Isolde Brielmaier & Trevor Schoonmaker / BICA – #2
Horace Brockington
TS: We interesting in engaging the work of various artists, and informing the larger art world of the different artists who are out there. We are also interesting in engage those communities around downtown Brooklyn whose constituents may be ethnic representative of those artists, for example, North African artists and the North African community in Brooklyn. It is hope that those communities will come. As in the case of "Dead President" exhibition, I did serious outreach work. I had a club night for two years prior, building an audience. Even going into African bookstore and restaurants, and nightclubs. Essentially, I made the New Museum breakout of their boxes in terms of marketing, taking on new strategies of meeting people on their home ground rather than just hoping people were going to show up based on subway ad.
On Being in Brooklyn:
IB: Why Brooklyn and why BICA? Trevor and I have been working on this concept for over a year and half. We have we been independent curators, we been pitching fantastic ideas, phenomenal shows to institutions, and suddenly realized we had pages of shows with rich underpinnings. We realized that we needed a venue. A type of space that that sort of said, okay you want sound pieces, okay let do it, not even question it.
Brooklyn is rich with revitalization and, development–everything’s hot right now, buildings going up all over the place. The question became, so where are the artists, where are the prominent visual international institution in the borough that on its own is the fourth largest city in the city in the United States, with more languages, and more ethnicities? More people of diverse backgrounds are represented in Brooklyn, except perhaps for New York, LA, and Chicago. Where is the institution that can kind of capitalize on Chinatown and Sunset Park, and can bring in video artists from Beijing or the entire Arab —American strip that is so distinct in Brooklyn?
We’re allowing Brooklyn to "flavor" what we do in terms of all its international communities. We’re also saying that Brooklyn in many ways "is" the world. A kind of microcosm, in some way I think more so than Manhattan. BICA, as an institution, is about collaboration, but it also forming these links with institutions in Beijing, etc. In terms of the actual artists, it about moving beyond the boundaries of the type of institutions that focuses on black, Asian or Latin artists, or the lone show of South Asian artists. It’s more about bring in Black, South Asian artists, older artists that were perhaps hot in the 80s and took an hiatus and have now come back, let’s bring them al into conversation with one another… Why do an exhibition with sound and little set of headphones you can put on, when you can make an environment and fully integrate sound into that kind of space.
On the difference or lack of difference between what institutions are doing:
TS: On paper a lot of institutions can look very much the same, their mission statement, and the way things are addressed on paper. I think what Isolde and I do, and in fact and what we have always done is indicative of what we will do at BICA. We will simply have more opportunity because it will be our own space.
I don’t know if there is as singular way to define the aesthetics we will bring to the institution. We are definitively exploring the strong interest we have in engaging popular culture and issues on the ground, such as issues in the cities. They are not overly academic or theoretical, but they are real central issues or trends or things that people can relate who are not necessarily in the art world…that’s really the crux of it.
For example, like in this show, we’re working in a commercial gallery, we have with have a very small budget. Well, we know we can bring in people or a show of artists, who are under-represented in New York. With this show, "Living for the City" the artists are engaging this idea of the urban environment, and their memory of it and the ways it has actually influenced the processes of producing the work. There were wonderful artists we could have included whose works is about the urban environment, but we thought what would be better then six terrific artists would be to make a splash by introducing artists who have no representation in New York…that one thing. However, BICA is not going to be about emerging artists, but we will regularly introduced artists that have not shown in New York. But more so, ways of bringing in someone such as DJ Eddie Stats, for instance. If he’s creating a soundscape we want to include it as another work in the exhibition and not as an auxiliary unit.
Defining the Institution:
TS: BICA is going to be a combination of how we organize the exhibitions, and the artists we bring to these enterprises. It’s a fact that ten different curators could address the exact same theme with the same artists and it would look like a different show. The one thing we know that we are capable of doing at this point and time- it may not always stay that way – we feel that we have a better grasp of the academic and theoretical, but we are also pretty much engaged in what really happening with hip urban culture, and if not us, we know who the people are to go to…
IB: As a trained academician I never bought into that notion of the limited expectation of art historians. Part of my encounters while a graduate student had to do with what does of lot of the academic engagement of art history have to do with what going on now? What does it have to do with young Algerian immigrants in Paris?
