Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Arranging Tangerines Episode 35 - A Conversation with Nando Alvarez-Perez
5 Plays2 years ago
In this episode we speak with Nando Alvarez-Perez. We reflect on our previous exhibition, post industrial digital dysmorphya, and discuss the politics of being a triplet, when the right time to “retire” a body of work is, image selection and the flattening of history, the indirect impact Walter Benjamin has had on his practice, deskilling, doodles, and recent activities at Lightwork’s residency program, Cornelia Magazine, and the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art.
Nando Alvarez-Perez is a native of Buffalo, New York. In 2014 he graduated from SFAI, where he received the Master of Fine Arts Fellowship in Photography. 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. His practice extends to his work as a founding director of The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art, an art and education nonprofit that model how culture can sustain communities through focused, practical engagements with contemporary art, 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. He is currently a visiting professor at Alfred University.
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Arranging Tangerines, presented by Lady and Stater.
00:00:05
Speaker
Conversations with contemporary artists, curators, and thinkers about the intersection of art, technology, and commerce.
00:00:10
Speaker
Your hosts are me, Alessandro Silver and Joseph Wilcox.
00:00:13
Speaker
I know what to do.
00:00:14
Speaker
I know what to say.
00:00:17
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
00:00:20
Speaker
I know what to do.
00:00:21
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
00:00:23
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
00:00:34
Speaker
This week's
Meet Nando Alvarez Perez
00:00:35
Speaker
guest is Nando Alvarez Perez.
00:00:37
Speaker
Nando Alvarez Perez is a native of Buffalo, New York.
00:00:40
Speaker
In 2014, he graduated from SFAI, where he received the Masters of Fine Arts Fellowship in Photography.
00:00:45
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.
00:00:54
Speaker
His practice extends to his work as a founding director of the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art.
00:00:59
Speaker
an art and education nonprofit that models how culture can sustain communities through focused practical engagements with contemporary art.
00:01:06
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.
00:01:13
Speaker
He
Teaching and Semester Start
00:01:14
Speaker
is currently a visiting professor at Alfred University.
00:01:16
Speaker
Welcome Nando.
00:01:18
Speaker
Hey Alessandro.
00:01:19
Speaker
What's up Nando?
00:01:21
Speaker
How's it going?
00:01:22
Speaker
Good, how are you?
00:01:24
Speaker
Pretty good.
00:01:27
Speaker
Hey Joseph.
00:01:29
Speaker
Hey, Nando.
00:01:29
Speaker
How's it going?
00:01:30
Speaker
Good.
00:01:33
Speaker
Slightly crazed with the start of the semester, but good.
00:01:41
Speaker
Same.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, I bet.
00:01:45
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
00:02:00
Speaker
whatever classroom culture, community building stuff that like, I don't have to prepare for it.
00:02:04
Speaker
Cause it's just like kids and like, and like figuring out.
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:09
Speaker
So I'm not, I'm not stressed yet, but I'm sure I will be next week.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:17
Speaker
So Alex, it's happening.
00:02:22
Speaker
Do you need to like do some levels or something?
00:02:25
Speaker
I don't see levels.
00:02:27
Speaker
I mean, everyone sounds good.
00:02:30
Speaker
Right?
00:02:31
Speaker
Yeah, except for you.
00:02:31
Speaker
You sound like you've been sucking on some helium.
00:02:35
Speaker
Oh, is it?
00:02:35
Speaker
Am I different?
00:02:36
Speaker
I thought you were joking.
00:02:37
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:02:38
Speaker
Shit.
00:02:38
Speaker
Okay, hold on.
00:02:42
Speaker
Thanks for that.
00:02:47
Speaker
Your voice sounds normal to me, I think.
00:02:51
Speaker
Maybe it's on my end.
00:02:59
Speaker
Maybe it's also because we are both logged into the same Zoom account.
00:03:02
Speaker
It's doing something weird.
00:03:03
Speaker
No, it could be.
00:03:04
Speaker
I know there's something.
00:03:07
Speaker
It's really funny.
00:03:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:12
Speaker
Well, I got to find it, though.
00:03:13
Speaker
It's a setting.
00:03:14
Speaker
You actually kind of sound like a teenage version of yourself, I think.
00:03:21
Speaker
One day, I'll put a video on the internet.
00:03:24
Speaker
Hold on.
00:03:31
Speaker
How's the
Virtual Gallery Creation
00:03:32
Speaker
prep for the next exhibition going?
00:03:36
Speaker
It's going okay.
00:03:38
Speaker
It's like always 10 times more work than I think it's going to be.
00:03:46
Speaker
And like the artists are awesome, but they're so busy.
00:03:50
Speaker
And so there's like things we want them to do that they're like, I don't think I have time.
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah, well, that sounds familiar.
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:58
Speaker
And we're like, so how can we make it happen still?
