Marcel Monroy and B. Anele Provoke All Senses

April 04, 2024

In the life-long process of enduring and incorporating many conflicting sort-of truths into our personal constellations, it can be difficult to feel more of a recuperative, empowered self-concept than existing as a mere arena for contradictory impulses to play out, unto death. "Is this all I am?", you might ask. How do we function when so many processes, including self-initiated ones, unfurl themselves in wave after wave of unrelenting ruin?

"I Wanna Wake Up With You…" is an experiential encounter by the transdisciplinary artists B. Anele and Marcel Monroy, a living poem in the shape of an exhibition, a show which actively chooses to elevate all senses at the expense of none.

On view at Melrose Botanical Garden until April 20th.

Interview by Jasminne Morataya
Photography by Gabe Tolson

B’s large drawings are a complex, orgiastic synthesis influenced by an intuitive ‘archive of the mind’, rendered in a kaleidoscopic range of colors with the patience and otherworldly aura that recalls automatic drawing. Depicting distorted, expansive forms drawing from personal lineages in addition to pop culture ancestors, B’s figures are most resolutely themselves, demonstrating sexuality as intractably connected to a spiritual peak.

Marcel’s ceramics, situated within the axis of an observable and well-documented language, actively work to become unburdened by any restrictive formal limitations. While functioning in a ritualistic setting, the serving implements are not servile and the vessels do not hold, at least in the ways we might initially think. There are enduring ruptures, and text pulled from personal writing speaks to an oblique spiritual hedonism.

While modulating an ever-changing palette of references and reflections, both artists invite vulnerability and a sense of grounding through enacted experience. Altars and ritual settings in their installations encourage contemplation of these forms' transformation and functionality, prompting viewers to engage with the tactility and process of being with refreshing, effervescent protectiveness.

by B. Anele

Jasminne Morataya— How did this collaboration first come about? And maybe what is it about each of you that makes it easy for the other person to work with? Or what do you think makes the collaboration work so fluidly?

B. Anele It's beyond kind of the 3D. I think it's something spiritually, we're just led to the moment of becoming involved in each other's realities. Even on a level of the work itself outside of us interacting as people verbally or whatever the hell you want to call that. I think that our work also lends itself to each other in ways where there's elements of playfulness that-- or maybe even involving our interactions. Physically, it translates to the work where there's elements of spirituality and kind of an earthiness that speaks beyond sort of the flatness that can be witnessed in certain types of lifestyles or things like that. That translates into our work mixing together into the space. Even our jokes, sometimes it's just poetic joking. Do you know what I mean? I think that there's something that just is there on the surface and underneath the surface. And it just allowed us to mesh well within working and also interacting.

Marcel Monroy (to B) The opportunity to work with you is something I was going to jump at because I feel like I have a lot of reverence for you and just your art practice and how you live. I don't know. I think it's beautiful. So I think that that comes together in the way that we work and appreciate each other. And yeah, I feel like you can feel that in the show. Even though there are moments where–I had a lot of people ask me, "How can I tell whose work is whose?" And I was like, "I think it's pretty distinct." You can tell B's work is B's and the ceramics that are mine are mine.

BA And I think that speaks on how it literally just flowed together.

MM Exactly.

We were talking about curation and flow and how everything just came together, how it wasn't this kind of regimented process of like, "This is in or this is out."–which is a very organic way of working and putting together a show. Do you think it translates into the kind of music and performance component?

BA Oh, yeah. Definitely. We definitely didn't plan out what we were going to perform either. And also, yeah, we literally formed the band in the moment. Our friends were here, and we were like, "Wait, she should sing." And then Tochtli was like, "I brought instruments." And we were both like, "Okay, he should play the bass, actually." And then he just happened to have this flute that was really beautiful with him and played it too. Yeah. So yeah, definitely, it's all been just like organic formation.

MM Yeah. But they tore that. The new members.

by B. Anele

It seems like a lot of the work kind of hinges on this sort of synchronicities kind of occurring in the world around both of you or how the energy can be charged and activated. In your individual practices, how do you think the synchronicities tend to play out? Or how do you harness these kinds of moments?

BA I mean, I literally feel like it's just as organic as the process of us working together is. I personally have never been someone who makes work with it being like, "Oh, I am going to do this." I feel like more of a channel, and I honestly feel like that's the only way that I feel valid in working as an artist. I've never related to the process of being like, "I need to tell people this about my life." You know what I mean? What I feel like is very like iterated in like an art school type of format where they're like, "You need to show people what you want them to know about you."

I feel very much like a spiritualist in that way where I'm more of like a medium or something, and I'm literally trying to just collaborate with the spirits that are circling my life and allowing them to communicate with the world in whatever way that they're trying to do. And that just resonates with me naturally. The work itself resonates with me naturally because obviously, the spirits and me are on the same page. I guess some people have spirits that are not on the same page as them in their life. (laughing) But me and my spirits, we're on the same page, and. I feel like, yeah, that's pretty much just the way that I work–as a channel. So it's kind of just an energetic flow from the beyond, to the here. I feel like I'm pulling things from beyond and bringing them into the physical.

This is maybe a silly question, but how do you think, when it's your turn to be a spirit, you'll try to guide people or–?

BA You mean like, after I die?

JM Yeah.

BA I mean, that's funny because I think that it could be heavily influenced by the way that I'm treated up until my death.

MM Right. You better do me right.

BA I could be a trickster spirit if you don't want to play right. Or I could be an uplifting spirit depending on if I'm treated correctly. So I kind of can't really decide that until it's my dying day and I'm like, "This is how I'm going to come back." But in this moment in time, I think that my spirit is definitely craving an uplifting presence, an experimental presence, an investigative presence, a rebellious presence, but also a disciplined one too. I definitely think that my presence is one that is leaning into nonconformist nature, but not in a way that's just all over the place. There's like a focus to it.

MM A method to the madness.

BA Exactly. That was one of my math teachers to say in middle school. It's so ridiculous. But yeah, I really do think it's like a methodical madness. But I also think that it's not necessarily mad all the time. Sometimes it actually really makes sense. And it's just hard to, for some people, see it as that because they're so brainwashed, which I think is why I'm interested in waking up. You know what I mean? Just not being so washed over by the matrix of things.

Do you see this installation as a sort of site for other people to at least start to ask questions?

