on homes and dwelling: a conversation [candice greathouse + meredith kooi]
D O M E S T I C S T R U C T U R E S, curated by Candice Greathouse, opens in Athens, GA at ATHICA on May 6. Meredith Kooi's curated exhibition with ALTERED MEANS, Rent was Due on the 5th, also opens May 6 in Atlanta, GA.
meredith.kooi - 2:23 PM
Let's chat on Hangouts!
Candice Greathouse - 2:23 PM
Hi Meredith
meredith.kooi - 2:23 PM
hiiiiiii
meredith.kooi - 2:29 PM
ok cool!
ok so let's begin!
can you tell me a bit about the show? is it all one word? DOMESTICSTRUCTURES?
Candice Greathouse - 2:32 PM
It's D O M E S T I C S T R U C T U R E S, it's technically two words, but aesthetically it's meant to reference the visual structure of W O M A N H O U S E
meredith.kooi - 2:32 PM
gotcha.
Candice Greathouse - 2:33 PM
the installation that Judy Chicago and Miriam Shapiro organized in 1972 (which ironically seems v similar to your exhibition)
meredith.kooi - 2:33 PM
in what way?
because of the interventions and such?
i was having a conversation yesterday about feminism in today's world and i don't think i've figured out how to position this show in terms of that
Candice Greathouse - 2:35 PM
so it's my little bow to a piece that has been hugely influential to me. So WH took over an entire home, and turned it into a performative installation - similar to the ALTERED MEANS interventions
meredith.kooi - 2:35 PM
yes - totally
Candice Greathouse - 2:36 PM
I think that my exhibition is an extension of the WH content but physically your exhibition is paralleling too
meredith.kooi - 2:36 PM
and so my question to myself is what kind of statement am i making about the domestic and femininity or womanhood or feminism
Candice Greathouse - 2:37 PM
It's wonderfully coincidental that they open the same day and in two different cities as well..
meredith.kooi - 2:37 PM
i love it!
zeitgeist!
why do you think both of us are doing this? what about the timeliness of it?
Candice Greathouse - 2:37 PM
I don't think you necessarily are, and I'm not projecting that, I think there are a myriad of ways to look at domestic spaces
meredith.kooi - 2:37 PM
but i also am!
and then there was also the Hymhouse show at Eyedrum last year too
Candice Greathouse - 2:38 PM
So our two diff approaches are really interesting to me...Hey I'm not familiar with that
There is def something ... Maybe now that you know who is running the country we are all retreating to personal spaces
meredith.kooi - 2:39 PM
it was the show that Onur Topal-Sumer, Stephanie Pharr, and Martha Whittington curated
https://www.facebook.com/events/1458803281039261/
Candice Greathouse - 2:40 PM
That's where my title comes in - Domestic Structures - thinking how the personal politics of a home are manifested at large
meredith.kooi - 2:40 PM
it's also ridiculously ironic that 45's address to the NRA changed the way i got home today
can you tell me about the works in the show?
Candice Greathouse - 2:41 PM
Oh that HymHouse looks great! Totally off my radar but I love the way WomanHouse is still such a touchstone for thinking about these lived experiences.
meredith.kooi - 2:41 PM
oh wow - i'm looking at the date - 2014?!?! i thought that was last year!
i am definitely losing time
Candice Greathouse - 2:41 PM
Yes, and I want to know about the works in yours too.
So the works are from seven women artists, and it's sculptural pieces and installation working alongside photography.
Meta Gary is creating a new interactive fort for the exhibition, which I know you are familiar with.
meredith.kooi - 2:43 PM
are any of the artists making both sculpture and photography?
i love those forts
Candice Greathouse - 2:44 PM
Christina Price Washington has a life-size photogram of a couch!
Which I feel like is more sculptural than anything even though its 2D
meredith.kooi - 2:45 PM
oh woah - how did she make that? i really want to see that
Candice Greathouse - 2:45 PM
There is a lot of play with the works - Jess Machacek similarly is working with pool vinyl to create a wall sized installation
meredith.kooi - 2:46 PM
i'm looking at all their websites right now -
what is her installation going to be?