00:04:01
Speaker
Like we're going to take on more work for them, I think.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:07
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.
00:04:19
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.
00:04:26
Speaker
So I've been working with a dude on Fiverr.
00:04:30
Speaker
Great thinking.
00:04:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:32
Speaker
I like, so, you know, like there's lots of different price ranges on there.
00:04:37
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.
00:04:47
Speaker
And I was like, I was like, all right, let's see what this looks like.
00:04:50
Speaker
I assumed it would be kind of shitty.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:54
Speaker
And that would be okay because it's like, you know, like this like clunky virtual thing is I think an interesting.
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah, based to live in.
00:05:01
Speaker
But like, it's actually pretty legit.
00:05:05
Speaker
And I said, where's this guy based?
00:05:08
Speaker
He's in Pakistan.
00:05:09
Speaker
Of course.
00:05:11
Speaker
So, you know, I like sent it out to 10 people.
00:05:13
Speaker
I'm like, this is what I want.
00:05:14
Speaker
This is what I want.
00:05:15
Speaker
Oh, how much.
00:05:16
Speaker
And he was he was the cheapest.
00:05:18
Speaker
But there was there was some that were like 150.
00:05:20
Speaker
And I was like, well, should I pay the 150 splurge on that?
00:05:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:24
Speaker
And like, you know, get something better.
00:05:26
Speaker
But, you know, they have reviews on here, too.
00:05:28
Speaker
And so I also know, like, when you start on this thing, you're hustling and you're going to work for cheap.
00:05:34
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
00:05:53
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.
00:06:05
Speaker
It's very familiar.
00:06:06
Speaker
I mean, we're like...
00:06:08
Speaker
We're lucky that it was, I mean, you've been into space, obviously.
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:11
Speaker
It's an easy space to replicate.
00:06:12
Speaker
So it's easy to get one-to-one.
00:06:14
Speaker
But Joe and I were like, if it's shitty, it's great.
00:06:17
Speaker
And if it's great, it's great.
00:06:18
Speaker
It's like, there was no, there's no losing.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:20
Speaker
There's no, there's no bad option.
00:06:22
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.
00:06:28
Speaker
And so you leave and you're in this black void universe.
00:06:32
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:06:33
Speaker
Wow.
00:06:34
Speaker
And so you can like you can like see it's just this like cube in the middle of this black void.
00:06:39
Speaker
And I was like, oh, that's perfect.
00:06:40
Speaker
I was like, can we leave that?
00:06:42
Speaker
And you can like go to the windows and like look inside of the space from the outside and see all the works.
00:06:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that's amazing.
00:06:48
Speaker
I think it's going to be sick.
00:06:49
Speaker
I'm excited.
00:06:49
Speaker
I'm excited.
00:06:51
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:06:52
Speaker
I was gonna say, Joe, there should be a door outside the space.
00:06:56
Speaker
that you don't have access to and so you have to buzz in.
00:07:00
Speaker
It's like a portal to somewhere else.
00:07:03
Speaker
And then there was like, there was funny stuff that happened.
00:07:06
Speaker
Like when you look in the window, you would get stuck.
00:07:08
Speaker
And I was like, well, that's kind of funny.
00:07:10
Speaker
And you're like, you can't move once you like, look in the window and like, yeah.
00:07:15
Speaker
Uh, he also like built this like wall to have works outside of the space if we wanted.
00:07:21
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.
00:07:27
Speaker
And I was like, just add like 50 of them because if you don't use them, they don't show up.
00:07:31
Speaker
And so then we can also like in the future, we'll be able to use the space if we want.
00:07:34
Speaker
And we can like have like a public arts sculpture garden outside of the gallery.
00:07:40
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:07:41
Speaker
There's just like a lot of options.
00:07:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:44
Speaker
Um, it like,
00:07:45
Speaker
Reminds me of using a GameShark on Final Fantasy 8.
00:07:52
Speaker
Oh my god, yes.
00:07:53
Speaker
Going into the debug space.
00:07:55
Speaker
I totally forgot about GameShark.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:59
Speaker
Are you familiar with GameShark, Alex?
00:08:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:01
Speaker
No.
00:08:02
Speaker
It's like a third party.
00:08:03
Speaker
You put your game into it and then you plug it into a Sega Genesis or I think Super Nintendo maybe had one.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, the Sega one was Game Genie.
00:08:12
Speaker
Game Genie.
00:08:13
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.
00:08:19
Speaker
No, I've never heard of this.
00:08:20
Speaker
But it wasn't sanctioned by Sega.
00:08:22
Speaker
No, it came preloaded with all of the cheat codes for
00:08:29
Speaker
tons of games yeah yeah it was awesome yeah this is before um what's his name archangel did the mirror brothers piece
00:08:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:39
Speaker
I mean, this was like, I mean, it was like in conjunction with the development of video game systems, these things came out.
