Art and Letters
by J. Gluckstern

Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum, 1992, installation view. (photo courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures)

Wilson has since worked with over a dozen museums, talking with their curators, guards, janitors and surrounding communities to excavate pieces of the past that remain important to a siteâs most overlooked audiences. He also has created numerous video, photographic and sculptural works÷gallery installations that often critique display systems (the anthropology museum is a favorite target) or explode stereotypes of African Americans. Currently the subject of the touring, mid-career survey ãObjects and Installations, 1979÷2000,ä Wilson will also represent the United States in the 2003 Venice Biennial. While the artist continues his work with institutions, his studio practice centers on more personal concerns. Then again, all of Wilsonâs work has been personal, which has been the source of its longevity.

David Spalding: ãObjects and Installationsä juxtaposes works that would normally not appear together: photography, sculpture, video and recreations of site-specific installations. Did seeing so much of your projects together for the first time suggest unexpected connections?

Fred Wilson: I think each venue will bring up different things. I did see in the first venue how, even over ten years, certain things linked up. H RR R and
H PE (1999) and Friendly Natives (1991), which are unrelated topically, had a certain unexpected emotional connection. That wonât happen at Berkeley because theyâll be in different rooms. And itâs interesting to see how my travel photographs of Egypt and Peru from the Î70s relate to the more recent work, despite the decades between them. As an artist, your basic interests do return in different ways.

DS: Elsewhere youâve discussed how your early experiences of personal dislocation and racism have fueled your work. Do these memories still motivate you?

FW: Leaving school and moving back to Manhattan and engaging with the art world, I quickly realized that there was a lot of bias. There was no entry into the art world if you were African American, or very little. Ideas about people of color were naive, sometimes downright racist. Once I went to a job interview for a directorâs job at a gallery on 57th street÷this was way back in the late â70s. My resume was fine over the phone, but when I showed up at the door, the owner said, ãOh, we just filled that job.ä And I had just talked to her. I was shocked. Somehow I thought the art world was safe from that. But being involved with art meant you were not so engaged with the rest of the world, and people of color were basically the rest of the world. So that opened my eyes. I donât think I would be making the work I am had it not been for that.

The museum environment reminded me so much of my childhood: a world of denial. If youâre part of a minority, people may accept you being around without necessarily understanding anything about you. Theyâre not thinking about what theyâre saying in front of you or to you. Thatâs how I feel about museums: theyâre talking to people from their own world. Theyâre not thinking about other peopleâs desires or feelings.

I feel less inclined now to beat the social/political drum, but I always respond to situations that I feel are problematic. Young artists are entering a different environment, and have new opportunities. I still find interesting problems to work with, but much of my new work is more personal. The museum projects blend my personal issues with larger ones.

DS: What sorts of personal issues inform your studio practice?

FW: At the moment, Iâm interested in things relating to home and house. Iâve been working on projects around those issues for a long time but not really showing them. Those things will come on view next year. That work and the recent work Iâve done with glass relates to more personal things.

DS: How did you start working with glass?

FW: I wanted to get away from working with museums. Because I worked with things that already existed, I had a desire to do something that I controlled entirely. Working with museums is great but itâs collaborative. Iâm not known for working with any materials, so the whole thing was wide open. I wanted to use materials that were extremely difficult to make art with because theyâre so heavily laden with other issues÷the notion of craft. Unfortunately, the art world grades objects in terms of whether theyâre high art, which intrigued me. I was invited to the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, where I started exploring different materials that are not fashionable in art. I view it as a personal challenge to see what I can do with these materials.

The glass was difficult because I knew nothing about its properties and had to work with a glass blower. Luckily, my idea worked well in glass and the glass blower enjoyed making those forms. When someone else makes your work, who they are goes into it as well. If theyâre connected to it, the fabricator can develop a wonderful relationship with the artist. This glass blower, Dante Marioni, is fantastic. Heâs a very prominent glass blower in America and we got along really well. He felt that the piece used the properties of glass and he enjoyed making it. In many ways it was just luck.

Fred Wilson, Drip Drop Plop, 2001, glass, 8 by 5 feet. (photo courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures)

DS: Where did those drips and puddles in Drip Drop Plop (2001) come from?

FW: I was trying to make the simplest form that still had some meaning for me. I was thinking a lot about spots and drips. There are all these associations for me about black people being considered as ink, coming out of ink wells and things, and the band the Ink Spots, from the 1940s, whose name strikes me as self-mocking. Iâm interested in not only the reduction of form but also the reduction of humanity to a very simple form that I find pathetic. The color black represents African American people because itâs been placed on us as a representation. Of course, the color black÷the absence of light÷really has nothing to do with African Americans. But thereâs a whole other layer of meaning. I also saw it as tears, which addresses the relationship between my internal feelings about my motherâs situation and the world. I thought I would start with these black spots and work towards more complex representations. Iâm happy with where itâs going, and Iâm enjoying this process. Youâll be seeing lots of spots in various forms.

Fred Wilson, from Speaking in Tongues: A Look at the Language of Display, 1999, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco. (photo courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery)

DS: When youâre working with a collection, have you ever been concerned about being used by an institution to legitimate its practices?

FW: I never worry about it. Because whether theyâre genuine or disingenuous, I tell them that I donât repeat myself and Iâm going to look at the collection and the new piece is going to come from this place. If they have some other ulterior motives thatâs one thing. I do what I do. Only once have I felt damned if I do, damned if I donât, because the curator had a special agenda that included trying to look PC when he wasnât. It annoyed me that he wanted me to do racially charged things, but I was happy with the project. I did what I normally do and I didnât avoid those things just because I thought he wanted me to do them. I took the project in directions that made sense for the community and me. I donât want to get used, but I feel if youâre an artist your work may go into a system of display, in the context of someoneâs collection÷someone that you might not necessarily want to have lunch with. All the artist can do is put everything theyâve got into that work.

DS: As you explore a more personal visual language in your studio practice, do you see your institutional work changing?

FW: I donât want to stop doing institutional critiques or museum projects. Iâd still like to work with a zoo, a planetarium and an historic site, like the sites in my early photographs. More and more, the works combine global issues, institutional issues and my personal issues.


Fred Wilson: Objects and Institutions, 1979÷2000 will be at the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, California January 22÷March 3, 2003 and the Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston, Texas May 3÷August 3, 2003 before traveling to other venues throughout the United States. ãFred Wilson: New Workä is at San Franciscoâs Rena Bransten Gallery February 13÷March 13, 2003.

Contributing Editor DAVID SPALDING lives in San Francisco, where he teaches contemporary art and critical theory at the California College of Arts and Crafts.