Boy Meets Art World

March 08, 2018

It is a transitional time for Thomas Barger. And according to anatomy, at age twenty-five, this is appropriate— the artist has arrived at the dawn of actual adulthood. But for Barger— a burgeoning artist amongst the industry’s big leagues and a NYC transplant, born and bred in a rural, religious farming town in Illinois who just this year finally came out to his family— this moment is about much more than merely his anatomical maturation. It’s the moment for memories, and mourning, and making. Burdensome as it may be, growing up has been a beautiful breakthrough for Barger, both personally and professionally— proven by his powerful new solo show now on view at the Salon 94 Design space on Freemans Alley.

Growing Up will be on view through March 31st.

Interview by Anna Zanes
Photos by Jesper D. Lund

As Barger travels back through his boyhood, he’s been busy, building on his bright, playful paper pulp “furniture”, shifting focus from the inherent formalism of functional design and finding catharsis in crafting abstract shapes akin to sculpture. Growing Up is about Thomas Barger, and by Thomas Barger. But it is the bones that belong to us all— family, furniture, creativity, coming-of-age. We sat down with the artist in his sunlit studio a week before the exhibition opening, and across the table, titled, My Family is Getting Bigger, spoke about feelings, art, furniture, and having his first solo show.

How did you start working with Jessi Reaves?

I was working in architecture at the time, and I met this guy, and he introduced me to her. I was interested in getting out of architecture, but still being within reach of design, so that type of transition worked. I wanted to learn through working for someone, rather than going back to school.

Where did you go to school for your undergraduate degree?

I went to University of Illinois, and I studied architecture and landscape. That’s where I’m from originally, Illinois.

Really? Where?

In Charleston-Mattoon.

I realize now I know absolutely nothing about Illinois geography, so not sure why I asked that.

It’s a small town, I’m from a farming area. I’ve only lived there and here, in New York.

How long have you lived here? Would you want to go back and live there again?

No, no not really. I really enjoy it here, it’s like everything home isn’t. I’ve been here four years. I came here right after graduation.

So that’s when you decided not to go back to school?

I’ve said that about working for people here is like a second education. I mean, being in New York you can learn so many things.

After interviewing a fair share of artists and creatives, it feels like anyone actually succeeding in the arts is either a dropout, or got their education with an entirely different focus than what they’re doing now. To be fair, I also ask because it makes me feel better, having dropped out of art school approximately five… to ten... times.

I feel the same way. My work is becoming less design and more sculpture, and I’m really excited seeing that transition happening.

Embarrassing, but I have always been confused about this: we have design, furniture design, architecture, sculpture, and mixed media. Is it on a spectrum? How do you define them? How do you decide what you are doing? Or do you…?

Well like, right now I think of my practice as sculpture. Coming from design school, I think about how designer makes a bench or a table, and then I think about the way an artist makes a painting— what those roles are.

What is the responsibility of an artist compared to that of a designer?

Oh, that’s a good question. I think the responsibility of a designer is to make something functional, and that is the primary goal. For the artist— at least I can speak for myself— it’s about expressing personal direction. And that’s where this work is going. This table called My Family is Getting Bigger is a family unit, which I’m adding on to because my brother and sister just got married this year, and the laundry unit is inspired by my mom folding and sorting laundry. This year, I came out to my family, and after coming out I noticed their absence. The two chairs reminisce my parents' core roles in my life highlighting our relationship. They are called Love me, Protect me, chairs.

That’s brilliant. This artful, sculptural basis— but, in the form of table. So, you say it’s such a personal piece, but regardless of someone knowing the story before, it’s somehow still relatable. And also, emotional— at least for me, my own shit comes up with this table. It’s such a strangely sensitive subject— furniture? Everybody has their own experience with it. It’s not just an abstract sculpture where you have to force feeling something, Even if it’s not intense feelings.

Yeah, that’s what I like about furniture. People all have their own reactions because everybody can relate to furniture, everyone has a past with it growing up, and a special memory. I don’t think that’s always the case with pure sculpture. So I like that connection for me, and for others. And even the materials are getting much more personal, this big circle bench is going to be covered in rocks — we have a pasture on the farm where the rocks come from, and the piece resembles a tractor tire. I guess I can see a clear departure from this design background.

So, is this stuff for the show, and you’re still working! It’s so soon! Is that stressing you out?

Yeah!

Sorry that’s such an awkward thing to say. Shit.

No it’ll all come together, it always done. But I am a little bit nervous. I guess like with palate, all the colors will come together. In this show, I’m painting things so it all works together in the gallery space. It’s like a culmination of the work that relates to my family, because I came out to them last year, and it’s been this intense relationship with them, where we don’t talk. And then I had to go home for weddings. It’s a lot to go through, and it reflects in my work.

Well, pain is can be a motivator.

It’s even seeping into it all in the weirdest ways. Like, this was my dad’s truck blanket, it was in his truck seat, that for some reason I have. And this chair’s not even related to it, but there is a touch of my growing up in everything that I’m doing right now.

How are you going to explain these things in the show?

It's interesting, I think of these things with explicit meaning, but other people think of them so differently. Like you were saying this table, but that’s what’s nice about these pieces– it’s inclusive for everyone.

Art

Luna Luna: Surrealist Spectacle Lands in New York

November 21, 2024

In the 1980s, André Heller, an Austrian artist, singer-songwriter, and former actor, was looking for a new place to showcase his art. He had already taken to gardens, creating a colorful, surrealistic character using 40,000 flowers, and to the skies, organizing a 'fire theatre,' which involved an over-the-top fireworks show complete with steel-frame sculptures set on fire. But he had never tried out a fair.

