VOLUME 2 NUMBER 1 WINTER 199J CALIFORNIA I INTERNATIONAL ARTS FOUNDATION HOSTSC~ Z%1 T:7. C~IAF INTERVIEW INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM DIRECTORS STEINA and WOODY VASULKA Steina and Woody Vasulka are artists based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who have participated in the development of the electronic arts since the 1960's. In 1971, they founded The Kitchen in City as a place to exhibit all performing arts media, including video and electronic . Their videotapes and installations have been exhibited and broadcast extensively in the and Europe, and they each have been Guggenheim Fellows. Steina and Woody spoke with Sarah Tamor in November 1990, just after their first visit to Woody's native Czechoslovakia l to r: CIMAM President Margit Rowell, and speakers Gianni Vattimo, Rosalind Kraass, and David Elliott. Photo: Lee Salem since the downfall of the Communist regime. The 1990 conference of the International Committee for Museums of Modern Art (CIMAM) SV: We met inPraguein 1964, and decided to convened in Los Angeles September 10 through 14, in a meeting hosted and organized by the marry so that Woody could get out of Czecho- slovakia painlessly. We went to New York: I Californiallnternational Arts Foundation. Eighty-two delegates from 26 countries attended the didn't want to live in Czechoslovakia, and he sessions . didn't want to live in Iceland, where I'm from. CIMAM President MARGIT ROWELL opened the conference by noting that for the first time WV: Istarted towork in film, experimenting speakers from outside CIMAM had been invited, and that the CIMAM group has nevermet in the with multi-screen projects. In 1969 I got my UnitedStates. She introduced the overall theme ofthecongress, "Modern ArtMuseums: Definition hands on video, and it just took my heart away. It was all black and white, reel to reel. Between Past and Future". SV: We would go late at night and watch the GIANNI VATTIMO, Professor ofPhilosophyat the University of Turin and author ofThe End of video feedback, you know, like you watch your Modernism, began the session, asserting that "the old logic ofthe individual taste is not a stable, fire, and see how it changed and didn't change . and feasible, solution" forthe museum. ROSALIND KRAUSS, Editor ofOctober andauthor of The There were alot of people exploring this new Originality of the Avant-garde, discussed the shift in attitude amongAmerican museums towards medium: Ira Schneider, Frank Gillette, Juan Downey, Nam June Paik. the notion of "museums as corporateentities ." DAVID ELLIOTT, Directorofthe Museum ofModem Art in Oxford, maintained that "the art professional of the future will need the skill of the WV: There was an exhibit at Howard Wise's gallery, Electronic Arts Intermix, called "Tele- anthropologist to make sense out of what will almost certainlybe a cacophony ofvoices ." vision as a Creative Medium." It had all the The second day ofthe conference focused on "Realities of the California Scene," with talks by basic components ofvideo, as far as genre and art consultant TAMARA THOMAS, video artist BILL VIOLA, architectural historian THOMAS form of exhibiting . HINES, andCONSTANCEGLENN, Directorof the UniversityArt Museum at Cal StateLong Beach. SV: And there were the "Nine Evenings", a bigart andtechnology exhibit,putonby"EAT": The topic on day three was "Enlightened Sponsorship", with JENNIFER VORBACH andKEVIN "Experiments in Art and Technology", with BUCHANAN of Citibank's Art Advisory Service, and ALBERTA ARTHURS of the Rockefeller Billy Kluver . In retrospect, Irealize the ground Foundation. Speakers from the J. PaulGettyTrust were: MARILYN SCHMITT, The GettyArt History wasvery fertile. Wejust took it for granted. For Information Program ; DR. THOMAS REESE, The Getty Center for the History of Art and the us, this was just America. We didn't know that for the Americans, this was also quite miracu- Humanities, CHARLES J. MEYERS, The Getty Grant Program; MARYANN STANKIEWICZ, The lous! That it wouldn't continue like that never Getty Center for Education in the Arts ; and DR. FRANK PREUSSER, The Getty Conservation occurred to anybody! Institute . SV: Then, in 1971, we started the Kitchen. The final day's program centered on "Present Day Developments", and includedpresentations WV: It was verynatural. There were several from MICHELE DE ANGELUS, Curator of the Eli Broad Family Foundation and LEOPOLDO places that exhibited video art, but we were MALER, Director of the Donald Hess Foundation. SAVELI YAMSCHIKOV, President of the open to allmedia, electronic music,performance,