00:08:47
Speaker
Um, but it was only cool if you got it after you had played for a while.
00:08:50
Speaker
Cause then, yes.
00:08:51
Speaker
Cause then you got all the stuff that you wished you had.
00:08:53
Speaker
But the game is like really ruined.
00:08:55
Speaker
If you're like, I'm just gonna cheat now.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:59
Speaker
A million lives is not actually that fun, which is probably true in real life also.
00:09:05
Speaker
Uh,
00:09:08
Speaker
Well, speaking of fun, I know you have time constraints,
Nando's Unique Birth Story
00:09:12
Speaker
right, Nando?
00:09:12
Speaker
Yes, yeah.
00:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yes.
00:09:16
Speaker
So let's dive in.
00:09:18
Speaker
What are our time constraints?
00:09:19
Speaker
So I can... I think he has to go by noon?
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:22
Speaker
That's beautiful.
00:09:24
Speaker
Otherwise, we'll just go too long.
00:09:27
Speaker
We have an AI version of you, Nando, that we can continue the conversation with.
00:09:31
Speaker
Load me in.
00:09:34
Speaker
And can we call you Nandor?
00:09:36
Speaker
Have you watched the, what's the shadows show?
00:09:41
Speaker
What we do in the shadows?
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:44
Speaker
Nandor the Relentless?
00:09:45
Speaker
Yeah, yes.
00:09:46
Speaker
I have.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:48
Speaker
So Nandor.
00:09:49
Speaker
I mean, I think Nando the Relentless is kind of a nicer gesture.
00:09:56
Speaker
I was listening to a podcast you were on a few years ago.
00:10:00
Speaker
oh no, I just got an email from another guy who also just listened to this podcast, I think.
00:10:07
Speaker
Can we talk about this elephant in the room that I found out about yesterday that I was shocked?
00:10:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:13
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.
00:10:25
Speaker
Also, even weirder, my cousin, also named Fernando, was born on the same day about two hours before me and my brothers was.
00:10:45
Speaker
So four of you came into existence basically?
00:10:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:10:49
Speaker
I mean, there's got to be some kind of like existential energy thing that happens when, when like triplets are born.
00:10:56
Speaker
Right.
00:10:57
Speaker
Depending on how you believe in energy and like, if it's like all coming from like, yeah, I don't know.
00:11:03
Speaker
I feel like there's gotta be, there's gotta be something there.
00:11:07
Speaker
I mean, is there, do you guys communicate like via special?
00:11:14
Speaker
I wish we did.
00:11:15
Speaker
I have to say that, uh, uh,
00:11:19
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
00:11:43
Speaker
connections or anything, but we, we did, um, used to go to triplet conventions, uh, when we were kids.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yes.
00:11:51
Speaker
Oh, right on.
00:11:53
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.
00:12:07
Speaker
Um, and, uh, so we would go each year.
00:12:11
Speaker
So there, it, it,
00:12:12
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.
00:12:30
Speaker
And there was no booze.
00:12:34
Speaker
And so they didn't have that much fun, but it would be like a weekend long thing.
00:12:39
Speaker
It would move all,
00:12:41
Speaker
over the country.
00:12:42
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.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:06
Speaker
And then the kids would be, you know,
00:13:10
Speaker
corralled into rooms to watch movies and shit and parents would do these workshops and it was fun.
00:13:20
Speaker
How old were you when you went to the last?
00:13:24
Speaker
Last one?
00:13:24
Speaker
Probably 12 or 13.
00:13:26
Speaker
Interesting.
00:13:27
Speaker
It's been a while.
00:13:30
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
00:13:54
Speaker
There was like a connection, like one was a fireman, the other one was, was an arsonist.
00:13:59
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.
00:14:09
Speaker
And so it's like, it's also about that.
00:14:11
Speaker
And like, you know, what happens when kids are split up and kids are adopted and all that kind of stuff.
00:14:17
Speaker
So interesting and heavy for sure.
00:14:21
Speaker
Well, that's a great segue to start.
00:14:26
Speaker
Because art can be very tragic and traumatic.
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah, artists can be for sure.
00:14:38
Speaker
I guess for time's sake, I just, I guess, thanks again for being in the show.
00:14:43
Speaker
It looked amazing.
Artistic Reflection and Exhibitions
00:14:46
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.
00:14:57
Speaker
Any thoughts post-show that you want to kind of
00:15:01
Speaker
Talk about whether it's thinking about directions you might be headed in or.
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:06
Speaker
And it was like a whirlwind to kind of like get the show up.
00:15:08
Speaker
And then it was up for a while and kind of just got to exist too.
00:15:11
Speaker
So I wonder, yeah, I'm curious.
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:14
Speaker
I feel like I always, I always get these shows up and then they're either for like fair.
00:15:21
Speaker
So it's for like a weekend or exhibitions in X site.