Candice Greathouse - 2:46 PM
So there is this weird ambiguity in a lot of the works, which I hope references this dynamic of "house/home" where one is not exactly the other
meredith.kooi - 2:47 PM
this may seem cheeky but it also reminds me of that billboard near Arizona on Dekalb Ave - "Sell your house, buy your home"
Candice Greathouse - 2:47 PM
Jess is combining these pool vinyl designs to operate something like a quilt
meredith.kooi - 2:48 PM
interesting - i'm trying to picture that - does she have something similar on her website at all?
i'm looking at waterbody right now
Candice Greathouse - 2:48 PM
which is ironic because a quilt is an object of comfort and hers is anything but
No - I have a sample hold on I'll get it
meredith.kooi - 2:49 PM
the idea of wrapping myself in a quilt of pool vinyl is a nightmare which i love
Candice Greathouse - 2:50 PM
Artist : Jess Machacek
Imagine this but dozens if not more designs
Ha! I love that! It would almost seem like you were floating in a pool although it's anything but that
meredith.kooi - 2:50 PM
so she prints the designs on vinyl?
i always wanted a pool growing up -
Candice Greathouse - 2:52 PM
Artist: Jess Machacek
meredith.kooi - 2:52 PM
they're such strange status symbols
Candice Greathouse - 2:52 PM
Oh here is another example. I got lost in my computer for a sec ha
I know, well I had a pool growing up and it was awful
having to clean it and getting thrown in the pool in the winter
The grass is always greener...
meredith.kooi - 2:53 PM
that's what so interesting about having them - above ground vs in ground -
those 2 are so different and say such different things
Candice Greathouse - 2:54 PM
InKyoung Chun has a NEON piece as well (blue) so these water baby blues are going to be such a thing with this exhibition
meredith.kooi - 2:54 PM
what's the neon piece like?
words?
Candice Greathouse - 2:55 PM
It's a metal frame with neon lights attached to it. You can walk through it - it operates as a house frame and also a gate
like walking through a threshold
meredith.kooi - 2:56 PM
like a larger version of the plexi work?
Candice Greathouse - 2:56 PM
It's gosh, 6 feet tall
yes, although she made it before those works. And it's illuminated. She has had it at a few GF events but I think this is the first time it's been exhibited
meredith.kooi - 2:57 PM
that reminds me too of this A frame structure that stood at the entrance to this commune i lived in during college
Candice Greathouse - 2:57 PM
Where did you go to college?
meredith.kooi - 2:58 PM
most of us would jump up to touch the connecting bar - signal that we had arrived
Denison University - small school in Granville, OH - like 40 minutes northeast of Columbus
We're having the 40th anniversary of it this June
Candice Greathouse - 3:00 PM
off the point but do you ever feel like you'll be in school forever? once a student then forever a teacher?
meredith.kooi - 3:00 PM
oh dear jesus i hope not - i'm just itching to get out of school. i mean, i've been in graduate school for going on 8 years now and it is sucking my will to live
and, i thought i wanted to teach when i first went into the PhD but after teaching at Emory - hell naw!
Candice Greathouse - 3:01 PM
I don't know - I did 5 years of grad, my MFA then MA, and i was so ready to go but then I missed it terribly.
And am so glad to be teaching again. I've contemplated doing my PHD too - I had wanted to do the ILA but then they shut it down the year I was going to apply actually
meredith.kooi - 3:02 PM
i guess it depends on the program - i’m not really into Emory so I want to leave. I loved SAIC so i was sad to leave it
yeah it's such a tragedy actually - i'm still hanging on. i had just started my 2nd year when they cut it
Candice Greathouse - 3:03 PM
How do you think coming from academia informs your curatorial practice?
