Read Online 33 Artists in 3 Acts by Sarah Thornton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sarah Thornton
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metallic jewelry in lieu of an eye patch. She tilts downward as if in submission, with antennae-like floral protrusions sprouting from the top of her head. Mutu has just decided to call the piece Me.I. even though she does not see it as a self-portrait.
Mutu’s women are mysterious, jolie-laide creatures that address the politics of beauty. “I like exoticism,” says the artist. “Anything that is different from the beholder’s perception of the norm is exotic. For me, blonde, blue-eyed Aryans are exotic. They are rare where I come from and rare to see on the street where I live now.” Her characters are such hybrids that they may be universally exotic. In other words, they are likely to be perceived as foreign by viewers from all over the world.
To say that her collages are multimedia is an understatement. These works in progress feature linoleum, fabric, animal pelts, feathers, sparkles, pearls, powders, paint, and more. “Materials have their own souls—their own chemical properties, gravities, and past lives,” she explains as she fingers a scrap of rabbit fur. “I really want them to speak within the work, not in a goofy, ghostlike way but in a practical, sensuous one.” The artist also has a broad range of media sources. She cuts out images from National Geographic , porn magazines like Black Tail , and fashion publications with good-quality paper such as W , V , and i-D . She also draws images from the Internet, “where everything comes from . . . the Eden of all our information.”
Immersion in the process of making is essential to Mutu’s art. “I am a hands-on intimate worker,” she says. “I am too obsessed with the emotions that my work exudes to outsource it.” The artist has a studio manager and three assistants whom she describes as “like-minded, empathetic, and rigorous.” The assistants work part-time and have their own artistic practices. Mutu does all the cutting, but they help with the gluing, moving, archiving, and administration. Dangling from a silver chain around Mutu’s neck is a tiny pair of scissors in the shape of a stork. “I’m a scissor maniac,” she says. “I cut everything.” In addition to her ardor for slicing and trimming, Mutu loves collage because it is so egalitarian. “Kids make collage, housewives make collage, even if it’s just birthday cards,” she explains. “It is a democratic art.”
Aware of the hierarchies of the art world, Mutu made the strategic decision to do her MFA at Yale. “It was a kind of elite, art-world boot camp,” she explains. “It was difficult but necessary in order to segue from making art on the side to making art as a full-time thing.” Although Mutu mostly works on flat surfaces, she chose to be in thesculpture department because she felt painting suffered from more rigid orthodoxies. “Painting is sometimes taught almost like a religion in which you don’t question things,” she explains. People would tell her that painting was dead. She would ask, “Who killed painting? Why wasn’t I allowed to paint before the medium was pronounced dead?” All in all, Mutu didn’t feel painting classes were relevant to her experience as “a foreigner with a very different sense of art history.”
Still, Mutu appears to be haunted by painting. Among the many images taped to the studio’s walls is an old computer printout of a Jean-Michel Basquiat. Painted in his self-consciously primitive style, it depicts a man with a crown of thorns and a schematic set of sausage-and-two-potatoes genitals. His arms are outstretched as if he were crucified. Basquiat was a Brooklyn-born African American who started out as a graffiti artist, then became a neo-expressionist painter. He died of a heroin overdose at the age of twenty-eight in 1988. Celebrated in his day, he is now the only black artist whose work sells for multimillions at auction. “Basquiat just came in and shattered so many barriers,” says Mutu. “When I discovered his
Mutu’s women are mysterious, jolie-laide creatures that address the politics of beauty. “I like exoticism,” says the artist. “Anything that is different from the beholder’s perception of the norm is exotic. For me, blonde, blue-eyed Aryans are exotic. They are rare where I come from and rare to see on the street where I live now.” Her characters are such hybrids that they may be universally exotic. In other words, they are likely to be perceived as foreign by viewers from all over the world.
To say that her collages are multimedia is an understatement. These works in progress feature linoleum, fabric, animal pelts, feathers, sparkles, pearls, powders, paint, and more. “Materials have their own souls—their own chemical properties, gravities, and past lives,” she explains as she fingers a scrap of rabbit fur. “I really want them to speak within the work, not in a goofy, ghostlike way but in a practical, sensuous one.” The artist also has a broad range of media sources. She cuts out images from National Geographic , porn magazines like Black Tail , and fashion publications with good-quality paper such as W , V , and i-D . She also draws images from the Internet, “where everything comes from . . . the Eden of all our information.”
Immersion in the process of making is essential to Mutu’s art. “I am a hands-on intimate worker,” she says. “I am too obsessed with the emotions that my work exudes to outsource it.” The artist has a studio manager and three assistants whom she describes as “like-minded, empathetic, and rigorous.” The assistants work part-time and have their own artistic practices. Mutu does all the cutting, but they help with the gluing, moving, archiving, and administration. Dangling from a silver chain around Mutu’s neck is a tiny pair of scissors in the shape of a stork. “I’m a scissor maniac,” she says. “I cut everything.” In addition to her ardor for slicing and trimming, Mutu loves collage because it is so egalitarian. “Kids make collage, housewives make collage, even if it’s just birthday cards,” she explains. “It is a democratic art.”
Aware of the hierarchies of the art world, Mutu made the strategic decision to do her MFA at Yale. “It was a kind of elite, art-world boot camp,” she explains. “It was difficult but necessary in order to segue from making art on the side to making art as a full-time thing.” Although Mutu mostly works on flat surfaces, she chose to be in thesculpture department because she felt painting suffered from more rigid orthodoxies. “Painting is sometimes taught almost like a religion in which you don’t question things,” she explains. People would tell her that painting was dead. She would ask, “Who killed painting? Why wasn’t I allowed to paint before the medium was pronounced dead?” All in all, Mutu didn’t feel painting classes were relevant to her experience as “a foreigner with a very different sense of art history.”
Still, Mutu appears to be haunted by painting. Among the many images taped to the studio’s walls is an old computer printout of a Jean-Michel Basquiat. Painted in his self-consciously primitive style, it depicts a man with a crown of thorns and a schematic set of sausage-and-two-potatoes genitals. His arms are outstretched as if he were crucified. Basquiat was a Brooklyn-born African American who started out as a graffiti artist, then became a neo-expressionist painter. He died of a heroin overdose at the age of twenty-eight in 1988. Celebrated in his day, he is now the only black artist whose work sells for multimillions at auction. “Basquiat just came in and shattered so many barriers,” says Mutu. “When I discovered his
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