00:15:24
Speaker
And I don't actually get to see how people use it and stuff.
00:15:30
Speaker
Um, and, um, I guess like reflecting on it, like, um, I'm super glad Carlos reached out.
00:15:40
Speaker
I always think that I'm done with that body of work.
00:15:45
Speaker
Um, and that use of, of, of the, uh, um, uh, aluminum, um, as a frame and stuff.
00:15:55
Speaker
Um, I always think that like, okay, I've, I've become one of those,
00:16:02
Speaker
artist who has like a thing and it's just like constantly referencing this thing.
00:16:08
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.
00:16:18
Speaker
And so it really got, this was an installation that I did in May of 2020 and was just,
00:16:31
Speaker
thinking about how to get my neighborhood outside to enjoy art and did an installation on my house.
00:16:47
Speaker
And so like, I'm always finding these new kind of like architectural uses and stuff.
00:16:53
Speaker
And then in this show, the size of the space, just like,
00:16:59
Speaker
really kind of opened up the bodilyness of these installations.
00:17:07
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.
00:17:21
Speaker
And it was nice too, to have Carlos take this kind of like,
00:17:29
Speaker
Caribbean through line to, uh, both who was included, um, and then the content and thinking about the, um, installations as individual islands.
00:17:49
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,
00:18:00
Speaker
putting it all on the same time plane.
00:18:08
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.
00:18:22
Speaker
And I feel like I can move on now.
00:18:25
Speaker
I'm sure that I will be asked to do
00:18:29
Speaker
something like it again.
00:18:30
Speaker
But yeah, it did feel good to have in my own brain, like it interfaced with other artists work.
00:18:42
Speaker
It really got your body involved.
00:18:46
Speaker
And yeah, it just checked all of these boxes that I had been working towards for years.
00:18:55
Speaker
So.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:18:57
Speaker
I'm glad it didn't feel, I don't know, like an obligation to have to dive into that again.
00:19:04
Speaker
And I mean, it makes sense.
00:19:07
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?
00:19:16
Speaker
Because it can fill almost any space in a different way.
00:19:19
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.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah, but you know what, I hope so.
00:19:32
Speaker
Right, exactly, exactly.
00:19:33
Speaker
But I'm glad that this one at least felt a little bit inspired in a different way.
00:19:38
Speaker
But it's your it's your fault.
00:19:40
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.
00:19:49
Speaker
Like you said, it was outside of your house.
00:19:51
Speaker
It's inside of a gallery.
00:19:53
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
00:20:12
Speaker
And you also, you mentioned not necessarily getting to see how people who came through interacted with it.
00:20:18
Speaker
But appropriately, many people took selfies and photographs.
00:20:23
Speaker
I know, yeah.
00:20:25
Speaker
Which, you know, I don't know.
00:20:27
Speaker
Whenever a work can kind of like use an aspect of its construction to critique photographs,
00:20:34
Speaker
said thing, I always think that's really fun, right?
00:20:38
Speaker
So that was nice to see when people were interacting, like, oh, I know what to do here.
00:20:43
Speaker
I need to take a selfie.
00:20:46
Speaker
Not only that, having been to many exhibitions and
00:20:51
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
00:21:16
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
Impact of Art on Audiences
00:21:24
Speaker
a different angle to a different um
00:21:28
Speaker
kind of like a collage of different images presented.
00:21:31
Speaker
Yeah, it was great.
00:21:33
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.
00:21:44
Speaker
And so it was like really open for that last exhibition.
00:21:48
Speaker
And so this was like a really fun contrast to have right after it.
00:21:53
Speaker
The last one we did was, it was just, it was a chair.
00:21:56
Speaker
And it was a picture of a chair.
00:21:58
Speaker
And it was a definition of a chair.
00:22:02
Speaker
Not actually.
00:22:02
Speaker
How do I identify an art history nerd?
00:22:14
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.
00:22:26
Speaker
Which I've always fantasized about.
00:22:28
Speaker
Maybe that's our next exhibition.
00:22:29
Speaker
I think that might be your next.
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good fundraiser, too.
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah, we've been throwing around ideas.
00:22:36
Speaker
Trivia night.
00:22:37
Speaker
Oh my god, can you imagine how many artists would love to pretend to be comics for a night?
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:44
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I feel like art, comedy, and cooking all have the same thing where like
00:22:53
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
00:23:12
Speaker
That's a great analogy because it's also everyone thinks they can do it, you know?
00:23:17
Speaker
Yeah, yes.
00:23:18
Speaker
And also... I've got a good five minutes in me.
00:23:22
Speaker
I've got one good solo show.
00:23:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:26
Speaker
And then also the title of the thing, like, you're an artist as soon as you make art.
00:23:32
Speaker
You're a comedian as soon as you... Yeah, yeah.
