0:00 VOICEOVER: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. The US Department of State Office of Art in
0:05 Embassies, the Aspen Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
0:11 and the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
0:14 are pleased to present a conversation with the honorees
0:19 featuring moderator Glenn Lowry, Director at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Our
0:26 opening act this evening is poet and performer Marc Bamuthi
0:31 Joseph. JOSEPH: Hi! You can applaud, it’s all good!
0:40 (audience applause) JOSEPH: I know we’re in a hallowed environment
0:47 and everything but we’re also I think celebrating a
0:54 vessel for reciprocity that demands that you do as much work as I do, okay? Yes?
1:00 AUDIENCE: Yes. JOSEPH: Cool, great! So it’ll work if you
1:03 do stuff like applaud and giggle. Cool. Love it! Cool.
1:11 (audience applause, laughter) JOSEPH: Our ancestors hacked bitterly at sugarcane.
1:21 We are the sweet never tasted by their sweatsoaked tongues. They begged for us to be here never
1:30 knowing who or what we’d become. We are their
1:36 echoing elegy perpetually sung we are their echoing elegy … I was in Haiti once, at this vodou ceremony
1:57 and I passed out. Personally I think I seen a little bit of blood and I just (noise) you
2:03 know, like a little Beyoncé. But the people I was with, folks
2:10 who all honor and respect Haitian culture believed that I had
2:16 been possessed. They said I fell, like this (demonstrates).
2:29 A pawn or a priest, either is possible. Who knows where your body goes when the spirit
2:43 flies away. When you lose your mind, what jumps in to
2:50 take its place? The Haitians called me “ne-gi-ne”(?). My
2:57 granmè, my oldest living relative, once told me that “gi-ne” is the tunnel that connects
3:02 Haiti to Africa, so when a Haitian calls you “ne-gi-ne”, that’s
3:08 the real shit. (audience laughter)
3:12 JOSEPH: That’s like super black. It’s true. It’s like a stripe. I wonder what
3:22 they’d say if they knew my kid was half Chinese and my girlfriend was white.
3:27 This story begins in the middle, halfway across the planet.
3:35 I think that I’m awake. Last night at dusk I took a red-eye across the Atlantic, I landed
3:43 on the first morning of summer in Europe. For the last
3:47 forty-something hours it’s been day. I think I might be
3:51 dreaming but I’m not sure. I’m in Paris for a festival for contemporary
3:59 choreographers from Africa. By the grace of god I get to
4:03 watch. It’s one of the perks I’ve managed to convince the performing arts machine that
4:08 I am both high arts and hip-hop. Shh. (laughs) Don’t tell
4:14 em. I’m stuck. I’m in between. Last row of the audience falling
4:21 up, waking dream. In Paris I represent my country in the flesh. I am the surrogate for
4:31 Allen Iverson and 50 Cent. What good is a black man in America
4:37 if stripped of his right to threats? How hip-hop can I be if
4:44 they let me on today’s set? Anyway! As a guest of the institution I’m
4:51 at this festival and on the first night is this soloist from South
4:54 Africa. She does this joint where she puts on this Easter Bunny costume head thing and
5:01 a pink tutu and like Pippy Longstocking tights and a pointe
5:06 shoe and a Converse okay? And she performs this piece
5:12 where she climbs in and out of a plastic bag yeah—
5:20 (audience applause) JOSEPH: Yeah for like 20 minutes, okay? And
5:28 then she walks into the audience with saran wrap and she
5:32 puts it over people’s mouths (kissing noise) and she kisses them over their dental dam-ed
5:39 lips (kissing noise) for like another 20 minutes. And then
5:46 it ends. That’s it. In my head, the vision of South Africa is
5:55 Robben Island. Stephen Biko. In my head it is always the late 80s
6:03 and Nelson Mandela is the first person that I ever truly wanted to be free. The first
6:08 major metaphor for liberating me. The triangle of perspective
6:14 is crazy. I’m looking at this African woman for some sense of
6:18 root. She’s looking at European performance art trading in a mandala for a frayed pink
6:24 tutu and Europeans have always been looking at me ever
6:28 since my name was Langston Satchmo Josephine. Since
6:33 the days when they bred me. I am the descendants of an experiment in psyche and body, a fetish
6:41 taking my place in line, fractured, wondering when
6:44 this woman’s history stopped being mine. I’ve been flying
6:47 for the last forty-something hours, I am no sense of time, I’m just wondering which
6:50 one of us is asleep and which one is just tired.
7:00 And then. Exactly right then. I fall. This story begins in the middle, halfway across
7:17 the planet. I think that I’m awake. Last night at dusk I took a red-eye
7:26 across the Pacific and landed on the first morning of
7:29 summer in Japan. For the last forty-something hours it’s been day. I think I might be
7:38 dreaming but I’m not sure. I’m a living word lost in translation.
7:43 I guess this is a near death experience. I’m at the club in Japan. Everybody in hip-hop
7:52 knows that the culture is huge over here, mostly cause we
7:55 seen it on a Yo MTV Raps interview with the Wu-Tang Clan. Tokyo is like Times Square times
8:01 ten. Midnight feels like 11 a.m. plugged into a
8:04 socket. My hosts are all hip-hop kids, they insist, tired as I am,
8:10 I roll with them to the spot. I lead with my ego. I think, why not. I imagine that when
8:18 I enter the club, the music will stop. The rivers will part. The
8:27 reverence will begin. Behold! Japanese motherloves that sweat
8:34 my culture, authenticity is in the building! It’s me, thank you!
8:42 (audience laughter, light applause) JOSEPH: Born in 1975 in Queens, Tribe Called
8:47 Quest, Niles, Run DMC, the real hip-hop is obviously
8:50 oozing from all of my pores for all to see and all… ignore me. I am the only black
9:03 dude in the room except for the ones we’re all listening
9:07 to. I’m either so racist or so self-absorbed or oblivious that I
9:15 imagine some kind of props are due. Fist up. Head nods. Eye contact. None of that. I’m
9:32 invisible. Race doesn’t matter. I am just another guy that
9:37 might be a little too old to be at the club. (audience laughter)
9:43 JOSEPH: And in the great tradition of the wrong guy at the right party, I retired to
9:50 a corner, the music still bumping, but I ain’t been asleep since
9:57 yester-something and I fall … This story begins in the middle. With the
10:08 first African American woman I ever met. Was a white chick
10:14 from Lubbock, Texas. Molly Melching, bigaman? She moved to Senegal 20 years ago to work
10:22 for UNESCO and she never left. She married a Senegalese
10:26 man, had a daughter, was happy. Until he left. Molly
10:31 speaks Worlof, Tree, she’s a beast negotiator at the marketplace, geared down, highly respected
10:38 in her community. The Senegalese that I met refer
10:40 to Molly as an African American. They refer to me as a black
10:47 American. When I get off the plane in Senegal, I don’t know if we have plans, I don’t
10:51 have much money, I have Molly’s number in my back pocket given
10:54 to me by friends of friends, I have ideas in my head also
10:57 given to me by friends of friends. They said, boy, in Africa, they will love you! Just find
11:03 a dance, just find a hip-hop, somebody will adopt you, take you
11:05 in, don’t worry, don’t trip! Three days into my trip, I been hustled out
11:12 of my drawers. And I’m spending money at a rate that’s
11:14 going to leave me homeless in eight days. And I got one of them non-transferrable, non-fuck-with-able
11:19 tickets, says I got to be here for four months. In tears, I call Molly. She invites me to
11:27 her home in Thies, she says I can stay. Not quite the African
11:31 I thought was gonna take me in. Molly works for an NGO called
11:36 Toastan. She’s a champion of women’s health, she wants to fight against female circumcision
11:41 in rural villages, she calls it mutilation.
