"I am not green I am greedy"
Phoebe
Washburn on her project for Deutsche Guggenheim
Phoebe
Washburn recycles seemingly worthless materials for her gigantic
installations. With her organically sprawling works constructed of
countless cardboard boxes, old newspapers and wooden slats, she overcomes
the borders between installation, architecture and sculpture. Now the
young artist is transforming Deutsche Guggenheim into an environment
somewhere between a factory and a greenhouse. Her commissioned work Regulated
Fool's Milk Meadow can be viewed there from July 14. In an interview
with Achim Drucks, the young New Yorker talks about her spectacular
project for Berlin, the American culture of front lawns, and about
excursions to the junkyard.
Phoebe
Washburn's studio, Brooklyn, New York, during development of "Regulated
Fool's Milk Meadow", 2007
Photo:
David Heald
© 2007 Phoebe
Washburn
Achim Drucks: For
Regulated Fool's Milk Meadow, you've grown grass in the Deutsche
Guggenheim. It's cultivated in a large wooden construction,
transported on a conveyor belt, and then dried on the roof. What was the
idea behind this "plant factory"?
Phoebe Washburn:
For a few years now, I've been skimming off of systems (one example is the
recycling system in NYC). After having done that for a while, I wanted to
create a sculpture/installation that had its own set of systems. I wanted
to make something that was more than a static sculpture in a gallery, more
like an ongoing event that required attention and developed over time –
something that even created its own product and generated its own waste.
It was my hope to eliminate the step of skimming off of something else and
instead generate everything in the gallery during the installation and
during the course of the exhibition – to sort of create a microcosm in the
gallery. The concept of a "plant factory" seemed fitting. It is a very
banal, innocuous product, but at the same time it's open to many
interpretations.
Phoebe
Washburn's studio, Brooklyn, New York, during development of "Regulated
Fool's Milk Meadow", 2007
Photo:
David Heald
© 2007 Phoebe
Washburn
What does the cryptic
title of the work actually allude to?
It's a series of
strung-together words that vaguely touch on meanings here and there.
"Regulated" refers to the factory line and the production line. "Fool's
Milk" is a play on the term fool's
gold. And it refers to the ridiculous nature of the factory. I see the
factory as a huge maternal thing that is birthing out plots of grass, so I
suppose that is where the "milk" reference comes from. Also, the factory
is totally foolish because it consumes its own product – it's a dead end.
But it's all very loose and hopefully vague enough that it is open to
other meanings and doesn’t steer the viewer too much.
Phoebe
Washburn's studio, Brooklyn, New York, during development of "Regulated
Fool's Milk Meadow", 2007
Photo:
David Heald
© 2007 Phoebe
Washburn
One theme of the work for
the Deutsche Guggenheim is the cycle of becoming and passing. Sometimes
you recycle materials that you've used previously for older works. What do
you find interesting about such cycles?
I find it very
satisfying to "make do with things" and to see what happens with respect
to materials. I find it interesting to see how using reclaimed or recycled
materials can affect the piece. I like the inherent problems that arise as
a result of finding materials and making do with them in whatever
condition they are in. I began recycling past installations into new
installation as a matter of practicality, and then I noticed that the
materials were adding layers of information and history to the
installations.
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Phoebe Washburn
"Manning
Stay Station" 2005,
Installation
view, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY. Image courtesy
of Zach Feuer Gallery
Does
Regulated Fool's Milk Meadow have a specific link to Berlin?
There's
no intended direct link between Regulated Fool's Milk Meadow and
Berlin, because I had conceived of the idea right before I was
commissioned to do the project. However, as I've researched this project I
have seen some areas of resonance. For example, there's a history of green
roofs in Germany. Also, I found myself researching grass seed around the
time of the World
Cup last summer and I came across information about the grass
used in the soccer stadiums. I was surprised by all of the attention to
detail and rigor that went into the grass cultivation. It was serious
business!
Phoebe
Washburn
"It Makes For My
Billionaire Status" 2005,
Installation
views from Kantor/Feuer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
Image
courtesy of Courtesy Zach Feuer Gallery
That
is typical German.
I am also interested to see how this project
will read in Berlin. In my opinion, it seems like a very American project.
There is a big "yard
culture" in America and it is in full force right now in these summer
months. Yards have become a symbol of one's status. People see your yard
as an extension of your house. It seems like house, car, and yard are the
three big markers of one's social status in most of America, which makes
sense because they are the most visible and obvious markers of status. So
I definitely think that there is a strong American influence in this
project. And it will be interesting to see how it reads in another
culture. For me, the irony of all of this is that I live and work in an
area where I see almost no green space. So obviously, I am making
generalizations about American yard culture but I think there is some
truth to this. So I hope that the installation will touch on some of these
ideas in some way.
Phoebe
Washburn's studio, Brooklyn, New York, during development of "Regulated
Fool's Milk Meadow", 2007 Photo: David Heald
©
2007 Phoebe Washburn
The white cube of
the Deutsche Guggenheim is not easy to install works in. How important to
you is the interaction with the space?
The space that houses
the installation always steers the project in terms of scale and form, and
sometimes conceptually. I build mostly everything on site, so there are
innumerable things that affect the installation. The fact that the pieces
are often so labor-intensive and require many people working on them also
affects the final outcome. I like to leave the plan open enough to make
changes on site and react to the site. This is what I call the "blind
spots" in the project. This idea of a conveyor belt and product line
seemed very fitting to the "long walk" in the gallery space at Deutsche
Guggenheim. I'm hoping that as the viewers "click" down the long gallery,
the grass plots will be "clicking" down the belts as well and it will make
sense. The experience of walking through the long gallery will resonate
with the linear movement of the production line.
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Phoebe Washburn
Untitled,
2004 Installation view, Bronx Museum, New York, NY. Image courtesy
of Zach Feuer Gallery
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