Rick Lowe interviews Mark Bradford and Sam Durant about working in New Orleans

Rick Lowe interviews Mark Bradford and Sam Durant

United States Artists Program Director Amada Cruz asked Rick Lowe to interview 2006 USA Broad Fellows Mark Bradford and Sam Durant about working in New Orleans. Coincidentally, both artists have been applying their grants toward different projects in New Orleans. Bradford is working with local craftsmen and artists to create a large-scale installation that will be part of Prospect1, the first New Orleans biennial exhibition. Organized by New York–based curator Dan Cameron, it will be on view all over the city from October 4 through December 2008. Durant is working with Rick Lowe, founder of Project Row Houses in Houston, on Transforma, a collective organization of national and New Orleans based cultural producers engaged in rebuilding through community-based art projects in partnership with various local organizations.

Lowe conducted an interview with the artists via e-mail by posing a question a day about their New Orleans experiences.

August 13, 2007

Rick Lowe: Had you ever been to New Orleans before committing to working on a project there? If so, what was your prior experience? If not, what were your preconceived notions about the city?

Sam Durant: I had not been to New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina. I really didn't know anything about the city before my first visit, when we met there and started the idea for Transforma. Well, I guess I had heard about Mardi Gras, but that's really about it.

Mark Bradford: Do airports count? I wasn't here long enough the first time to have any impressions, so this was my first real visit. I probably had all the clichés of gumbo and Mardi Gras, which get passed around, before actually coming to the city. I know that there existed a New Orleans before Katrina, but my memories of New Orleans will always be tied to the landscape post-hurricane. In a way I like that because my nostalgia is so recent, but people keep telling me, "Oh, you should have seen the city before the hurricane.” I hadn't, so I work in the immediate landscape, which reminds me of post-‘92-riot L.A. All those memories and fragments rewritten and thrown about. . . . The land still has a pissed-off smell to it.

August 14, 2007

RL: Mark, what I really want to ask is, have you found any good New Orleans gumbo yet? I guess I’d better save that for some other time. How do you see your practice as an artist being challenged in New Orleans in ways that might be different than it has been in other places you've worked?

MB: I haven't found the golden pot of gumbo yet. Every restaurant I visit says it has the oldest and best gumbo in New Orleans, but I don’t like gumbo, so I am not looking real hard.

I see my practice being challenged in New Orleans because of the region’s recent history. The context is so problematic on governmental, city, and artistic fronts. Does New Orleans need art right now? Do the other 49 states know what’s going on? And have we as a nation forgotten its citizens? These are questions I ask myself, but I also believe that what we do as artists and thinkers has always been part of the fabric of any society, so just because that fabric has been torn shouldn't mean that we cannot get out our needle and thread alongside every other voice.

I have done some site-specific works, one at the U.S./Tijuana border for Insite 05, in which I worked with informal baggage handlers, and one at the Miami Basel Art Fair. In Miami I set up a shipping container hair salon. Both were projects that had to be inserted into existing economies, so I will take that approach again for Prospect1. Tying both local residents and contemporary art into something. . . . I am not sure what the something is just yet, but give me a moment. The whole idea challenges me, but I am generally up for challenges.

SD: I'm trying something different in working with Transforma. Rather than having my sights set immediately on producing some sort of artwork, I'm trying to follow our idea of organizing, working slowly, being led by the situation on the ground in New Orleans. It was clear very early that making art was not necessarily going to be meaningful. What little infrastructure the city had before was completely gone, and of course folks were still dealing with incredible trauma. It kind of puts the idea of being an artist or what being an artist means into perspective. I usually operate from a fairly critical standpoint, and here in New Orleans I'm trying to be very positive, to follow positive strands.

August 15, 2007

RL: You both seem to question whether New Orleans needs art at this critical time, but you both seem fairly certain that it needs artists. Mark, you mentioned some of your experiences creating work that connects people to the experience of art, and Sam, you speak of making work from a critical perspective. What would each of you see as a successful outcome of your work in New Orleans? Maybe the question is, “Can you describe what would be successful work for you in this troubled city?”

SD: I think work that is significant in some way for the people of New Orleans, who are facing such difficulty day to day. That's one of the reasons I find working with Transforma so interesting, because it’s always asking the question, “What can we do that is meaningful and significant?” And especially, as outsiders, how do we work toward that in a place that is not our own? I also see what we are doing as important to the exhibition methodologies of the art world. We are experimenting with how artists work in devastated communities in hopefully meaningful and potentially successful ways. It may become another way of working, along with the biennial or festival-oriented exhibition and the shorter-term community art project or typical artist’s residency.

MB: I like the use of the word trouble. I like the phrase "troubled city." I hope to make my trouble as transparent as possible. I have a lot to discover about working in New Orleans. But the idea of being troubled isn’t something particularly new. It’s just that the troubles are so apparent in that city.

August 16, 2007

RL: Sam, you like the idea of Transforma because it’s not the typical residency, but doesn’t the uncertainty of and lack of control over the process kind of worry you? Mark, you’ve been quiet for a bit. I hope you’ll catch up. Is it stressful for you to enter a process that you may not be able to control the way you would making studio work? How meaningful is it to you personally when your work takes you into direct contact with folks? Does this make any sense?

SD: To answer your first question: yes, but . . . I really believe in what we are doing, trying a new way to do art. I think by necessity it should make us nervous and a bit uncomfortable.

August 20, 2007

RL: It’s been four days since I last posted a question. It was a nice break. I hope Mark is back with us. I have enjoyed working with you, Sam, on Transforma and getting to know you, Mark, through this process and the Hammer Artists Council. Do either of you think New Orleans may be an opportunity for your works to cross paths in that city?

SD: I would be happy to cross paths with Mark any time. I really love his work, and we have become good friends over the years. So we’ll see—if we could ever get our schedules to match at the same time.

MB: I wouldn’t be surprised if Sam and I crossed paths in New Orleans, if just for a coffee and chat about how best to build bombs. I have known him for years, and I really respect his practice and commitment to his ideals.

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