11:46 I become her roadie. I sit in the back seat gazing at endless stretches of endless flatland
11:54 and wide open sky as we ride from one end of the country
11:58 to the other. We ride to the middle of nowhere. Nowhere.
12:04 Come to a stop in front of a single-stone building with a thatched roof, three girls
12:07 come out all smiles and grace, I think cool, Molly’s gonna meet
12:10 with them and then we’re going to be out. And then this boy
12:13 comes out and he starts playing a drum, which I think is kind of annoying to have going
12:18 on during a meeting but you know who the hell am I, the
12:21 American. You know, I just smile and listen for my name,
12:24 take it all in. All of the nowhere. Africa. This kid playing the drum, apparently he’s
12:36 this village’s version of a mass email because I don’t know where
12:39 the hell these people come from but like a hundred thousand
12:42 people storm the courtyard, it’s like the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day and they’ve
12:47 all come to see the circus in town which is namely the big white
12:51 African and her short clueless American friend. Molly is still on her propaganda about this
12:56 backwards indigenous ritual but nobody can hear anything
12:58 because of all the commotion, all the people, everybody trying to see the one white woman
13:03 within a thousand miles. Finally Molly comes out she
13:06 says, Bamuthi, I need you to distract them. (audience laughter)
13:12 JOSEPH: Molly, I’m a poet. And they don’t speak English. I ain’t got no microphone,
13:20 no megaphone, no radio, no telephone, whatever, I’m gonna
13:23 keep them distracted with, I’m withering here, yeah what
13:32 (yelling) … Five minutes later. The entire village. I’m surrounded. My heart pounding.
13:48 Africa. Okay. I don’t need to astound them. Only distract.
14:04 No microphone, no radio, no English. That’s cool. That’s cool.
14:15 See, my whole act, to survive, I’ve become hip-hop empath. I channel the low beginnings,
14:31 fires burning all over the Bronx, post-Civil Rights, glass
14:35 ceilings no lights, no moot, just do what you feel to the groove,
14:39 a dance floor uprising of youth! I just pray that they buy it.
14:44 (quickly) It’s the future aesthetic, the future’s not static, it’s moving kinetically
14:50 manically mimicking cynical smears that works with flares with
14:53 words the world is this magnanimous moment a future
14:56 aesthetic a mythic poetic cerebral kisetic it’s not in your head or your heart or your
14:58 feet it exists in all three! Wooh! Okay, they’re buying it!
15:06 (audience applause) While I’m cracking them up with my shamrocks,
15:13 Molly is speaking in a language that I’ve never heard of.
15:18 She convinces the council of elders to abandon a centuries-old practice, encourages them
15:23 to modernize their attitude towards women. Molly extended
15:31 me. That’s how I became an emcee without saying a
15:39 word. It’s ethereal, lyrical, miracle, biblical, spiritual, it’s a it’s a it’s a (scratch)
15:43 ethereal it’s ethereal it’s ethereal lyrical (record scratch) it’s ethereal
15:46 lyrical miracle almost biblical (DJ record scratching) Is it
15:47 real? Oh! Oh my! Thank you. (audience applause)
15:49 BREAK (music plays)
15:49 TEXT: “Opening America’s doors to students and professional artists provides the kind
15:53 of two-way cultural understanding that can break down
15:57 the barriers that feed hatred and fear.” PRESIDENT OBAMA
15:57 ART IN EMBASSIES INTRIGUES
15:57 EDUCATES AND CONNECTS
15:57 PLAYING AN AMBASSADORIAL ROLE AS IMPORTANT AS THAT SERVED
15:58 BY TRADITIONAL DIPLOMACY – SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
15:58 ART IN EMBASSIES US DEPARTMENT OF STATE
15:58 CREATIVITY COLLABORATION
15:58 CULTURAL DIPLOMACY ART IN EMBASSIES
15:58 IS A LANDMARK PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
15:58 AND THE AMERICAN AND INTERNATIONAL ART COMMUNITIES ARTIST: Okay, let’s level here so you pull
15:59 up! 1953
15:59 INITIATED BY THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART ESTABLISHED BY PRESIDENT KENNEDY A DECADE
16:03 LATER IT’S NOW A GLOBAL PROGRAM
16:05 WITH A FOCUS ON CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTS IN OVER 200 DIPLOMATIC VENUES
16:07 IN 180 COUNTRIES PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
16:07 TEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS ARTIST EXCHANGE
16:07 PUBLICATIONS MORE THAN 20,000 ARTISTS
16:07 GALLERIES MUSEUMS
16:07 COLLECTORS UNIVERSITIES & FOUNDATIONS
16:07 TODAY THE CORE MISSION HAS BROADENED FOR A RICHER CULTURAL EXCHANGE
16:08 BETWEEN ARTISTS AND HOST COUNTRIES ARTIST: This work has been in North Carolina,
16:11 New York, it’s on a constant journey. But now it’s got a
16:12 final resting place here in Madagascar. ART IN EMBASSIES
16:12 FOSTERS GREATER UNDERSTANDING AND CELEBRATES THE CREATIVE SPIRIT
16:12 IN ALL OF US ART IN EMBASSIES
16:50 US DEPARTMENT OF STATE Kennedy image courtesy of John Fitzgerald
18:24 Kennedy Library (music plays)
19:02 VOICEOVER: Please welcome the honorable Jane Harman, director, president and CEO of the
19:17 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
19:23 HARMAN: Well after that opening act, I feel like one of the dullest, pinkest, most boring
19:33 people on the planet. But I am here to welcome you to what
19:38 will be a wonderful event and to thank the International
19:41 Trade Center, the Art in Embassies Program, and the Aspen Institute—my dear friend Elliot
19:47 Gerson is somewhere down there—for partnering with
19:51 us on this event. Let me say something about Beth Dozoretz,
19:58 the ambassador for the Art in Embassies Program. She
20:03 came by the Wilson Center recently and said, I have this idea. What would you think about
20:08 five or six of the greatest artists in America having, or
20:12 on the planet, having a conversation about art at the Wilson
20:15 Center. And she could barely get that out, I said, yes! Because what is so little-understood
20:22 is how important culture is as a foreign policy tool,
20:28 and how under-utilized it is as a foreign policy tool.
