Prophetic Balance
Susan Thomas
Writer, poet, and Pratt librarian Susan Thomas interviews artist and curator Trong G. Nguyen, who opened New General Catalog 224 in Brooklyn this October with the exhibition "The One," in which ten guest curators have selected one artist each whose work they feel contains some semblance of "prophetic balance."
Susan Thomas: "Prophetic Balance" makes me think about the poem "The Second Coming" by Yeats. "The center cannot hold." I also think about Islam: The Prophet was Muhammad. It’s a rich phrase. How did you establish the concept for "The One"?
Trong G. Nguyen: "The center cannot hold" because no center exists in the first place. Can art be radical in the way of an artist or artwork coming into the world to bring "balance" to a system gone awry? There is a general lack of conceptual risk-taking that I find disheartening in the current model, especially in art production itself. I suppose "The One" counters this sense of missing risk and radicalism in the art world.
Importantly, "The One" urges each curator to be accountable for their selection, while challenging the artists to meet a seemingly impossible responsibility.
ST: What works are you most excited about in the show?
TGN: One of the most exciting works in the show is an orchestration by Katerina Seda, a Czech artist who has created a game of life that essentially synchronizes and automates an entire village’s daily activities. If you can imagine 300 people waking up one morning, opening their windows at exactly 9am, sweeping the porch at 9:30, and so on. It’s dead-on conceptually and the beauty of waching the most mundane activities come to life is something. There is a sense of promise in this work.
Another wonderful piece is a sculpture by Marla Hlady, comprising three mechanized brunette wigs that rotate at varying speeds and directions according to three separate versions of the chorus "Waltzing Matilda," by June Tabor, the Pogues, and Tom Waites, respectively. The wigs essentially mirror the waltzes and form a visually odd, frivolous "trinity."
ST: Can you talk about what makes a work "challenging" in the current milieu of NYC?
TGN: Challenging for me is work that considers some real element of conceptual risk in its undertaking. This usually involves the chosen subject matter and how far the artist pushes and treats it. Take three examples, Chris Burden, Herman Nitsch, and Jesus Christ—keeping in tune with "The One." In Burden’s Shoot, from 1971, the artist attempts to experience pain by having himself shot in the arm. Nitsch’s annual cultish and ritualistic Aktionen intend to shock the viewer with violent ritual and sacrifice, though never resulting in any human deaths, as far as I know, but merely reproducing spectacle. You could say Jesus’ crucifixion was ultimately a "happening" itself that resulted in sacrifice, pain and then resurrection. Burden and Nitsch are benign by comparison, taking a step backward, and ignoring what predated their own work—if one were to consider the crucifixion performance art. By definition, "happenings" render the division line between life and art invisible. Challenging work has to possess this self-awareness and make one care about it, otherwise it’s often a case of history repeating itself in a way that is regressive.
ST: I’ve read a bit of the project "The Next Documenta Should be Curated by an Artist." What is the relationship between your work as a curator vis-à-vis your work as an artist? For the first show at NGC 224 you have curated the curatorship.
TGN: I approach curating as a collaborative form of problem solving. You pose a question or inquiry, and then tackle it via setting up a situation or environment where that problem can be dealt with, which is not so diferent from my normal operatives as an artist. Dealing with multiple curators and artists is putting together a think-tank of sorts, assembling many good heads with a directive as opposed to going at it unilaterally. I merely try to set up the conditions for creative solutions to flourish.
As far as big international shows being curated by artists, that already exists, and the notion of it is not much of an issue anymore. Personally, I think the next Documenta should be curated by Sister Wendy, or Rudy Giuliani, with Bon Jovi performing on opening night with a repetitive single song set, "Bad Medicine."
