Kristin Bauer
July 2023
Kristen Bauer: Nothing Is a Thing (film stills), 2023
“It's interesting how trying not to do a thing or not be a thing is still a thing. Nothing is a thing.”
—Kristin Bauer
Kristen Bauer: Nothing Is a Thing, 2023, Filmmaker Saul Appelbaum
Saul Applebaum speaks with artist Kristin Bauer and curator Lauren R. O’Connell on the occasion of Bauer’s participation in Language In Times of Miscommunication, a current exhibition at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.
Kristin Bauer is an interdisciplinary artist born in MN, and based in Tempe, AZ and Los Angeles, CA. With a background in art, psychology, art therapy, and writing, Bauer works with text, propaganda, social psychology, mythology, and embodied narrative via symbolic meaning in visual and written communication, synthesized in visual art and across various mediums. Disciplines of artistic production that Bauer works with include performance, painting, sculpture, installation, video, sound, research, poetry, and conceptual archival printed work.
Saul Appelbaum: In the exhibit Language in Times of Miscommunication at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) and in Kristin’s new book with Hirmer Verlag This Is Like That, I was struck by a focus on Edward Bernays’ early work with propaganda and what eventually became the fields of publicity, marketing, and advertising. There’s a kind of performance in telling multi-channel PR, marketing, and advertising stories with words and images. Kristin and Lauren, what are some of the ways you perform with words?
Kristin Bauer: The word dramaturgy comes to mind. Looking at the theatrical tableau and how that happens in the theater on a stage, but also in our doing and being. especially if you're a cultural producer. The character persona that you're stepping into, crafting, or cultivating. For the book This is Like That, I'm looking at history and certain messaging roles. A lot of work that I've been considering, like historically significant films, are both works of propaganda and works of art simultaneously. In terms of what came after them and how I approach editing, storytelling, and evoking emotion in an audience, I started to see these films in a new light. I use them formally as references physically for the sculptures, and I use them as conceptual references.
I also ask what role I play as an artist and producer of artistic content. What is the message I'm putting out? Because now, I have the convenience of looking back 90 years later and seeing how things played out in the greater scheme of things. Some of these beautiful films from the late 20s were used as very powerful political tools. I resist that messaging, but even the resistance to messaging is a message. In trying to create apolitical content, that still is an agenda. There's no getting away from it. It's interesting how trying not to do a thing or not be a thing is still a thing. Nothing is a thing.
Rather than see myself as a performer doing a performance, it’s more orchestrating, composing, or facilitating that happens in the work and brings in many parts of history, like visual components, references, and contemporary marketing propaganda. Propaganda is an interchangeable word depending on where you stand. The point of departure for these things is the same thing. It’s selling an idea, aligning with beliefs, and convincing somebody to align with something or to buy in.
Lauren R. O’Connell: The ideas put forward by Edward Bernays in 1928 in his book Propaganda came after the First World War, and propaganda depending on war or peace, was seen either in a positive or negative light. But ultimately, Bernays created what we call public relations today. So if you use the term propaganda, there is a negative connotation. But really, public relations is a form of controlling the story. So you're sharing the parts you want to share, the parts you want to highlight as an organization or a country, etc.
For Kristin’s work in Language In Times of Miscommunication, I knew it was important to bring in the conversation about propaganda in the essay that I wrote for the exhibition catalog because it is such a huge part of how we only get part of the story, how narratives shape our history. Even before the term propaganda, mythology was a form of creating a collective reality. Orators would have this metric, and they would go around and sing it or read it as poems. They would travel to these disconnected groups and share these stories. In that, they create a sense of connectivity between people. So it can even go further back.
To your point, Kristin, as well, about making work that isn't overtly political and that in and of itself makes it political. I would actually argue that the more subtle the gesture, the more powerful it can be. Because oftentimes, overt actions create a black-and-white picture, and they create two sides.