00:23:34
Speaker
It's like there's no... It's almost a...
00:23:37
Speaker
It's a gift and it's a curse in the same way.
00:23:41
Speaker
I don't know any artist who's very comfortable calling themselves artists.
00:23:46
Speaker
Because you get the label as soon as you crack open an art book.
00:23:51
Speaker
It's not like you don't earn it.
00:23:53
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.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yes.
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah, like being an engineer, you can't take a Saturday and dive in.
00:24:08
Speaker
and be like, well, you know, I've been dabbling in engineering, I guess, a little bit.
00:24:12
Speaker
A couple YouTube videos.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:15
Speaker
I'm thinking about going part-time and doing engineering.
00:24:19
Speaker
On weekends.
00:24:21
Speaker
For my side hustle.
00:24:22
Speaker
Just structural stuff, you know, like a couple major buildings here and there.
00:24:29
Speaker
But just to go back to what you were saying about that
00:24:33
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?
00:24:49
Speaker
Is it just a sense that you get?
00:24:51
Speaker
Is it something that you're currently interested in?
00:24:53
Speaker
Is it something that you come upon?
00:24:55
Speaker
I mean, they all work.
00:24:57
Speaker
It just, yeah.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:59
Speaker
Like it's kind of a mix of,
00:25:01
Speaker
a lot of it is just first like finding the thing in the world.
00:25:06
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
00:25:29
Speaker
Getty Villa in LA, somewhere from Paris.
00:25:34
Speaker
And sometimes it's just like re-encountering copies of this thing.
00:25:40
Speaker
I'm like, okay, this is like a vibe now that needs to be brought into the work.
00:25:46
Speaker
Sometimes I'm just like kind of un-self-consciously taking pictures of
00:25:59
Speaker
actual bodies in these same positions.
00:26:04
Speaker
And so it just kind of like a cruise.
00:26:08
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.
00:26:29
Speaker
and like surprise.
00:26:32
Speaker
And there's definitely something conceptually interesting happening in putting all of those ideas and objects on to the same level.
00:26:47
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.
00:26:56
Speaker
So yeah.
00:26:59
Speaker
just have wanted to focus more on the actual detail.
00:27:06
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.
00:27:21
Speaker
Well, some have.
00:27:23
Speaker
Of course.
00:27:23
Speaker
Yale doesn't do that anymore.
00:27:26
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.
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:39
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.
00:27:48
Speaker
Right.
00:27:51
Speaker
And yeah, I feel like the, uh,
00:27:56
Speaker
the photo constructions kind of allow me to put the history into different contexts so that other ideas can bubble up.
00:28:05
Speaker
Like in this exhibition, there was a lot about gender and like ideas of like enlightenment, beauty and stuff.
00:28:20
Speaker
But yeah, it's like, it's this very kind of,
00:28:25
Speaker
Pomo-y thing where all of history gets reduced to just a surface.
00:28:33
Speaker
And yes, I think that there are advantages to looking at history in that way, but major blind spots too.
00:28:48
Speaker
Right.
00:28:49
Speaker
Because that kind of led you, because there's these moments where it's just like,
00:28:55
Speaker
this requires investigation.
00:28:56
Speaker
And I'm imagining that's kind of like where the research kind of comes in, where you're just kind of, yeah.
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:03
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.
00:29:15
Speaker
And so they'll kind of act like hyperlinks and like clues for ways to absorb this content.
00:29:25
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.
00:29:44
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.
00:29:55
Speaker
No, there's no, no project.
00:29:57
Speaker
I'm like, I, you know, I teach.
00:30:00
Speaker
And so I'm like, you have to write an artist statement.
00:30:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:04
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.
00:30:10
Speaker
And if they want to,
00:30:12
Speaker
click a hyperlink that is provided they can like learn more and like kind of dive in that way.
00:30:17
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.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:37
Speaker
And like I, it's in,
00:30:41
Speaker
the exhibitions themselves, I'm always like, okay, this is for an art world crowd usually.
00:30:48
Speaker
And so I expect a certain kind of like visual savviness.
00:30:52
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.
00:31:02
Speaker
Um, well, it's also things can operate on most multiple levels, right?
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:07
Speaker
Um, and, and like, this is a,
00:31:10
Speaker
body of work as a photographer, I'm always like thinking about books.
00:31:23
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
00:31:39
Speaker
content that I don't want overlooked.
00:31:42
Speaker
But in the exhibition space, I like to have it much more open-ended and dependent on the context of the space.
00:31:55
Speaker
The other work it's around will all infuse it with meaning.
00:32:03
Speaker
And thinking about what Joe just said reminded me or kind of like
00:32:09
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.
00:32:29
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.
00:32:38
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
00:33:01
Speaker
ripping this guy off.
00:33:04
Speaker
And then like just, and I, I, I didn't really realize it until this year.
