ARTWORKER OF THE WEEK #16

Kevin Hanley @ The 50th Venice Biennale

On Another Occassion, 2003
Single-channel DVD projection
Size: variable
Duration: 3 minutes 58 seconds

Sequence of five stills

In the Delays and Revolutions section of the current Venice Biennale, an image slowly comes into focus, it's of Fidel Castro. A dead Castro! Kevin Hanley, a Californian based in Los Angeles, has over the last decade anchored his art firmly in video and photography. Known primarily for "studies" of motion in which he eliminates the author, Hanley also makes very "formal" still photography. He is currently having solo shows at the I-20 Gallery in New York (05/09 to 04/10) and ACME in Los Angeles (12/07 to 09/08). Hanley is included in the 50th Venice Biennale as well as Uneasy Space, a group show at SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico (25/07 to 23/11).



Sherman Sam: Kevin, your current piece in Venice, On Another Occasion, is an image of Fidel Castro coming into focus. It's a big move away from your more dynamic, movement-orientated video works. How did this come about?

Kevin Hanley: Well, I know this may sound corny, but in 2002 during a surge in G.W. Bush's war mongering and Sharon's incursions into Palestine I was thinking, what next in a series of big changes? I just had the image of Castro lying in state pop into my head. Around the same time I was looking at Manet's The Dead Toreador and The Execution of Maximilian as well as David's Death of Marat to name a few paintings. I began thinking of representations of death, and how some act to stimulate interpretations of certain events. At this point I decided to make a contribution without waiting for the event. The video operates like this. Out of a blurry field, which is for the larger part of the video's duration formless, emerges the picture of a dead man. What then becomes clarified is for the present time, a fiction: the picture of a dead Castro, created by digitally altering a recent AP photo. In the first moments of the video, the viewer's imagination works to conclude what one's eyes see (Is this something I recognize?), and at the moment of visual clarity the viewer's imagination works at piecing together a relative conclusion (What does this picture mean? What are its consequences?). The viewer of this work is invited to experience a space between seeing something, and making conceptual leaps via ones sight. The work more dependent on dynamic movement was also inspired by finding a bit of space between perception and rationalizing what one sees. In some of these movement-based works, I found that giving the camera to the person you want footage of is the most direct way to circumnavigate the basic representation of a subject by the one who controls the recording apparatus. The author and subject become co-participants in creating an image. The perspective is no longer a singular gaze by which a viewer can either identify or not, but a view that comes about by two or more participants engaged in an activity. The perspective becomes a kind of P.O.V. of circumstantial relations. This said, On Another Occasion is a logical continuation of my concerns, but a different and seemingly unrelated manifestation. A big move, but not so far away after all.

SS: Although you seem very intellectual in speaking about your work, there is a real playful/formal quality there. Would you say that there is first an instinctive approach, which is then mulled over?

KH: That seems like a good way to put it. I have never been able to find anything worth pursuing from activities that rigorously adhere to an end point or goal. I think playfulness allows on the one hand influences to occur from what one is working with, this being an important aspect of formalism, and on the other hand it sustains a spirit of experimentation and discovery. Experimentation and then thinking over what comes about seems to me a positive way to produce thought.

SS: You make both photos and video, and your videos seem to be more about the relationship between seeing and moving, whereas the photos seem to be static and more about composition and word play. What is, or perhaps is there, a relation between the two?

KH: You are right about how these different pursuits function in distinct ways. This question may be best addressed with a specific comparison. Lets compare the video described above, On Another Occasion with a recent photo called Surface (2003) which is a tall photograph of what seems to be a lake surface shot in extreme depth of field, littered with leaves. Upon closer inspection one realizes that the image is in fact, a littered asphalt parking lot crossed by shadows. Both projects are totally different material facts, but both try in their own way to find a bit of space between what one sees and the rationalizing of what one sees.

SS: It strikes me that you are trying to approach painting in way that is different from that of the other photographers who are thinking about it. Perhaps it's a quality of abstraction? Or maybe your Asianess?

KH: Well, I do like to look at Chinese painting as well as 19th century French painting and 20th century Americans like Pollock and Avery. The attention to that work is of much greater influence to my photography than say, learning from the Becher school. Forgive me if this is too reductive to say but a photo that is demonstrating superb clarity and balance is of less interest to me than one which is full of visual tension, holding together just so. I prefer when light, depth, figure and ground work to destroy any easy relationship for the viewer. I like to look at Struth's work as much as anyone, but I prefer to find little moments of strangeness in everyday sight. I guess photography for me is best with a little amnesia and a good dose of irresponsibility toward the practice of photography itself.

SS: Would you consider yourself an LA artist, that is an artist whose work seems to epitomize that cool, surface-oriented, or conceptually-ironic ease, that is to be found in older Angelenos say like or against Baldasarri or Ruscha or even Irwin?

KH: That is a tough question. Although I have not personally met any of the artists you have mentioned, I do like their work very much. I would say that their work is a good example of how the geographic zone of LA doesn't offer a singular identifiable artist type. As for Angeleno artist, I don't even know what that means. I am living where these other artists are living, but I do not find myself located in any clique. Maybe I need to get out more.

SS: I know you DJ, I know our KF readers would like to know what sort of music do you like/play?

KH: Well, I am a bit all over the road but I quite like to play Maurice Fulton, DJ Harvey, Daniel Wang, Justus Kohncke to mention a few, while inspiration music ranges from Debussy to Mingus to Miles to Sonic Youth... I won't keep going because this requires a whole different interview.

SS: How would you say that your DJ activities relate to your artwork?

KH: I can refer to particular instances. One would be Re-counting a Dancing Man in which the footage I used of a Fred Astaire dance routine is replayed by the movement of my hand adjusting the mouse on my computer. This real time correlation between the motion picture and the movement of my hand was recorded back to video in real time. I don't think I would have had it in mind to create this relationship between the video footage and my hand if I had never mixed records before. It just seemed like a logical thing to try, but probably wouldn't seem interesting to most video practitioners. I do think that participating in music effects what I am doing in the studio, but I would not be interested in doing work that comments on music. Allowing activities to have a material influence on other activities is the most exciting aspect for me.


Sherman Sam is on staff at KultureFlash and also an artist and writer. He has written for Blueprint, Contemporary and Mordern Painters, and his paintings are included in the travelling exhibition Sight Mapping and is currently in a group drawing show Drawn 2 B Alive at Hales Gallery.

Image © the artist

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