CONT. ON PAGE 2 CONT. ON PAGE 8 like instant circuses, and that's what it was like. ones who were a sort of organized opposition . loudspeaker, "The trainforLeningrad is leaving People would break into spontaneous dances . So when things started rolling, they of course in three minutes:" thisnightmare ofthe city, and Most of the people dancing were these old la- rolled through the film and and video and the- I realized that the city was always like that. It dies, who definitely didn't remember they were atre faculty, and that's where they had the fax was the refugees from the Polish territories old anymore! It was open and inviting. You and xerox machines. The spontaneous organi- between the wars, then it was the war. I walked immediately understood that this is an arts and zation came strictly through the artists. That through the city and saw this emptiness: it's a cultural center, much more than Vienna, or wasthecase alsoin Germany and Romania,but place where you can think about the world on evenBerlin. There isjust something geographi- not in Poland. That was a blue collarrevolt . But different terms. I somehow found it comfort- cally and culturally about the place. I give it a in the other countries, it defintely was an intel- able:itmaybejust perverse, butthecitygave me great chance if they privacy, even if it was now full of Poles and don't blow it, that gypsies, and Czechs carrying all kind of pack- they will have them- agesaround. The cityhasa reason, and afuture. selves the East-West It's thegateway to the East andIwas touchedby cultural center. the destiny of Europe. WV: Of course, Prague in thatsense is different, it's not Euro- Steina and Woody Vasulka on location during production of THE WEST, 1982 . Photo: Meridel Rubinstein my experience was pean in the sense of politics. It's a local politics at times, but Berlin VASULKAS, CONT FROM PAGE 1 different, because I with maybeworld aesthetics . which dance, and so forth. It was a shoestring opera- WV: Yes, actually, I happened to be there to open space for ideologies to be practiced, at had to go into my has this unwritten page This is the city next century tion, in a kitchen in an old hotel, converted into witness theoccupation ofCzechoslovakia by the least until the `60's. I'm grateful that I lived in a past, meet all my will decide, probably, about this ofaglimpse ofthe theaters (the Mercer Street Theater). I'm still so-called friendly Warsaw Pact. None of us situation in which the market forces were not friends, and I felt andEurope. SoIgotthatkind territory between the very sentimental about the place; it was quite couldbelieve it could have lastingconsequences, essential. certainobligationsto future. Also because the the school I was in, cities was not built up sothere were tremendous hospitable. We invited Rhys Chatham to do a but then it plunged into this deep depressed Also,Iwasnevertrulyinterested inthefateof so I accumulated spaces there. The whole East, which inherited music program, Shirley Clark invented the period of what they called "normalization ." I my nation because I knew my destiny wasn't some pain as well as those official 19th century stone edifices - it's a Wednesday Open Screenings . Even Nam June could never share that fully, because it was very there, so I never really took it seriously. At my Paik showed up there with his uptown crowd. far from my state ofmind. So I stopped visiting, euphoria . Some of monumental kind of place for thoughts . That firstopportunity, Ileft, andbecamewhat'scalled was what impressed me probably. I returned only a few times since then. : a very negative word in the my friends have SV: We never auditioned anybody, and we a cosmopolitan "normalized", and : family still Communist vocabulary . AndI don'thave much ST: What was the mood of the people in managed to never turn anybody down. We had ST Was your there? become opportunis- sympathywith those that stayed home, because Berlin? a strictly non-curatorial approach. But eventu- WV: Yes,butmyniecedefected,sothe family tic: some had talent, home, anyway, in the tradition of a free- Still from THE ART OF MEMORY, 1987, by Woody Vasulka . ally therewastoomuch interestintheKitchen to wasn't unified talked casually on the phone what is somedidn't . Also 1realize WV: Itwasstrange, fromthe intellectuals, my . We modernist? This is all absurd senti- accomodate more than 365 events a year. all worlds . Butso far as