00:33:11
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.
00:33:29
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
Evolving Artistic Journey
00:33:39
Speaker
why is he talking about this and then you read it uh two years later it's like oh my god this is like
00:33:52
Speaker
the most relevant bit.
00:33:55
Speaker
So yeah, that's just fine with me.
00:33:58
Speaker
That was something that I was gonna bring up as a photographer.
00:34:03
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.
00:34:13
Speaker
And then they kind of move past that kind of application of photography as images on a wall in a group.
00:34:21
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?
00:34:29
Speaker
They're pictures of objects.
00:34:30
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.
00:34:47
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.
00:35:07
Speaker
And the, the eternal flame project,
00:35:12
Speaker
which I love because it is super nostalgic.
00:35:21
Speaker
There's not a lot of your images in that, right?
00:35:25
Speaker
I think it's all mine.
00:35:27
Speaker
Oh, it is?
00:35:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:34
Speaker
Most of them started as really bad doodles on top of
00:35:40
Speaker
my own pictures.
00:35:43
Speaker
And then, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's all my original content.
00:35:47
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.
00:36:05
Speaker
But often when I'm, I'm just like starting on a piece of my own, I'm like, I kind of, I,
00:36:10
Speaker
find myself going back to my own work.
00:36:12
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.
00:36:22
Speaker
But I do, I try to get the work like that, that eternal flame show was in a middle school here.
00:36:33
Speaker
And, and so I, I hope that the, the, the sites and the new audience there will,
00:36:39
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.
00:36:58
Speaker
I had, I mean, that's one of the things I had asterisked in my notes was
00:37:02
Speaker
did you do these doodles?
00:37:03
Speaker
And if you had not, where did you find them?
00:37:05
Speaker
Because they are amazing.
00:37:07
Speaker
I mean, they're as strong, if not stronger sometimes than the actual photographs.
00:37:11
Speaker
It's just like, it's a great push-pull kind of thing.
00:37:14
Speaker
It's like, where did this originate?
00:37:17
Speaker
Was it found?
00:37:18
Speaker
Like, it's just... Yeah, no, it's amazing.
00:37:27
Speaker
Thanks.
00:37:27
Speaker
That's like one more body of work that I'm kind of hesitant to
00:37:33
Speaker
go back to.
00:37:34
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.
00:37:44
Speaker
I am still blown away by its capacity for describing real objects in the world.
00:37:51
Speaker
And you cannot escape the history of how they're made, the context that they're being torn out of to land in
00:38:07
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
00:38:31
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.
00:38:56
Speaker
And at the time, the only thing that felt right to do in
00:39:01
Speaker
my studio was just doodling and by feel right.
00:39:07
Speaker
I mean, it just felt good.
00:39:08
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.
00:39:19
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,
00:39:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:30
Speaker
And then I
Doodling as Therapy
00:39:31
Speaker
also always have questions about like the deep feeling of art and how, again, on the one hand, it's a great thing.
00:39:45
Speaker
On the other hand, I don't need to see a gloopy pot ever again.
00:39:51
Speaker
And yeah, so.
00:39:53
Speaker
I mean, I mean,
00:39:56
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.
00:40:07
Speaker
But also, you know, if I saw this work, I wouldn't and I didn't know it was yours.
00:40:14
Speaker
I wouldn't immediately think that it was.
00:40:16
Speaker
And then when I found out, I'd be like, oh, of course it is.
00:40:20
Speaker
Because, you know, just aesthetically, it has a wildly different
00:40:24
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...
00:40:37
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.
00:40:57
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:40:59
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.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:16
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.
00:41:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:27
Speaker
And I was just like, okay, this needs to stay like honestly terrible.
00:41:31
Speaker
So I'll come back to it when I do.
00:41:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:36
Speaker
And there's also something about like, forget some of the like Photoshop moves that I was starting to rely on a lot.
00:41:47
Speaker
And yeah.
00:41:49
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?
00:41:58
Speaker
Because it only has that fun little impact the first time.
00:42:02
Speaker
You're like, oh, look at these drawings.
00:42:04
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
00:42:31
Speaker
fuck this.
00:42:32
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.
00:42:44
Speaker
And I think these drawings kind of
00:42:47
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
00:43:12
Speaker
tablet pen to like a long ruler.
00:43:15
Speaker
And I was like, I had the tablet like up against the wall.
00:43:19
Speaker
And so I was like, okay, I need to just back off for a bit.
00:43:26
Speaker
Did the initial doodles happen without knowing they were going to be anything?
00:43:30
Speaker
And then, and then you realized you were going to use them for an exhibition and you continued to make it work?
00:43:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:35
Speaker
I could, I like, I guess the first doodle that was really,
00:43:39
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
00:44:09
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.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:22
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.
00:44:32
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.
00:44:38
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.
00:44:47
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.
00:45:00
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.
