Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Arranging Tangerines, presented by Lady and Stater.
Speaker: Conversations with contemporary artists, curators, and thinkers about the intersection of art, technology, and commerce.
Speaker: Your hosts are me, Alessandro Silver and Joseph Wilcox.
Speaker: I know what to do.
Speaker: I know what to say.
Speaker: I just know I don't want to be like you.
Speaker: I know what to do.
Speaker: I don't know what to say.
Speaker: I just know I don't want to be like you.
Speaker: This week's guest is Nando Alvarez Perez.
Speaker: Nando Alvarez Perez is a native of Buffalo, New York.
Speaker: In 2014, he graduated from SFAI, where he received the Masters of Fine Arts Fellowship in Photography.
Speaker: He uses his work to investigate the boundaries between the personal and the political, the fitness of psychology for ideology, the discrepancies between history and biography, and the relationship between memory, meaning, and place.
Speaker: His practice extends to his work as a founding director of the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art.
Speaker: an art and education nonprofit that models how culture can sustain communities through focused practical engagements with contemporary art.
Speaker: And as editor in chief of Cornelia, a visual art review published three times a year for the Western New York and Southern Ontario region.
Speaker: He is currently a visiting professor at Alfred University.
Speaker: Welcome Nando.
Speaker: Hey Alessandro.
Speaker: What's up Nando?
Speaker: How's it going?
Speaker: Good, how are you?
Speaker: Pretty good.
Speaker: Hey Joseph.
Speaker: Hey, Nando.
Speaker: How's it going?
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Slightly crazed with the start of the semester, but good.
Speaker: Same.
Speaker: Yeah, I bet.
Speaker: I'm kind of lucky in that, I don't know, the school that I work at, it's high school kids, and we don't really start teaching until probably next week, and so it's all kind of like
Speaker: whatever classroom culture, community building stuff that like, I don't have to prepare for it.
Speaker: Cause it's just like kids and like, and like figuring out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm not, I'm not stressed yet, but I'm sure I will be next week.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Alex, it's happening.
Speaker: Do you need to like do some levels or something?
Speaker: I don't see levels.
Speaker: I mean, everyone sounds good.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yeah, except for you.
Speaker: You sound like you've been sucking on some helium.
Speaker: Oh, is it?
Speaker: Am I different?
Speaker: I thought you were joking.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Shit.
Speaker: Okay, hold on.
Speaker: Thanks for that.
Speaker: Your voice sounds normal to me, I think.
Speaker: Maybe it's on my end.
Speaker: Maybe it's also because we are both logged into the same Zoom account.
Speaker: It's doing something weird.
Speaker: No, it could be.
Speaker: I know there's something.
Speaker: It's really funny.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, I got to find it, though.
Speaker: It's a setting.
Speaker: You actually kind of sound like a teenage version of yourself, I think.
Speaker: One day, I'll put a video on the internet.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: How's the prep for the next exhibition going?
Speaker: It's going okay.
Speaker: It's like always 10 times more work than I think it's going to be.
Speaker: And like the artists are awesome, but they're so busy.
Speaker: And so there's like things we want them to do that they're like, I don't think I have time.
Speaker: Yeah, well, that sounds familiar.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we're like, so how can we make it happen still?
Speaker: Like we're going to take on more work for them, I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is fine, but we're doing a VR gallery space, like mirror image with NFT works that are like in place of where the physical works are in the gallery.
Speaker: So it's kind of like, it's kind of a one-to-one, but there'll be like disconnections between what the objects look like.
Speaker: So I've been working with a dude on Fiverr.
Speaker: Great thinking.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like, so, you know, like there's lots of different price ranges on there.
Speaker: And so I found this guy who said he would make our gallery space so I could put it on this platform called on cyber for 80 bucks.
Speaker: And I was like, I was like, all right, let's see what this looks like.
Speaker: I assumed it would be kind of shitty.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that would be okay because it's like, you know, like this like clunky virtual thing is I think an interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, based to live in.
Speaker: But like, it's actually pretty legit.
Speaker: And I said, where's this guy based?
Speaker: He's in Pakistan.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: So, you know, I like sent it out to 10 people.
Speaker: I'm like, this is what I want.
Speaker: This is what I want.
Speaker: Oh, how much.
Speaker: And he was he was the cheapest.
Speaker: But there was there was some that were like 150.
Speaker: And I was like, well, should I pay the 150 splurge on that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like, you know, get something better.
Speaker: But, you know, they have reviews on here, too.
Speaker: And so I also know, like, when you start on this thing, you're hustling and you're going to work for cheap.
Speaker: in order to get more reviews and then you can like start raising your prices which is like very exploitative but also the way the system works and so I'm happy to like write I'm gonna like write him a legit ass review because he's glowing review yeah exactly and that's like how that's like part of my payment in my mind
Speaker: But anyways, it's really fun to see the gallery in a virtual world because it is like you can recognize it as our specific white cube space with a desk.
Speaker: It's very familiar.
Speaker: I mean, we're like...
Speaker: We're lucky that it was, I mean, you've been into space, obviously.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's an easy space to replicate.
Speaker: So it's easy to get one-to-one.