BA I mean, I don't know because you kind of can't do that to anyone. It happens to people. Even if you were to do an entire exhibition that was intended to make people wake up, they could still go to it and not wake up. If that's not what they're ready for, they would just see it as cool stuff. You know what I mean? That's not really a thing that you can cause to happen in someone's life. I mean, you can if you're interacting with, but as far as to show someone something and then expect them to wake up because of it. I think that it takes a lot more in people's personal lives for them to wake up to things. Because, yeah, I feel like there's definitely work in here that touches on spiritual aspects. But I don't think that it can force someone into that state.

JM Yeah. I guess maybe I'm thinking about leading by example, almost, or presenting a kind of art that is so unbound, and it's like freedom of expression and movement as well as the activation that's occurring in terms of everything's relativity to each other.

BA I think that would honestly be a question that people would have to answer themselves. Does that occur to you when you are within the space? That would be super assumptive of me to be like, "Yeah, people are going to come to my show and they're going to have a spiritual awakening." You know what I mean? You kind of can't really say that that is or not going to happen. But I would love that if it did, if it did happen for people.

MM I found God at the show.

BA Literally.

MM I went to be B and Marcel's show and all I found was God.

by Marcel Monroy

We were talking a little bit about silliness and play. Do you consider those to be integral processes by which you can ask questions and answer questions, using silliness as a tool? Or how does it factor into the work?

BA I think that I just inherently have a silliness about me that I refuse to let go of. I personally hate a boring ass bitch. So that's just me. I just value play so much. I think that it keeps the spirit jovial, which is super important to me. There's just something that is really true about play. I don't know. I was listening to this audiobook about this jokester spirit that is super present in Nigerian culture. And I'm Nigerian, and I was just like, "I think that I have that inside of me," which is not by choice. I think it literally is just something that was implanted in my spirit through birth or whatever. I think that laughter is healing and play is healing. And I just think that it's an important element of healing energy to me to be having fun sometimes.

Marcel, even speaking to your work directly, the way these forms are derived from well-documented references but transformed by your hand, distorted to the point where they become…funny…how does the humor factor into your approach to form?

*pointing to Gordo, a ceramic work by Marcel featured in the show*

MM A lot of people have told me that it looks like a body, that it looks like–

BA The chubby man.

MM I feel like a lot of it just comes from growing up. That one, the Gordo piece, is just something that I was teased a lot as, because I was pretty fat as a kid. And I kind of had a problem with it. It gave me a complex, but then um, I got skinny and hot, and I looked back later and thought, "That's crazy as hell that y'all were playing with me like that." To me, now, it's just fun. I had people come up to me at the show who were like, "Oh my God, that's also what people called me when I was a kid." And I was like, "Exactly." It's playful. It's loving. But there's also kind of something about it that's weird. Why are we doing that?

But did you intend for the shape of the piece and the outcome to be whimsical, or it just surprised you?

MM It actually wasn't. I think that, in my mind, when I'm making something, I actually have this very exacting kind of idea about it. I want it to be perfectly symmetrical or a perfect angle or something like this. But obviously, if I'm building by hand, there's going to be some kind of–I'm not a machine. I don't know. So it's just like, naturally, there's going to be some deviation in the curvature, like the lines or whatever. And it just kind of comes out. I like that it’s childlike. Obviously it wasn't a kid, because it’s something that's actually technically kind of hard to make. That's not an easy thing to make when you're building it, because it takes a lot of patience, and timing, and drying, and making sure it doesn't collapse. But when it's done, it's like I don't know. To me, it's like, "Did a kid make that?"

So the process was more intuitive then?

MM All of these pieces–and even in the glazing process, I didn't really know super well what it was going to look like. I had an idea, because I was using a certain range of glazes, what it might look like. But the way that everything came out, to me, it just felt like it was blessed. It had been touched by God. It was like just something else was taking control and making sure that these things came out the way that they were supposed to come out.

It just kind of left my hands at a certain point, and it was up to God or something.

I feel like that a lot in my practice too, that I'm kind of led by something larger or that I'm just listening or I'm a vessel for these things or ideas to pass through that kind of are leading me in this direction that I'm not maybe always sure of, but I get these signs along the way to keep going. And I think that's kind of what propels me. B. asking me to do the show, I felt like that was a blessing. And so obviously, I was like, "Well, I'm not going to block my blessing. I'm going to do what I have to do." And to me, that felt like a sign. It was like, "Oh, this is something that's going to make me have to work really hard." Obviously, it didn't just come. I had to work really hard after whatever we decided we were going to do. I was, yeah, just being led through that work. So it didn't feel hard. It felt fun, playful, and it was almost like when you're a kid and you're going on a walk or something with a parent or someone who's older than you, and maybe they're making up stories about fairies or whatever being in the forest, and you're running around, and you're having fun. You're just going for a walk, but it feels like you're on this mystical adventure. I think that that feeling is something that I wish I could have any time I do anything. But it was really present here, and I'm just thankful for that.

Yeah. It sounds like you're describing and I guess even talking about the constraints of ceramics, kind of a continual process of surrender. Is it ever hard to kind of give up control or the illusion of control?

MM No, not for me, which is kind of crazy because I feel like I am kind of a control freak. But I feel like, for me, I grew up in the church, so it's easy for me, especially when I feel like the thing that I'm leaning into or giving myself to is God. So it's not hard for me to surrender. It's just a feeling. When I get that feeling, I'm like, "Okay. This is what I'm supposed to be doing." And it's not something I have to work towards or anything. It's just like, "Okay. Here we go. Take the wheel, God." And that's not something that's hard for me to do, honestly, because I love God. You don't love God? What's wrong with you? Yeah. I actually love that feeling. I love that. I think that that's why, yeah, I'm getting my master's or whatever. But art, that's what you can find me doing for the rest of my life because I love that feeling. I'm addicted to it, to the surrender and the release and the feeling of being filled up, like catching the spirit while you're making something. I think it's the most powerful, ecstatic feeling in the whole world. It's like the best thing ever. It's better than drugs. Not all drugs. But yeah.

I️ Wanna Wake Up With You In My Beautiful Morning Before & after finding out what’s cooking in the kitchen Sitting with some sacred booty meat Watch God Pour it in my cup Drip, Wet Yielding is a kindness A Home Going Ceremony in the Back of the Woods

Is it ever difficult to enter that flow state? What are things that make it easier?

