Quick: empathy. Truth is - one can never fully understand what another has survived. What they have left behind.dust. Tried calling yet you were “counselling”. If it is true one's entire lifeis relevant than why are we disconnecting? And if they knew theywould be calling too. dialling. Draw: artabout art. Elliott
Sarah Elliott is a graduate of the Schoolof the Art Institute of Chicago and temporarily living in Alaska. She hasrecently shown at Back Yard Projects in New York City where she normallyresides and works.
Today Otino 5:38pm Hi Sarah I interview artists. Wondering if you are interested in an interview? Sarah 5:38pm hi. i do too. yes. Otino 5:38pm Perfect then. Shall we interview each other? Sarah 5:39pm i was being kind of cheeky i don’t really interview artists - not formally.  5:40pm So are you still game? |
Sarah
yeps.
dish.
crate.
Otino
5:42pm
package.
ship.
I think about you all the time
I think about you all the time
You are aconceptualist at heart?
Sarah
5:43pm
I am a conceptualist at heart?
Otino
5:43pm
Where are the italics in your response?
Sarah
5:44pm
Just repeat it six times rotatingthe emphasis…
5:44pm
ah.
5:45pm
why are you asking me to do aninterview btw?
5:46pm
I noticed you studied at SAIC
and SAIC usually signifiesinteresting work.
I guess we will soon see...
5:46pm
haha.
okay.
i am interested in being interested.
Otino
5:46pm
Your website seems like a puzzle.
The "Documentation" linktakes me to
Is your work really related tokeeping exotic pets
or is this link ametaphor for collecting art?
Sarah
5:49pm
i think collecting is more similar tokeeping exotic pets than it is to
Cubism.
5:50pm
Because contemporary artworks alwaysneed such care?
Opposing theassumption art will remain forever archival?
 Sarah 5:51pm yeah, maybe. sounds good. so when will we do the interview? 5:52pm This is the interview Sarah. 5:53pm oh but i am looking for lofts on craigslist. 5:53pm It seems you take issue with gender-specific language just as Hannah Arendt dislikes the use of the term "Fatherland". Isn't the title "craigslist" just as problematic? After all it is a gender-neutral list. "A craigslist, after all, is first of all a "list"; an organization is not a reseller, not even metaphorically." |
Sarah
hahaha.
Otino
5:58pm
Where can I find your work online?Is there a new project you want to discuss?
6:03pm
Images from my "Moving BetweenTwo or More Points" project at Back Yard Projects can be seen on thispublic Facebook link:
 Otino 6:04pm This project looks like fun in a friendly and peaceful environment. Is Back Yard Projects a new space? Sarah 7:28 PM It opened this summer 2011. It is an apartment gallery ostensibly run by Holly Stanton. The performance was part of series of works curated by Sean Keenan. Otino 7:30 PM What was the premise for your piece?  Sarah 7:30 PM “Moving Between Two or More Points” is a performance I've been orchestrating since 2008. it's always comprised of discrete sections – vignettes – and they change every time I perform the piece. The performance is always context specific.  This piece began with a telephone conversation I had with a friend of mine. I was in her house and she was away on the other side of the country and I was looking into her studio and there were five objects on the floor. We had a conversation describing trajectories between the objects and recreated it as a drawing. Afterwards, I started making a lot of diagrams dealing with movement trajectories, specifically thinking about movement involving two primary components: line and point.  Otino 7:46 PM So in ""Moving Between Two or More Points" you become the trajectory: the line between various points?  Sarah 7:47 PM right. the line is articulated by the points. Yet "moving Between two or more points" can include basically anything. Otino 7:32 PM At one point in looks like you are tracing a path with your feet with flour or some other white dust marking your steps/movement.  Sarah 7:33 PM yes. Actually it was baby powder. This section is called "dancing with an apple and a fan". I put baby powder on the bottom of my shoes and moved in a straight line by sliding my feet: toe, heal – toe, heal… I do this moving to the right and when I reach the edge of the dance area (in this case a small section of deck) I walk to another point and do the same until I eventually run into an apple which I’ve placed somewhere on the dance floor. There is also a rotating head fan placed on its side adding a really pathetic dance to the happening.  Otino 7:36 PM You are using preset conceptual parameters to determine and influence your performance. Sarah 7:36 PM yes. sure. |
Otino
7:48 PM
What is the greater picturethen - our movements through existence?
