{"id":11516,"date":"2015-09-30T11:27:24","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T09:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/?p=11516"},"modified":"2015-10-05T10:51:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-05T08:51:28","slug":"i-think-art-is-more-powerful-as-a-poisoned-kool-aid-an-interview-with-bradford-kessler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2015\/09\/30\/i-think-art-is-more-powerful-as-a-poisoned-kool-aid-an-interview-with-bradford-kessler\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I think art is more powerful as a poisoned Kool-Aid&#8221;: an interview with Bradford Kessler"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 33%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-11516 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2015\/09\/30\/i-think-art-is-more-powerful-as-a-poisoned-kool-aid-an-interview-with-bradford-kessler\/1-19\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/13-480x320.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-11518\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-11518'>\n\t\t\t\tBradford Kessler. Omen Crisis Blattodea, 2015. Plastic. \u00a9 Photo: Benoi\u0302t Cattiaux \/ Courtesy of the artist and monCHERI, Brussels.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2015\/09\/30\/i-think-art-is-more-powerful-as-a-poisoned-kool-aid-an-interview-with-bradford-kessler\/4-14\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/41-320x480.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-11521\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-11521'>\n\t\t\t\tBradford Kessler, Omen Rental Boy (Ever Reminded and Reminding), 2015\nPlastic, grill cover, NYC apartment keys, bucket, water, coloring, fountain parts, theatrical clotted blood, WTC souvenir. \u00a9 Photo: Benoi\u0302t Cattiaux \/ Courtesy of the artist and monCHERI, Brussels.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2015\/09\/30\/i-think-art-is-more-powerful-as-a-poisoned-kool-aid-an-interview-with-bradford-kessler\/2-14\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/2-480x320.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-11519\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-11519'>\n\t\t\t\tBradford Kessler, Scythe (THELMA), 2015. Painted aluminum, steel, rubber. \u00a9 Photo: Benoi\u0302t Cattiaux \/ Courtesy of the artist and monCHERI, Brussels.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2015\/09\/30\/i-think-art-is-more-powerful-as-a-poisoned-kool-aid-an-interview-with-bradford-kessler\/5-15\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/51-320x480.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-11522\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-11522'>\n\t\t\t\tBradford Kessler, New Icon (Ms. Anti-Pro II), 2015. Rubber on engraved birch. \u00a9 Photo: Benoi\u0302t Cattiaux \/ Courtesy of the artist and monCHERI, Brussels.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2015\/09\/30\/i-think-art-is-more-powerful-as-a-poisoned-kool-aid-an-interview-with-bradford-kessler\/3-18\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/31-480x320.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-11520\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-11520'>\n\t\t\t\tExhibition view \u201cLand Lords\u201d monCHERI,\nBrussels, Belgium, 2015. \u00a9 Photo: Benoi\u0302t Cattiaux \/ Courtesy of the artists and monCHERI, Brussels.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>We first came across the art of Bradford Kessler with a video he made in 2011 of a \u201cBeetlejuiced\u201d Charles Darwin, reciting one of the stand-ups George Carlin did about the theme of climate change. As strange as it might sound, this video is not the most bizzarre piece in the kaleidoscopic practice of the young Brooklyn-based artist. His artworks often combine politically charged topics with surreal sense of humour.<\/p>\n<p>Kessler has just opened a solo show at <a href=\"http:\/\/ashesonashes.com\/exhibition87.html\" target=\"_blank\">ASHES\/ASHES in Los Angeles called <span lang=\"en-US\">Anxiety Social Club<\/span><\/a> and is part of Land Lords, a group show at <a href=\"http:\/\/moncheri.co\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mon Cher\u00ec <span lang=\"en-US\">Gallery in Brussels<\/span><\/a>, comprising works by Michael Assiff and Alessandro Agudio and curated by Domenico De Chirico.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Let<span lang=\"fr-FR\">\u2019<\/span><span lang=\"en-US\">s begin with a general question about the exhibition in Brussels. Reading the press release, the broad topic of Land Lords seems to be this question of power structures, the contemporary version of elite controllers whom get to decide for the mass of <\/span>\u201c<span lang=\"en-US\">dumbed<\/span>\u201d <span lang=\"en-US\">users\/customers\/exploited workers\/unrepresented people\/etc. Even though this topic comes across a bit generic, the interesting thing in the show is how ironic and funky the response of the artists is, and yours in particular addresses the theme in very different ways. How many of your pieces are specifically made for this exhibition and its topic and how many just come from earlier stages of your production and find themselves to fit in?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>I agree Land Lords is a very loaded and generic title and we wanted to play with that. We hired a comic book artist to create the graphic for the show. It depicted three villainous characters in suits. The press release was written as a surreal vignette. Neither the comic graphic or story were meant to exactly mirror the forthcoming works in the show but I was confident that whatever the three of us came up with, it would be suitable for a show called Land Lords. Allessandro, Michael and I had just come off of a group show this past summer at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanmedium.net\/uploads\/3\/0\/5\/8\/30583131\/fedspress.