interview
during
november 2003, several students posed provocative questions in
a series of email interviews. i was moved by their inquiries and
combined three of these dialogues into this interview.
many
thanks to the interviewers: Frank J Miles (Columbia), Mavis Linnemann
(Syracuse) and LaDalle Hunt (Savannah College of Art and Design).
to
read my 2001 "interview with myself" click
here
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damali's email list
(FJM)
How do you define your art, specifically the rent-a-negro.com
web site.
i define my art as conceptual- interested in ideas, experience.
i engage any medium necessary to explore those ideas or experience.
one of the things about that web site is nothing presented is
fictitious. every quote on the site was said to me in some form.
every service is something i've been asked to perform. in this
way, i'm not trying as many suspect to “create” a political
dialogue about race, rather reflect our society back to itself
in a kind of mirror.
that said, i choose a specific way to approach race that would
evoke a visceral reaction, though i tried not to anticipate what
that reaction was. i consider this a web-art-performance because
the audience response (as in my race-tag piece) becomes a live
and dynamic part of the work. it seems anything that addresses
race is automatically categorized as political. this has been
an issue in the art world for years. personally i believe that
all art is activist art. even the most boring still-life can change
our perspective on things, which i think is the primary gift art
offers.
(FJM) Do you consider your work post-black,
or do you reject such racial coding?
i do agree, that my work does fit into the post-black paradigm.
(one of many it might fit into). i'm an artist, first and foremost,
which seems to be the underpinning mantra of the post-black paradigm.
(FJM) How do you articulate the difference
of your blackness definition?
i guess i don't spend much time trying to define blackness. i
live blackness in all of it's complexities. and my art reflects
this experience. as well as my experience (as object-other) to
whiteness. when people experience my art, they have an experience
of whiteness or of blackness or of otherness...in the intricacies
of their experience lies the definitions.
(FJM) Is your art entirely or essentially racialized?
does my art ascribe to essential notions of race? i can't say
that it does. those definitions are so complex, shifting while
universal, that i don't try to pin them down. though, simultaneously
i'm forced to. i'm asked to talk about them on a daily basis,
i'm constantly aware of how oversimplified experiences of race
are in our conversations about them. i wish we could grasp how
complex, intimate, and systemic race is in our world. then we'd
all be at a much higher level of conversation, which i crave desperately.
when i say "black" or "white" in my art (i.e.:
on the website) i use these terms in the american vernacular,
with an awareness of them as constructs. constructs that have
informed so much of our human interaction. as such, these notions
exist simultaneously in reality and in archetypal mythology (contemporary
and historic).
(ML) You take a much more personal
look at white racism, picking out bias incidents in our everyday
lives.
yes. the stuff of my every day experience is so true and authentic.
i'm not a person interested in fiction. the truth is much more
exciting to me.
countless numbers of black people have written me and said that
rent-a-negro.com is such an accurate mirror of their experience
it either made them laugh or cry. the truth is powerful. however,
only a few white people have offered a similar response. this
could be because they don't see themselves/truth in the work or
because they are too embarrassed by the mirror it offers that
they just don't want to tell me all about it in an email.
(LH) What role has the internet played
in your ideas and your art?
i'm interested in the internet as 1) a medium that reaches a large
number of people quickly and actually seems to foster dialogue...instantaneously.
not many things do that and 2) a free medium for people to view
art and 3) as a strange gauge of the current dialogue of our "community."
the internet gives us the idea that we have more "say"
in what we consume, not only because we can choose what to consume,
but then subsequently dialogue with the purveyors of the information.
this may be a myth, but it seems to keep people engaged.
(LH) Why did you choose the internet
as a means to deliver your message? (re: rent-a-negro.com)
i didn't think too hard about it. it was an obvious choice. everything
that is for sale has a web site. i really enjoy web design and
it matched up perfectly in my mind with the concepts i was exploring.
i was interested in commodification and the "price of racism"
and so price quickly lead to e-commerce.
(LH) What other pieces have you created
that utilize the internet?
none yet. i have a plan to do a web-performance work in the future
that raises dialogue about pornography.
(LH) Do you think the facelessness
of the internet really impacts or decides the content which people
display?
of course. this was really powerful in doing the work. i realized
i had a choice about whether to identify myself or not. we are
quite a cowardly species. we'd hate to admit it, and i have no
facts to prove this statement, but it's my suspicion watching
the proliferations of lies that we live with on a personal and
global level, that it's true...that we as humans would rather
not take responsibility for our actions. thus much of the content
on the web occurs under a fake name or some kind of "handle."
it takes a while to find out who has created something. on rent-a-negro.com
i imitate this....with just a small annotation to my art site
at the bottom of the page.
on the other side, i also think that many people are putting their
actual names and faces on the net...it makes them feel famous.
the truth is we are experiencing cultural lag with regards to
the internet...we won't know what impact it's had on society for
quite a while. we're in it.
