Artist Statement
My current studio practice is dichotomized between a shared platform and a more traditional and formal object and image making practice. These branches share a collaborative core. Their separation and points of connection allow me to engage art worlds and art making from a variety of perspectives, which in-turn allows for possibilities that a more isolated and insular practice does not. My belief is that no matter which Art World one participates in, one is ultimately participating in a culture. That culture’s rules and dictums are externally set. Your participation has approved and denied paths. All social functions do. The choice then, as an independent, culture-producing entity, is to negotiate within the existing models and dominant fashions as well as your interests and products allow. I have taken that negotiation, one that usually operates between the external and internal forces, further and create works of art and art culture that are collaborations between myself and an ever-growing number of participants.
Bad at Sports-
“Bad at Sports” is an art-oriented talk show. At times we operate as an archive of exhibitions in Chicago, San Francisco, London, Miami, New York and Continental Europe, at other times we operate as an archive of artist interviews and art discussion. Our podcast also serves as a Chicago art news reporting agency and light entertainment resource. The program is both map and data-base as we collectively navigate our art worlds and attempt to share our positions and arguments.
“Bad at Sports” has functioned since 2005 and as of this writing, we have posted for a straight 120 weeks to produce close to 200 hours of audio with each episode generating roughly 2000 downloads (for a total download of over 250,000). The format was structured to be both entertaining and informative. Our belief is that Art can be smart and fun, and should, by its very nature, be approachable and intelligible to anyone that wants to be involved. It’s participants have included Rodney Graham, Kerry James Marshall, Francesco Bonami, David Robbins, Carol Becker, James Rondeau, Jeff Wall, Hamza Walker, Lane Relyea, James Yood, Michelle Grabner, Gavin Turk, Dominic Molon, and Julian Myers
Object and Image Making-
Over the last 10 years my studio practice has been opened-up to create works in almost ever conceivable media. The core of my practice was always a sarcastic and doubting position that looked to challenge conventional beliefs/perceptions and reposition the viewer with questions about their experience and the work’s intention. This practice, which has switched topics, media, form, and content, began shifting toward a collaborative model in 2001. Since then, more often then not, I work with someone else or a group of people in the creation of our products. Currently that artist is Christian Kuras.
Our shared practice takes on the topic of disquiet and moral ambiguity. We are intrested in the kinds of moments in which we, as individuals, must reconcile the person we are, with the person we wish we were. These are the times where we choose to make it “ok” to behave pragmatically and the times when our moral or ethical imperative is ignored. It is often easy to ignore or “shrug-off” the feeling that we “ought” to be helping out or acting against that which we know to be wrong or evil or hurtful to our fellow humans. People make this choice every day, choices which bring a personal sense of unease to their lives. We are interested in those choices and their obvious, upsetting, enabling, some times catastrophic, and sometimes plain or banal consequences.