Interview Magazine Williams, Venus: Adam Pendleton Summer 2021

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“Always try something different, always do something new.” Venus112 Williams Coat, Jacket, Pants, and Shoes by 5 MONCLER CRAIG GREEN ADAM PENDLETON

No contemporary artist embodies the spirit of Walt Whitman’s declaration “I contain multitudes” more potently than Adam Pendleton. Across his bold, compressed, densely piled surfaces spill words, fragments, rally cries, commands, defiant chants, civic demands, graffiti, broken poetic syllables, and blown-apart letters, all competing in a visual-linguistic cacophony that feels like a snapshot of our loud nation in the present tense. The 37-year-old, New York– based artist is a prodigious talent whose multidisciplinary corpus ranges from performance to photography, but he is particularly celebrated for his graphic, black-and-white screen-print paintings, sometimes covering entire walls, collaged and layered with so much visual complexity that they often take on the dimensionality of sculpture. In the past two decades, Pendleton has built a career that bridges so many seemingly incompatible realms—formalism with political activism, the visceral energy of abstract painting with hyper-tuned socio-historic concerns, the living messages of grassroots movements such as Black Lives Matter inside the institutional structure of galleries and museums. The artist seems almost single-handedly to be redefining the role of the artist for our current age. This past spring, Pendleton’s alchemy filled the lobby of New York’s New Museum with paintings of protest language and images of masks stamped directly on the walls. This summer, he joined forces with the British architect and sculptor David Adjaye for a show at Pace Gallery in Hong Kong (Pendleton has been a longtime practitioner of dynamic artist collaborations). And this fall, in the atrium of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Pendleton is creating a solo exhibition entitled Who Is Queen?, which will include some of his biggest and most political paintings to date. Pendleton, who splits his time between his house in upstate New York and his home in Brooklyn, is a man on the move, and his projects extend to causes such as helping (along with a few of his fellow artists) to preserve Nina Simone’s childhood home in Tryon, North Carolina. But even on the go, he is always thinking about art. In 2014, Venus Williams bought one of Pendleton’s paintings to add to her prominent art collection. In honor of his upcoming MoMA show, Pendleton spoke to the tennis legend about the power of words, the promise of Black Lives Matter, and why it doesn’t feel like work if it’s a passion. —CHRISTOPHER BOLLEN

000 115 “Untitled (We Are Not),” 2020. ADAM PENDLETON

VENUS WILLIAMS: One of the parts between text and image, and how guage into the space of my work not just become a part of the narra- of your career I find most interest- these distinctions can become con- very carefully, I will say, because tive, but that they will change ing was how young you were when flated. as an artist, I don’t respond to the the narrative. you started out. You were just 16 WILLIAMS: It’s interesting that the news. I try to make sense of the WILLIAMS: That’s very powerful. when you went off to Italy to study roots of visual art comes through world at a much slower and more I’ve had an opportunity to see so art. I connect with that because words and language. deliberate pace. But there was many amazing works by Black art- I started my career early, too. PENDLETON: Absolutely. Lan- something urgent about that lan- ists and I love being a part of it, not I was 14 when I played my first guage is an oral tool, but it’s also guage and I wanted to slow things as an artist, but as an observer, liv- pro match, so I totally relate to be- a visual tool. It’s what I would down and really make sure people ing it and absorbing it. ing young and wanting to be taken call an organizing principle, but were listening to all that Black PENDLETON: I know you’re a col- seriously. What was it like start- it also points to the complexity of Lives Matter implies. I’m really lector because you have one of ing so early? the world we encounter on a daily gratified that the ideas, issues, and my works! Are you collecting art ADAM PENDLETON: I do think basis. We’re always trying to concerns to which that language these days? that’s something we share, that make sense of the world around gave voice in our contemporary WILLIAMS: I am. The title of the sense of our professional lives us through language, even if it’s moment have proved to be so dura- work I have of yours is, “A Woman starting at such an early age, when an impossibility. What I particu- ble, and that people are still con- on the Train Asks Angela Davis for other people are still very much in- larly like about language is the tending on a social level, on a polit- an Autograph.” Can you talk about volved in the process of self-discov- tension between representation ical level, and also on an emotional where that title comes from? ery. Somehow, I found what and abstraction. Sometimes when level with