Avoiding the risk of the exhibitions getting too trendy:
TS: I don’t think we thought of a show to date that is about exemplifying a trend. For example this show is not about a trend, it really about looking at urban culture through the lens of the visual arts. When you bring in a DJ, you engage a certain community without it being about whatever surface level stuff is going on in that community.
IB: In certain ways there is a social and political consciousness amongst us. The work still needs to stand on it own, it needs to be strong… it needs to be provocative, and it need to say something. Obviously it a rather subjective thing, what I like someone may not like and that includes Trevor.
On Curatorial Collaborations:
IB: There is a kind of overlap in terms of what we choose and what we like in art. If you look at this show, there are artists I brought to the table, and it wasn’t me having to convince Trevor. It’s about a conversation, between the two of us and by extension a conversation between the artists.
Maybe we are looking for a collaborative aesthetic, and But Trevor may have hinted at this we are I not interested in sort of saying this is our aesthetic. I think it has to be somewhat organic, it has to evolve, over the course of time. The "aesthetic" may come across as one thing in this show, and the " AESTHETIC" may be a whole other thing in the next show. It is about evolution, trying to be a little fluid. We may develop an aesthetic after a year or two. People might say that the institution (BICA) that does this or that, inevitably, given that we live in the land of labels. But I don’t think for Trevor and I that remain our primary objective. It’s less about our aesthetic and more about what work is out there, what are artists doing. Or if you place dissimilar works in conversation with each other what kind of ideas are visually are conveyed. We re interested in what the artists are saying terms of ideology or philosophies. For example, what are they saying about painting, so when take a painter who had solo show in the Whitney in the 80s, and place him/her in the context of younger artists what are they saying about art when you look at them in conversation with each other. There may be an aesthetic that emerges from that or it may be a concept. But ultimately at this stage Trevor and I had no idea what might exist. We’re trying not to be so clinching to the aesthetic. The real challenge is to think about the art, about the artists. Still, I have no doubt we will be labeled down the line.
I think we are bringing something new to the table in the way that Trevor and I approach art… expanding, or bring in different artists at different stages, whether they are emerging- re-emerging, or established …always in conversation with one another. By bring in Brooklyn artist with, LA artists or artists from Croatia with each other the result is diversity. Trevor and I working as curator together, but also bringing in other people as consulting curators at the beginning of the institution. By opening up the process to people that come from a different range of backgrounds and the range of artists we want to show in our exhibitions we are proposing new curatorial strategies. It’s also about brining in new voices. If we do four shows a year, we don’t have to curate all of them. But the strategy remains in flux. We will let go such that the first three years we might curate everything, or it may be in the first years that we bring in someone and say that like a really interesting idea.
Curatorial freedom:
TS: It is challenging to be an independent curator, as you well know. People don’t know it’s a good idea until it has already happened. Most people don’t recognize it, because it’s something that they aren’t ready to recognize. Most people don’t have the vision to see it. To get people outside of their boxes is a real challenge so, as an independent curator, the more progressive your ideas are, the harder for yourself to actually to continue to curate. For example, " Black President" (Schoonmaker’s exhibition organized for the New Museum that traveled internationally to great acclaim)…turned out to be successful thankfully…but everybody initially turned it down, every institution in New York, every institution that I sent it to in the U.S., and every institution that I sent it to in Europe because they didn’t understand. They couldn’t visualize it and what it meant to have a musical artist in the a visual space, and what that legacy would be… Thankfully, Dan (Cameron) after it was rejected once, bought it back to the table at the New Museum and they eventually took it, and it worked. But they were really cautious.
Sill, a good critical reception doesn’t equate to non-profit spaces, or galleries for that matter accepting or wanting to show your work. There may be a curator that like the idea or there may be the critical community, writers, and historians who have been supportive but to get someone else, a board of directors or a curator to accept it or want to take your show it’s a challenge unless you have a very personal sensibility with those individuals.
IB: Its like "Maximum Flavor," a massive show I organized with thirty artists looking at how artists from all over the world engage in ideas of conspicuous consumption, but beyond the context of " Bling-bling" culture.