20:31 I, some of you may know I served in our Congress for nine terms. I am a recovering politician
20:38 and left voluntarily, not involuntarily, last year
20:42 to take up this amazing plum job. And I know from the travels I
20:50 made in Congress, all over the world to garden spots like Libya, Syria, North Korea, etc.,
20:56 but also to somewhat nicer venues, how critical this program
21:02 is to showcase what America stands for in our
21:06 embassies. And how important art is as an education tool, as a way to knit civilization
21:14 together everywhere in the world and I’ll just take
21:17 this moment to pitch a big audience for more funding for the
21:23 arts and for the Arts in Embassies program! (audience applause)
21:30 And I thought you should know that just down the road here in the post office building
21:35 is the headquarters of the NEA, the National Endowment
21:37 for the Arts, headed by a wonderful free-form called
21:42 Rocco Landesman. And he told me recently that the funding for the NEA, get this, everyone
21:50 sit down and focus on this, this is our national arts
21:54 program, is $146 million for a country of over $300 million
22:01 people. Do the math. That is under fifty cents a person to bring substance, sustenance to
22:09 the people who live in the United States of America.
22:11 Did you know that the budget for Skyfall, the new Bond movie,
22:16 was more than that? So I put that out there and I put out there how critical this program
22:23 is and how beautiful, if you were watching the slideshow
22:27 which I was watching, is the art that these artists whom
22:31 you will hear from in a minute, bring to us and bring to this program.
22:38 And it is very important at a time when the world seems more dangerous than ever and when
22:44 US embassies look like fortresses, that we can
22:47 showcase in them some beauty like the beauty that you saw
22:53 in the slideshow and like the beauty that will be discussed by these artists so as an
22:58 arts lover myself, who was married for over 30 years a guy named
23:03 Sidney Harman who always used to say, what a
23:05 coincidence that the Sidney Harman Hall in Washington has the same name I do, and who
23:11 quoted poetry at the drop of a hat, I revere this
23:15 stuff. And yes, Beth, yes. Just ask me again. Thank you very
23:21 much and please welcome Virginia Shore! (audience applause)
23:29 SHORE: Good evening, thank you all for coming. Thank you, Jane, thank you to the rest of
23:42 the Wilson Center team, the Aspen team, Elliot, Mary
23:46 Elenna, Damien Puono. Thank you, Beth, Beth Dozoretz, our
23:50 director. And I also of course, I want to thank the artists, the five incredible artists
23:58 that I’ve luckily had the opportunity to work with over the years
24:01 and to all the artists in the room who have worked with our
24:04 program over the years. The video you just watched gave you a glimpse
24:09 of Art in Embassies today. Art in Embassies has changed.
24:14 Over the past decade, our program has grown immensely and we’re incredibly proud of
24:19 the way our program has changed in terms of now we only
24:23 work we don’t only work with American artist we
24:25 actually work with artists from the host country. It’s now a program not just about America,
24:32 it’s about cross-cultural exchange.
24:35 We now do artist exchanges. In the past decade we’ve done over a hundred cultural exchanges
24:41 and we’re going to continue doing the cultural
24:45 exchanges, this has become a new focus for the program.
24:49 Acquisitions has become a new part of our program. We now oversee all the new permanent
24:54 embassies & consulates around the world. So two-way
24:59 cultural exchange has become the core of the mission. And
25:02 that’s basically all we wanted to say tonight! Thank you so much for joining us, and we’ll
25:08 go ahead and jump into the conversation, what we’re all
25:10 here for. So connecting us back to our roots, a man who
25:15 needs no introduction, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, Mister Glenn Lowry.
25:30 (audience applause) (voiceover laughter)
25:39 SIKANDER: Do we have an order? LOWRY: I don’t know that we have an order,
25:48 I think we’ll just take it as it comes. And I’ll try and
25:51 remember where everybody is sitting. (muffled voices, other noises)
25:56 LOWRY: So good evening. I’m Glenn Lowry and I’m delighted to be sharing the stage
26:02 with five extraordinary artists to celebrate not only
26:07 their work and their achievement and their recognition by the
26:11 Art in Embassies program, but the fifty years of this remarkable effort on the part of this
26:17 country to underscore the importance of the arts to us
26:22 as people and to our dialogue and friendship with those
26:26 around the world. It is an important moment especially for me,
26:33 representing the Museum of Modern Art, because the Art
26:35 in Embassies program was born in part through the Museum of Modern Art in its very early
26:40 years. And I just want to say that no one then I’m sure
26:44 could have envisioned, Beth, what this has grown into. You
26:48 and your incredible team have done an astounding job and I think the work that you were able
26:53 to see earlier this evening is a small reflection
26:59 of the many great things that you have made possible.
27:03 So with me tonight are five artists whose work I admire enormously. Cai Guo-Qiang and
27:12 Cai is in the midst and maybe he’ll tell us about it in
27:14 a moment he’s in the midst of preparing for tomorrow that will
27:18 help celebrate another institution, the Sackler Gallery, as it marks its (silence)—
27:25 [Shahzia Sikander is] extraordinary artist from Pakistan now living in the United States
27:33 who revived, I won’t say single-handedly, but who certainly
27:36 was instrumental in the revival of an old tradition,
27:41 miniature painting, but investing it with new meanings and new possibilities that continue
27:45 to resonate today and that have affected an enormous number
27:49 of artists throughout the Middle East, Pakistan and
27:53 India. Jeff Koons who we count as one of our own
27:57 who, before he became the celebrated artist that he is had a
28:01 brief moment at the Museum of Modern Art where his work is still legendary but who has gone
28:07 on to be one of the most celebrated and important artists
28:10 working anywhere in the world and whose sculpture, paintings and ideas form the backbone of an
28:17 intense conversation about surrealism as well as pop art
28:21 can be in the 21st century. Carrie Mae Weems who’s been a voice for
28:27 the power of women, of identity, and of race, who’s tackled
28:32 some of the most difficult issues around and who’s always done so with an elegance and
28:39 grace. I count as a great friend.
28:43 And Kiki Smith, who has managed in her work to discover mysteries and spirits and ideas
28:51 that we didn’t know existed. Who, like Carrie, is willing
28:55 to tackle questions of identity, and of gender but who also has
29:01 brought forth the pleasures of thinking about the environment and ecology and whose work
29:07 never ceases to surprise me. So you can imagine
29:10 how honored I am to be here. So let me start, Cai, with a question to you.
29:16 You embody, I think, much of what this program stands for—
29:21 cultural exchange and the openness to the ideas from different places and different
29:25 peoples. What is it like to be preparing a major work for the
29:30 Mall here in Washington? GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
29:41 TRANSLATOR: Because the project I’m working on is co-organized by Art in Embassies and
29:52 also the Sackler Gallery…
29:56 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: And since their birthdays fall
30:05 on the holiday season I decided to choose a Christmas tree.
30:10 And then on this forty-feet-tall Christmas tree I’m putting over 2,000 fireworks on
30:16 the tree. And during the explosion there will be free admission.
30:20 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: So the first explosion lasts 1.5
30:27 seconds and goes (noises) from bottom to top. (audience laughter)
30:32 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: And when the smoke clears slightly
30:38 there will be a tree lighting ceremony where the
30:41 smoke (silence) for five seconds. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
30:47 TRANSLATOR: And for the third time, when the smoke completely clears, all the fireworks
30:55 will go ‘boom’ and then you see a clear tree.
31:00 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: So I’m hoping the tree will
31:07 look like a film negative of a Christmas tree (silence) day.
31:12 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: And I’m hoping at the end of
31:21 the explosion, you have two trees: one real tree, another
31:25 cloud smoke tree that’s drifting away. So we have one real tree and one virtual tree.