what that language pro- PENDLETON: It’s a line from a poem I wanted to do with my life—or it you’re reading something, it can poses about how we should be titled “Albany” by the writer Ron found me. It’s hard to say how that just look like a mark or a line, and thinking about American history Silliman. It’s from a book where he happens. I finished high school two that grounds the reader as a site and society as we live it and con- wrote a poem for every letter in the years early and, like you said, went of engagement. front it every day. alphabet. Albany is A. His poetry is off to Italy. I was 18 when I was in WILLIAMS: How did that love of WILLIAMS: When Black Lives Mat- unusual in the sense that he almost New York and beginning to show language carry over into your ear- ter really started to gain momen- uses it as a conceptual device to col- my work in galleries. I did my first ly years as an artist in New York? tum during quarantine, I, too, lect and assemble language. He’ll show at a gallery, Yvon Lambert in Did you know what you were doing wanted to understand what it put a lot of sentences together that New York, when I was 20 or 21. right away? meant. A lot of people told me, “Ve- would, at first glance, not neces- I had to be coy about my age be- PENDLETON: It’s a question I could nus, you should say something.” sarily make any immediate sense. cause I was always hearing people ask you about being 14 and playing And I said, “I want to absorb it This sentence was one of them: refer to artists who were in their your first pro match. I think one myself first. I don’t want it to be “A woman on the train asks Angela 30s as “young artists.” I thought to of the gifts of being young is that a trend or simply marking it Davis for an autograph.” It might myself, “Well, if that’s a young art- you don’t even realize that you’re as an Instagrammable moment.” seem like an odd title when you see ist, then what am I?” I thought taking a risk. Do you know what I relate to having the need to gath- the visual reality of my piece, but I should keep quiet about my actu- I mean? You just seem to say, “Yes, er your own feelings first, before I like nonsense. Art isn’t necessar- al age and just go about my busi- of course I’m going to do this.” you are able to create something ily about making sense. It involves ness. Looking back, I feel fortunate It’s only later in life that these that matters. the willingness to be misunder- to have been so clear about what kinds of decisions become much PENDLETON: One of the reasons stood. I think we all need to be more I wanted to do, not only profession- more complicated. I think art can be so useful at cer- willing to be misunderstood. ally, but with my life, because it’s WILLIAMS: That’s the great thing tain moments, especially in a polit- WILLIAMS: If we’re willing to be much more than just a profession. about youth: You can take a risk ical sense or context, is that art misunderstood, it means we’re It’s a guiding light, a guiding without thinking too hard about it. slows things down. We look at the willing to be true to who we are, path. It gives clarity and purpose And it really is a blessing. same paintings or listen to the even if someone doesn’t get it. I like “a woman on the train asks angela davis for an autograph,” 2014. to everything that I do. PENDLETON: It’s an absolute gift. same music not just for a year or that. You have a major show com- WILLIAMS: I relate to that, too. As an artist, I try to retain that two, but for hundreds of years. Peo- ing up at MoMA in the fall, which note-taker. I’m always writing art form, and it’s something that I don’t think I was meant to be idea of risk, while also giving it ple still travel all over the world to I really hope I get to see. It’s called down visual ideas. These things I really love celebrating and engag- doing anything else. What were shape and structure. Every day see specific paintings. That dura- Who Is Queen? That’s another I write down, or take photographs ing with, alongside my husband. your early influences? I read that when I go into the studio and start bility fascinates me. And I think great title. of, often find their way into a work. WILLIAMS: It sounds like food is your mother told you as a kid, on a work of art, I’m taking a risk. for things to change for Black peo- PENDLETON: Every day, all I think My work life is very ordinary. I’m your happy place. “When you buy a book, you’re not I’m willingly throwing myself in- ple around the world, it ultimately about is, “Who is queen?” I think a 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. kind of person. PENDLETON: It adds much joy. really spending money.” tellectually, emotionally, into the has to be a test of time. that goes back to this idea of how I get up and go to work like any- I’m really hoping that when we PENDLETON: I think it all starts unknown. WILLIAMS: Your work is a part of we move through the world and body else, I probably just stay lon- come out of this pandemic, that we with the parents, doesn’t it? And WILLIAMS: Growing up, my dad the collections of major institu- how we’re understood. That’s some ger. I never wait for inspiration. don’t