ARTIST INTERVIEWARTIST INTERVIEW

Atlas, Plural, Monumental, Paul Ramírez Jonas Contemporary Arts Museum Houston April 29–August 6, 2017 He has been included in group Installation images by Nash Baker exhibitions at P.S.1 (NYC); the Museum; The Whitechapel (UK); Irish Paul Ramírez Jonas by Zachary Gresham, University of Houston Museum of Modern Art (Ireland); The New Museum (NYC); and Kunsthaus Zurich (Switzerland). He participated in the 1st aul Ramírez Jonas’ select solo exhibitions include a 25-year survey of Johannesburg Biennale; the 1st Seoul Biennial; the 6th Shanghai Biennial; the his work at The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Pinacoteca do 28th Sao Paulo Biennial; the 53rd Venice Biennial; and the 7th Bienal do Mercosul , Estado, Sao Paulo, Brazil; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Porto Alegre, Brazil. In 2010, his Key to the City project was presented by Creative Ridgefield, Connecticut; The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Time in cooperation with the City of New York. In 2016, his Public Trust project was PTexas; a survey at Ikon Gallery (UK) and Cornerhouse (UK). presented by Now & There in . He is currently an Associate Professor at , City University of New York CUNY.

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Zachary Gresham (ZG): Your survey exhibition at the Contemporary PRJ: I don’t want to be prescriptive, and artists should have the PRJ: There is something funny and sad about this question! I live in as separate or do you feel that pedagogy is part of your studio Arts Museum Houston is really spectacular. Congratulations on such freedom to do whatever they want. Absolutely. And yet, we are also New York City where rent is astronomical. My studio is 800 square practice? an awesome show and thank you for making the time to talk. The citizens. We are responsible as citizens to advocate for the kind of feet; about half of it is storage of older work, a well-organized set theme of this issue of Trends relates to the idea of advocacy. Let's society we want to live in. Artists are not exempt; but they have a of tools, and miscellaneous materials. Everything is on wheels, PRJ: Balancing a family, friends, teaching and making art is a start with that. Would you say that you are advocating something choice to manifest it in their work or somewhere else in their lives. the work tables, the storage shelves, the desks, so I can reconfigure challenge. I am not sure how I, or anyone else does it, but somehow it with your work? If so, what would that be? Paulo Freire, an educator and philosopher from Brazil has been the space depending on what I need. Most of the books I read for has worked for years. My friend and colleague Nari Ward at Hunter a great influence and I often go back to something he wrote: “To research are at home in a tiny ofce that is about 200 square feet. once told me, “Sometimes you are a bad teacher, sometimes you Paul Ramírez Jonas (PRJ): I am advocating for very specific things. afrm that men and women are persons and as persons should I love small and cozy spaces; but then again –I have no choice are a bad parent, sometimes you are a bad artist, no one can do all Bertolt Brecht wrote in Brecht on Theater: The Development of an be free and yet to do nothing tangible to make this afrmation a but to. Often, I make work that is larger than my work space. For three well at the same the time.” I see both activities as separate but Aesthetic that, “the present-day world can only be described to reality, is a farce.” So, do something. example, Ghazi Stadium on view at CAMH was made in panels but they inform each other. In both instances, I see my job as creating present day people if it is described as capable of transformation.” I could only see about a third of it at time. I kept having to hang opportunities for others to increase or exercise their imagination. I want to advocate for the possibility of both imagining the world ZG: Your work is extremely varied, especially in the materials that the parts over and over, “What does the bottom third look like? diferently; but furthermore, with that imagining then interacting you use to execute the work. When I was visiting your exhibition at Okay, back to the top left!” etc. Likewise, The Commons was ZG: Are there any examples of your work that you feel specially with the world diferently. The change does not have to be big. Part the Contemporary Art Museum Houston, I started wondering what made in parts so it could come in and out of my studio. The horse’s address the blurred line between your art and education practices? of my goal is to break down the world into small parts that we can your studio space must be like. I sort of envisioned a fairly large head and neck come of so the body can make it through my small play with in our imaginations and then act upon, within our own warehouse that would be spacious enough to work on multiple door! PRJ: Art works exist under a diferent social contract than art individual capabilities. projects as well as a rather large library of science and history assignment, or good in-class workshops; art creates true public books. Would you mind describing where you make your work? ZG: In addition to your art practice, you are an Associate Professor situations. Around artwork, people congregate out of their own free ZG: Do you feel that it is important for the responsibility of an artist at Hunter College, City University of New York. I am curious how you will –thus creating a public. Class rooms are diferent. Students to also be an advocate? balance your art-making and teaching practices. Do you see these congregate under diferent power dynamics. The students might