31:30 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: So I’m praying for the wind
31:34 tomorrow. (audience laughter)
31:35 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: So if the wind is really high
31:40 and the smoke drifts off really quickly, your eyeballs will have
31:43 to roll more quickly too. (audience laughter)
31:46 LOWRY: What time will it take place, Cai? GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
31:51 TRANSLATOR: Three in the afternoon. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
31:55 TRANSLATOR: Don’t be late! GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
31:57 TRANSLATOR: Because it’s incredibly hard to get permits in Washington, DC! So there’s
32:02 lots of traffic control hurdles to be leapt over.
32:05 (audience laughter) LOWRY: Three o’clock! If you’re working,
32:08 take time off. If you’re not working, be there, it will be
32:13 fantastic. Jeff, you’ve had, you’ve worked all over the world, your sculpture is legendary.
32:19 How did you come about selecting the work that you did
32:22 for the embassy in Beijing? KOONS: Glenn, I thought about, which pieces
32:32 at that moment were finished, available. And the Tulips
32:37 just seemed like it would be a wonderful choice for the reflection pond. And so, myself and
32:44 my wife, we offered the Tulips to go and so it was agreed
32:50 that the embassy would show Tulips. But I have to say—
32:53 when I saw the photographs of the work installed, and I saw the large scholar stones that were
33:01 around the piece, I was so moved. It was the most
33:05 ideal setting I could imagine. Not just with the architecture
33:09 and the reflection pond, but then to have these large scholar stones there. But it was
33:15 just organic, thinking about work that would symbolize optimism,
33:21 you know, the Tulips creates like a rainbow, and
33:24 it’s, you know, an optimistic piece. LOWRY: They’re part of your celebration
33:28 series, aren’t they? KOONS: Ah yes, yeah.
33:30 LOWRY: Do you want to talk a little bit about that, because I think that’s one of the
33:34 great achievements that you’ve been working on now for quite
33:37 a while, and what’s the genesis of that series and what does
33:41 it try to do? KOONS: I would have to say my work in general
33:47 but I would think with the celebration series I started to
33:51 really try to focus on just connecting with archetypal imagery. And to just follow my
33:59 interests and focus on those interests. But everything else has
34:06 an aspect of tied to a cyclical year so tulips are kind of a
34:11 symbol of spring. Other works from that series, a hanging heart could maybe be Valentine’s
34:16 Day, or you could associate a cracked egg or something
34:21 maybe Easter. But an aspect of cyclical time. But everything
34:25 is a little larger, a little mythic in scale. And so Tulips was part of that series.
34:33 LOWRY: Carrie, I was struck by something that you said at some point and I can’t even
34:40 remember where and when but in talking about your work where
34:45 you were discussing that you’ve come to address issues
34:48 of love and other matters, but your work is always about race. And you… and Carrie’s
34:55 work, if you don’t know it, often uses text and images, images
34:59that you take yourself but find, texts that you write and find
35:05 as well. How did you come to use these different sort of almost intersecting strategies, the
35:15 word and the image?
35:16 WEEMS: That’s a long story. I probably think more of it is you know I think that my work
35:29 is really focused in the area of unrequited love. I think all
35:37 those other issues, issues of race and gender and so forth are
35:41 really subordinate to this other, deeper idea, really complex idea about the struggle and
35:47 the battle for love and affection and desire and need and
35:52 want. So I’m always sort of grappling with those ideas. But
35:57 early on when I was a student I had a really wonderful teacher, we fought a great deal
36:04 which is, I have a history of fighting with lots of people—
36:07 LOWRY: She may look mild-mannered up here but—
36:09 WEEMS: (laughs) But we had these really sort of great talks about photography and one day
36:16 you know he said to me, so what’s the about. And
36:19 I said, it’s obvious, you can tell, and a picture’s worth a
36:22 thousand words. And he said yes, that’s true, but which thousand are you talking about
36:26 specifically? (laughter) i
36:28 WEEMS: And so it was a question, it was a question, it was a challenge, and I’ve been
36:34 for a long time then making work based in image and text.
36:41 Though for the last many years actually I haven’t, I haven’t
36:44 really been doing that so much, though I continue to write a great deal in relationship to the
36:49 work. LOWRY: You’ve been doing a lot of video
36:51 work. WEEMS: I’ve been doing a lot of video work.
36:53 And I think actually that gives me that opportunity to play
36:56 with ideas about sound and voice. And I have a chance to work with musicians and of course
37:03 in this context, in the American embassy context,
37:06 you know, artists were very very important, musicians were
37:10 very important in the early years of Arts in Embassies programs around the world. The
37:17 sort of great great great music of people like Dizzy Gillespie
37:20 and Armstrong and et cetera, they were really really
37:24 important. That book, Satchmo Blows Away the World, was absolutely critical in understanding
37:30 the role of artists, music, literature, in (silence)
37:35 in cultural diplomacy. And so it’s sort of wonderful that I get a
37:38 chance now to work with musicians as I do my own work and tomorrow night thanks to Virginia,
37:45 Virginia Shore, who I’ve now known for many many
37:49 years, I love working with this program, I get a chance to
37:52 work with the amazing artist and pianist Jason Moran. So we sort of work out some ideas around
37:58 sound and image and word.
38:00 LOWRY: And I do think we should give Virginia a huge round of applause for the work she
38:06 does. (applause)
38:11 LOWRY: But pause for a moment: Madagascar. WEEMS: I know! Amazing, right? You know, I’ve
38:18 always wanted to go there too. LOWRY: And did you get to go?
38:21 WEEMS: No, I haven’t. LOWRY: But your work is there—
38:24 WEEMS: My work is there and so I’m happy with that. However it is also in Mali so that’s
38:29 fabulous and I’ve been to Mali. And in fact the images
38:35 that are used in the embassy there are photographs that were
38:38 made in this great great great great ancient city of (?) in northern Mali and I’m very
38:44 pleased that the work is there and it’s (silence)
38:49 LOWRY: Shahzia, you have the pleasure of being from Pakistan, living in the states, but having
38:55 your work as part of the Art in Embassies program
38:58 in Pakistan. Did you think about what work would be
39:02 appropriate for the embassy? SIKANDER: Actually the work that I did, I
39:08 definitely thought about it. LOWRY: Do you want to share the title with
39:12 us, because I think it’s important. SIKANDER: ‘I Am Also Not My Own Enemy’.
39:17 And you know I think a lot of my work is really about
39:23 translation, the distance between the original or the idea of the original and what may be,
39:35 an interpretation or something even. And what
39:39 is that distance. And I think even in this particular work, ‘I
39:44 Am Also Not My Own Enemy,’ it opens up that dialogue. Like who is the enemy here or not.
39:53 And it also refers actually to Mirza Ghalib, a phrase,
40:00 a poet, text borrowed from his language. And again it’s in Urdu
40:07 but it’s written in English. And the way it’s painted also is it references the U.S.
40:17 colors. LOWRY: The what has always struck me as so
40:21 interesting about your work is how you’ve taken this older
40:27 language, the language of miniature painting, and found new ways to invest it with stories.
40:37 Where did the stories come from? Are they personal,
40:40 are they…do you find them in literature? How do you how do
40:44 you think about your work as it relates to the present?