Speaker: But Joe and I were like, if it's shitty, it's great.
Speaker: And if it's great, it's great.
Speaker: It's like, there was no, there's no losing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's no, there's no bad option.
Speaker: And he sent it originally before he had like put in all the colliders to keep you from being able to leave the space.
Speaker: And so you leave and you're in this black void universe.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And so you can like you can like see it's just this like cube in the middle of this black void.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, that's perfect.
Speaker: I was like, can we leave that?
Speaker: And you can like go to the windows and like look inside of the space from the outside and see all the works.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker: I think it's going to be sick.
Speaker: I'm excited.
Speaker: I'm excited.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I was gonna say, Joe, there should be a door outside the space.
Speaker: that you don't have access to and so you have to buzz in.
Speaker: It's like a portal to somewhere else.
Speaker: And then there was like, there was funny stuff that happened.
Speaker: Like when you look in the window, you would get stuck.
Speaker: And I was like, well, that's kind of funny.
Speaker: And you're like, you can't move once you like, look in the window and like, yeah.
Speaker: Uh, he also like built this like wall to have works outside of the space if we wanted.
Speaker: And I was like, well, I was like, we don't really need a wall, but you can just like have a bunch of, cause you have to have these placeholders where you can add the NFTs.
Speaker: And I was like, just add like 50 of them because if you don't use them, they don't show up.
Speaker: And so then we can also like in the future, we'll be able to use the space if we want.
Speaker: And we can like have like a public arts sculpture garden outside of the gallery.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: There's just like a lot of options.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, it like,
Speaker: Reminds me of using a GameShark on Final Fantasy 8.
Speaker: Oh my god, yes.
Speaker: Going into the debug space.
Speaker: I totally forgot about GameShark.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Are you familiar with GameShark, Alex?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It's like a third party.
Speaker: You put your game into it and then you plug it into a Sega Genesis or I think Super Nintendo maybe had one.
Speaker: Yeah, the Sega one was Game Genie.
Speaker: Game Genie.
Speaker: And then it allows you to hack into the game and do a bunch of weird shit that you would not normally be able to do.
Speaker: No, I've never heard of this.
Speaker: But it wasn't sanctioned by Sega.
Speaker: No, it came preloaded with all of the cheat codes for
Speaker: tons of games yeah yeah it was awesome yeah this is before um what's his name archangel did the mirror brothers piece
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, this was like, I mean, it was like in conjunction with the development of video game systems, these things came out.
Speaker: Um, but it was only cool if you got it after you had played for a while.
Speaker: Cause then, yes.
Speaker: Cause then you got all the stuff that you wished you had.
Speaker: But the game is like really ruined.
Speaker: If you're like, I'm just gonna cheat now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A million lives is not actually that fun, which is probably true in real life also.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: Well, speaking of fun, I know you have time constraints, right, Nando?
Speaker: Yes, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, yes.
Speaker: So let's dive in.
Speaker: What are our time constraints?
Speaker: So I can... I think he has to go by noon?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's beautiful.
Speaker: Otherwise, we'll just go too long.
Speaker: We have an AI version of you, Nando, that we can continue the conversation with.
Speaker: Load me in.
Speaker: And can we call you Nandor?
Speaker: Have you watched the, what's the shadows show?
Speaker: What we do in the shadows?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nandor the Relentless?
Speaker: Yeah, yes.
Speaker: I have.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So Nandor.
Speaker: I mean, I think Nando the Relentless is kind of a nicer gesture.
Speaker: I was listening to a podcast you were on a few years ago.
Speaker: oh no, I just got an email from another guy who also just listened to this podcast, I think.
Speaker: Can we talk about this elephant in the room that I found out about yesterday that I was shocked?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know if Joe knows this, but Nando, he was born at the same time two other people were born from the same mother.
Speaker: Also, even weirder, my cousin, also named Fernando, was born on the same day about two hours before me and my brothers was.
Speaker: So four of you came into existence basically?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I mean, there's got to be some kind of like existential energy thing that happens when, when like triplets are born.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Depending on how you believe in energy and like, if it's like all coming from like, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: I feel like there's gotta be, there's gotta be something there.
Speaker: I mean, is there, do you guys communicate like via special?
Speaker: I wish we did.
Speaker: I have to say that, uh, uh,
Speaker: every year it's kind of different there's years where i'm like wow my brother and i are really tight and things are great and then there's times where i'm just like i have no idea what is going on in your brain like not a clue so yeah that's funny um no special uh
Speaker: connections or anything, but we, we did, um, used to go to triplet conventions, uh, when we were kids.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh, right on.
Speaker: Uh, what happens at, uh, well, so I, uh, I, uh, should say that it's probably no surprise that, uh, the triplet connection foundation was started by Mormons.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, so we would go each year.
Speaker: So there, it, it,
Speaker: was like a place for moms and dads to come and like get tips and just talk to other mom and dads who are stressed out about kids.
Speaker: And there was no booze.
Speaker: And so they didn't have that much fun, but it would be like a weekend long thing.
Speaker: It would move all,
Speaker: over the country.