So began "Luna Luna." Created as the world's first art carnival, "Luna Luna" combined the spectacular with the absurd, showcasing original rides and attractions from rising and already-at-the-top artists in Hamburg. Nearly forty years since its debut, followed by foiled plans for a worldwide tour, breached contracts, and 44 storage containers, the art fair has finally returned, calling New York home after re-debuting last year in Los Angeles.

By Hailey Johnson
Photography by Delvin Claro and Sabrina Sarnitz, courtesy of Luna Luna LLC

On a recent evening in Hudson Yards, a small carousel featured characters in quirky, Twister-like poses and an outstretched dog with seven legs. (Almost a century old, the rides are no longer rideable.) Goofy wooden sculptures were elevated in another corner, some of them cross-eyed or with a horn for a nose. A geodesic dome glowed, with Gregorian chants hovering somewhere above it.

"It's an art experience like no other," Michael Goldberg, Chief Experience Officer of Luna Luna, said recently. "People get to see artists do things they've never done before," he added.

Goldberg, founder of Something Special Studios, a creative agency behind many Nike campaigns, was determined to resurrect “Luna Luna” after reading about it online in 2019. Goldberg shopped for investors, eventually teaming up with DreamCrew, a media company co-owned by the rapper Drake. (Details on the company's investment remain vague; sources have reported that DreamCrew spent over "100 million dollars.") In 2022, an intensive restoration process began, with a team of artists reviving many of the original works, which had remained in boxes in a Texas warehouse for over thirty years. Several had been in pieces. (The team reportedly had to rebuild each work "bolt by bolt.")

That night, at the Shed, fourteen out of the original thirty-five works were on display, including the small carousel (Keith Haring), the goofy sculptures (Kenny Scharf), the neon dome (Salvador Dali), and a towering Ferris wheel decorated in drawings of stick figures, upside crowns, and references to Jim Crow (Basquiat). Missing works are in a "constant state of restoration," Goldberg said. Meanwhile, new attractions are joining the line-up. For the New York show, the Puerto Rican duo Poncilí Creación was commissioned to create "PonciliLand," a blink-and-you-miss-it section where guests "can create fantastical characters out of custom building blocks." Poncili also developed floating characters, inspired by performers who circulated the original “Luna Luna” fairgrounds in 1987. Known as "Lovers," the two characters, large and dreamlike, teetered to one side, mumbling the kind of nervous groans one does before a fall. (They never ended up falling.)

I asked Goldberg if, given that today's culture doesn't quite look or feel the same way as it did in 1987, there was any hesitation in showing some of the original works. On a back wall, a tribute featured Manfred Diex's "Palace of the Wind," a show featuring performers who fart into a microphone; on another, two ornate pedestals held sculptures of spiral poop.

"I don't see any reason why we wouldn't show any of these works," he said. "A lot of the time, art is exclusive and uninviting. The big difference between “Luna Luna” and other art experiences is that it has many sides to it, and things that have a bit of humor and playful energy. "As for "Palace of the Winds,” the decision to keep it was simple: farting is universal. He went on: "The “Crap Chancellery" is, conceptually, one of the most important works in “Luna Luna.” Daniel Spoerri's dad was killed in the Holocaust, and the work was inspired by Albert Speer, who was Hitler's architect. He took the facade of what was meant to be a Nazi shrine and turned it into the facade of a bathroom with two steaming statues of shit standing on the outside. These works are extremely important and are things that we would definitely want to honor and draw attention to."

As “Luna Luna” further develops, the show will likely change. "It will continue to evolve as we go to different cities in response to the spaces that we pop up into and in collaboration with the local city," Goldberg said." With it, there will be new characters and new stories to tell. One aspect that won't change, though, as Goldberg assured, is a long-held sentiment about a potential partnership. At one point, early on during the original “Luna Luna” era, McDonald's wanted to buy into it. Heller said no, adding that he "didn't want it to feel like Disneyland." Goldberg agreed. Nonetheless, as I watched Kenny Scharf's dizzying swing ride go around for what felt like the hundredth time, with the cartoon characters decorated on it blurring together (one with a villain's grin, another morphed into a martini glass), I couldn't help but feel like maybe I was at Disneyland, only not as robbed, but just as entertained and exhausted by its rides and fantastical characters, and wanting to go again.

Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, 1987.

Art

Pamela Sneed’s Speaking Tongue opens at Dashwood Projects

November 15, 2024

Pamela Sneed’s latest exhibition, Speaking Tongue, will be on view at Dashwood Projects from November 20 to December 21. The show features twenty watercolor and ink paintings inspired by her recent trip to Kenya, where she was deeply moved by the elegance of giraffes, the landscapes, and the energy of Nairobi.

Blending her background as a poet and visual artist, Sneed’s work reflects on themes of identity, nature, and connection. Her paintings capture the beauty and spirit of the animals she encountered, alongside reflections on her own experiences as part of the African diaspora.

This exhibition marks Sneed’s first solo show with Dashwood Projects and will be accompanied by a new book, also titled Speaking Tongue, to be released in December.

By Enzo Holdt
Artworks by Pamela Sneed

Art

Tiebreaker - Alvin Armstrong

November 15, 2024

There is a moment of silence right before the play. Just before the racket strikes the ball as it hangs weightless in the air, breathless and charged. It’s the fleeting yet decisive instant that can alter the course of the match, determining who wins and who loses.

Alvin Armstrong depicts this crucial moment in his new exhibition Tiebreaker, symbolizing the risks and rewards of competition. It’s an implication of something else at stake, where athletes push not only their bodies, but their spirits to the absolute limit.

The dynamic figures embody the strength, grace, and agility juxtaposed by the vibrant color palette evoking not just the joy of competition but the charged energy of the court.

Tiebreaker is opening Thursday, November 16th at Anna Zorina Gallery.