thinking luckoftechnology becausewe asindividuals lectual and artistic revolt. friends, the artists that lived in this paradise of the time about these two mentalism,this nationalismandfolklorism,home the auditions. I artistic tradition,Ilostthat in the`60'sbecause of here in the U.S. have tremendous access to West Berlin, in this radical place, suddenly they WV: We hear that nowthere are and family, children anddogs. So I wasglad the ST: Tell me about Berlin. new place, they completely different interests in cultural direc- technology,even own technologies thattheylong have to share the city with the Poles, and the think ifanew generation needs a gave me this spiritual discourse, but it WV people who were in Berlin . I'm tion. Goingfrom this socialist regime which ina regime for. So in fact, I'm looking for some kind of : I met other gypsies, and they find it very uncomfortable, should start over again, from the bottom wasn't a place where I wanted to live, so it time, and they were disgusted, so I surviving institu- way promoted an indirect metaphorical lan- enligthened sponsorship, someone who would at the same and I was entertainedby that. I see my genera- not sentimental about these helped me to leave, in a way. just have to tell you my reaction . I was im- tions. I think they become a burden on the art guage,somethingthatwassubstitutedbyariddle, sponsor at least some of the facilities at the film tionfinding its comfortin this aberrant Socialist pressed by Berlin, but whywas I impressed? It unwilling to risk the scene, and eventually become despised. You to the situation of New York in the `60's, when We were the generation livingin the shadow school I studied in, or elsewhere. pocket and they're very Milan was a few days before the official unification comfort. Maybe I would have said the same see, our rule in the `60's was that no institution everyone was talking about the materials, and of the revolution. I recall my teacher, they I ST: Apparently during the revolution, day. The barriers were all lifted, I could hardly thing if a bunch of gypsies would come to Same should last more than two years. This kind of structure, and organization : this kind of a new Kundera (who we sawprobably once, can't say equipment to be able to was supposed to be had enough access to see the Wall. I saw still this unbelievable mix- Fe. But in Berlin, it was proper, it fit. renewal was stifled by the entrance of the pro- material time and energy world. The reality of he was my teacher, but he demonstrations, and then play those teacher of literature in the film school). I tape the ture of Russian soldiers guarding certainmonu- fessional curatorship. We always favor places the mediacompletely tookmeover andIdropped our corners sothatmorepeople One friend, Arnold Dreiblatt, an American his background, since we are from the tapesback on street ments, butI also saw that there are stillnames of that are run by artists anyway. this cultural heritage. Willingly, of course, knew aware of what was going on. composer working there, drew me the map of same hometown . He had to denounce his revo- would be allthoseCommunistleaders, theseheroes ofmy niche, but it's gleefully. the Berlin I should walk, so I walked thru the SV: I'msure the Kitchen has its lutionary romanticism ofhis poetic years, when WV: I think this small format individual past, protagonists who will disappear very . SV: There was always totalitarianism and most depressing a very different place from the one we started he was purely associated with the new left. He video production was essential, otherwise, the political repression, when I was studying in parts of the city, WV: It's a different era. We have not been had to denounce his creative work. My gen- revolution probably wouldn't have happened in Prague, but you could live blissfully unaware of which I'm very involved with any of the Kitchen's activities eration didn't haveto do it; we were born into a these countries. But there is a whole confusion it, going on with your studies and intellectual gratefulfor. Isawthis whatsoever. Wearenotevenrememberedthere, more sober situation and we didn't have to about what is video and art, because the revo- glimpse of how Ber- which is fine with us. life. Only on the peripherywas there this distant lution reinforced Lenin's doctrine that the me- maybe this commit ourselves politically. We could stay lin might have danger about saying this or that: dia (he usedto call itfilm) is the most important ST: You mean they don't