Babel, 2017 - 20, Synthetic polymer pigment, cast acrylic, milk crates, Courtesy of the artist
Unknown What Is Known, 2020, Synthetic polymer pigment, cast acrylic, Collection of John Donaldson
Lauren R. O’Connell: Most of the words Kristin uses in This Is Like That she’s not actually identifying. She’s not actually naming a thing. And so much of her work is a complicated relationship between a thing and the naming of it. Because as soon as you name it, it actually becomes less than what it is. So by keeping that kind of openness to it, you actually give space for the expansion of it, which I think is also a big part of contemporary art.
KB: The naming of a thing. What is this? What is that? That's something I have a strong relationship with. Growing up in the church, I remember as a child the parts of Genesis about that. The church is also an important point of departure where the word propaganda actually comes from, which is to propagate (Latin), for instance, religious pamphlets.
LRO: Kristin, you talk about performativity, your performances, and interactive elements coming after this body of work. The work in the book This Is Like That starts to use language and text so much more than past works, and you are often becoming a writer in doing so. The written word, of course, can be read. But many of your performances, some are without words, and you're starting to experiment with that too. How do you speak about these things through reading, body language, or gestures?
KB: I was taught via Christian mythology when I was younger that naming a thing denoted ownership. Of course, I feel strongly connected to my artwork, but I don't want to be possessive. I want it to be something that exists in a neutral space. I want to be neutral about my agenda. I want there to be enough open space by editing out enough concrete components so that it can be mobile and shift with people, time, and context. The more the thing is named, grounded, and concrete, the more it reduces mobility, plasticity, and possibility. I have no subjects and nouns in my work in the book and the SMoCA exhibit. That's important because this or that leaves what this is or that is totally open. It allows a reductive use of language, and then using parts of marketing propaganda for visual delivery allows it to be mobile.
As for performance and movement, it’s the gesture, the action of making a sculpture about a thing or not about a thing, the motive, the performative intention. But when you immediately do something, there is a commitment to the importance of it, the urgency of it, the validity of it. The less you work with, the more powerful the things you choose to include become. How do our bodies convey messaging? How do our subtle movements inform our choices of language?
Kristin Bauer: This Is Like That, 2023, Hirmer Verlag
SA: Kristin, the book This Is Like That and your work in Language In Times of Miscommunication seem to be driven by more of a semantic or logical approach, whereas your performances have aspects of mythology and symbolism. Will you speak about these two drives in your work?
KB: spin-thron is the name of the performance piece I recently did at de Sarthe Gallery. It was the second iteration of a piece I had done within the hours of an eclipse in early November 2022. spin-thron is the etymological root word for spider. I’m thinking about important core words and the uses of these words in art. For some of the pieces that I've worked with, especially if they're more public, gestural, and involve mythology, I will use certain kinds of linguistic components, entitling the piece to build on a context, not necessarily physically in the piece, but in the foundation of the concept and the gesture. A spider weaving a web with caution tape and the process of doing it in time to sound, it's important and personal to me, but also, it's collectively important, so it doesn't belong to me entirely.
LRO: Why did you use caution tape?
KB: There's a physicality and a presence to it that has a sense of continuity for me. It's a symbol. It's an object. The piece has different layers of symbolism, and a string doesn't have enough physicality to feel symbolic. Caution and the repetition of the word, the repetition of the movement, the repetition of the sound piece, the chords. I played it on a synthesizer through noise filters but slowed it down four times. We amplified it from multiple speakers. I adopted the chords from Danzig's song Mother, which grounds the piece for me. It creates a rhythm and a trap that everybody in the room is woven into sonically in this container, this moment, and this strange experience of time. It's hard to succinctly articulate the spider. Historically, cross-culturally, globally, and in many different ways, it has a lot of importance.
My reference to it has a Jungian archetypal foundation with my personal and professional connection to depth psychology working with the symbolism in Jungian sandplay therapy and active imagination psychological processes. What are we creating? What are we also destroying? What are we capturing? What are we caught in? There's a both/and relationship that we have collectively with archetypes and symbolism. My use of symbolism is looking at words as symbols, catchphrase slogans as symbols, and images as symbols. But then, the performative work is embodied, internalized, or unconscious symbolism. How do we relate to that collectively?