Speaker: And the first night there'd be a big parade, which is like really the thing to see when it's like whole groups of kids all dressed as cowboys or dinosaurs or just like wearing the same matching outfits.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then the kids would be, you know,
Speaker: corralled into rooms to watch movies and shit and parents would do these workshops and it was fun.
Speaker: How old were you when you went to the last?
Speaker: Last one?
Speaker: Probably 12 or 13.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: It's been a while.
Speaker: wow that's super interesting i uh not to do talk more about triplets but there was that there's that documentary i don't know nando you've probably seen it uh about the three i've not but i've heard it's good the triplets who like didn't know they were triplets and then they found each other after the fact um i only saw a snippet of it but uh it it looks really interesting is it one of those where all of them like did the same thing like
Speaker: There was like a connection, like one was a fireman, the other one was, was an arsonist.
Speaker: I don't, I don't remember, but it was like, it was tragic at the end because I don't want to spoiler alert anybody who hasn't seen it, but there's, there's a tragedy that happens with, with one of them.
Speaker: And so it's like, it's also about that.
Speaker: And like, you know, what happens when kids are split up and kids are adopted and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: So interesting and heavy for sure.
Speaker: Well, that's a great segue to start.
Speaker: Because art can be very tragic and traumatic.
Speaker: Yeah, artists can be for sure.
Speaker: I guess for time's sake, I just, I guess, thanks again for being in the show.
Speaker: It looked amazing.
Speaker: And the show that Alex is referencing is the last show that we had at Leigh and Stater, post-industrial digital dysmorphia, which they look fantastic.
Speaker: Any thoughts post-show that you want to kind of
Speaker: Talk about whether it's thinking about directions you might be headed in or.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it was like a whirlwind to kind of like get the show up.
Speaker: And then it was up for a while and kind of just got to exist too.
Speaker: So I wonder, yeah, I'm curious.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I feel like I always, I always get these shows up and then they're either for like fair.
Speaker: So it's for like a weekend or exhibitions in X site.
Speaker: And I don't actually get to see how people use it and stuff.
Speaker: Um, and, um, I guess like reflecting on it, like, um, I'm super glad Carlos reached out.
Speaker: I always think that I'm done with that body of work.
Speaker: Um, and that use of, of, of the, uh, um, uh, aluminum, um, as a frame and stuff.
Speaker: Um, I always think that like, okay, I've, I've become one of those,
Speaker: artist who has like a thing and it's just like constantly referencing this thing.
Speaker: But I think that the last time I did something really kind of new with it, it was like, it was on the side of my house.
Speaker: And so it really got, this was an installation that I did in May of 2020 and was just,
Speaker: thinking about how to get my neighborhood outside to enjoy art and did an installation on my house.
Speaker: And so like, I'm always finding these new kind of like architectural uses and stuff.
Speaker: And then in this show, the size of the space, just like,
Speaker: really kind of opened up the bodilyness of these installations.
Speaker: And I, yeah, it just, it really, I feel like helped kind of put a key in the work and maybe I think kind of like lock it shut.
Speaker: And it was nice too, to have Carlos take this kind of like,
Speaker: Caribbean through line to, uh, both who was included, um, and then the content and thinking about the, um, installations as individual islands.
Speaker: Um, just cause it's, I think that, uh, for years I was kind of working in this vein where I was like taking like all of history at once and just, uh,
Speaker: putting it all on the same time plane.
Speaker: And the last few years have been a bit more research intensive and it just felt like a way to kind of like conclude that work.
Speaker: And I feel like I can move on now.
Speaker: I'm sure that I will be asked to do
Speaker: something like it again.
Speaker: But yeah, it did feel good to have in my own brain, like it interfaced with other artists work.
Speaker: It really got your body involved.
Speaker: And yeah, it just checked all of these boxes that I had been working towards for years.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: I'm glad it didn't feel, I don't know, like an obligation to have to dive into that again.
Speaker: And I mean, it makes sense.
Speaker: given how those things are meant to be moved and restructured and all that, that people would want you to fill spaces with it, right?
Speaker: Because it can fill almost any space in a different way.
Speaker: And I wouldn't be surprised if you have to do some version of it for a museum in 10 years that does feel like an obligation and that is uninspired.
Speaker: Yeah, but you know what, I hope so.
Speaker: Right, exactly, exactly.
Speaker: But I'm glad that this one at least felt a little bit inspired in a different way.
Speaker: But it's your it's your fault.
Speaker: Because, I mean, it's it's an excellent strategy to have this grid like system where it could be kind of deployed in any space.
Speaker: Like you said, it was outside of your house.
Speaker: It's inside of a gallery.
Speaker: it could you know um it alludes to the grid to the colonial post-colonial imposition um there's so much that you can do and then you you constantly the thing that changes obviously is the reshuffling of the images that you yeah choose to place in there so it's bravo i guess i can say
Speaker: And you also, you mentioned not necessarily getting to see how people who came through interacted with it.
Speaker: But appropriately, many people took selfies and photographs.
Speaker: I know, yeah.
Speaker: Which, you know, I don't know.
Speaker: Whenever a work can kind of like use an aspect of its construction to critique photographs,
Speaker: said thing, I always think that's really fun, right?
Speaker: So that was nice to see when people were interacting, like, oh, I know what to do here.