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Atlas, Plural, Monumental, Paul Ramírez Jonas Contemporary Arts Museum Houston April 29–August 6, 2017 Installation images by Nash Baker

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be there because they have to, or they are proposal for an imaginary grant worth way to re-introduce a pre-modern way of ZG: Since many of the readers of the publication are K-12 educators, can you talk about the paying tuition so their expectations are several million dollars. The grant also learning: copying the masters. experiences in school that you had with art prior to university? diferent. They have a completely diferent includes help securing any site in the world set of expectations regarding the outcome for their work. The students themselves ZG: As a student yourself, were there any PRJ: I was raised in and while I went to good schools, we could not escape our of the experience; likewise, they are subject will be the jurors that listen and evaluate educators that you think influenced your context. It was the second poorest country in the hemisphere at the time, and there was no to the authority of the teacher—ultimately, the proposals, so they must go all out journey to becoming an artist? art museum in the entire country when I grew up. It was a fairly conservative milieu and I they will be graded. Students in a classroom with their presentations. At the end of all frankly cannot even remember if we had art classes as a separate subject. What I do recall do not form a public. the presentation I give every student a PRJ: What is amazing about learning and was an awareness of things we could not have, but knew existed. Thus, I remember my lottery scratch card. I then tell them the teaching art is how much of it remains brother and I trying to make toys we had seen in pictures only; not because we could not Still, they share some structural or formal assignment for next week is to execute the something that can only be transmitted aford them, but because they simply were not available in the entire country. This process features. In both situations, I verbally. I learned to how to of making do, in fact, of making all the time, was very influential. prefer not to deliver content; mix paint and clean brushes Zachary Gresham but rather to create very I think of creativity from the painter Wendy ZG: Finally, how do you envision the future of art education? Zachary Gresham is an arts adminis- clear parameters that frame Edwards; I was shown how trator and educator who has worked as and facilitate an experience much ink to wipe of an etching PRJ: This is a tough question. I would like to be very optimistic and tell you about my hopes the Education Programs Director at Art that the participant creates and imagination as a plate (with the palm of my for a utopian version of future art education; but as someone who teaches in the public League Houston since 2012. Previously, and contributes to. hand) from printmaker Jane sector, I am frankly just hanging on to the idea that there will be free and afordable art he worked at Lawndale Art Center, the force of change. Kent; I was trained on how to education in the future! Arjun Appadurai said, “The imagination is now central to all forms Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the But there is often a migration turn my ideas upside down and of agency, is itself a social fact, and is the key component of the new global order.” Art is Mayor’s Ofce of Cultural Afairs at The back and forth. Sometimes inside out, so I may consider one of the main subjects where we nurture and augment our students’ imaginations. I think City of Houston. He is an adjunct lecturer an idea migrates to the classroom, and proposal with whatever amount of money their opposite, from artist Tom Lawson; of creativity and imagination as a force of change. Art is also a form of speech. Because in the College of Education and the Col- sometimes the other way around. And they win in the lottery. Dream big, execute and I was inducted into what is the right of this, I see art on par with other human rights, and as such it should not be denied based lege of the Arts at The University of Hous- perhaps the blurriest line is me. I can’t within your means. amount of formal exactitude from sculptor on how much money you have. ton, where he teaches Art in Elementary remember if I learned to be a performer in Roni Horn. But what was really transmitted Schools, an art education course for up- the classroom, or in the artworks—but I am For graduate students, I sometimes ask them while they were doing that is hard to put per-level education majors and Technol- a performer in both. to show one thing they made alongside a into words. ogy in the Arts, a graduate seminar in the forgery, also of their own making, of a work Finally, I learned a tremendous amount MA in Arts Leadership program. ZG: Is there an assignment that you give of art made by someone else. The coupling from someone who was never my teacher: students in your class that is your favorite? should make some sort of sense. All I can Paulo Freire. His books on pedagogy PRJ: For undergrads, I am fond of an say, is that the reviews of the resulting pairs remain a tremendous influence on what I assignment where I ask them to make a are always full of surprises; and it is a subtle do.

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