40:48 SIKANDER: I think as a artist as a individual as a person I think a lot of the information
41:00 surrounds us and it’s how much you’re absorbing, so a lot
41:05 of it is culled from newspapers, from history books, from other
41:12 artists’ work, from literature, everything, I think, culture at large. And it’s also
41:21 about how much of it becomes part of your own language. So I think
41:30 I’m interested in that process. Like, what does it mean to own something,
41:35 the act of ownership, because again the interest in miniature
41:40 painting was removed from a culture specificity. It wasn’t because one was from Pakistan
41:47 or studying there that you had to do miniature painting.
41:50 It was a very objective, non-nostalgic interesting in learning
41:58 something, in understanding its context, its history and then getting interested in sort
42:06 of a floodgate that happened. There was sort of so much to
42:14 process, to juxtapose, as well as see it through the lens of
42:19 the colonial history, too. So I think there’s not one place through
42:26 which I’m accessing ideas but several places and a lot of it is
42:36 create—imagination you know and how can you make something that might communicate
42:43 to a larger audience. How do you make work which is compelling,
42:48 and how do you define what is compelling, also?
42:50 So I think at the end of it it’s also about communication. How do you make work that can
42:57 communicate? And then translation, like, what is translation
43:02 in that respect. LOWRY: Is the issue of translation, Kiki,
43:07 for you, sorry (laughs) the issue, first of all I should say Kiki is one
43:11 of the most generous artists in the world. She’s generous with her time, as is every
43:17 artist here, but there’s I think in her work a profound generosity
43:21 of spirit and something I’m always struck by, so much
43:25 of your work feels like it’s giving itself to someone else. To all of us who get to look
43:30 at it. Do you think of issues of translation, of how you, either
43:35 how you absorb other ideas from cultures or ideas from
43:40 literature or how you transfer your work, as it were, from something very private to
43:48 something that enters the public sphere?
43:51 SMITH: Well … you know, we’re just fluid. Things are just coming in and out and of and
43:58 some moments we have like the net’s tighter that we trap
44:03 something, it stays in our consciousness and then kind of
44:08 flows out of our consciousness again. You know that’s one you know creativity is fluid
44:16 and it’s a vehicle you know like it seems to me that art is a
44:22 space that keeps like demanding that the depth of our human
44:30 gets to have expression and particularly within the bounds of like societies that are often
44:37 restrictive and constrictive. You know, that art keeps like
44:41 chopping out space and has this ability to move and be fluid
44:49 from different cultures. I mean like I would say, I am part or I inherit
44:54 the entire history of creativity in the world and that’s my
44:58 lineage and I have access through that lineage. And you go to attraction and I think like
45:07 love and I think a lot of art is about gift-making, it is about
45:15 gift-making. And it is about trying to like synthesize something
45:19 outside of yourself that you can then like reflect and look at. But it is also something
45:26 that has a capacity for other people to have their own authentic
45:32 experience too, and embrace. So you know it is like water
45:40 and water and we are essentially I would say creative and technological beings and besides
45:47 that you know we’re just things that fluid will go
45:50 through. You know so it’s most natural that we make creative
45:55 you know have some way of making creative expression.
45:58 Certainly within the context of the embassies, you know, we are all extremely fortunate and
46:10 also the people working. This was my thing, like, the
46:13 people working, it’s most important that America has this,
46:16 like, history, problematic history, with visual arts and a suspicion of visual arts and it
46:23 is just cause of our history. You know but you know so it hasn’t
46:29 been you know so supported in the governmental ways like
46:36 in the broad culture like that but it has always been supported by individuals because
46:42 and you know this is one of the great contributions we have
46:45 here and I forgot what I was saying because I always forget
46:49 what I’m saying but anyway that’s nothing (laughs)
46:50 LOWRY: I should say, I should say, speaking of lineages, you come from a remarkable lineage
46:55 of artists. Your sister Seton, who’s a terrific photographer,
46:59 is here with us tonight and you’re both here because
47:02 you’re celebrating your father’s hundredth birthday, is that right?
47:05 SMITH: Yeah. LOWRY: At the National Gallery, so (applauds)
47:08 (audience applause) SMITH: My father is Tony Smith and on Saturday
47:15 there’s a talk at the National Gallery about his work, by
47:18 some people from the museum, but also the artist Charlie Ray is speaking on his work
47:23 which is for us the greatest privilege.
47:25 WEEMS: Well you know that’s one of the greatest things about being on a in an environment
47:31 like this that this kind of program brings together
47:34 that not only do we get a chance to revel in our own sort of
47:41 world, you get a chance I get a chance to be with Kiki, who, you know, I adore! And
47:49 I want to consume your work! There are pieces that you’ve
47:52 made over the years that I literally want to eat. They’re
47:56 absolutely that I feel so lucky that I have the opportunity to be with each of you, learn
48:03 about each of you, knowing each of you, and to that extent
48:07 then that there’s this level of community that exists
48:11 amongst us that I think is really sort of extraordinary. And again I think that it’s
48:15 these kind of programs that allow us really to come together because
48:19 for the most part we’re all very very busy in our own
48:21 studios working. SMITH: But we are as artists international
48:26 by just fundamentally, you know, outside of any structure, we
48:32 exist in a fluid, international— WEEMS: That’s right, that you are home.
48:37 That you are home and that you feel the ability to work almost
48:40 anywhere. Rosa Luxemburg said, I am home where in the world there are clouds and birds and
48:46 human tears. Which I absolutely love. So that I
48:50 never feel like there’s any great distance, even though we talk
48:54 about these ideas about translation, meaning, who owns something. That you know that there’s
48:59 something really wonderful about the ability to sort of to break through those artificial
49:06 boundaries of construct. To exist in the world as human,
49:11 right? Not man, not woman but as human, as artists, as
49:16 people that are deeply interested in the experience of living and making.
49:21 SIKANDER: Yeah, and I think at that level we don’t require translation.
49:25 (audience applause) SIKANDER: And that really is the interface
49:32 of art, that it naturally doesn’t require translation, no
49:38 boundaries. And that, you know, it’s harder to define and put down and probably harder
49:48 to digest. WEEMS: And yet and yet artists are considered
49:52 dangerous. LOWRY: If you’ve been about Shah’s work—
50:00 SMITH: Not everywhere— LOWRY: It can be dangerous!
50:07 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: So back in the days only diplomats
50:20 get to jet-set all over the world and especially in China,
50:24 if you’re an important diplomat you might have a chance to go to several countries.
50:27 So when I mentioned to a Chinese diplomat that I’ve
50:31 been to over 30 countries, he was absolutely shocked! ‘How
50:34 could you!’ But nowadays, all artists are like diplomats. They go everywhere.
50:40 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: Well, we should probably talk
50:45 about the role of art in diplomacy— GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
50:51 TRANSLATOR: He made a mistake, but I didn’t (laughs)
50:55 (audience laughter) GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
50:58 TRANSLATOR: So let’s talk about the role of art in diplomacy.
51:04 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: Back in October, I was fortunate
51:15 enough to win the Praemium Imperiale in Japan and
51:20 Glenn Lowry actually announced my laureate-ship in MoMA a while back—
51:28 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: And at the time, AC Macky(?) gave
51:32 me two outfits, one for the ceremony in Japan and one
51:40 for the ceremony in New York. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
51:47 TRANSLATOR: But never would I have thought that Sino-Japanese relations would have reached
51:52 the highest tension during that time over the
51:55 bickering of the ownership of the Senkaku Islands.