lose so many of our restau- it’s funny that a small thing that used to say, “Always try something tions like the Museum of Modern of what the title speaks to. “Queen” You have to claim it. You can’t wait rants, because they’re such im- someone says can shape your en- different, always do something Art in New York and the Tate in can be a name for a queer person, for anything. portant cultural spaces where so tire life. My mom planted that seed new.” That’s a risk. London, and you’ve been vocal an effeminate queer man. People WILLIAMS: Are you a collector many memories are made. They’re about books in my head. Maybe PENDLETON: Exactly. about how the need to incorporate will say, “Oh, he’s such a queen.” yourself ? incredibly important. what she meant is that you’re ac- WILLIAMS: Over the past year, Black artists in museums is long I remember someone said that to PENDLETON: Oh, yes. I buy all WILLIAMS: Okay, here’s my last quiring so much more than money there’s been a lot of positive mo- overdue. Now, finally, Black art- me at a particular moment in my kinds of things. I can’t help myself, question: What do you do for fun? when you pick up a book and learn mentum in the Black Lives Matter ists are getting their due. But it’s life when I thought I had done away Venus. I’m sure you know how it is. PENDLETON: I’m very focused on about something. I would absolute- movement. How has that impacted still overwhelmingly white work. with such things, when no one Once you start, you just can’t stop. my work, and work is what I do for ly attribute my love of language your work? What is your role as a Black artist would say something like that to In terms of art, from Mel Edwards fun. Outside of that, I like quiet and my love of books to my mother PENDLETON: What’s really struck within that context? me. So there’s a tension between to Stanley Whitney, when I see it, places and quiet spaces. I love leav- and growing up in a house where me is the durability of the Black PENDLETON: It’s really complicat- what we want to embrace and what I try to buy it. I have some photo- ing the city and going to upstate we talked about literature and Lives Matter movement. I think ed. There have been moments in we want to refuse at any given mo- graphs by Lorraine O’Grady. And New York to cleanse my palate, so writers, ranging from Toni Morri- when that language took hold of modern and contemporary art ment, what we want to name, what that’s really just the tip of the ice- to speak. son to Adrienne Rich. That, abso- the public consciousness, in 2012, where culture has really turned its we want to claim, who we want to berg. I also recently got a piece by WILLIAMS: Are you and your hus- lutely, gave me a way into the visu- there was this feeling that perhaps attention to Black artists—take be, who we don’t want to be—all of Richard Tuttle. band similar in that way? al arts. And something that has it was fleeting, that it would come Sam Gilliam or Adrian Piper or Da- these declarations that we’re WILLIAMS: Do you enjoy putting on PENDLETON: I would say we’re carried on through the many years and it would go. I actually adopted vid Hammons or Alma Thomas or forced to make in the world at any exhibitions all over the world? similar. He wasn’t as enthused in I’ve been making art is the tension that language or brought that lan- Howardena Pindell or Lorraine given moment. But a queen, of PENDLETON: I do enjoy it! I love go- the beginning about spending more O’Grady. But what they didn’t en- course, if we take it out of this par- ing to other cities, be it Seoul or time outside of the city. But now, joy was the sustained attention ticular context, also symbolizes London or Hong Kong or, maybe I think he would spend more time that someone like, say, Gerhard power and authority. I liked that my favorite city outside of New outside of the city than I would. He � necessarily Richter has enjoyed over the many duality. For this show, I’m really York, Paris. And of course, Paris would deny that, though, Venus. decades that he’s been an artist. thinking of it as an occupation of has great food. If you’re ever in But I’m work and family, that’s My hope is that we’re not on the moments, a structure within a Paris, go to a restaurant called, who I am. about making . It cusp or the wave of another fleeting structure. I’m showing works I’ve yam’Tcha. It’s probably one of the WILLIAMS: Work, when you love moment where people recognize done over the years and some new best meals you’re ever going to it, doesn’t feel like work. It brings Art isn’t what Black people have to contrib- works as well, including the larg- have, with unparalleled culinary you joy. � involves the willingness ute to visual culture, but that est paintings that I’ve done to date. creativity. I also like more tradi- we’re really turning the page and WILLIAMS: What’s your creative tional places that have been around sense that it will be a sustained engage- process like? for a really long time, like Zuni in Grooming: LAILA HAYANI using V76 by to be .� ment. That our contributions will PENDLETON: I’m a compulsive San Francisco. I think food is an VAUGHN at FORWARD ARTISTS. misunderstood118 119