MM I mean, sometimes I'm making something and I'm like, "I should just break this apart. This is fucking horrible." But I think, in that moment, for me, that's when I'm like, "Okay. Actually, I should probably just surrender this. This is just me being too controlling." And then when I do that, it's like it ends up coming out good or better than I expected. And then that's when I realize. I'm like, "Oh, that was what I was supposed to do." That was it.

BA I also definitely work a lot with psychedelics sometimes when I start feeling too 3D. That painting,

*B. Anele pointing to Dogteeth, a painting by B. Anele featured in the show*

I definitely was tripping really hard on mushrooms when I painted that. And the other paintings, I was really high on mushrooms. That is something that I do when I don't want to be in control of the outcome and I just want it to fully be the spirit, because I feel like sometimes I get really 3D when I'm sober for a really long time, and I want to feel like it's not me at all. Or I mean, it is me, but it's not like the controlling side of me because I can also get really serious about things.

And I feel like I don't want it to be that when I'm working. I feel like it feels really more honest to me as a channel to sometimes completely let them go of control and then come to and be like, "Wow, who did that?"

MM Yeah. I think that's true.

BA I just wanted to say that because I feel like it's something I think is important to the process of me personally…I think that sometimes I can just get really stiff in my energy when I'm super 3D and I need to take care of a bunch of 3D shit. And then I get really serious.

There's been times when I feel like it almost makes me kinda religious or something when I get really stiff in my energy. And then I just want to channel things where it's super disciplined. And I get really irritated by all the things that seem sinful. Honestly, when I made a drawing in here, it's like a teddy bear holding a peace dove. And I feel like I was like very much like, "I don't really fuck with any of the bullshit or whatever right now. It's just like perfect peace. God needs to bring perfect peace into my life, and I don't want to deal with any of these weird aspects of things or whatever." And I think that, when I get super religious, I get very stiff in my work, and I don't like that sometimes. But I like seeing the range. It's confusing, to be honest. But I think that it is important because I don't ever feel like one is actually correct, which is, I think, why I try to escape from one to the other.

Yeah. Kind of like between both worlds or both modes?

BA Well, I think it's the same world. I think it's just one type of perspective and another type of perspective and then all the inbetween. But I like it, though.

MM I think it is relevant, personally. It's relevant to me as we do this together and continue to work together. And I think it's just a good thing to know about you as an artist, that there's so much range in your mode of expression. It's crazy to see how you can produce work and live your life and do all these things and be so flexible simultaneously. It's like, “Who's driving the boat?”

BA Right. That's what I've been wondering.

MM Right. I'm sitting here wondering. I think it's amazing.

Looking at the show, being able to hold all these different ways of making and collecting, and it's almost like a way of seeing God in everything or kind of a sort of dynamic animism or things like that. Do you think that factors in at all when sourcing found objects or working across different mediums?

BA I don't think that it influences in a particular way. I think that it influences it as a whole because, at least in this phase of my life, I feel like the most God-honoring way to live is to live to the fullest of your extent to experience…for example, if, one day, you feel like drawing, and then the next day you feel like painting.

Some people think that it's more godly to remove yourself from activities. I think that it's more godly to involve yourself in as many activities as you feel moved to. So that's how I feel that it influences me. I think that it feels like–not a disgrace, but a disdain to your given existence, to not involve yourself in the actions that you feel moved to. So I would rather just do all of the mediums. And also, I just get bored really easily. So I'm like, "Now I want to do this, and now I want to do that." And I feel like that's just my spirit moving.

by Marcel Monroy

How do you think this collaboration will evolve over time?

MM Personally, I’d like to see us break out of a box, out of a room. I think that this installation thing coming up down the line is a really good opportunity for us to continue collaborating in the way that we have been and do something on a bigger scale. For me, I'm excited to see how we can just bring it into the real world. And if we can produce work on this scale for something like this in under 90 days, working on something over the course of the next few months, I feel like that's just really exciting for me, to feel like it’s really boundless.

BA Yeah. And I would personally love to delve more into the elements that are present because a lot of this work is super spur of the moment. And I think it would be very interesting to become more focused on the elements that are present and build on them more intentionally. I mean, I'm always going to love the spur of the moment creations, that's never going to stop. But I think it would definitely be more interesting to be like, "Oh, what does it mean to be working with these votive candle holders? Why is that happening?" And then maybe go into metalsmithing works that are in that vein and build on the idea of votive works. And study more into spirituality than I'm aware of at the current moment, like the history of votive works, and going to sites that inspire me that are related to such things, and be inspired by that. Reflecting on our writing and incorporating the seriousness with the innovation, I think, would be really interesting.

MM Yeah. I agree. Yeah. I think that one of my goals is refining that vision. I want people to pull up to that outdoor installation and be like, "Wow." I want them to be awestruck. I want there to be–

BA Which I feel like they were with this too. But it was more of an amalgamation of our just sporadic actions. But I feel like we could definitely do something that's more studious.

MM Yeah. Something that it looks like I mean, there's so much intention in here and thought, but I mean, something that it's like Aerodynamic, almost. We still have nuance and do what we do. We're still fun and silly. But it's like exacting. It's poignant. I think it's something we're already moving towards. I'm really excited to see where this moves. And we collaborate with so many people, I want them all to be a part of this other project that's coming up too.

BA I definitely also, yeah, am interested in that too. The people that are present, creating more of a community of people that are interacting in a way that's expanding our consciousness and our experience of life.

MM Totally. I think that we're moving towards all of that in this way that's palpable.

As you continue to kind of refine your ideas and expand your scope, what are both of you looking for in future collaborators?

MM I think love. I want to feel love with whoever I'm working with. I want to feel like there's a mutual understanding, like a kinship, like a kindred spirit, or like a familial kind of sense. But we can still be honest with each other and not walk on eggshells or weird shit. We're just being real, and that's all it takes to be with each other. I don't know. Yeah, I think I'm looking for love.

BA Yeah. I'm definitely interested in that too. I don't have any interest in collaborating with people that feel solely professional. And yeah, I'm interested in working with people where our energies speak culturally or spiritually, and spiritually in the sense that we're aiming on…not necessarily the same topics, but an energy that expands on an area of consciousness that is pertinent to both parties involved or all parties involved. I just want it to be something that you can feel the energy is something much more than just trying to get shows together in the same galleries. We are making work from a place that is much more intrinsic to our spirits. And like you said, it feels like love, and I think that that is because that is what is going on with us.

MM Yeah. I think so too. Yeah. That's just how we move. It's with love and with intention and care. And not always. I mean, sometimes we're talking shit or we're being funny. But it's like the subtext is always love for me.