Speaker: I need to take a selfie.
Speaker: Not only that, having been to many exhibitions and
Speaker: a few of our own um to see the person walk into the space for the first time not especially the ones that had no idea what they were walking into and not saying anything like when words fail you you know you're onto something good or bad but in this sense something something it was something so the fact that they were speechless um and then there would be like oh wow i gotta take a picture of myself with this face and
Speaker: interact and then the serpentine nature of it forcing you to kind of walk through in a certain way and every vantage point was a different angle to a different um
Speaker: kind of like a collage of different images presented.
Speaker: Yeah, it was great.
Speaker: And it was really fun to see the space filled that way after the previous exhibition was like our most minimal installation because it was mostly just the film with a few other works.
Speaker: And so it was like really open for that last exhibition.
Speaker: And so this was like a really fun contrast to have right after it.
Speaker: The last one we did was, it was just, it was a chair.
Speaker: And it was a picture of a chair.
Speaker: And it was a definition of a chair.
Speaker: Not actually.
Speaker: How do I identify an art history nerd?
Speaker: I've always thought Nando would be a great guy to either go up on stage or be in the audience for an art history comedy night.
Speaker: Which I've always fantasized about.
Speaker: Maybe that's our next exhibition.
Speaker: I think that might be your next.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a good fundraiser, too.
Speaker: Yeah, we've been throwing around ideas.
Speaker: Trivia night.
Speaker: Oh my god, can you imagine how many artists would love to pretend to be comics for a night?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, I feel like art, comedy, and cooking all have the same thing where like
Speaker: people think that they will do it and they'll be like more comfortable in their own skin and they'll like confront all all of their in insecurities and it's like no you're only going to dredge more up yeah yeah it's not a solution for any of those things you're really doing it it won't solve those problems like
Speaker: That's a great analogy because it's also everyone thinks they can do it, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, yes.
Speaker: And also... I've got a good five minutes in me.
Speaker: I've got one good solo show.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And then also the title of the thing, like, you're an artist as soon as you make art.
Speaker: You're a comedian as soon as you... Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's like there's no... It's almost a...
Speaker: It's a gift and it's a curse in the same way.
Speaker: I don't know any artist who's very comfortable calling themselves artists.
Speaker: Because you get the label as soon as you crack open an art book.
Speaker: It's not like you don't earn it.
Speaker: You do eventually have to earn it, but it's given to you and then you have to kind of figure out what it is.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, like being an engineer, you can't take a Saturday and dive in.
Speaker: and be like, well, you know, I've been dabbling in engineering, I guess, a little bit.
Speaker: A couple YouTube videos.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm thinking about going part-time and doing engineering.
Speaker: On weekends.
Speaker: For my side hustle.
Speaker: Just structural stuff, you know, like a couple major buildings here and there.
Speaker: But just to go back to what you were saying about that
Speaker: the show, that strategy of flattening of history where you kind of like, it's just like the images are like from prehistory, from renaissance, from current, from how do you go about choosing those images?
Speaker: Is it just a sense that you get?
Speaker: Is it something that you're currently interested in?
Speaker: Is it something that you come upon?
Speaker: I mean, they all work.
Speaker: It just, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like it's kind of a mix of,
Speaker: a lot of it is just first like finding the thing in the world.
Speaker: And so like when we did the talk a couple weeks ago, I was talking about how a couple of the sculptures in those images were from the Hearst Castle in California, some were from the
Speaker: Getty Villa in LA, somewhere from Paris.
Speaker: And sometimes it's just like re-encountering copies of this thing.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, this is like a vibe now that needs to be brought into the work.
Speaker: Sometimes I'm just like kind of un-self-consciously taking pictures of
Speaker: actual bodies in these same positions.
Speaker: And so it just kind of like a cruise.
Speaker: And then like, sometimes it's just Wikipedia holes and like, yeah, it's like part of why I feel like the last couple of years have been more research driven has been because a lot of that body of work came from just encounter.
Speaker: and like surprise.
Speaker: And there's definitely something conceptually interesting happening in putting all of those ideas and objects on to the same level.
Speaker: But I also feel like there's almost a kind of ignorance to the details of history itself, which turns out is quite important.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: just have wanted to focus more on the actual detail.
Speaker: I often thought that a proper art history survey now, now that they've kind of done away with the whole Janssen book thing with the whole European canon thing kind of being called into question and the inclusion of other... I mean, they haven't done away with it.
Speaker: Well, some have.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Yale doesn't do that anymore.
Speaker: But I thought the appropriate way to go about doing a proper survey would be just showing images, just like from across epochs and just like showing them and not even talking about them, you know, just show, show, show, show.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then, and then you would have like your, your breakouts where people would kind of like come to come to talk about them and like, but yeah, there's just so much.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And yeah, I feel like the, uh,
Speaker: the photo constructions kind of allow me to put the history into different contexts so that other ideas can bubble up.
Speaker: Like in this exhibition, there was a lot about gender and like ideas of like enlightenment, beauty and stuff.
Speaker: But yeah, it's like, it's this very kind of,
Speaker: Pomo-y thing where all of history gets reduced to just a surface.