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">American Medium titled Finally Every Dimension of the Soil<\/a> so it very much feels as though Land Lords is a sequel with us three as returning characters. Although the press release for FEDS was pretty abstract, it had much more literal information for guidance. Because of this previous dialogue, there wasn&#8217;t much discussion about content for Land Lords, I think we all were all on a little bit of materialist esp by then, Allessandro of course lives in Milan but Michael and I frequent each others studios in New York anyway so we usually know what each other are up to. Most of the works were made specifically for this show and we only loosely discussed them with the curator Domenico so I didn\u2019t really know what the show would be until the customs forms had to be done.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en-US\">In regard to your<\/span>\u00a0<span lang=\"en-US\">sculpture <\/span>\u201c<span lang=\"en-US\">Omen Rental Boy (Ever Reminded and Reminding)<\/span>\u201d that <span lang=\"en-US\">depicts the iconic Brussels symbol Manneken<\/span>&#8211;<span lang=\"en-US\">Pis covered in cockroaches, is there a specificity that connects <\/span>it <span lang=\"en-US\">to the city or country hosting the exhibition. Can you tell us a little bit about how it originated? Is there a particular story with local Belgian <\/span>\u201clandlords\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>I don\u2019t know any specific Belgian landlords but I\u2019m now aware of the Belgian palm oil tycoon Vincent Bollor\u00e9 who is directly named in Michael Assiff\u2019s grill sculpture \u201cOreo Roast (Burnt Orangutans for Vincent Ballore\u201d).\u00a0 I can\u2019t say for sure but I think Land Lords was inspired by creating an exhibition in proximity to NATO headquarters. There was something very science fictive in the organization\u2019s enlargement during the breakup of Yugoslavia. I have TV memories of a powerful world police but those memories are mostly covered up by images of the U.S. President\u2019s sperm on a dress<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Prior to the Land Lords show I had read about the legend of the peeing boy who saved Brussels from burning by urinating on the fuse of the enemy\u2019s explosives. On my version, some tourist shop Twin Towers emerge from the back of the boy kind of like little wings and there are plastic casts of NYC cockroaches placed evenly on his body like energy strips.\u00a0Little boys and peeing are both motifs that have appeared in my work for a long time so this fountain was kind of destined I guess. I had nearly purchased Manneken Pis replica fountains many times before I knew I would do this show in Brussels.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Let<span lang=\"fr-FR\">\u2019<\/span><span lang=\"en-US\">s talks about <\/span>\u201c<span lang=\"en-US\">Omen Crisis Blattodea&#8221;, an interpretation of the so called Charging Bull or Wall Street Bull. In the words of its creator Arturo Di Modica, the original sculpture was supposed to work as this motivational gift to America and its dream in a moment &#8211; the financial crisis of 1989 &#8211; when the stock market wasn<\/span><span lang=\"fr-FR\">\u2019<\/span><span lang=\"en-US\">t doing well. To what extent your disfigured and rescaled version of the bull mocks that kind of optimism? Would you position yourself and your practice as politically engaged artwork, <\/span>\u201c<span lang=\"en-US\">directly aiming your guns at finance<\/span>\u201d <span lang=\"en-US\">as Seth Price writes in his last book?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Seth Price has good aim. I\u2019m not sure if art is the right weapon to kill finance though. I have really shaky hands so I just close my eyes and spray paintballs everywhere without looking at the target. I suffer from eternal teen angst so I\u2019m comfortable positioning myself within what Zizek calls \u2018abstract discontent\u2019. I think art is more powerful as a poisoned Kool-Aid. In reality though I think it\u2019s not your opponents that drink it but your supporters.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I have to admit that Wall Street Bull sculpture happened really fast and last minute. I was walking in Chinatown the night before my flight to Brussels shopping for a hat and I saw the sculpture of the bull in a tourist gift shop, I immediately knew I had to have it for Land Lords so I bargained to a good price, took the sculpture to Ivana Basic\u2019s studio in Greenpoint and together we molded and cast the legs then used epoxy resin to fuse the extra set of legs into the body so that it would read like a scorpion or cockroach or some kind of insect. We had four hands so it went really smooth and we finished by 3am.\u00a0I brought it to Brussels in my suitcase. Sorry I\u2019m not really answering your question directly, I\u2019d rather talk about it formally\u00a0but have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects don&#8217;t have politics. They&#8217;re very brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can&#8217;t trust the insect.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en-US\">In this comment on powers, we could say that none is greater than death, which is a somewhat worn out and overly represented subject in art history. Though your <\/span>\u201c<span lang=\"en-US\">Scythes<\/span>\u201d <span lang=\"nl-NL\">&#8211; broken Grim Reaper<\/span><span lang=\"fr-FR\">\u2019<\/span><span lang=\"en-US\">s scythes turned into gymnastics tools with inoffensive rubber spikes and studs &#8211; propose a very original twist. What is the position of death in today<\/span><span lang=\"fr-FR\">\u2019<\/span><span lang=\"en-US\">s conflicted society? Has it been capitalised and transformed in consumer product like your artworks suggest? Or is it still out of control and intimidating us regardless of where we stand in this societal struggle?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Is death worn out? I like the idea of death being worn out so it can\u2019t catch us. I sometimes believe if you can laugh at death then you\u2019ve won at life but then I come across people who are in the middle of dealing with death and the laughing is no longer funny. It\u2019s just extremely insensitive and you realize that you are just some arrogant jerk who calls himself an artist and has no grasp of reality. I wish everyone to live as long and healthy as possible but thank god for death. Look how terrible we are to each other as a whole even with this imminent doom creeping up on us. Maybe these works are anti-after life and maybe that\u2019s the root of many world conflicts?