Yeah. Love wins.

All Love wins.

Scenes from the opening below.

Art

AM/PM

October 04, 2024

We all get by with a little help from our friends. It’s that power of connection that fueled AM/PM, photographer Tommy Rizzoli’s first exhibition he orchestrated alongside director and photographer Noah Berghammer. The two met on a day like any other in New York City, connecting over their appreciation for art and creating from within, but they didn’t know back then that they were already in the process of growing something bigger than themselves.

Tommy began capturing snapshots of those closest to him while growing up in DC, and took that passion with him to New York. Meditating upon the temporality of a singular moment — especially in a city where relationships, jobs, and apartments come and go like the wind — he reaches for his camera in the moments that make him feel. Not all of those moments are jovial; some may be forlorn or nostalgic, but they are real.

By Kayla Curtis-Evans
Photos by Tommy Rizzoli

Noah recently founded PRIV.Y, a creative agency and production company based in the Lower East Side. As the gallery’s director, he had been patiently waiting for the right project to debut within the space, a project that would empower artists like Tommy and himself and truly highlight the strength in unity. AM/PM was the perfect place to start.

office sat down with Noah and Tommy after the exhibition came to a close — but ahead of their plans to release an AM/PM book sometime later next year — to discuss Tommy’s craft and what it was like organizing their first show together.

Noah Berghammer— I first met Tommy when he came by my studio in Chinatown and we instantly clicked personality-wise. We're both quite spontaneous and outgoing people. But I think Tommy and I kind of balance each other out — I'm a raging optimist and Tommy's kind of like, 'Eh, I don't know,' about that stuff. That day, he told me about this concept that he had, which was AM/PM. Tommy, you'd had this concept for a while and it's kind of taken different shapes and forms other than what we created. Do you want to talk a little bit about different forms it's taken and where the idea came from?

Tommy Rizolli— I grew up in the city of DC, and being out with my friends and having independence was a really prevalent factor in my childhood. So it makes sense that my work then progressed into just photographing my friends, whether it's editorial work or more documentary-based work, like this project. When I moved to New York, I was introduced to some really special, hardworking artists that ultimately became some of my best friends, along with people that I had been friends with for a really, really long time. So it was initially conceptualized as I had been shooting my friends in New York and then maybe two years after that, I was like, 'Oh, that'd be cool to do a book or something.' The concept highlighted this juxtaposition of my really tight-knit group of friends here, in the daytime and then at nighttime.

NB— That was the thing that was really drawing to me. I feel like I've grown so much as an artist since moving to New York because the city forces you to, based on how much you're intaking the people that you're meeting and the experiences that you're having. I hadn't heard anybody really define it in a way that was so clear until Tommy talked about AM/PM. Because when I first moved to New York, I would meet all these people at parties, at events, at Fashion Week — and I'd think, 'How do you actually become friends with these people?' To me, my daytime friends were the people that I turned into real friends. So it was funny having somebody else come in with this whole concept that illustrated that so well. I don't even think that I had really seen many images from your concept of the show. I was really just drawn to your work at large. And to the concept, and then to you as an artist. Tommy, I know you talked about a book, but was the fine art context ever something you were thinking about within your work?

TR— I don't think so. I can’t really describe what my work is. I think something that's important to me is, at least when it comes to photography, that style can be a hindrance. For me, themes in my work are more important and, in my work there are always a few, but the overarching one is that the people I photograph — whether it's commercial work or personal work — are people that I'm really genuinely close with and have a real connection with. So yeah, I wouldn't say fine art was in the back of my mind. I don't even know if I knew that that was a way to describe certain styles of photography. I just wanted to shoot the shit I wanted to shoot. I didn't really give a fuck.

NB— Having been your friend for a year and a half, you've been so unwavering to that motive. I get frustrated with Tommy every once in a while because he chooses not to shoot commercial work. But then you see in the images why they work, it's because there's a relationship there and nothing is forced. I'd always wanted to have this physical space for my community to find refuge or to be able to show work or perform. I was thinking live music venue, I was thinking cafe, I was thinking concept store. But then I thought, 'What could a gallery or an exhibition space look like if it's also an office and also a performance space?’ — kind of like this shapeshifting, melding place. And when I was able to secure that, I thought to myself, 'Now I have a gallery. Who do I show?' And you immediately popped into my head. Having gone through that whole process together, I know that it was pretty emotional for you to go through the negatives and whittle down what images would make the show. You want to talk a little bit about the curation process?

TR— Yeah, I mean it was really cool. First it was looking through all the negatives and then cross-referencing those with the selects we wanted in the show and then figuring out which ones we wanted to hand-print. It was super emotional. I mean, it was five years of living here just flashing before your eyes. I have a newfound gratitude for my friends. People come and go, but it's nice to see how close we've all gotten and the people that have remained.

NB— A lot of these relationships and these connections that we have to people, we don't really have a clear definition of why they are so special. When I look at your work, especially in the context of all of it together, what I feel are very emotive feelings, but I don't really know what they are. When I see you riding on the dirt bike across the Manhattan Bridge, I don't really know what that makes me feel, but I know it makes me feel something, you know? It's defintiely an emotional process when you're going through work and then you're giving it context and then you're dealing with why that context was important to your life. I know that some of those images touch on past relationships. They touch on friends that you're not really friends with anymore. They touch on people that have remained for 20 plus years in your life. It is really kind of like sitting back and saying, 'This is who I am.' So when you're thinking about yourself as a photographer, or better yet as a person, who are you?

TR— I think I've always had a lot of confidence in knowing that my friends are special. They're good people and they're really hardworking and talented. Maybe they don't take themselves seriously, but they take their work really seriously. I was happy to just be with them and be able to document them and live in those moments with them. My memory is so bad, but I can look at any photo and I can tell you, almost down to the day and what year it was, what we were doing and what street it was on. That's another part of why I was so emotional. It's just like, holy shit. That was five years ago. Time flies.

NB— And I really loved listening to you recall those things when we were going through the images. Kayla, it took us so long to whittle down our selects. I genuinely don't think we had our selects until about two weeks before the show. We started with about 80 or 90 images and we wanted to whittle it down to about 25. And I think it really came down to Tommy, your memory, it was like, 'Yeah, this might be a better image, but nothing was happening there.' Whereas another image had a really meaningful memory attached to it. You're not really that traditional photographer in any way, shape, or form [laughs]. So I was curious in looking through these photos with you, when do you decide to take a photo?