Speaker: And yes, I think that there are advantages to looking at history in that way, but major blind spots too.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because that kind of led you, because there's these moments where it's just like,
Speaker: this requires investigation.
Speaker: And I'm imagining that's kind of like where the research kind of comes in, where you're just kind of, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And like, I often, I feel like I kind of de-emphasized it in this exhibition, but I will often tend to like very elaborately title things.
Speaker: And so they'll kind of act like hyperlinks and like clues for ways to absorb this content.
Speaker: Cause that was one of my questions when I was looking through, I mean, both for the current exhibition, like doing the panel talk was like, was like really fun for me to learn more about the, where the ideas for the work came from and where the original content and images came from.
Speaker: And then same thing, like looking at your other projects and on the, on your website, at least there isn't necessarily kind of like project statements unless I missed them.
Speaker: No, there's no, no project.
Speaker: I'm like, I, you know, I teach.
Speaker: And so I'm like, you have to write an artist statement.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I'm like, I love the approach because it allows, you know, it allows the viewer to bring themselves to it and kind of like glean what they can glean.
Speaker: And if they want to,
Speaker: click a hyperlink that is provided they can like learn more and like kind of dive in that way.
Speaker: And I was curious how you kind of, how you did that with your work, which is like, you know, very layered and research driven where I think for, at least for me, it was like even more enriching once I got to like dive into some of the source material, if that makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like I, it's in,
Speaker: the exhibitions themselves, I'm always like, okay, this is for an art world crowd usually.
Speaker: And so I expect a certain kind of like visual savviness.
Speaker: And I'm, I'm, uh, uh, usually find out that I I'm hiding things too much or I'm just wrong about that.
Speaker: Um, well, it's also things can operate on most multiple levels, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, and, and like, this is a,
Speaker: body of work as a photographer, I'm always like thinking about books.
Speaker: And like, to me, if this content were to land in book form, I would insist much more on really like pointing out what each thing references just because it is important
Speaker: content that I don't want overlooked.
Speaker: But in the exhibition space, I like to have it much more open-ended and dependent on the context of the space.
Speaker: The other work it's around will all infuse it with meaning.
Speaker: And thinking about what Joe just said reminded me or kind of like
Speaker: It seems like it's almost a Walter Benjamin approach to images where you're kind of, where he would use quotes in certain, was it the Arcade Project where he would just quote certain texts and let the reader kind of like make the connections between the text that he was quoting.
Speaker: The act of quoting these images, some of them even taken out of art historical texts and then putting them next to each other and then asking the viewer to kind of make the connections.
Speaker: um i think it's an interesting way to go about it as well yeah yeah and i i have been uh teaching the um work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction um a bunch over the last like year or two and like um it really it has struck me that like i'm just like like
Speaker: ripping this guy off.
Speaker: And then like just, and I, I, I didn't really realize it until this year.
Speaker: And I'm, I'm, I'm not, um, uh, upset by it because, uh, the guy was really, uh, brilliant and just the, his work is so open-ended in time too.
Speaker: um and and is just constantly able to be reapplied and reused and there's stuff that you you'll read like 10 times and just be like why is he talking about this and then you read it uh two years later it's like oh my god this is like
Speaker: the most relevant bit.
Speaker: So yeah, that's just fine with me.
Speaker: That was something that I was gonna bring up as a photographer.
Speaker: And I feel like maybe this is like a common, I feel like this is a common occurrence amongst people who were trained as photographers to be fine art photographers.
Speaker: And then they kind of move past that kind of application of photography as images on a wall in a group.
Speaker: Um, because like, I feel like a lot of times, at least this is like how I view images is their collections of objects usually, right?
Speaker: They're pictures of objects.
Speaker: And so they have, you're like, I feel like a lot of photographers when they transition into being more kind of like photo based artists or whatever you want to call it, are like curating their own work or their own images with, with their own images or other images.
Speaker: or even like removing like picture making from it in general and just starting to work with assemblage or some kind of hybrid version of assemblage with objects and photographs, which it seems like, it seems like you definitely have leaned into throughout your kind of trajectory of your practice.
Speaker: And the, the eternal flame project,
Speaker: which I love because it is super nostalgic.
Speaker: There's not a lot of your images in that, right?
Speaker: I think it's all mine.
Speaker: Oh, it is?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Most of them started as really bad doodles on top of
Speaker: my own pictures.
Speaker: And then, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's all my original content.
Speaker: And that's like something kind of, I mean, speaking of Benjamin, I feel like in the still lifes, I'm like always very comfortable appropriating all kinds of other images and stuff.
Speaker: But often when I'm, I'm just like starting on a piece of my own, I'm like, I kind of, I,
Speaker: find myself going back to my own work.
Speaker: And then I'm like worried that it's just becoming this like circle jerk of Nando's ideas on top of Nando's ideas on top of Nando's ideas.
Speaker: But I do, I try to get the work like that, that eternal flame show was in a middle school here.
Speaker: And, and so I, I hope that the, the, the sites and the new audience there will,
Speaker: bring it its own context and that I can still make individual works of art and trust that their context will alter them in some way.
Speaker: I had, I mean, that's one of the things I had asterisked in my notes was
Speaker: did you do these doodles?