Sarah
7:48 PM
i am sort of a collector and arrangermore than anything;
an artist more than afabricator.
So I use this open premise as away to influence or contextualize my collecting.
The material is less important-
I am really interested increating a particular kind of space.
Otino
7:51 PM
This July 2011 space looks verysocial…
Sarah
7:51 PM
yes.
Otino
7:51 PM
…and inclusive.
Collaborative?
Sarah
7:52 PM
YES.
I am interested in doing thingsthat implicate the audience;
yet, I am also interested inconfusing the space by moving from quite theatrical sequence (even performingElizabeth Taylor a bit)
and facilitating a morepractical kind of audience/performer relationship.
For example: handing out bagsof chips, becoming a tour guide,
giving a history of thearchitecture of the local neighborhood block.
Otino
7:57 PM
Your work reminds me of thework of Kelly Lynn Jones
Sarah
7:57 PM
oh.
cool.
why is that?
Otino
7:57 PM
Your conceptual approaches tocollaboration and installation seem similar.
Lets talk about more new work.
In "Conversations" sculpturesmade of cardboard are unique structures.
Are the titles random names ofpeople or are they the names of the artists who first constructed them?
Sarah
8:09 PM
"Conversations" wasmade for an exhibition called “Menu” in London.
The curator, KatieGuggenheim, asked everyone to make table top works
from which you could"order" from a menu.
In making the sculptures Idedicated each title to a person
I was engaged in significantand ongoing dialogue with at the time.
I made these sculpturaldiagrams
and when someone ordered a workthey would get all the sculptures along with a list of the names of the peoplein the titles and their telephone numbers.
So there was an invitation tostart dialogues with these people - conversations abstracted or influenced bythe sculptures.
Most of the people on the list wereAmerican, but mostly the people in the UK
were called.
Otino
8:16 PM
neat idea.
Sculpture becoming dialogue.
Such extremes between the concreteand ephemeral.
Sarah
8:16 PM
right
i am interested in this kind offaulty translation often as a way to open up dialogic spaces but withoutrepopulating them too fast.
Otino
8:19 PM
Related: "ProvosationalScripts" appear to be narratives created from random objects placed inproximity to create new meanings.
I’m guessing the diagrams forthe installations were created after the real sculptures were displayed?
Sarah
8:20 PM
yes.
I made those diagrams afterwardsas a way to document the work because the specificities of the material arereally important and not so legible in the actual sculptures.
Otino
8:21 PM
Were the "ProvosationalScripts" attempts to make sculpture cinematic?
Sarah
8:22 PM
oh that's nice - I've neverthought about it like that.
I was thinking about historiography- the narration of history.
In a description of this work Iwrote: "in narratives of facts, like history, discrepancy becomes a crisis."
I was also thinking about"parataxis" as opposed to "syntaxis"
letting things remain besideeach other without having to be synthesized
into a common logic.
Otino
8:25 PM
So proximity does notinevitably infer meaning?
Sarah
8:26 PM
no - see, proximity IS meaningitself.
"There is not beingwithout being with." - Jean Luc Nancy
A representation of a car crashwith matchbox cars placed next to a photocopied Husserl text already hasmeaning.
Even if there is no context inwhich it has already been explicated.
Otino
8:29 PM
The work "Shapes"seems to be a good synthesis of elements into a greater concept if not a singularcomposition.
Sarah
8:30 PM
yeah
but then there is the diagram.
Otino
8:30 PM
The diagram seems to be thepunch line made visible.
Sarah
8:30 PM
hmm
go on…
Otino
8:30 PM
As in “The Answer is...”
Sarah
8:31 PM
haha.
Otino
8:31 PM
Yes – just like the viewer's"haha".
Sarah
8:31 PM
sometimes i show the piecewithout the diagrams.
i can never decide.
really the work has a lot to dowith seeing minimalist painting everywhere in things.
Otino
8:32 PM
Even in the towels your friendssteal.
Sarah
8:32 PM
yes.
Otino
8:32 PM
"Pools" are myfavorite Sarah.
Sarah
8:32 PM
oh really?
that's nice.
Otino
8:33 PM
These “pools” are in the shapeof real pools - correct?
Sarah
8:34 PM
yep
i also made a diagram set in adifferent piece.
While I was making these poolsthis aria from a Puccini opera would begin and then I would keep resetting theneedle between each pool so only the first ten seconds ever played. Maybethe opera mucks it up for you though?