TR— It connects back to what you were saying. I have such a deep emotional connection to the photos just because of how I was feeling in that moment. I don't know if it's tangible. I either get the feeling or I don't. Like with Dom for instance, it was just pure joy and freedom and risk. Or with Jalen, it was volatile and it was really fun and sad. I think it's just about whether or not I really feel a strong emotion. But I'm definitely not a technical photographer by any stretch of the imagination.

NB— The way you take photos, I think, is reflective of the type of person that you are. When I asked you what was important to you about doing a show, it was just that people thought your images were honest. There is no more honest image than the ones that you choose to take in moments where you feel something. I think all artists can relate to that to some degree. I don't even know if you take photos of strangers ever.

TR— Right. No, it's not my thing.

NB— I'm sure there have been times in your career where it would've been really easy to just commit to being a street photographer or a studio photographer or something like that. But I think your sheer defiance against that has been what's really guided you. I'm not necessarily saying that it's always comfortable or easy to do those things, but I think the reason people gravitate towards your work is because of the attachment that's there. It's not because the images are using the best source of light or that they're super technical. I think there’s so much more to be said about you taking the photo rather than the photo that's being taken.

TR— Thank you.

NB— Talk to me a little bit about the whole idea of having a show about you. How do you feel about that?

TR— That aspect, as I'm sure you know, is not my forte [laughs.] I think it was easier for this because it felt like it almost wasn't even about me. It felt like the show was about my friends so I think that was easier for me to digest. It's definitely hard receiving compliments. The marketing and the promotion of it is definitely something that I'm not good at or something I'm super interested in. But I know it's important. I am really happy to be the one to take the pictures and I do think my friends, in a lot of ways, are a reflection of me. So I do think there were some aspects in the show where I was like, 'Okay, this does have me in it.'

NB— I think it has a lot to do with your selflessness as a photographer as well. You really do want to show the best parts of the people around you. I feel like that's what I noticed being in the room with 200 people at our opening. Your dad actually came up to me and he said, 'Doesn't he have a way of just making all the people around him feel so special?' And I thought that that was something that just was really powerful and impactful because you do have that charisma about you. And I think that when you choose to take a photo, it's almost like saying like, 'I love you.' You know what I mean? This is just your way to tell your friends that you love 'em.

TR— I think that's a good way of describing it. Yeah.

NB— How do you see your career going forward as a photographer, now having drawn this line in the sand?

TR— I definitely want to focus more on shooting in studio. I love editorial work. Something that is always in the back of my mind is, 'Can the way I photograph translate into that setting?' I have shot editorial stuff before and that's something I want to explore more. I just want to continue photography in my own way. That's the most important thing.

NB— I think what's been the most important for me to realize as well, as an artist, especially someone who's young in New York, is that there's a lot of energy around hustle and making it for yourself. Now taking on the role of an agent and an art dealer, I'm having to really step on the opposite side of things and say, 'Well, what's even important to you as an artist?' One thing that I've realized about Tommy is that what's important to him is staying really true to himself. I have to find a way to continue to empower artists like Tommy in spaces that I can now provide without losing why I'm doing it in the first place. And I think that that was why it was such a beautiful experience to be able to start that show with you Tommy. It felt like some semblance of success, but I think I honestly, for us, it would've been successful if we just got the doors open. Can you talk a little bit about the experience of us working together on this and this being our first real show?

TR— Yeah. I mean, I thought it honestly went pretty well. Something I really appreciated was that you gave me a lot of space and respected my creative decisions. I felt like we communicated and we worked through some adversity.

NB— Having gone through something like that, it just made me super proud to be your friend. You don't really know what kind of friendship you have with somebody until you do something of substance together. I think it was exactly what it was supposed to be. It's a beautiful thing when you can make things like that come together. And the only way you can do that is with the help of your friends.

Art

Chivas Clem on Cowboys, Caricatures, and Cracks in the American Dream

October 01, 2024

Larry Clark's Tulsa hit the art world like a shockwave when it was first published in 1971, chronicling the lives of disenfranchised youths in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The series offered an unflinching look at addiction, violence, and poverty with an intimacy rarely seen in documentary photography at the time. Clark, who had lived this life alongside his subjects — his friends and fellow addicts — imbued the photographs with an almost confessional quality, capturing the fragile, toxic masculinity that both fueled and consumed them.

The reaction to Tulsa was divided, with some hailing it as a brutally honest portrayal of America's underbelly and others critiquing it as exploitative. But its impact was undeniable. Tulsa forced a confrontation with the dark undercurrents of the American Dream, exposing the cycles of addiction and despair faced by those living on the fringes — people too often denied even the basic headspace to dream.

Chivas Clem’s Shirttail Kin, opening at Dallas Contemporary on October 17, continues in this tradition, approaching a similar exploration of masculinity and marginalization. Clem’s photographs of transient men from his hometown of Paris, Texas, reveal the despair running through the veins of American life — addiction, alcoholism, intergenerational trauma — all set against decaying landscapes and neglected bodies. His subjects, marked by poverty and lack of access to education, appear as instruments of fate, vulnerable to circumstances beyond their control. Yet, within their naivety, Clem captures moments of innocence and perhaps even a different kind of wisdom that emerges from their raw, unfiltered experiences of life on the margins.

By Sahir Ahmed
Photography by Chivas Clem, courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, Greg with My Grandfather’s Shotgun, From Behind, 2016. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Growing up in Texas, Clem harbored a deep-seated phobia of men and boys, a fear rooted in the South’s rigid norms of masculinity. His work today reflects both a confrontation with that past and an attempt to dismantle the very archetypes that once terrified him. Though Clem forms close relationships with his models, his perspective is different from Clark's. While Clark was fully embedded in the lives of his subjects — living, using, and suffering with them — Clem remains both insider and outsider, woven into the fabric of Paris, Texas, yet at a careful distance from the precarious lives of the men he photographs. Shirttail Kin tackles broader American anxieties, particularly the "redneck" stereotype often entangled with racism, homophobia, and violence. Clem’s work challenges these assumptions, offering a glimpse of the fragile humanity that persists beneath the cultural caricatures.

Ahead of the opening, I called Clem from New York. He answered from his dilapidated home-studio in Paris, Texas, where many of these photographs were taken. We spoke about Southern masculinity, reconciling with his childhood phobia, the serendipity of meeting his models, and how his work balances despair, darkness, and innocence.