Speaker: And if you had not, where did you find them?
Speaker: Because they are amazing.
Speaker: I mean, they're as strong, if not stronger sometimes than the actual photographs.
Speaker: It's just like, it's a great push-pull kind of thing.
Speaker: It's like, where did this originate?
Speaker: Was it found?
Speaker: Like, it's just... Yeah, no, it's amazing.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: That's like one more body of work that I'm kind of hesitant to
Speaker: go back to.
Speaker: I still have... I'm always kind of back and forth on photography, even though a lot of people don't really care for it.
Speaker: I am still blown away by its capacity for describing real objects in the world.
Speaker: And you cannot escape the history of how they're made, the context that they're being torn out of to land in
Speaker: this photo you can combine objects in ways that can make novel context and then the digital approach I'm always like I can never tell if people are like just never want to see a digital doodle printed flat onto a
Speaker: surface like ever again or like I started that work because I knew I had this exhibition at the school, my installations and that the content that's in them felt like not the right thing for eighth graders to just like I didn't see how they would engage.
Speaker: And at the time, the only thing that felt right to do in
Speaker: my studio was just doodling and by feel right.
Speaker: I mean, it just felt good.
Speaker: It was the one thing that each day I could go back to and it just felt like I was making progress on something.
Speaker: Um, and yeah, I, I, I've done a couple more works in that vein since, but, um, and it's something I imagine I'll return to, but, um,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I also always have questions about like the deep feeling of art and how, again, on the one hand, it's a great thing.
Speaker: On the other hand, I don't need to see a gloopy pot ever again.
Speaker: And yeah, so.
Speaker: I mean, I mean,
Speaker: I was just going to say that one of the fun things about it is that de-skilling, right, is that it is so loose and kind of like free feeling.
Speaker: But also, you know, if I saw this work, I wouldn't and I didn't know it was yours.
Speaker: I wouldn't immediately think that it was.
Speaker: And then when I found out, I'd be like, oh, of course it is.
Speaker: Because, you know, just aesthetically, it has a wildly different
Speaker: feel in a really kind of de-skilled, like hodgepodge, fun way, which not that your other work isn't fun, but it feels...
Speaker: like it has a different kind of seriousness than that project, which, which seems to be kind of like the tone of most of the work that I, that I've seen of yours is a little bit more kind of like academic key or, or, or for lack of a better term.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: I hope you're still doodling whether it's an active practice that you're going to use or not because it just seems like, again, as a doodler myself, it's an amazing way to kind of like clear the head and show the hand.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And like part of why I was like, ooh, I need to back off of these was because I was getting better at certain aspects.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I was just like, okay, this needs to stay like honestly terrible.
Speaker: So I'll come back to it when I do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there's also something about like, forget some of the like Photoshop moves that I was starting to rely on a lot.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I think there's also something about people liking to see artists who typically work really kind of refined and structured do something like that, but not a lot, right?
Speaker: Because it only has that fun little impact the first time.
Speaker: You're like, oh, look at these drawings.
Speaker: uh they're fantastic and free and loose and so different um but like how many times can you get away with that before people are like okay you're actually kind of bad at drawing uh yeah i don't know i could see these forever i mean um i think of uh i don't know which marcellus it is but the one that doesn't play the trumpet he he loved miles davis and he his first lesson with the trumpet he sounded like miles davis and then he got lessons and then he did not sound like miles davis yeah
Speaker: fuck this.
Speaker: But Miles Davis was like, he had kind of come looped around and like found his voice and was able to get this like earthy, primal, whatever, that is really hard to access.
Speaker: And I think these drawings kind of
Speaker: bit that thing it's like this this weird space uh this weird liminal space of skill and de-skill uh but I know what you're getting at where it's like you get these you you fall into these ruts where you start doing the same tricks over and over again and how do you change that up do you draw your left hand do you draw upside down it's like I literally started to uh uh I was taping my uh
Speaker: tablet pen to like a long ruler.
Speaker: And I was like, I had the tablet like up against the wall.
Speaker: And so I was like, okay, I need to just back off for a bit.
Speaker: Did the initial doodles happen without knowing they were going to be anything?
Speaker: And then, and then you realized you were going to use them for an exhibition and you continued to make it work?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I could, I like, I guess the first doodle that was really,
Speaker: doing a lot of where like I would just do them on my phone on um uh I can't remember what app but just um use my finger and um uh so like I I like knew that there was like um uh something I wanted to pursue there um and I have a bunch of like older doodles that are still on my phone that I haven't used but um
Speaker: uh, yeah, it just, it was a thing that started and then it felt more right to me than going out to take pictures and that was it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And what about, because I mean, again, looking at your body of work, the title of the 2021 small works where you're adding chains and all sorts of objects.
Speaker: I mean, again, to go back to Miles Davis, it just seems like you're at a point where there's no wrong notes.
Speaker: It's like, you can just throw something out and just make it work into your, you have that facility, at least from this perspective.
Speaker: I appreciate that a great deal because I think, again, a lot of it comes from feeling like I have a lack of facility.