meredith.kooi - 3:05 PM
i'm sure that my studies informs pretty much everything i do, but for the shows I've put together thus far - i don't think they are necessarily connected to academia. HOWEVER, I will say that the ways I think about producing environments or atmospheres is intimately connected to the theoretical propositions I'm putting forward in my dissertation
SOLAR HERESIES and EXTREME WEATHER were much more directly linked to that
this show, not in the same way
though, then again, my dissertation is proposing transmission art as a feminine poetics, which i think many of the works in this show get at that
just in a different way
Candice Greathouse - 3:07 PM
Aptly put. I think that topics of thesis/dissertation research manifest themselves in all spheres of creative productions, so it's invigorating to see another person's practice being involved in that way
Tell me more about this show
meredith.kooi - 3:08 PM
totally - so for me, the theory and philosophy is what i focus on - not so much on curatorial studies, which i should do more of...
this show is what i've been wanting to do for a long time - when i first moved to ATL, i wanted to start my own apartment gallery, but i wasn't ever in a living situation where that could happen. so, instead, i started up ALTERED MEANS, which was supposed to be a publication, but it then morphed into physical exhibitions with printed matter.
basically, this show is just one stab at an apartment gallery which is explicitly about how works live in a space where the curator lives
so it's about private space, how we dwell in our homes, and in a greater sense, how we orient ourselves in terms of being at home and our relationship to what's outside it
Candice Greathouse - 3:12 PM
Ah! It's a unique viewpoint, especially in contrast to so many artist run spaces in Atl right now, that also operate out of their homes
meredith.kooi - 3:13 PM
it's also about how much or how little control we have over our spaces - the show's title "Rent was due on the 5th" i think gestures to that
Candice Greathouse - 3:13 PM
And such an interesting contrast to my exhibition - So I'm looking at domestic and nostalgic objects, subjective objects, within an objective space. And your exhibition is almost the opposite - these objects in a personal space
meredith.kooi - 3:13 PM
like, oh shit, i forgot to pay rent, or i can't pay rent, i'm in a precarious situation
i really like that contrast
how long is the show up?
Candice Greathouse - 3:14 PM
There is a tension involved, especially since the show opens on the 6th.
It's up through June 4th at ATHICA!
meredith.kooi - 3:15 PM
definitely. that's what i'm interested in. and i'm thinking a lot about how to display or present these works in my place so that they come across as the art objects but at the same time, they kind of don't
Candice Greathouse - 3:15 PM
Tell me more about the works in the show
meredith.kooi - 3:15 PM
like, wait, is this supposed to be here? or was it here before?
so Jane Garver Foley brought over a couple of sculptures the other day. some of her sad lamps. she pours concrete into inflatable palm trees to make the form and then the light bulbs just kind of droop too
lemme take a pic
Candice Greathouse - 3:17 PM
I saw one at the ART PAPERS auction!
meredith.kooi - 3:18 PM
Artist: Jane Foley
Candice Greathouse - 3:19 PM
That drooping light really is so depressing and phallic
meredith.kooi - 3:19 PM
i know. it's so great - and i love how they’re sad lamps
but not functional SAD lamps for seasonal affective disorder
Candice Greathouse - 3:19 PM
right a lamp isn't usually so emotive
meredith.kooi - 3:20 PM
and i think this may also be a connection to your show - how objects themselves carry emotion and memory and shizz
and in a way, it also connects to the show i was in a few years ago at Kibbee that Chanel Kim curated.
Candice Greathouse - 3:22 PM
Absolutely. I think the works in DS function nostalgically and personally, even with the pieces that are a bit more arbitrary.
meredith.kooi - 3:22 PM
at that time, i was really interested in enstrangement - ostranenie - a concept of Viktor Shklovsky
Candice Greathouse - 3:23 PM
I remember that exhibition, and seeing your photographs.
meredith.kooi - 3:23 PM
what pieces would you see as arbitrary?