00:45:16
Speaker
But
00:45:17
Speaker
the chains boondoggle Tamagotchis, um, all of his ready-made stuff.
00:45:25
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.
00:45:38
Speaker
Um, and I feel like I'm trying to stuff that doodly stuff back into photos.
00:45:45
Speaker
Um, and yeah, I,
00:45:47
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.
00:45:56
Speaker
Um, nice.
00:46:00
Speaker
Um, that's cool.
00:46:01
Speaker
How was, uh, how was the light work residency?
00:46:04
Speaker
What were you working on there?
00:46:06
Speaker
Light work was amazing.
00:46:07
Speaker
Um, I was just making pictures in the studio for like the entire month.
00:46:13
Speaker
Um, and it was great.
00:46:14
Speaker
I hadn't, um,
00:46:20
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
00:46:45
Speaker
beyond that and there's a very good start to that work.
00:46:51
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
00:47:15
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.
00:47:42
Speaker
And I, I,
00:47:43
Speaker
got through a lot of ideas.
00:47:44
Speaker
That's great.
00:47:46
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:47:48
Speaker
Can't wait to see whatever that turns into over the next year.
00:47:52
Speaker
Me neither.
00:47:55
Speaker
Um, and then I, I also think we should mention the Buffalo, uh, Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art.
00:48:01
Speaker
Um,
Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art
00:48:02
Speaker
and congratulations on the Warhol grant.
00:48:04
Speaker
Is that right?
00:48:05
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:48:06
Speaker
Yep.
00:48:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:07
Speaker
Uh, and, and you, and I've noticed that you include that piece about, um, BICA, do you guys call it BICA?
00:48:16
Speaker
Yep.
00:48:18
Speaker
Uh, and that you're an educator in your kind of like official artist bio.
00:48:22
Speaker
Um,
00:48:23
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.
00:48:36
Speaker
I'm kind of just curious to hear you talk about that a little bit.
00:48:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, I think I was talking about this a bit in the panel talk, but like, I feel like,
00:48:55
Speaker
how to say this.
00:48:59
Speaker
So the two practices are obviously very distinct.
00:49:03
Speaker
One is an object-based way of working that demands like exhibition space and the work being shown.
00:49:15
Speaker
And for years, like part of why we started DECA was because I was so uncomfortable with that.
00:49:26
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.
00:49:43
Speaker
And the Bay area is, is, is a very particular case, but like I was having some success there.
00:49:55
Speaker
Um, and it just felt like every exhibition was just this kind of like exercise in narcissism.
00:50:02
Speaker
Um, and so the, the last, um, show that I did there, uh, was that, uh, portentology one.
00:50:10
Speaker
Um, and in that, but I was like, um, trying to get, so I had a friend do the, um, uh, jewelry, um,
00:50:26
Speaker
pendulum dowsers that were attached to two works.
00:50:30
Speaker
Another friend was finding me jewels and things to use for bookends.
00:50:42
Speaker
My friend John Zappas hand-carved the ashtrays that were on these shelves there.
00:50:51
Speaker
And so I was trying to think a lot more about how to kind of like
00:50:55
Speaker
distribute authorship and like raise the stakes in, um, uh, the, uh, work a bit.
00:51:07
Speaker
Um, and that felt okay, but Bika feels like a much, uh, more direct way to do that.
00:51:15
Speaker
Um, and, uh, it's like, um, Bika is a project about like, how can we use art to directly impact our,
00:51:27
Speaker
local region.
00:51:28
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.
00:51:45
Speaker
And so like Cornelia, the magazine started when we had Lindsay Preston's actress, who's
00:51:59
Speaker
John Depps' wife, she started Carla Magazine in LA.
00:52:07
Speaker
And all of the local arts writing in Buffalo and Toronto too had ended in the like 2017, 18 years.
00:52:17
Speaker
And so we knew that there was this need to have art
00:52:25
Speaker
written about.
00:52:26
Speaker
Um, and, uh, we had her come and do a show at Bika do a arts writing workshop.
00:52:36
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
00:52:55
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
00:53:24
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
00:53:55
Speaker
Bika School, which we were thinking about as a free MFA, just a spot to come to do reading groups, crits.
00:54:10
Speaker
And we have had about 20 very committed, mostly younger people join.
00:54:20
Speaker
And it was just like, we just had to invite them and they are
00:54:24
Speaker
building this whole thing that is awesome.
00:54:28
Speaker
And so, yeah, it's just about how can institutions better serve their scene.
00:54:38
Speaker
That's fantastic.
00:54:39
Speaker
And users.
00:54:41
Speaker
And you went back to Buffalo.
00:54:42
Speaker
You had a connection to Buffalo, correct?
00:54:44
Speaker
Yes, I'm from here.
00:54:46
Speaker
So it's wonderful that you kind of went to this larger city and saw what it had and decided...