51:59 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: So over 4,000 activities and events
52:09 that were planned by the Chinese and Japanese governments were completely cancelled.
52:14 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: But I still went to Japan.
52:20 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: Because it was the first time
52:26 that a Chinese-born artist was given this award.
52:30 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: So after I went, the Japanese
52:36 organizers were very pleased. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
52:41 TRANSLATOR: And the Chinese ambassador was kind enough to come.
52:45 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: Even though they cancelled all
52:51 these cultural exchange activities, they still came to my
52:56 awards ceremony. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
52:59 TRANSLATOR: So during the day, the foreign offices of both countries would sort of yell
53:13 at each other and say, no, these islands are ours and these
53:16 islands are ours, but in the evening they all sit down
53:19 together and have a nice dinner. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
53:26 TRANSLATOR: So sometimes art can do things that politics cannot.
53:32 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) (audience applause)
53:38 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: So the Chinese diplomats were
53:46 kind enough to come and were, ‘oh, this is only art’
53:51 (audience laughter) GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
53:54 TRANSLATOR: Because art is always a very emotional exchange and experience between different
54:01 human beings. LOWRY: No, I think that’s said so beautiful,
54:08 Cai, you know, one of the things that all of us who have the
54:11 privilege of working in the arts know is that there’s a community that we live in. That
54:17 what Kiki and Carrie were talking about, that we live in
54:20 this community and it doesn’t actually matter where we are,
54:24 we are always connected to interesting people who will who even if they have different political
54:31 positions, share a common belief in the value of art. And I think that’s what the Art
54:36 in Embassies program constantly underscores.
54:40 Jeff, I wonder, you’ve worked in some of the most interesting places, you’ve tackled
54:46 Versailles, for instance, brought it to its heels with your
54:50 installation. When you do those kinds of projects—and for
54:55 those of you who don’t know, Jeff, probably five years ago, now, I’m guessing it was
54:59 more or less that— KOONS: Yes, I think it was around 2008?2008,
55:04 Justine? (laughter)
55:05 LOWRY: —was invited to do an installation in Versailles, one of the most hallowed spaces
55:13 in French. And if anyone knows the French, they’re not
55:16 really good about sharing their cultural prowess with the rest of
55:20 the world, you know, especially with Americans, who they see as upstarts. But there you were.
55:26 What was it like? Did you see yourself in a way
55:29 as an ambassador for the United States there? KOONS: I think artists always and people that
55:39 are here people that are participating, that’s the main
55:43 drive, you want to participate. And so when you’re young, you get together with your
55:49 friends, you talk about art, and you to your desire you participate.
55:56 And art’s about connections, and the more connections, the more powerful it is.
56:02 So when I was younger I would think about what Louis Quatorze, what Louis the 14th,
56:08 what fantasies he would have when, to be able to have complete
56:12 economic and political freedom to create something. And we all have these freedoms every day to
56:20 and art’s really about how much freedom that you give to
56:22 yourself. But what maybe his fantasies would be. And so, when I went to Versailles, I was
56:27 just very very open, what would seem like a natural piece
56:31 to place in different rooms. But Glenn, my experience with art, in a nutshell,
56:40 it’s a vehicle that lets you have self-acceptance. You
56:43 participate and learning to know yourself, and once you have a sense of yourself you
56:50 automatically want to go outward. And you want to have a dialogue
56:53 about everything that’s external. And you know it leads
56:58 you to have everything in play, it’s about all of these connections. And it’s about
57:04 other people and acceptance of others. So automatically you’re
57:09 in this dialogue that you want also to have more and more
57:13 open to you and that openness comes from acceptance. Accepting everything around you and letting
57:19 it be in play, to let it be in dialogue. And
57:22 that’s where art finds its interest, its information, its ability to
57:30 connect. LOWRY: One of the, this evening is about cultural
57:36 exchange and cultural diplomacy and it seems to me
57:39 that one of the places where that exchange occurs is often in the form of a biennial.
57:48 Those exhibitions that occur every other year, sometimes they’re
57:52 every third year, and in the case of some, every fifth
57:54 year but they bring together artists from around the world often, for a moment, you
58:02 know, in a place that sometimes might not be exposed to recent
58:07 work by a number of people and I’m interested in how
58:11 those of us who are consumers at biennials find them fascinating because they’re, I
58:16 don’t want to call them one-stop shopping, but they provide a
58:19 unique moment to take a pulse. And I wonder what it’s like from the point
58:23 of view of an artist, to be part of a biennial. I think, Shahzia,
58:28 you’re working for the Sharjah Biennial. This is a one of the newer biennials, it takes
58:33 place in Sharjah in the Gulf, in March if I am correct. What’s
58:39 that like, and what kind of work are you doing for that? And
58:42 how do you feel about being you meet other artists is it does it engage you in a different
58:48 in a way that’s different than when you’re just doing a
58:50 show in New York or in Los Angeles? SIKANDER: Absolutely. I think especially the
58:56 Sharjah Biennial because, you know, being in New York, you
59:01 are pretty much separate from that region. Versus sort of living nearby or close by.
59:15 So that’s one aspect. The other is that I have been to UAE several
59:23 times but not necessarily to engage with the context of
59:29 Sharjah and the foundation itself. So this time I really was much more open to understanding
59:37 its history in the region and its relationship to Pakistan
59:40 and its relationship to other Asian countries because there’s
59:43 lots of migrant workers, lots of people, ex-pats that also bring to life that area.
59:52 So all of those things are swimming in one’s head, which is not necessarily going to happen
59:58 if you’re working in the studio and making your next
60:01 body of work, or putting a show up. So definitely you think
60:06 you have to shift gears and think differently. So I’m doing a variety of projects, since
60:14 my primary practice is drawing there’s a lot of new drawings
60:19 after visiting and exploring Sharjah and looking through lots of
60:23 imagery and its history. Few years back, you know, few decades ago very different, so it’s…
60:32 and then I’m doing like a multi-channel video animation
60:36 work, I’m working with another musician for the sound and
60:41 also working on a film project which will be shot there in two weeks, on site. So there’s
60:47 a lot of relationship to the location, engaging with
60:51 the people there, engaging much more with the fabric of the
60:55 host country or the host society in that respect. It is about acceptance. It’s also about
61:03 you know finding ways to engage through a different tempo,
61:07 rhythm, and then also learning in the process more and how to create that boundary that’s
61:15 going to create something meaningful between that particular
61:21 engagement as well as the larger platform which
61:24 is well-visited as we know by globally, through everybody. So I think not respect—biennials
61:30 as platforms are very critical because they do the space
61:36 at least for contemporary art where we see a variety of
61:39 things which we don’t necessarily are privy to, being in just in the US or New York.
61:48 WEEMS: I think it’s also unique, the thing that’s important and I think that this issue
61:52 underscores what you were just saying the you know the you
61:57 know you have to, to do what we do you have to love it. Like
62:02 you really have to like I am a slave to my work. It tells me what to do, it gets me up
62:10 in the morning, and it tells me when I am going to go to bed at
62:13 night. You know, I mean, it rules my life and there are parts of
62:16 it that I find absolutely maddening and there are parts of it that absolutely save me. You
62:22 know, art has saved my life on more than one occasion.