Hi Chivas, how's it going?

Chivas Clem— It’s going okay, I guess. I'm ready for summer to be over kind of.

I feel the same way.

It's miserable in Texas. It was like 113 degrees in my car the other day.

That's awful.

No, it's gotten really insane. I grew up here and when I was a kid, it was never like this. It was hot in the summer, but it wasn't like this.

I grew up in New York, and I feel like that about our summer thunderstorms. They were never as crazy as they are now.

Yeah. It's true!

When I first saw some of the photos in Shirttail Kin I had a visceral reaction, I teared up at some of them.

Oh, God. I'm so happy to hear that. People have such dramatically different reactions to the work. Occasionally I'll show the work to somebody, and they're very moved by it, even to tears, and then sometimes I show it to people and they see it as soft-core pornography.

I had a show in Houston a couple of years ago with Bill Arning, and Bill caught this guy masturbating in the gallery, which is kind of flattering in a way. I mean, I can't imagine that happening at David Zwirner.

Yeah, probably not. I didn't view the photographs as pornographic. What resonated most was the act of seeing these men, depicting them through your lens, and now, exhibiting the images in a show at Dallas Contemporary. There’s this American subculture that’s deeply marginalized and this project, its placement, defies that.

People don't talk about that with the work that often, but it is very much about them feeling seen. A huge part of my work is building this sense of intimacy with them so that they’re comfortable with me. It all happens very organically, I've never done a formal audition or anything, and they're all just local people that I've met. I met one of them at a gas station, and another while hitchhiking, and I’ve cultivated friendships with all of them. A lot of them sit for me over and over again.

Chivas Clem, <em>James in the Bathtub</em>, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *James in the Bathtub*, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, <em>Dillon Upside Down</em>, 2019. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Dillon Upside Down*, 2019. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, <em>Cole in front of Chris Farley</em>, 2019. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Cole in front of Chris Farley*, 2019. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, <em>Greg with My Grandfather’s Shotgun, From Behind</em>, 2016. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Greg with My Grandfather’s Shotgun, From Behind*, 2016. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, <em>GP</em>. Courtesy of the artist.

Chivas Clem, <em>Robert in abandoned house</em>, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Robert in abandoned house*, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, <em>Cole Holding Wildflowers</em>, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Cole Holding Wildflowers*, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Having grown up in a place where masculinity was rigidly defined and often weaponized, how do you think your Texan roots shaped not only your artistic lens but also your understanding of the men you document in Shirttail Kin? Does the work, in a sense, reflect your own reconciliation with that past?

Well, when I was a child I actually developed a terrible fear of men and boys, so severe that I actually had a therapist who wrote a note to the school that I could not take boys’ phys ed so I was transferred through junior high as a girl for a few years, which was very confusing for everybody but me. I couldn’t step into the boys’ locker room without having a meltdown.

I grew up around rednecks and had this terrible fear and fascination for them. And erotic fixation, which I didn’t discover until later on. I still live in the country north of Dallas, and that’s still how everybody here is.

America is witnessing a crisis of masculinity right now, which has been growing since the women’s movement and the gay rights movement. There’s this hysteria amongst the right over men who dress in drag that it’s some kind of humiliation ritual. I wanted to look at old-fashioned masculinity with a fresh set of eyes. What I found here is that these men are really wearing their own king of drag, clinging to their own understanding of masculinity. That was very interesting to me.

There’s a long history of photographers who have looked at cowboy archetypes, like Danny Lyons and Larry Clark, but I feel like that archetype’s dated now — it’s not as relevant. There aren’t any real cowboys anymore; it’s been reduced to an aesthetic. If the cowboy archetype represented rugged individualism, then what it’s become, if it’s the image of the redneck, is a deplorable person, racist, homophobic, all of the above.

I wanted to show the humanity in these guys. It’s funny, originally I didn’t want to call the show “Shirttail Kin.” A friend of mine said that I should call it “We Found Love in a Hopeless Place.”

Given the often deeply ingrained societal norms around masculinity that exist, especially in the rural South, how do you see their lived experiences reflecting broader cultural narratives in America today?

What people don't realize is that the living conditions are often way worse than you could imagine. You can’t imagine the environments some of my models grew up in. There’s one whose parents abandoned him in a house when he was 12, and he kept living there alone, with nowhere else to go. He had neighbors who would bring him food occasionally. Some had it way worse. And of course, they grow up filled with so much rage and anger, but also fear, so many of them are terrified. It's absolutely like witnessing the return of the repressed.

Chivas Clem, Coty in the Bathtub after Breaking In, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, Cole in front of Chris Farley, 2019. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

One image that stands out is the boy sitting on the staircase — there’s an almost haunting innocence in his gaze. What drew you to him in the first place?

That kid is the most sensitive. He's actually in prison right now. The reason that I met him was because he broke into my house when I was out of town. I came back and I found him in the bathtub asleep, just taking a bath. He has the kind of face that could haunt you for a thousand years.

Do you believe that, in many ways, the men you photograph are shaped by their environments — almost as if they are instruments of their own fate?

God, an instrument of your own fate. I never really thought about that, but you’re exactly right. Those are powerful words. A lot of these men are victims of their circumstances. They grow up without access to anything. I would say 60 to 70% of them are virtually illiterate, and there’s such naivety and innocence to them.

Do you find that this innocence or naivety gives them a different kind of wisdom or perspective?

There’s an interview from the ‘60s with Pasolini, and the interviewer asks, “Who are your favorite people?” And Pasolini’s response implied an admiration for the uneducated because they aren’t spoiled by petty-bourgeois ideals. It’s the same with Jean Genet, who was fascinated by criminals, viewing them as figures of innocence. He said something like, “The criminal organizes a disordered world for us.”

Given the transient and often isolated nature of the men you work with, is there a sense of camaraderie among them?

That's an interesting question. I would say that most of them are quite feral, like lone wolves, because they were never parented correctly or taught about what it means to be loved. They see relationships as transactional. They might develop a bond with somebody but it’s often fleeting. They might have to go to prison for two years, then that person finds somebody else.

If you’re barely surviving, I think it’s very difficult to create any genuine bonds. I have models that have girlfriends, but the relationships never last. And it’s always transactional. She has a check, a place to stay, or he gets a check and she stays with him. When I first started doing this, one of my models went to prison and I sent him a care package. He called me crying, and this is not somebody who cries. He said that he’d never had someone do something so nice for him in his entire life — that his mother would never. And she probably just can’t afford to.