(ML) How did you get into performance
art?
i love theatre. love love love it. i used to (when i was in college)
do theatre work with women in prison. it was profound. actually
one of the few experiences i've had that organically brought races
together across some pretty intense segregation. then when i moved
to portland i co-founded a theatre company (defunkt theatre).
i did some acting and it traumatized me. it was hard. very emotional.
it took fortitude that i hadn't built up yet, thus it captured
my attention.
i think art runs into danger when the artist thinks they have
it all figured out. then it becomes merely a presentation of what
the artist knows versus an experience of a vulnerable offering
from the artist meeting the vulnerable personal points of relation
from the audience. that's the good stuff, and the stuff i'm interested
in creating.
my first love is still the creation of visual work. but performance
is a powerful compelling medium for me, and so it draws me. in
my mind, it is visual art as well, just alive, moving, speaking.
(ML) How do you look/treat/expect
from your audience during a performance?
i think the audience is a fascinating witness during performance.
i don't like stage work that insists it's related to your life.
i like when it sneaks up on you.
that said, my earlier performance work was very confrontative.
it took on rap music, misogyny. racism, men hitting on women,
minstrelsy, it had a list of all the races of the people i’ve
had sex with. it quoted from a play that had been done in town
and asked the audience to repeat after me...so who knows what
my collaborator james moore and i will come up with. i think this
new work will be more refined, and more pensive. but he has a
real streak to push the boundaries with the audience and i'm a
willing colluder.
ps. james is a white man. (a playwright, writer, lighting designer
and director) i find it really powerful to explore race in performance
work with him as a writer/collaborator. i think we're discovering
(or trying to discover) a way to see things that only that kind
of cross-race connection can germinate.
(ML) Part of your work as an artist
is to disrupt people's everyday lives…
well, no. my work as an artist is to get people to think and feel.
it's unfortunate that we've created a society that responds to
thinking and feeling as a disruption. personally, thinking and
feeling is what i most like to do with my day. but that may be
why everybody describes me as "intense."
(ML)…confronting them with contradictions in their lives.
ok, true. contradiction is the stuff of growth. it really engages
us.
(ML) What kinds of responses do you expect?
i never expect a response from my work. if i expected a response
i don't think i would do it. instead i wander into the art or
performance with a kind of naiveté, believe it or not.
i am interested in the process of creation, of doing. when i get
to the response i'm always surprised.
(ML) How do you confront contradictions in your own life?
this is a fabulous question.
i wrestle with my contradictions beyond what is probably healthy.
i'm full of them. we all are. in my closest relationships i'm
so aware of contradicting myself, because i'm known for taking
a hard line on certain values, like personal responsibility, commitment,
keeping one's word, love, honesty, forthcomingness, confrontation,
racism, sexism. when i find myself in contradiction of those things,
i interrogate myself. ultimately finding that tricky balance between
values and compassion. i've had great moments of pushing myself
to uphold my values, and equally great moments of allowing myself
to fail at meeting my own standards. actually it's those moments
where i learn the greatest lessons, those about compassion.
(FJM) How does your allegorical art’s
narrative critique ownership of race, from history to now?
i'm so interested in notions of ownership and ontology. i'm almost
beyond words about it. it all just blows my mind. at the moment
i'm reading michael rogin's book about jewish performers in blackface.
the notion that in order to be validated as "american"
by white immigrant groups that preceded them, donning blackface
was used...an essential part of the americanization process--
to mock blackness. this gave the jewish performers ownership of
the stage, ownership of their american identity and again reinscribed/redefined
the role of blackness shifting once again the ontological classifications
of black people in this country. WOW. that shit is incredible.
anyway, allegorical arts narrative...yes. the allegory, even the
conceit is critical to examining this because i seem to be so
interested in using the methods of categorization/definition/inscribing
to examine how we categorize/define/inscribe. that's an effective
mirror. and i find it very powerful. otherwise i feel like i'm
on the outside with a blunt object trying to get inside. the mechanisms
of racism are really quite innovative already, so i like using
them in a mirror-role. not only is it fascinating territory to
play in, it makes the work much more effective. i'm still learning
how to do this. it's quite a specific process.
(FJM) Your art has been deemed message-motivated
and figurative, satirical and bitingly provocative commentary,
of subversion and inversion yet presented in realistic almost
playfully literal forms…
play is essential to survival.
as is intimacy.
as is expression.
the web site, and my art in general, offers all of this to viewers.
and requires all of this to create.
(FJM/LH) Who are your influences?
quick list: not really influences, rather honored inspirations:
cildo miereles, paul gaugin, lisa yuskavage, william pope.l, dan
flavin, joseph cornell, henri daumier, the fluxus movement- yoko
ono in specific, adrian piper. basquiat. duchamp. randy newman.
annie lennox, mos def, jonathan swift. samuel beckett, anais nin.
i'm interested in people who use reality (the body, the truth,
their lives) in a vulnerable interaction with the audience. i’m
so moved by honesty.
no
portion of this interview may be used without permission.