62:27 And how we participate in the world I think and this thing called diplomacy is a very
62:34 complex thing. It’s not a static thing and that it exists on many
62:38 many many many different levels. You know, from this way
62:42 in which Kiki was talking about, the way in which things are simply flowing, information,
62:48 ideas, emotion, concept, being, that these things are flowing
62:53 back and forth through many different channels. So on the one hand there’s that this emotional
63:02 thing, this thing that we are attempting to live through,
63:04 that we are attempting to communicate through. Volumes of stored information, sensibility,
63:12 concept, being, is one thing—the way in which we
63:16 work as artists. So you know that you can be that I can be in
63:20 Mexico or I can be in South Africa and the artist and the people assume that the work
63:27 was made there. That it is transcended where it was made.
63:32 That it’s now simply about what the material is and what the
63:36 material is trying to get at. That it becomes really much more important.
63:41 So that there’s that aspect of diplomacy, that you are becoming a part of a larger world,
63:47 that you’re breaking down barriers and boundaries. Which
63:51 is really what we’re talking about, right? How do we how
63:55 do we disrupt the boundaries, the bridges that separate us from one another? And how
64:02 do we do that in an elegant and challenging way? In a way that
64:07 is respectful of the difference between the group of us?
64:13 You know, so that on the one hand I have the extraordinary privilege to work with FAPE
64:20 on the one hand, with Art in Embassies here, but there’s
64:24 nothing like being in Rome and making a body of work and
64:29 having a group of Romans come to me and tell me that this is the first time that they’ve
64:34 understood their city in this way, and that they’re
64:37 shocked and surprised. It’s something else that happens now,
64:41 some other kind of information, some other kind of dialogue is now possible between me
64:47 and that group of people because something else has
64:5 1happened, you know, that something else is broken, that
64:53 something else has been built up, actually. And that I think is exciting.
64:57 So the diplomacy exists in many many ways and that each in our own way I think direct
65:04 it. Control it. Manifest it. Speak it. Live it.
65:08 SMITH: That’s something nice too about the Art in Embassies is that the diversity of
65:16 voices or of practices or of some sort of manifestations
65:20 of things. They don’t have to go together and I think that’s
65:23 one of like our great American heritages of living in this country now as artists and
65:31 in particular for us as women artists, our generation, that we have
65:36 had such a fortunate that we’ve taken such a fortunate
65:40 position that we get to do our work. But that it’s really large, the space that art can
65:48 occupy. And that it’s not only to make cultural
65:52 understanding. You know, it’s also to stand in that things are
65:56 incomprehensible, enigmatic, not able to be quantified or understood, they’re idiosyncratic,
66:03 and they’re out—they’re outside and, you know, and
66:07 that it’s really important to have models of incoherence and
66:12 models of difference and you know not make this sort of mushy, happy happy, you know
66:18 everybody in the world’s happy with each other culturally.
66:22 And but but it allows art allows the space for that. You
66:26 know, when many places in international diplomacy or whatever are intolerant of the not-knowing
66:36 space. And that’s a great thing that art affords and is a model for the world, I think.
66:45 KOONS: Kiki, if I could just say something, you know when we speak about culture too,
66:52 you know, culture can be such a large kind of word,
66:56 but in a way it’s just like a personality. And it’s a personality of
67:00 a group of people. And art is an experience that really just happens in a singular viewer
67:09 and that brings us back to that you know nations are made
67:12 up of individuals and we all contribute to this kind of being
67:17 of a whole. And then also interacting with each other. That’s really about individuals
67:24 relating to each other and communicating and having a dialogue,
67:28 one-on-one. LOWRY: Speaking of a dialogue, this is supposed
67:32 to be about exchange and I think we should take a few
67:34 minutes to see if there are any questions from those of you in the audience! For any
67:40 one of these wonderful artists who are sharing the evening
67:44 with us. So don’t be shy! If you have a question—do we
67:52 have a process for questions or do I just…people have been writing them down?
67:57 (voices offstage) LOWRY: You know what, you know what? I like
68:02 taking it as it flies. So if you have a question, raise your
68:08 hand and I’ll call on you and just speak loudly.
68:11 SMITH: I’ll say something really—oh, no, you’ve got it—no I just want to say something
68:17 really quick, because we’re all artists but like Cai-san
68:22 is my curator, he has curated me in two international exhibitions, of my own museum shows in his
68:29 museums because you know he as all artists and all human
68:34 beings can have many facets to you know we get to be citizens as artists, we get to be
68:40 artists, we get to do whatever else we’re doing. But he’s
68:43 someone in a unique position that has made his own museums,
68:47 has taken his own museums, has occupied his own museums, so he is a very important cultural
68:54 model I think of the complexity of what an artist
69:00 can be today. Anyway, sorry. LOWRY: No, that was great, Kiki!
69:04 SMITH: But he’s great! LOWRY: He is great! In the back there was
69:08 a question… I think, yes? (audience member asks a question, unintelligible)
69:25 LOWRY: Did everyone hear, did everyone hear that question?
69:29 AUDIENCE: No … LOWRY: She asked if any of these artists but
69:32 I think she was directing it perhaps at Jeff in particular,
69:37 when they create a work that might go to an embassy or abroad, are they trying to send
69:44 a specific message?
69:47 (audience member continues question) LOWRY: Carrie?
69:58 WEEMS: Well that’s not my case I mean I think I am I just make work. I make work that
70:10 I’m really deeply interested in that really me and then I think
70:16 it’s been the thing that’s been interesting is and then there’s
70:22 a real consideration about what will be the best work for a certain embassy so that out
70:29 of the many many many many pieces that I’ve produced
70:32 over the years maybe only a few of them really speak in I
70:38 think in a certain way that allows that work to go maybe to Madagascar or Liberia or the
70:48 US mission in New York. So no I haven’t I’ve never made
70:54 anything with the mission in mind, I haven’t had that
70:56 experience but maybe others here have. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
71:08 TRANSLATOR: So my work was probably trying to do something like you had mentioned. When
71:18 Art in Embassies invited me to create a piece for
71:20 the embassy in Beijing, I was very excited. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
71:31 TRANSLATOR: So to be honest with you, no Chinese government agency has ever commissioned me
71:38 to create a work for their government buildings
71:40 so yeah Americans were the first to ask. (laughter)
71:45 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: So I used gunpowder to depict
71:51 an eagle and a pine tree branch. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
71:56 TRANSLATOR: So these two things from the two different countries are creating a relationship
72:03 with each other.
72:05 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: But when artists work in the world,
72:18 in different countries, like everyone here has
72:20 mentioned, everyone has their little tricks. It’s like being a diplomat, everyone have
72:24 their own set of skills.
72:34 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: So last December when I was working
72:39 in Doha, in Qatar, because it’s in the Arab world
72:43 and I felt mystified by it, I was very worried GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
72:49 TRANSLATOR: So I brought my team and stayed there for 50 days.