Candice Greathouse - 3:24 PM
I feel like we should redo this conversation after we see each other's shows!
meredith.kooi - 3:25 PM
totally! i think that would be really interesting! i definitely am planning to make it to Athens. The problem with my show is that it's only open May 6 - 7, but i think i could extend it for ya
Candice Greathouse - 3:25 PM
But in words - I was really looking for works that were critical examinations of these daily items that are so commonplace.
Yes, I'll be back on the 7th that evening!
meredith.kooi - 3:26 PM
wahoo!
Candice Greathouse - 3:26 PM
For instance, Lauren O’Connor-Korb's piece is a a simple wooden shelf. But it's inherently so much more provocative because that shelf is rendered useless, it's not holding decorative objects
meredith.kooi - 3:26 PM
are these photographic works?
Candice Greathouse - 3:26 PM
and it vibrates.
The thing holder has become the thing
meredith.kooi - 3:27 PM
i saw an image of that. how long is it?
Candice Greathouse - 3:27 PM
It's a sculpture. It's approx 4 feet long?
meredith.kooi - 3:27 PM
what's up with the video of the shelf?
the materials are maple & anxiety - intriguing
Candice Greathouse - 3:28 PM
So the video is just a recording of the sculpture
meredith.kooi - 3:28 PM
what's the sound? - [oh wait, just got it - the shelf vibrates and so makes the sound!]
Candice Greathouse - 3:28 PM
Yes! Anxiety!
meredith.kooi - 3:29 PM
i like the sound a lot
which of Brittainy Lauback are you including?
Candice Greathouse - 3:30 PM
Wait I want to hear about the sculpture in your exhibition
And I am really intrigued by the performances
meredith.kooi - 3:31 PM
ah yes! so Amelia Phythian is weaving baskets out of latex
they're going to go on my built in book shelves
and then Alice Kim is making photographs and maybe installing a listening station for her new solo album
shawné michaelain holloway made a new video work and that will play on a tablet placed on my bed
Candice Greathouse - 3:32 PM
I see her rubber objects. her bio on her site is so refreshing
meredith.kooi - 3:32 PM
Blare LaBlonk is taking over my fridge and projecting a video above my stove
Candice Greathouse - 3:32 PM
do you think people might lie in your bed to watch? is that invited?
meredith.kooi - 3:33 PM
Danielle Deadwyler is going to project video in the bathroom
and her and Minka Wiltz are going to perform a piece called New Opera
Jordan Stubbs made an american flag out of window screen that we're going to install on the front of the house on a flagpole
Candice Greathouse - 3:33 PM
When I was a part of Art Miami with GSU we had someone project video in the bathroom. It was such a weird invasive experience but fascinating
meredith.kooi - 3:34 PM
hahaha yeah totally - and it's funny because in my place the bathroom is a go between with two doors
it's also like when i installed radios in the bathroom at mint for SUMPTUARY
Candice Greathouse - 3:34 PM
I love that you are activating some many deeply personal spaces
the viewer is simultaneously the voyeur
and negotiating how they feel about that
meredith.kooi - 3:35 PM
and Alice's photographs are of people's underwear drawers and fridges - how different people organize these intimate spaces
trying to find some control in some way
Candice Greathouse - 3:36 PM
Right, I think photo and video are precisely used
for such topics, as it allows that distance
meredith.kooi - 3:37 PM
and i'm also interested in how these visual works - photo and video - become part of the space
itself
Candice Greathouse - 3:38 PM
so we are a bit removed. As a photographer myself, that distance between the subject and the object, and the document versus the artifact, continues to illuminate my work
meredith.kooi - 3:38 PM
that's interesting because my aim with photography is to eliminate that distance - create the environment by way of the photograph
or insert the video in the place in a way that it becomes that place
Candice Greathouse - 3:39 PM
So DS features photographs by Brittainy Lauback - as you asked. She is photographing old landline phones, unplugged, and in the studio.
meredith.kooi - 3:39 PM
wait, she photographs the studio?
or the phones in the studio?