Speaker: And it has, I feel like one of the things that I kind of discovered through that work was I always, for a while, I thought that I was doing something totally new in my own practice.
Speaker: But
Speaker: the chains boondoggle Tamagotchis, um, all of his ready-made stuff.
Speaker: Um, just that there was a, uh, through line from the, um, uh, the like kitschy stuff that's in the still lifes to that.
Speaker: Um, and I feel like I'm trying to stuff that doodly stuff back into photos.
Speaker: Um, and yeah, I,
Speaker: have an exhibition next fall that I'm like really hoping to sort of get it all back together again and see what happens.
Speaker: Um, nice.
Speaker: Um, that's cool.
Speaker: How was, uh, how was the light work residency?
Speaker: What were you working on there?
Speaker: Light work was amazing.
Speaker: Um, I was just making pictures in the studio for like the entire month.
Speaker: Um, and it was great.
Speaker: I hadn't, um,
Speaker: really had intensive time like that since like right after grad school and so I was like almost worried that I couldn't focus and it was great got a lot done and I wanted to get the kind of like kernel of this next exhibition for next fall done and I think I got
Speaker: beyond that and there's a very good start to that work.
Speaker: And I feel like I was just combining a lot of the different ideas that I've been working through well and also particularly the images that were in your show, the ones that were more flat
Speaker: Um, like there was the one with the yoga mat background and, um, uh, just, I, I, I was like trying to get to, uh, um, uh, place where I could like lose the tabletop work in a way that like the pictures would look kind of like they don't have gravity, um, and, uh, just make them more flat and even more surfacy.
Speaker: And I, I,
Speaker: got through a lot of ideas.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Can't wait to see whatever that turns into over the next year.
Speaker: Me neither.
Speaker: Um, and then I, I also think we should mention the Buffalo, uh, Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art.
Speaker: Um, and congratulations on the Warhol grant.
Speaker: Is that right?
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, and, and you, and I've noticed that you include that piece about, um, BICA, do you guys call it BICA?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Uh, and that you're an educator in your kind of like official artist bio.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And I'm just curious how that all plays into your artist practice and if you see them as totally separate, as talking to each other, as being the same thing, as being part of your art practice.
Speaker: I'm kind of just curious to hear you talk about that a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like, I think I was talking about this a bit in the panel talk, but like, I feel like,
Speaker: how to say this.
Speaker: So the two practices are obviously very distinct.
Speaker: One is an object-based way of working that demands like exhibition space and the work being shown.
Speaker: And for years, like part of why we started DECA was because I was so uncomfortable with that.
Speaker: mode of working because it's just, it's art communities come with so much promise about connection and ability to organize and change things and have an impact on culture.
Speaker: And the Bay area is, is, is a very particular case, but like I was having some success there.
Speaker: Um, and it just felt like every exhibition was just this kind of like exercise in narcissism.
Speaker: Um, and so the, the last, um, show that I did there, uh, was that, uh, portentology one.
Speaker: Um, and in that, but I was like, um, trying to get, so I had a friend do the, um, uh, jewelry, um,
Speaker: pendulum dowsers that were attached to two works.
Speaker: Another friend was finding me jewels and things to use for bookends.
Speaker: My friend John Zappas hand-carved the ashtrays that were on these shelves there.
Speaker: And so I was trying to think a lot more about how to kind of like
Speaker: distribute authorship and like raise the stakes in, um, uh, the, uh, work a bit.
Speaker: Um, and that felt okay, but Bika feels like a much, uh, more direct way to do that.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, it's like, um, Bika is a project about like, how can we use art to directly impact our,
Speaker: local region.
Speaker: And we try not to be too like reactionary about it, but there is a lot of like reacting to what's not here and what's needed.
Speaker: And so like Cornelia, the magazine started when we had Lindsay Preston's actress, who's
Speaker: John Depps' wife, she started Carla Magazine in LA.
Speaker: And all of the local arts writing in Buffalo and Toronto too had ended in the like 2017, 18 years.
Speaker: And so we knew that there was this need to have art
Speaker: written about.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, we had her come and do a show at Bika do a arts writing workshop.
Speaker: And we hope someone would like to start a blog, but then we, uh, started to sell ads for this one-off zine of the workshop writing realized that all of the orgs in town need a cheap outlet to
Speaker: advertise in and it was just like okay great done that that is actually a thing that that can pay for itself um and which is rare it is rare yes um art gets seen um the artists are all like extremely happy i will say i i it's um uh little weird to see organizations that are like 50 years old just
Speaker: be like dying for a review in this magazine that's been around for like three years but it's the only thing yeah and so it's it's it's the impact has been real and um yeah so so that it's it's it's uh yeah because it's just a way to fulfill urgent needs here and and and then our uh most recent project um is a thing called
Speaker: Bika School, which we were thinking about as a free MFA, just a spot to come to do reading groups, crits.
Speaker: And we have had about 20 very committed, mostly younger people join.
Speaker: And it was just like, we just had to invite them and they are
Speaker: building this whole thing that is awesome.
Speaker: And so, yeah, it's just about how can institutions better serve their scene.
Speaker: That's fantastic.
Speaker: And users.
Speaker: And you went back to Buffalo.
Speaker: You had a connection to Buffalo, correct?