The work is about finding humanity in a subculture that is perceived as so deeply dangerous. I mean the boogeyman of American culture right now is the redneck — the deplorable right. Yet, there’s also a deep sadness and vulnerability to this figure.

Chivas Clem, <em>Coty in the Bathtub after Breaking In</em>, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Coty in the Bathtub after Breaking In*, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, <em>Dillon on the floor</em>, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Dillon on the floor*, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, <em>GP with Blond Beard</em>, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *GP with Blond Beard*, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, <em>Cole Swinging on the Edge of the River</em>, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Cole Swinging on the Edge of the River*, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Would you say your approach is driven more by instinct or is there a method to the scenes? How do you balance spontaneity with intention in your work?

It's all instinctual. There's no real method to it at all. Everything is very much by chance. I never plan to meet the guys I do. When I first moved back here, I was driving to my studio one day and there was a guy on the side of the road in tight white jeans, a white t-shirt, and a white cap with headphones on, moving to the beat of the music. It was so cinematic, like something out of Saturday Night Fever. He became my first model.

Photographing these men — who in some ways represent the very figures you feared growing up — have you found a new understanding of your childhood phobia?

When I started photographing them, I realized that they were just as fearful as I was as a kid, but rather than becoming hysterical, they acted outward. I guess I learned that humanity is hard to recognize in light of our own fears and prejudices. The work is about finding humanity in a subculture that is perceived as so deeply dangerous. I mean the boogeyman of American culture right now is the redneck — the deplorable right. Yet, there’s also a deep sadness and vulnerability to this figure.

Addiction seems to lurk in the background of the lives you capture. How does the presence of drug use in the rural South inform the narratives you’re telling through your photography?

Absolutely. And there's so much despair. I mean, I was a junkie in New York, hooked on heroin. The reason that I moved back to Texas twenty years ago was to get sober and now I am. Here, people are primarily meth addicts, like crystal meth, which I think it’s way worse that opioids because it fucks with your brain chemistry in such a way. It’s very difficult to get sober from opioids, we know that, but you can, and get your head right again.

If you’ve been doing crystal meth for 10 years and get sober, I don’t know if your brain ever really recovers. A lot of these guys grew up not just impoverished and plagued by domestic abuse, but also with terrible, terrible intergenerational addiction. There’s an entire generation of kids affected by their parents’ drug use. It’s a fucking horror show really, another kind of darkness.

Like alcoholism, but worse?

Much worse. I do have a model whose mother drank while she was pregnant, and he has fetal alcohol syndrome. He kind of escaped the worst of it, but he has all these learning delays, despite being so bright and full of ideas.

Another guy who modeled for me is an incredible poet. He wrote poetry all through his jail term in Oklahoma, and he writes music — he plays the banjo and the fiddle. Under different circumstances, this guy would’ve gone to NYU and had a recording contract. He works a shitty job roofing, but he’s completely committed — he has like 30 volumes of poetry written. But he doesn’t understand how getting any of it published or recognized works.

Chivas Clem, Dillon at the carwash, Night, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Much of the despair you describe seems to be rooted in a lack of access — whether it’s access to education, support, or even a path out of addiction. Do you think this lack of access, alongside the intergenerational struggles you capture, plays a central role in the stories your work tells?

Yeah, I mean it can get pretty dark down here, and I didn’t want that aspect to be overshadowed by — well, I was just reading a snippet somewhere about the work, and they immediately launched into this whole thing about queerness. I didn’t want the work to be coded in that way because none of the models identify as queer. That’s not to say that they don’t have sex with men, but that’s often transactional, and not the focus of the work.

Certainly, I’ve borrowed aesthetics from art history, like cheesecake photography, but I don’t think the work is exclusively about queerness.

Yeah, I don’t see that.

This writer called me the other day and was like, “Okay, so all of these guys are twinks.” And I was like, “What? No…”

[Laughs] I’m sorry.

That word has no real meaning here. That’s like a grand misreading, but I think that people see what they want to see through the lens of contemporary culture.

I wonder if any of the guys you’ve shot would know what a twink is.

They probably have no idea what a twink is. But yeah, you can’t control the reaction to what you put out into the world. I was reading something recently about when Larry Clark first made Tulsa. What was that, ’76 or something?

’71.

Shit. That's the year I was born. It’s interesting how mysterious that work was to people because nobody thought about addiction, the rural poor, or any of that. For a lot of his early shows, Larry exhibited alongside postmodernists like Richard Prince and Cady Noland. It wasn’t presented as photography. It was more off-the-wall than that — there was no sentimentality to it.

I wonder what the reactions to your work will be with the show being up so close to the election.

Well, the curator, Alison M. Gingeras — who is brilliant by the way — wanted the show to coincide with the election cycle because she felt that it would address the issue of Texas, which has become such a red state in recent years. Texas wasn't always a red state. I feel like we are really on a precipice, to be honest with you. People don’t understand just how dangerous things have gotten. The 2025 document that the Heritage Foundation put out is a recipe for fascism.

How has the community in Texas responded to the project?

Well, there really isn’t an art community here in Paris, Texas — it’s such a tiny town. And honestly, I don't show the work locally because it's often seen as homoerotic. When I show the work to my models, though, they all get kind of tickled by it. I think they like the idea of being seen, but they’ll sometimes say things like, “I just don’t want my grandmother to see it.” I always tell them I would never take a picture that I wouldn't show my own grandmother.

This will be the first time I’m showing the work in Texas, so it’ll be interesting to see what people think. People will probably code it, again, as homoerotic. It might be for them to see beyond that.

Chivas Clem, <em>Cole in Blossom, night</em>, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Cole in Blossom, night*, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, <em>Rudy Smoking II</em>, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Rudy Smoking II*, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, <em>Jer eating catfish with dirty fingers</em>, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Jer eating catfish with dirty fingers*, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Chivas Clem, <em>Jer on the Phone</em>, 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary. — Chivas Clem, *Jer on the Phone*, 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Dallas Contemporary.

Art

“Semi-Traditional” Hybridity at 032c Gallery

Berlin-based magazine 032c, which has long blurred the boundaries of a traditional publication with its extensive line of garments and apparel, launched a new, permanent, gallery space. Through its first show “Productive Narcissism,” artistic directors of the gallery Claire Koron Elat and Shelly Lea Reich insert themselves into Hugo’s ever-so-relevant dialect, challenging the contemporary conventions of a “publication” while addressing the self’s relation to re-invention.