TS: Some exhibition theme can be done in galleries, but two things that happen… one the budget is severely limited because there is no grant writing, and there is no funding sources, the exhibition becomes dependent whatever the gallery can put up front for example for shipping. You have no education outreach or you have no programming.
TS: BICA is about our own critical and curatorial enterprises that we really feel need to be out there rather than particular artists. There are a lot of things that we want to be about and propose it’s very difficult to do them want to do without a space.
IB: I think that’s rather accurate, but I do think there is a push to support artists and get artists who might other wise have no chance, or fit into a particular aesthetic school. We also need to open up new realms, new kinds of ways of thinking, new avenues of viewing. I think this is an opportunity for us. Not only do we think we have some good ideas, but intriguing ways of presenting those ideas and philosophies. The audience may not view all the exhibitions as good. Probably not, and that fine. Many of the exhibitions might be viewed as works in progress.
TS: Our concept of diversity is a host of things. The reasons we having difficulty articulating it is that it not that refined, and not a singular vision. We will have one show that more like somewhere between this and "Black President" that is more multimedia, that bring artists in from different genres, and localities, and levels of accomplishments, or never being acknowledged… that one show. But then we will do a solo show of a singular artist, and take it into a different direction. We could do a painting show, and we would be comfortable with that, but we just may not choose the same painters that others would choose.
TS: We don’t have a model of an institution we would like to emulate, what we have is a lot of things we like about a couple of institutions, for example, Whitechapel is great. There is no clear model, it almost like when some one ask me what was your model for "Black President". There was no model, although I certain that someone might have thought of the show before I put it together.
IB: A lot of places we like are in Europe. We are not locked into what the institution could be and where it might go. Could it be a museum in five or ten years? It might possibly be. Inevitably when you look at institutions In the U.S. they start out as non-profit, or somewhat prominent non-collecting institutions and down the line whether through a board shift, or whatever is going on in the art world, they become more institutionalized, they begin to collect.
IB: Trevor and I have had some interesting ideas in terms of exhibitions and writing. We are not territorial, we already have connections with this larger independent curating crowd having been independent curators, and we are very open. You feel that kind of connections. People can come to us with really great shows… we would probably respond, let’s see if we can do it…I like the idea of a lab. Trevor and I have used that as a model. Our challenge is how to balance the type of "branding" that go with more structured institutions and maintain the kind of experimentation.
On shifting the dynamics in working with artists:
TS: We understand that we going to have to say no to a lot of people. You lose something when you put on this new hat, and we are aware of this.
IB: We have done that in our individual exhibitions and that’s really hard for me…we have to re-envision the pie. It really hard, and these are some of the challenges we face…
On challenging other curatorial visions:
IB: We are not going to set out with our premise to challenge, but its will happen mainly as a by-product of the curatorial process. One of our challenges will be to question ways other curators talk for to artists and to a broad audience.
On Embracing Popular Culture:
TS: Some people have fears about the very idea of engaging popular culture…they already write it off. So if they write it off without taking the time to look, I’m not going to worry about them, nor am I concern about what they think. If they want to show up and look at the work and see prominent and established artists contributing to the shows, I don’t see how they are going to write them off.
IB: BICA is it not about popular culture it about a real phenomenon in rethinking exhibition strategies and a broader art history.
TS: We are fusing artists in rather non-expected engagements in exhibition in order to push the dialogue and the audience. This might be viewed as a savvy way of marketing audience outreach, but you can do both. You can push the dialogue with artists. So that you can accomplish both at the same time.
IB: By pushing the boundaries we are saying that you might have not thought about those artists in conversation with each another. Those are the kind of things we really need to try.
TS: That’s what exciting to us, trying new things… and that’s one reason Isolde and I work well together in that we have a lot of similar interest but we may execute them in different ways.
Posed to speaking to new ways of exhibiting art, without any predetermined notion of what constitute art. These curators are aware, that art is no longer restricted to geographical, regional, national, or gender boundaries. They, reject any conditions that seek to limit art in any manner. For them art must remain about quality, intrigue, and provocativeness. There is no longer one artistic dialogue but many conversations.