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Whose are those female names on the scythes handles?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>The names on the scythes are both of my late grandmothers Thelma and Ruth. There is a special relationship that you share with your grandmother that is not experienced with anybody else in this world. At least from my POV, it\u2019s like mother plus friend plus stranger because they experienced so much life without you in their reality. They look at you with this amazement because you were created by this creature that they created. The gene is out of their hands now; the prototype has prototyped. The scythes are of course an iconic symbol of forthcoming death but I was also interested in this farm tool that doubled as a medieval weapon. Since death is over represented as you say, I wonder if even the experience of real death feels passe\u2019. Like you see the light at the end of the tunnel inviting you in and your last conscious thought is \u201coh please this is so kitsch\u201d. Fade to black.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en-US\">Some of the characters of your engraved drawings (IE <\/span>\u201cNew Icon (Ms. Anti-Pro II)\u201d<span lang=\"en-US\">) appear as irreverent and exotic gods, desacralised not only because of their behaviour (they pee and laugh at us) but through the fact that they survive in cut-out and quirkily shaped panels. What<\/span><span lang=\"fr-FR\">\u2019<\/span><span lang=\"en-US\">s your interpretation of those characters?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Those characters haunt me. Ms. Anti-Pro I\u2019ve seen around lingering around the bushes outside my parent\u2019s house always grinning and pissing on everything. I\u2019m still not sure how I feel about her, a lot of mixed emotions. There\u2019s a family, not just her.\u00a0They really just don\u2019t give a shit about anything especially human social norms. I think they are the spirits of a known ancient bacteria that\u2019s planning an uprising.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en-US\">Looking at your past artwork, the variety of styles, techniques, topics, imageries, inspirations is so broad that trying to inscribe all of them in a short summary or with a series of fixed sentences seems a little irrelevant. We<\/span><span lang=\"fr-FR\">\u2019<\/span><span lang=\"en-US\">d rather ask you about your creation process, if it<\/span><span lang=\"fr-FR\">\u2019<\/span><span lang=\"en-US\">s driven by specific questions that find an answer in the artworks and therefore conclude a chapter, or if it<\/span><span lang=\"fr-FR\">\u2019<\/span><span lang=\"en-US\">s rather a sort of shifting personal identity and authorship that leads to different productions?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>I think it could all be wrapped up in a short summary but I\u00a0wouldn&#8217;t\u00a0particularly care\u00a0to see that happen. I did it in about 30 pages once. It\u2019s always shifting but\u00a0I&#8217;ve\u00a0found that the questions are nearly the same after over\u00a0a decade of making art that even had questions in them. I don\u2019t really care about questions and answers, I look for stuff that moves me, I care about fantasy. I read a lot of stuff that influences me but there is so much it becomes something else.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What about the spectators response to the pieces? Can it decide what follows in your studio?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>The spectators response is always correct just like the customers always right, but they definitely don\u2019t decide what comes next for me, unless we talk at length about something interesting then it probably does.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You lived long periods of your life in Asia, especially China. What does it mean to work in a context where art has to respond to different political challenges? Do you think there is some sort of obligation for the Western artist to adapt for the expectation of a very different audience?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>There are involuntary reflexes to all my life experiences in the work but mainly from my upbringing in small town Bible belt America. My next show Anxiety Social Club in Los Angeles is kind of a remake of Lord of the Flies in the form of an exhibition. This show has more influences from my years in Asia. While in China, I worked for a politically charged artist during the country\u2019s hyper-Olympic speed transform to modernity so the conversations were there but I never thought it was a good idea or felt any obligation to directly address politics as\u00a0I&#8217;ve\u00a0vaguely done in some of my recent work.\u00a0 I think\u00a0I was making work about the old worn out subject of death back then too just in a different place. Walking around Beijing at night and climbing around half destroyed buildings during the period of 24 hour construction was a very memorable experience. Cranes would suddenly rise out of dark pits of rubble and there was this urgent feeling you had to hide from their lights.\u00a0 It was a very apocalyptic setting which allowed for a smooth suspension of disbelief. One could easily imagine themselves in the world of Terminator.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Do you ever think about moving back there?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>I did go back to Beijing one summer and I would definitely consider moving to Japan or China again if the timing was right. Those are two of the best cuisines in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We first came across the art of Bradford Kessler with a video he made in 2011 of a \u201cBeetlejuiced\u201d Charles Darwin, reciting one of the stand-ups George Carlin did about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11522,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1797],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-dialogue-with"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}