In what ways will the gallery distinguish itself from the publication?

Claire Koron Elat— The gallery is part of the 032c universe. While the magazine is the nucleus of this universe, it expands into different realms – the ready-to-wear, residencies, exhibitions, and now the permanent gallery space. The gallery is an organic expansion, and at the same time, it questions the future of print publications. What are the alternatives to traditional ways of working in editorial? In our current state and time, flat images and digital are being highly prioritized; the gallery is also a response to that cultural shift.

Shelly Lea Reich— Our first show touched upon this topic of reinvention specifically, but it also reflects the publication and connection to redesign through the written word. We have worked with all of them in the past, which was a conscious decision to further and establish a long-term relationship with them. The gallery will be about establishing and furthering those connections, too.

You will be operating under a “semi-traditional model.” Could you define what this implies in practice?

CKE— It’s called semi-traditional because we want to start without a representation model: the gallery is officialy open and we have a running program, but we’re not yet representing any artists. It’s considered traditional because we have openly communicated that this is a commercial operation. We’re selling the art, and–while deeply interested in providing cultural value–we’re trying to make a profit.

But so is everybody, although desires of profit margins may differ. The business model under which art exists is hard to escape but easier to manipulate.

SLR— It is. And, in comparison to fashion, it’s something that the art world prefers not to talk about. Both Claire and I come from a background in the arts, meaning that we know the sensitivities in this scene, and how to address them with collectors.

Cezary Poniatowski, Reverse Prophecies, 2021. Ser Serpas, Alice (Language) Praxis 4, 2024.

Jon Rafman, 2024.

How might the “sensitivities in this scene” differentiate, given the gallery's location?

CKE— 032c was founded in Berlin and therefore has a deep connection to the city and its creative class. In its history, themes, and ethos — while simultaneously being hyper-international — 032c is deeply tied to the city; It made sense to open the first permanent gallery here. Joerg [Koch] has been organizing shows for decades, back when he had the old office at Brunnenstraße and then in St Agnes Furthermore, Berlin is a great place for welcoming “novel” projects because the scene is relatively open to finding newness in its traditions.

SR— Berlin has established itself as an important player in the art scene. Many galleries in the city are showing exhibitions at a really high level with a real in-depth intellectual curation, and as the city is still considered a relatively large city, but with a more affordable economic structure, we find it quite accommodating for new establishments. This transition of Berlin becoming a dominant cultural city in Germany and also in general is particularly notable in the context of galleries that have migrated from Cologne, such as neugerriemschneider and Galerie Buchholz, which expanded here in the 2000s after the fall of the wall - there has been a resurgence in Berlin's cultural landscape. At the same time, there’s still room for new initiatives to rise.

Circumstances under which self-creation is not only possible but infinite.

CKE— So far there hasn’t been any criticism. Probably because we’re not trying to portray the gallery as something that it isn't. We’re not a non-profit or charity foundation. We’re a gallery that, just like any gallery that travels too fairs or simply organizes exhibitions, is trying to sell what you see.

With the program we want to draw attention to the hybridity of the creative industry, and specifically that of art and fashion. Artists have always collaborated with mediums outside of their personal “traditional means,” or with other artists, or with fashion brands. Likewise, fashion brands have been inspired by artists throughout time. This is nothing new. That being said, what’s recently frowned upon is the idea that the more hyphenate you are — a DJ, a photographer, an artist, a director — the less focus or authority you hold over your chosen practices. I’m not bringing this to the table to make any judgement, but rather the opposite. Shelly and I have had a longstanding vision of reframing this hybrid intellectually. 032c Gallery will provide that. It will welcome experimentation.

The space is re-thinking the means of a magazine, while the exhibition itself is also commenting on the theme of reinvention. Through Boris Groy’s essay, the show investigates how “we are required to constantly re-invent ourselves,” thereby placing us in a permanent state of uncertainty. Who places this obligation upon us?

CKE— At the end of the day, it's not an obligation. It’s as philosophical and controversial as the question regarding free will. I would argue that you put this “obligation” on yourself, but doing so almost just by being part of contemporary society, especially in creative industries where one is “required” to reinvent to stay relevant. It only becomes dangerous once the speed of these reinventions reaches a constant. Endless adoption leads to uncertainty because that's where the core of oneself might get lost.

SLR— I think “requirement” here could be quite positive rather than negative. It’s very freeing to have these possibilities to reinvent yourself constantly. And it's something that's quite exciting. To be able to access a new version of oneself is to interact with different cultures, ideas, and expressions. It’s all part of a larger game. A good example of this is Amalia Ulman. We exhibited another work by her recently “excellences & perfections,” which recently celebrated ten years. In it, she intentionally adopted the role of a hyper-glamorous woman living a very lavish public life. Her friends and close circle quickly became confused with what was real and what wasn’t, but what’s fascinating is that so did Ulman, too. She explains how she got lost in the making, and confused her personae and personality for each other.

Lukas Heerich, Untitled, 2024.

Re-invention can become dangerous once the means of it is in the hands of the wrong people. And given that a lot of reinvention, as with Ulman, takes place in a virtual space or as a response to virtual hierarchies, does it not pass the risk of unregulated manipulation?

SLR— But you also have the freedom to manipulate the tools in return. As you are aware of these sets of rules, or your role as a user, that's where it becomes playful. I think that’s what’s specific about our times, that it’s easier if not even easy to get access to tools that weren’t accessible before. Circumstances under which self-creation is not only possible but infinite.

CKE— Humans were the one who built the algorithm. It’s not like we are being controlled by this otherworldly superpower. It’s not the man versus machine here—it’s you versus yourself. It’s a mechanism that we created and something that we also still control. Of course, we’re not always conscious about what we consume or in the ways in which it affects us. But once we take time to reflect upon it, question it, question ourselves, is when we get control over our self-reinvention.

How often do you reinvent yourself?

SLR— Good question. I think that we reinvented ourselves with the gallery. It’s been a shift in mindset.

CKE— For me, personal reinvention it's not so much about reinvention but rather a progressive invention. What about yourself?

I got a new haircut. A new look is always a reinvention because suddenly you are perceived differently. I think of reinvention as an external, social act. It’s dependent on the response, even though Narcissus might suggest otherwise.

Hugo Comte, 2024.

“Productive Narcissism” will be on view at 032c Gallery in Berlin until October 8th, 2024.

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