Otino
8:35 PM
Whatever - I saw them asflatter Hockney's.
Sarah
8:35 PM
sure
as my really silly ex studiomate said "swimming pools are a good subject for art"
Otino
8:35 PM
Yes since pools designates"painting" so well -
liquid taking shape whileremaining in flux.
Sarah
8:36 PM
i knew i was a painter.
Otino
8:38 PM
Lets talk about one last set ofnew work…
Sarah
8:38 PM
“The problem with telling achild I understand how you feel…”
Otino
8:39 PM
Can I fully quote you and simplyrestate what you sent me in an earlier email?
Sarah
8:39 PM
yes,
you can.
Otino
8:39 PM
You stated:
All of these works haveindividual titles yet they are part of a larger piece called
"The problem with tellinga child I understand how you feel is that some children just simply won’tbelieve you, they'll say 'No, you don't'. But if you take the time to bother tobe specific (the first day of school can be scary, so many new things to getused to) then the child will know that you really do understand."
Sarah
8:40 PM
right
Otino
8:40 PM
Are all of these works reallyabout taking the time to communicate more fully and with more sensitivity?
Sarah
8:40 PM
yeah, basically.
Otino
8:41 PM
"Tops" seems like itis made up of the tops of cut and discarded fruits and vegetables?
Sarah
8:41 PM
"Tops" is also thename of a really great grocery store in Williamsburg.
Otino
8:49 PM
Ah – I see they are sitting ona “Tops” receipt.
Sarah
8:49 PM
yes.
Otino
8:53 PM
"Tilted Arc" seems tobe blatantly making fun of Richard Serra.
Sarah
8:53 PM
yeah.
Otino
8:53 PM
Its made of aluminum foil?
Sarah
8:53 PM
it is.
Otino
8:54 PM
What is"Horsefeathers" or what does it refer to?
The Marx Brothers?
Sarah
8:55 PM
Yes, the text on the book thatis on the mat in this work is about the Marx Brothers film “Horsefeathers”.
There is a really great text init titled: “Horsefeathers brings up the problem of approach". It's areally comical essay
Otino
8:57 PM
Does it relate to the idea agroup of underdogs can win despite the odds - like the movie's plot?
Sarah
8:59 PM
well basically i aminterested in the idea of "the problem of approach" part of the title.
In this piece i am thinking alot about how to approach things with entirely specific terms – as mentioned - "takingthe time to bother being specific".
i am interested in specificity.
Otino
9:01 PM
Like how specific (subjective) meaningsare the only real meanings and how universality is a construction?
Sarah
9:02 PM
no. no. i am not into apolemical truth situation.
Really this piece works almost asa kind of object arranging meditation.
Otino
9:06 PM
"Dark Reds" is aphoto of a box of oranges you had in your possession at one point
Sarah
9:06 PM
yes.
there is a sticker on theorange box which reads "Dark Reds"
which i found quite compelling.
Otino
9:08 PM
It is a type of grapefruit - right?
Sarah
9:09 PM
yes
Otino
9:09 PM
And the symbolism orsignificance here?
Sarah
9:10 PM
Again, I found this phrase"Dark Reds" really evocative
i am really interested in weirdbits of language like this - if you slightly divorce them from their context theycan become really poetic.
"Dark Reds" somehowbecomes really strange and poetic to me.
Otino
9:13 PM
What is the work"Monument" is made of?
Sarah
9:14 PM
“Monument” is made of balsawood (I constructed the platform),
cardboard, colored sand andsome weird plastic applicator tip.
I think it is also partially ajoke about modernist sculpture -
it's friends with the ‘Serra’piece.
Otino
9:15 PM
So it is tiny!
Sarah
9:15 PM
yeah. applicator tip is aboutfour inches.
Otino
9:15 PM
A weird and freaky dimensionalshift just occurred for me
when you said "applicatortip".
It looks like some crazy YvesKlien magic trick with the applicator stick given birth to the Anish Kapoor, blue, magic dust below.
Otino
9:18 PM
It seems as though you really are taking care to examine aesthetics and meaning moreclosely in these works to build subtle yet poignant effects in the viewer.
Are you trying to convince theart viewer you actually do care for them?
Sarah
9:19 PM
yes, i think yourcharacterization is really apt.
i would like to.
I just realized from reading this interview that Sarah's Facebook page is an extension of her art consciousness. Maybe I knew that it was artsy but I didn't realise that this is the art she does in the World.
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