking at other objects.  Once you break something down, you liberate it.

HT: How did you come up with the idea for "Shapeshifter," the whale skeleton made of plastic lawn chairs?  It looked so real that I had a hard time even seeing the chairs.

BJ: I like drawing with objects.  I like making things in space so that you can walk around them.

HT: Are you criticizing or commenting on pop culture?

BJ: Pop culture is unavoidable and it informed my work. I had hoped that my work would inspire the coastal carvers.  I wanted to see them carve something other than wood.  So in that way, it was a hidden critique. Mostly, I want the sculptures to be visually compelling.

The works are still very traditional though.  Native people have always incorporated materials introduced by their colonizers. They stopped doing that when native art became institutionalized and something to be preserved.

HT: Who owns the object that is being appropriated? Is it right or wrong?

BJ:  I am adding value to the shoes by putting them into art history so Nike is not unhappy. I don't destroy the trainers; I transform them. I am not as interested in whether it's right or wrong, but I am interested in why people think it's right or wrong.

HT: The Air Jordans appeal mostly to young urban males. People were literally killing each other for pairs of Air Jordans when they first came out. Unworn Air Jordans sell for $10,000 a pair now. But women fetishize shoes too. Especially ones that look like something the Michael Jordan of high heels Carrie Bradshaw would wear. Take a look at these Christian Laboutin trademarked red sole heels. How would you transform these?

BJ: I'd soften the look.  They're too sharp!  I see antlers.

"Strange Comfort" by Brian Jungen will be on display at the National Museum of the American Indian until August 6.