LRO: The spider in and of itself, in many cultures, is a temptress or something to trap you, especially men. It's so much about how you reference the spider as a mother of birthing, this web, and this use of caution tape that references crime scenes, violence, or something bad happening. Do you feel the work was a way to recast the feminine or the spider differently, but still giving an inclination of danger?
KB: The caution tape is something that is used on a construction site or a crime scene. The element of danger has already happened. My use of it as a woman, as a mother, and as a daughter, I'm looking at repetitive movements that are seen as protective, informed by previous moments of danger. As time goes on and contexts change, sometimes an element of protection can become one that endangers because it is constraining or confining.
Looking at the symbol of the mother and the spider, the mother or feminine archetype, the real meat of archetypal work is not necessarily about how I am a mother to my daughter but how my inner mother tends to my inner child. What are the unconscious ways that I have these impulses to protect or to signal danger? But then I create and end up captured in that. So it's collective, and it's also deeply personal. It's interpersonal.
I didn’t share much context behind the piece with people until after the performance because there's something to be said for experiencing it first. You can authentically participate in it without having too many cognitive anchors. I wanted us to experience how the sound locks us into a wordless space.
In Medias Res, Summer Solstice 2023, Franconia Sculpture Park, Courtesy of Emmett Potter
spin-thron, 2023, de Sarthe, Courtesy of Gabby Usinger
SA: Lauren, What’s your take on Kristin’s use of language in the sculptures at SMoCA and mythological references in the de Sarthe performance?
LRO: They're doing similar things. They're enacting different bodies. The work at SMoCA is a performance as well, but it's a performance that the viewer has to perform and embody. It’s this situation with both physical material and the meaning behind it. The written word is hard to read until you are closer to or further from it. It depends on your position around the artwork. So you're providing this context, but it's really up to the viewer to move around it, to investigate. A visual and physical response is happening, and of course, an internal response within the viewer. Both works are quite performative. For the de Sarthe performance, the audience stands still, surrounding and watching the performer, but because of the symbolism, it's stirring internally. In the audience reading, they're required to watch and think about everything the performer invokes with her own body, the space itself, and all of the symbolic references. They're doing similar things, but the roles are shifting.
In a book where you open it, you read it; it's contained within something, whereas language on a sculpture where it's exposed is something you approach. In the performance, it’s more like Kristin is embodying the language. She's in that state of being. So it's not really an object in and of itself, but it's an embodiment of language.
KB: The language as a symbol and verb is enacted, embodied and not made physical. It’s ephemeral.
LRO: Kristin, you've referenced this idea of all the parts. I'm thinking about this along the lines of a philosophy behind the work of the painter Dorothy Frat that I've been working on. One of the things she talks about is that there's each part to part, and then there's part to whole. Essentially, the work or the object, whether performance, sculpture, or painting, is the sum of all the parts. Where art happens is when it's beyond all of those parts. It's the dialogue between that sum of things, the viewer, and the context in which it's seen, whether there's a lunar eclipse or even celestial bodies. There's all of these dialogues and layers to it that make it art. You can make an object and do a performance, but what sort of dialogue is it invoking in many layers? Kristin, your work absolutely addresses not only the viewer, the place, and the context, but your work is invoking a conversation with these cosmic powers or energies that are not always recognizable.
KB: Oh, wow. Thank you. The inaudible significance of it. The transpersonal. I love the way that you articulate that.
There are all these layers. I've always felt like dialogue is the most beautiful part of making, sharing, and experiencing art together. You and I got to know each other through studio dialogue. We have a recorded dialogue in the book publication. We're recording a dialogue now about some of that dialogue. The book is about the artwork, but it's also an artwork that creates additional dialogue. There are so many layers. I love that cycle.
LRO: The part can be one artwork. The whole thing can be your practice. But the sum of it is the internal dialogue for you, the artist, the curator, other artworks in a group exhibition, the viewer, etc. That's where you get that sum of all parts.
SA: Lauren, Part of your work as a curator is to create a platform for dialogue. How do you perform in that?