Candice Greathouse - 3:39 PM
Oh and I am so the opposite, I try in my photographs to get as much distance as possible
She photographs the phones in the studio, with precise lighting and drops, etc
meredith.kooi - 3:40 PM
in your photographs, i can totally feel that distance, which is great, especially of the balloons because they are usually such sentimental objects
hahahaha
awesome
Candice Greathouse - 3:42 PM
Balloons are so enigmatic to me. I think I have to show that distance because they are all consuming.
Are you familiar with Elizabeth Lide's work? She is also doing an installation at ATHICA
meredith.kooi - 3:43 PM
i am so upset with myself that i didn't make it to her WAP show... i am the absolute worst
Candice Greathouse - 3:44 PM
It was wonderful. I find her work so compelling. You would really enjoy it I think
meredith.kooi - 3:44 PM
i'm really excited to see her work in your show. what is it going to be?
Candice Greathouse - 3:45 PM
She is using paper pulp lately to make these cast vases, and her daughter's hair.
She will have these broken pieces arranged on a door supported by sawhorses.
meredith.kooi - 3:46 PM
i made an installation of a door on sawhorses before!
Candice Greathouse - 3:47 PM
It's such a great idea! How cool. I was thrilled when she came up with it.
Door as table
meredith.kooi - 3:47 PM
i really love when artists use hair
such a weird material - so much history of it as a material [Doris Salcedo and Victorian hair lockets and bracelets being my favorites]]
Candice Greathouse - 3:48 PM
Me too! I collect it but I haven't done anything with it. Have you?
meredith.kooi - 3:48 PM
no i haven't. but i've been thinking about collecting my dog's hair
do it!
Candice Greathouse - 3:49 PM
oh my god my dog's hair is everywhere
Hey. back a minute to Danielle Deadwyler's work
meredith.kooi - 3:49 PM
i also was collecting the stuffing she'd rip out of toys. i wanted to make a series of clouds in my place
to be honest, i'm not sure what Danielle is going to show.
i trust her and so am just waiting to see what she brings
Candice Greathouse - 3:50 PM
Her performance and video work is SO intense. I first knew about her from a video piece where she was scrubbing the kitchen floor.
meredith.kooi - 3:50 PM
i love that piece
Candice Greathouse - 3:50 PM
I'm excited!
meredith.kooi - 3:50 PM
that was what prompted me to ask her
Candice Greathouse - 3:51 PM
It's an intriguing group of artists
meredith.kooi - 3:51 PM
yeah - all folks that i'm really happy to work with
ok, so who haven't we talked about in your show?
Candice Greathouse - 3:52 PM
We've covered them all. And yours?
meredith.kooi - 3:52 PM
i think we got em all covered!
Candice Greathouse - 3:53 PM
Amazing. I can't wait to see it.
meredith.kooi - 3:53 PM
yours too! i'll probably get there the week after it opens!
Candice Greathouse - 3:53 PM
Let me know and I can probably join you.
Thank you for talking with me! We need to do this more often
meredith.kooi - 3:54 PM
most definitely! maybe even in person sometime!
Candice Greathouse - 3:54 PM
Yes when I'm not running a fever, for sure!
Top Left: Danielle Deadwyler, Kitchen Installation 1, video still, 2014
Top Middle: InKyoung Chun
Top Right: Jane Garver Foley, sketchbook drawing for a sad lamp, 2017
2nd row Left: Blare LaBlonk, Blair and Leo kiss (2003), photograph, 2017
2nd row Middle: Elizabeth Lide
2nd row Right: Christina Price Washington
3rd row Left: shawne michaelain holloway, video still of SH_3901-SOUTH-MICHIGAN_2017, CAMEO1.MP4, 2017
3rd row Middle: Brittainy Lauback
3rd row Right: Amelia Phythian, A fully stocked kitchen shelf, latex and acrylic, 2017
Bottom Left: Alice Kim, Under things, photograph 2017
Bottom Middle: Jordan Stubbs, Flag, window screen and wire, 2017
Bottom Right: Minka Wiltz, excerpt from New Opera, 2017]