haveyournameson ev- aloof and skeptical, and we were spared this looked in the `20's. would land you into trouble. It was not an art form. And suddenly, video is the most a gold plaque somewhere? in the `70's, this so-called inner pain of self-denunciation. West Berlin is com- eryday reality. But important art form, so we have the repitition of the cold hand of totalitarian- ST: Tell me about yourvisit in October 1990. pletely glittery, like WV: No, they always say the Kitchen was "normalization", thepolitical cliche. I would like tointroduce the .Weunderstoodthat through You had not been to Czechoslovakia since the any other Western started by two video artists, but they don't re- ism waseverywhere other possibility, in which this kind of political networks, they could throw up road revolution of November 1989, right? city, crowded, full of member the names! computer activity is notreflected directly, bywhat I would blocks at a distance and prevent any dissidence glitz and emptiness, WV: I had not been back there actually for call the "vulgar" means, into the asethetic pro- ST: How long did you stay in New York? instantly. This was so uncomfortable that we and full of the same about 3-4 years. It was a completely different cesses . Butagain, I'moutside, Ican't criticize. It invited to used to run out as fast as we came in. productsyou canfind SV: From '68 to '73. We were atmosphere, a breakthrough. I was so elated : wassoimportant, so moving -Ithink people still Buffalo, New York, for 12 weeks, and we stayed anywhere . But I WV: But actually, as a teenager in the `50's this nation had lived through 40 years of night- cry seeing it. But I can't share that directly. don't want to be nos- for six years. mare. It was a different world. Prague was full and `60's, I was brought up in a purely spiritual SV: Itstarted as a communication revolution, talgic about Social- I don't recall ever seeing people WV: We went to participate in the media environment. It was all about ideology, even if of people . the communist government signed a ism. On the other walking on the streets, just full of people and because program at the university, and there was an it was called Communism. It had no stain of treaty that they would not interfere with the hand, I'm really still intimacy and joy. Suddenly it wasfree. And all interesting group of filmmakers there: Hollis commercial interests. It is still astonishing tome radio signals comingin to Czechoslovakia . This kind of a European I these cliches become absolutely real, and you Still from LILIT11, 1987, by Steina . Frampton, Paul Sharits, and . We how very pure a world that was. It dealt only turned out to be a big mistake, because people realize, and I wanted got involved in depth, and I first realized there with aesthetic and political or ideological con- realize you are witnessing a change in history called up the stations outside the borders with I'm sure. When I was a kid they fed us to see Europe as itwasbefore the war. I see this was a true avant-garde in film. It was very pro- tent. Not concerned with the reality of the that happens very seldom. shortly, reports that were sent back in. That was the withthese vocabularies, thesegalleriesofnames as a moment in which, somewhere between the ductive, but in Buffalo you do your time, so we marketeconomy, orcompetition. In some ways, SV: Prague reminded me a little of the late beginning of the breakdown of the whole sys- Isawinthesedecayed streets. SoBerlinbrought wars, there wasthepausewhich decided in away said, ok, it's time to leave. Santa Fe wasthe first it was a privileged position for those who were `60'sinNewYork .Itwasquite exuberant. When tem, that was how most people inside Czecho- me into this kind of state of contemplation. about all of us. place that came to our mind. This was in 1980. not jailed orpersecuted . I find thatparadoxical, I lived there in the `60's the older people used to slovakia, in the countryside, found out about thatin this regime,whichfrom theUnited States In the East terminal, I saw this devastation, ST: During all those years, did you go back to describe Prague as this unbelievably exuberant Havel, because he spoke on these stations. I was Czechoslovakia at all? was viewed as purely oppressive, in fact was an city, with gypsies entertaining on street corners, there in October 1989, and the revolution hap- these skinheads shouting Nazi things, and I saw pened in November. The artists were the only these Russian women, and I heard over the 8 9