72:55 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: And I tried to work with volunteers
72:59 from local communities GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
73:05 TRANSLATOR: And when I tried to write fragile in Arabic, the museum staff held my hand and
73:12 taught me how to write it
73:14 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: And because I’ve invested so much of my own
73:25 energy there, when I wanted to put gunpowder on the Abaya robes that local women
73:31 wear, the museum was very tolerant. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
73:39 TRANSLATOR: (laughs) Because the museum knows that I’m very serious about what I do.
73:44 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: And they know that I’m trying
73:49 to create a dialogue with their culture. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
74:02 TRANSLATOR: And then I made a video piece documenting how Arabian horses are raised
74:11 in their specialized breeding and training centers,
74:13 that these horses be artificially inseminated and then they
74:18 would go for a very strict fitness and beauty regimen every day where they swim laps in
74:23 a swimming pool and then run on a treadmill. And then
74:28 you get showered, shampooed, massaged, beautified with all
74:31 different ointments— LOWRY: It’s good to be a horse in some places!
74:41 (audience laughter) GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
74:48 TRANSLATOR: And when I made another installation called Flying Together with a flock of falcons
74:55 lifting a camel, the museum staff were very supportive
74:59 and helped finish the work. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
75:06 TRANSLATOR: So if you start by respecting these cultural differences, earnestly try
75:16 to initiate a dialogue with different people, then people will learn
75:20 to accept you. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
75:25 TRANSLATOR: And people learn to respect you and trust you and give you creative freedom.
75:32 GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin) TRANSLATOR: And I was hoping that my art practice would influence
75:44 the young artists from the region so they can see how to transform their cultural
75:50 icons into contemporary works of art. GUO-QIANG: (speaking Mandarin)
75:56 TRANSLATOR: They also influence me deeply and allow me to contemplate from a new angle
76:06 the relationship between the Arab world and the
76:09 rest of the world. LOWRY: I think actually on that note of tolerance
76:13 and I do think one of the great things that art does is
76:17 build bridges and create conditions that allow for tolerance, generosity, love requited or
76:25 otherwise, to take place. We should recognize, celebrate
76:30 and thank Kiki Smith, Carrie Mae Weems, Jeff Koons, Shazia
76:35 Sikander and Cai Guo-Qiang, five remarkable artists who will be honored tomorrow, for
76:39 sharing this evening with us.
76:47 (applause) VOICEOVER: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
77:02 Mister Elliot Gerson, Executive Vice President of
77:05 Policy and Public Programs for the Aspen Institute. GERSON: Well this, this I think is a doubly
77:16 perilous assignment, first of all to end that incredible, brilliant
77:20 exchange and also to separate all of you from what will be a wonderful reception. But someone
77:26 had to have this assignment. So I will be brief.
77:29 But on behalf of the Aspen Institute, the Art in Embassies
77:33 program at the State Department, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and
77:38 the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade
77:40 Center, I’d like to say just a few words, largely of thanks
77:45 to all of you for joining us here tonight to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this
77:49 remarkable program. We know that you couldn’t help but enjoy
77:55 Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s amazing, exhilarating performance
78:00 that we saw, and I think all of us will long remember that incredibly insightful dialogue
78:08 that we all listened to. I mean, just just you know, the
78:13 thrill to have that kind of exuberance of talent, together at
78:19 one time in one place and be able to eavesdrop on it, I think was very very special.
78:24 (audience applause) GERSON: But we are here to celebrate a wonderful
78:33 anniversary, the fiftieth anniversary of this fabulous
78:37 program and I’ve had a chance to see its magic in other cities around the world. In
78:44 that regard, I’d like to particularly thank Beth Dozoretz, who it’s
78:48 been my pleasure to know and work with for gosh probably
78:51 about 15 years, Beth, and more recently, Virginia Shore. We were just in Tokyo recently for
78:59 an Aspen Institute sponsored forum on cultural diplomacy.
79:05 And they’ve just done an extraordinary job in running
79:08 this program, absolutely brilliantly during a time of obvious challenge for any kind of
79:14 cultural fundraising. But also deserve special thanks
79:19 and Virginia mentioned this for the insight they had to
79:24 include contemporary art from the host countries, in addition to American artists to foster
79:30 the kind of cross-cultural dialogue and exchange that
79:33 we just got a glimpse. And it’s actually that kind of vision that
79:43 enabled Art in Embassies to play such a significant role in the
79:49 recent forum that we had in Japan under the theme of the art of peace building and reconciliation.
79:56 And we did have Virginia there, we also were able
79:59 to entertain our guests from all around the world in our
80:04 ambassador’s residence which was complemented so wonderfully by works from this great
80:10 organization. And so it was really special and I’m sure for any of you who’ve had
80:15 opportunities to see the actual effect of the work in other embassies
80:19 and missions around the world, it’s really remarkable.
80:24 We had that event in Tokyo after having it in several other places in previous years
80:28 including Spain and France, in Oman, and I’m glad to say I think
80:34 next year will actually bring the magic of this kind of cultural
80:38 diplomacy event to Congo and if there’s a place in the world that needs the magic
80:44 and power and peace of art, it’s certainly Congo.
80:50 The Aspen Institute, and many of you may not realize this, but when we were founded in
80:54 1950, art was very much at our core, art and music and literature.
81:02 And in the decades since we’ve evolved increasingly at least in outside perception as an institute
81:07 focused on public policy and foreign policy, domestic
81:12 international policy but and it seems like a small world but about seven years ago largely
81:19 under the inspiration of the late Sydney Harman, one
81:22 of our trustees, we brought art back really to center stage at
81:29 the Institute. And not art in terms of performance or display, Sydney used to say that art is
81:36 not, it’s not decoration, it’s not entertainment, it’s
81:40 fundamental to everything we do and who we are.
81:43 So in our programs in the arts, what we do is not just show art or give artists a stage
81:52 or an opportunity to read or perform. We actually engage artists
81:56 in everything we do. Whether it’s discussing refugee
82:00 issues or whether it’s discussing education in American public schools, because we believe
82:05 the perspective of artists is so fundamental and
82:08 so important. So that is what we do. It’s now my privilege
82:12 to oversee a suite of arts programs, including one run by
82:16 Damian Puono(?) who’s here tonight that deals with cultural diplomacy but also a spectacular
82:22 one run by the dancer Damian Woetzel and we’re about
82:25 to launch one run by the wonderful playwright Anna
82:29 Devere Smith. So art is very much a part of what we are all about now.
82:35 Finally, and I did promise you you would be able to get to this reception, I’d like
82:39 to recognize a few people who made all of this possible, other
82:42 than those of course I’ve already mentioned. Damian
82:45 Puono(?) but also Maria Elena Amatangelo and Agnes Pour(?) for their contribution to the
82:51 planning at this event. Welmoed Laanstra, for Arts in
82:55 Embassies who helped coordinate the event. And of course,
82:59 the Woodrow Wilson International Center itself especially Jane who mentioned that we jealously
83:04 share her with the Wilson Center, she’s also a
83:06 trustee of the Institute. Sharon McCarter, Marie-Stella Gatzoulis,
83:10 for facilitating logistical and outreach efforts. And of course the Ronald Reagan Building and
83:15 International Trade Center for hosting us. So now, it is my pleasure to ask you please
83:20 join us at our reception, thank you very much for being here.
83:22 (applause) (music plays over credits)