00:54:53
Speaker
To not only choose a city that was probably in need of cultural institutions and whatnot, but something that is connected to you.
00:55:02
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.
00:55:10
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.
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:19
Speaker
And like,
Gentrification and Art Institutions
00:55:20
Speaker
I mean, we were leaving the Bay Area at the time.
00:55:23
Speaker
Like, I don't know if you guys heard about the space called that in Boyle Heights in L.A.
00:55:34
Speaker
It was started by some Cal Arts grads.
00:55:37
Speaker
It sounded like there was some internal Cal Arts tip that led to a student like blowing the whistle on
00:55:48
Speaker
gentrification happening by this venue.
00:55:58
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.
00:56:11
Speaker
And yeah, we just, we, my,
00:56:16
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.
00:56:34
Speaker
And we knew Denver was not going to be a way to make life easier.
00:56:41
Speaker
Um, and, uh, so, um, went on Buffalo and,
00:56:47
Speaker
It's been great.
00:56:50
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:56:50
Speaker
And then just I heard recently that gentrification is just a really nice word for displacement.
00:56:57
Speaker
Yes.
00:56:58
Speaker
Yes, it is.
00:56:58
Speaker
So that's great.
00:57:02
Speaker
I mean, it sounds like you guys are doing some great things and you got some momentum behind you as well.
00:57:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:06
Speaker
You're a busy, busy man.
00:57:09
Speaker
Yeah, I'm busy enough.
00:57:11
Speaker
I'm busy enough.
00:57:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:13
Speaker
I probably don't want to be busier.
00:57:16
Speaker
the art world, so I know everyone else is too.
00:57:21
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.
00:57:34
Speaker
can't.
00:57:35
Speaker
Yeah, somebody just posted a silly meme.
00:57:38
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.
00:57:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:49
Speaker
Oh, the joys.
00:57:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:51
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.
00:57:57
Speaker
Uh, that was, which is like, which is not, I mean, it's not true, but it's not untrue.
00:58:04
Speaker
Right.
00:58:04
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.
00:58:13
Speaker
It's like, um, I mean, it's obviously not at all the same, um,
00:58:17
Speaker
as a city like Buffalo, but it is in the arts in general.
00:58:20
Speaker
It's like, you know, it's like the common thread problem forever.
00:58:25
Speaker
Especially when the gallery system just shows the same artists over and over and over again, right?
00:58:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:31
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.
00:58:39
Speaker
Whereas here, that is like, if you are a full-time for-profit gallery,
00:58:47
Speaker
you do the fairs and stuff like you can sell work, but it won't be the locals.
00:58:52
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.
00:59:07
Speaker
And it can be hard to turn that into whatever the next, uh, step is, whether that's, that's just, uh,
00:59:18
Speaker
being paid for your work or getting your work out there to the next level.
00:59:27
Speaker
So yeah, I've just been blown away.
00:59:32
Speaker
Like people just walk into art galleries there and spend money.
00:59:35
Speaker
I bought a work there when I was there in like May or June.
00:59:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:43
Speaker
It's just like, and here that is not a thing.
00:59:47
Speaker
And so you, you,
00:59:48
Speaker
You need to find ways to get artists resources in lieu of that.
00:59:58
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.
01:00:09
Speaker
They wouldn't sell there.
01:00:10
Speaker
Even though they showed the same work in Chicago, it wouldn't sell.
01:00:13
Speaker
And the Chicago collector, when they went to New York, would buy the Chicago.
01:00:16
Speaker
Would buy the same shit, I know.
01:00:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:19
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
01:00:46
Speaker
here in Buffalo.
01:00:47
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:48
Speaker
Awesome.
01:00:49
Speaker
Good luck with that.
01:00:50
Speaker
Thanks again.
01:00:50
Speaker
Thank you so much.
01:00:51
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:52
Speaker
Really appreciate it, guys.
01:00:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:54
Speaker
Definitely stay in touch.
01:00:55
Speaker
I will.
01:00:55
Speaker
See you.
01:00:56
Speaker
Bye.
01:01:04
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.
01:01:14
Speaker
You can learn more at lydianstater.co, find images at Lydian Stater NYC on Instagram, and follow us at Lydian Stater on Twitter.
01:01:21
Speaker
Thanks to Nando for taking the time to speak to us this week.
01:01:24
Speaker
If you'd like to learn more about Nando's work, visit his website at nandoalvarezperez.com.
01:01:29
Speaker
Big thanks to Tall Juan, who graciously provides our intro music.
01:01:33
Speaker
His albums are available at tallwan.bandcamp.com.
01:01:36
Speaker
And thank you to you, listener, for spending your valuable time with us.
01:01:41
Speaker
I know what to do.
01:01:42
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
01:01:44
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
01:01:46
Speaker
I know what to do.
01:01:47
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
01:01:49
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.