Speaker: Yes, I'm from here.
Speaker: So it's wonderful that you kind of went to this larger city and saw what it had and decided...
Speaker: To not only choose a city that was probably in need of cultural institutions and whatnot, but something that is connected to you.
Speaker: So it's not like you're going into some neighborhood that has no connection and you're kind of just like not paying attention or I don't know.
Speaker: The worst thing is when you don't pay attention to the needs of the actual community members as opposed to you are actually a participant of that community in itself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like, I mean, we were leaving the Bay Area at the time.
Speaker: Like, I don't know if you guys heard about the space called that in Boyle Heights in L.A.
Speaker: It was started by some Cal Arts grads.
Speaker: It sounded like there was some internal Cal Arts tip that led to a student like blowing the whistle on
Speaker: gentrification happening by this venue.
Speaker: And gentrification is always happening in Buffalo too, but it's a very, very, very different conversation just because the needs that we have here are very different.
Speaker: And yeah, we just, we, my,
Speaker: wife and I knew that we wanted to be in a place that we had real roots, real stakes, um, and, uh, that would solve our rent problems and LA and, um, Emily's from, uh, outside Boulder.
Speaker: And we knew Denver was not going to be a way to make life easier.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, so, um, went on Buffalo and,
Speaker: It's been great.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And then just I heard recently that gentrification is just a really nice word for displacement.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes, it is.
Speaker: So that's great.
Speaker: I mean, it sounds like you guys are doing some great things and you got some momentum behind you as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're a busy, busy man.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm busy enough.
Speaker: I'm busy enough.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I probably don't want to be busier.
Speaker: the art world, so I know everyone else is too.
Speaker: And so yeah, I don't like to complain about it, but definitely once school starts, I just start to feel like, oh my fucking, my brain is just like, like.
Speaker: can't.
Speaker: Yeah, somebody just posted a silly meme.
Speaker: And it was like, you know, you, when you work in the arts, you have to work 20 hours a day, but you get to pick which 20 hours.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, the joys.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was, I was going to make a joke too, about how we started Lydian Stater because there was a need for a gallery space in New York city.
Speaker: Uh, that was, which is like, which is not, I mean, it's not true, but it's not untrue.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like there's so many, there's so many fantastic artists here who, who are looking for space to show who can't get it in other places necessarily.
Speaker: It's like, um, I mean, it's obviously not at all the same, um,
Speaker: as a city like Buffalo, but it is in the arts in general.
Speaker: It's like, you know, it's like the common thread problem forever.
Speaker: Especially when the gallery system just shows the same artists over and over and over again, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like there too, it's like the way that you can fulfill need is completely different because you can actually sell work there.
Speaker: Whereas here, that is like, if you are a full-time for-profit gallery,
Speaker: you do the fairs and stuff like you can sell work, but it won't be the locals.
Speaker: Um, and it's, so galleries here are, are, are great, but it is, um, and artists need the opportunities to show, but they often just lead to, uh, money and time spent.
Speaker: And it can be hard to turn that into whatever the next, uh, step is, whether that's, that's just, uh,
Speaker: being paid for your work or getting your work out there to the next level.
Speaker: So yeah, I've just been blown away.
Speaker: Like people just walk into art galleries there and spend money.
Speaker: I bought a work there when I was there in like May or June.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just like, and here that is not a thing.
Speaker: And so you, you,
Speaker: You need to find ways to get artists resources in lieu of that.
Speaker: It's funny, that's a mental thing too, because it's like, I remember a lot of artists in Chicago who were represented by Chicago galleries would have to, they would sell their work in New York and LA.
Speaker: They wouldn't sell there.
Speaker: Even though they showed the same work in Chicago, it wouldn't sell.
Speaker: And the Chicago collector, when they went to New York, would buy the Chicago.
Speaker: Would buy the same shit, I know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: it's crazy yeah um we're just sadly i do need to go yeah yeah yeah we're about we're about on time there so do you have the do you want to name the show you're in in the fall as a promotion oh um well i don't want to put a solid date on it but it will be at um uh rivalry projects um
Speaker: here in Buffalo.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Good luck with that.
Speaker: Thanks again.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Really appreciate it, guys.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Definitely stay in touch.
Speaker: I will.
Speaker: See you.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Arranging Tangerines is recorded, edited, and produced by Lydian Stater, an evolving curatorial platform based in New York City with a focus on the intersection of contemporary and crypto art.
Speaker: You can learn more at lydianstater.co, find images at Lydian Stater NYC on Instagram, and follow us at Lydian Stater on Twitter.
Speaker: Thanks to Nando for taking the time to speak to us this week.
Speaker: If you'd like to learn more about Nando's work, visit his website at nandoalvarezperez.com.
Speaker: Big thanks to Tall Juan, who graciously provides our intro music.
Speaker: His albums are available at tallwan.bandcamp.com.
Speaker: And thank you to you, listener, for spending your valuable time with us.
Speaker: I know what to do.
Speaker: I don't know what to say.
Speaker: I just know I don't want to be like you.
Speaker: I know what to do.
Speaker: I don't know what to say.
Speaker: I just know I don't want to be like you.