LRO: We have so much conversation about curatorial practice and what that means, even sometimes as an artistic or creative practice. Curators have different roles that they play. When writing the text for a gallery, you have your curatorial voice, trying to make it accessible for the viewer to connect with the artwork. You have the academic or art historian voice in writing an essay or a catalog. You have your PR voice when speaking with the media. It's interesting because oftentimes when we think about these different voices or a performance, there seems to be some authenticity lost. It makes me think about when I am performing my most authentic self. That is always with the artist in the studio or generally in conversation. When I speak with the public about the work, my voice is meant to amplify the artwork or what the artist is presenting. We always talk about the artist's intention, but in contemporary art, that intention is not really at the forefront as much as what the artist is bringing to add to a bigger conversation about our contemporary moment.
KB: You do that so well. I've been able to discover and understand new things, deeper layers, different angles, and a more complex whole in the way that you have situated my work. It's an incredible experience to work with you. It's like the line in Jerry Maguire. Oh God (laughing). You complete my work.
LRO: Well, that's the best compliment a curator could get, is that they've helped expand the work rather than limit or simplify it.
Language in Times of Miscommunication
Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
March 4—August 27, 2023
Kristin Bauer: This Is Like That, 2023, Hirmer Verlag
Kristin Bauer lives and works in Tempe, AZ, and Los Angeles, CA. Select institutions she has worked with include Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN; The Abrons Art Center, New York and WhiteBox NYC Art Center, New York; the ICALA, Los Angeles, CA; Empty Circle, Brooklyn; ASU Art Museum, Tempe, AZ; the Phoenix Art Museum; the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art; and the Tucson Museum of Art. Her work was included in the Transborder Biennial IV in El Paso Museum and Museo de Arte Ciudad Juarez and has been exhibited internationally in foundation exhibitions in Santiago, Chile and Melbourne, VIC. She has received artist grants from The Contemporary Forum and AZ Commision on the Arts and recently completed an artist residency at The Space Program SF, CA.
Lauren R. O’Connell is curator of contemporary art at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and adjunct faculty at Arizona State University in The School of Art, Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts. Her practice focuses on artist-centric projects that expand and challenge artistic medium, critical dialogue, and art historical cannons. O’Connell has worked on special projects with artists such as Tarek Atoui, Kristin Bauer, Diedrick Brackens, York Chang, Mimi O Chun, Martin Soto Climent, Otobong Nkanga, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Jean Shin, Anna Tsouhlarakis, and Qiu Zhijie. Her recent exhibitions include Diedrick Brackens: ark of bulrushes and Language in Times of Miscommunication. Prior to SMoCA, O’Connell held positions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in the Architecture and Design Department and at UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, where she organized Architecture of Life with former director Lawrence Rinder and worked on numerous MATRIX projects and collection shows.
O’Connell has contributed to publications, including New Time: Art & Feminism in the 21st Century (University of California Press, 2021) and Harvey Quaytman: Against the Static (University of California Press, 2018). She is the author of Language in Times of Miscommunication (SMoCA, 2023) and co-author of a forthcoming monograph with Radius Books on southwest abstract color field painter Dorothy Fratt (2023). She received a BA in classics and art history from the University of Arizona, Tucson, and an MA in curatorial practice from California College of the Arts, San Francisco.
Kristen Bauer: Nothing Is a Thing, Filmmaker: Saul Appelbaum, Artist & Interviewee: Kristin Bauer, Curator & Interviewee: Lauren R. O'Connell, Music: 8BITHEX (Kristin Bauer, Emmett Potter, Neil Sands)
Participating Organizations: Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Hirmer Verlag, de Sarthe gallery, The Space Program San Francisco, Et al. gallery and books, Franconia Sculpture Park, Curator: Ginger Shulick Porcella
Additional footage, photography, & book design: Kristin Bauer, Alexander Kohnke, Julie Ganas, SMoCA Curator of Engagement and Digital Initiatives, Emmett Potte, Eric Minh Swenson, Vincent de Sarthe, Gabby Usinger, Aleksandr Dovzhenko's "Earth"