Brooklyn-based visual artist Marc Swanson will present a lecture on his solo exhibition, “Hurry on Sundown: The Multimedia Work of Marc Swanson,” this Thursday, Oct. 16. Swanson first stepped into prominence in the 90s for his complex and enigmatic works that explored concepts of self, masculine ideals, sexuality, and childhood. Lately, however, the Connecticut-born, New Hampshire-bred artist has shown a preoccupation with issues of tactility and material itself — lumber (cut by Swanson himself from his parent’s backyard in New Hampshire, no less), glass, cotton fibers, latex, glitter, animal skins and more are all used to imaginative ends in his works. For his show at the Johnson Museum of Art, Swanson included works from the last 10 years of his career, including the remarkable Killing Moon: Self-Portrait as a Yeti, a life-size sculpture of a Himalayan snowman.
We recently spoke with Swanson about the show, which is currently up at the Johnson Museum through Sunday, Oct. 19.
Popcorn Youth: The title of your exhibition at the Johnson is ‘Hurry on Sundown,’ also the title of a song by the 70s rock band Hawkwind. Is music a force in your work?
Marc Swanson: Oh, yes. When I was younger, music was a huge influence in my life. I was the type who skipped school to sleep out for tickets. (Laughs) I use to be envious of musicians because I thought that they had it all — they made something that worked at a populist level, and they were able to use poetry and people didn’t think it was pretentious. You could get away with being serious and sentimental in a way that you couldn’t with art. With musicians like Nick Drake or Leonard Cohen, who I really like, if you tried to do that on a visual level, it would be sappy, maybe. But that can also be a naïve way to look at it, too.
When I was younger and not as developed as an artist, a lot of people read into my art as ‘ironic’ or ‘kitsch’ because I was so earnest, even though I was completely serious. For me, I think, it was learning how to get better at trying to say what I want to say. With my last show, I don’t think anyone saw it as ‘kitsch’ even though there were rhinestones and stuff, which is so great to hear.
Popcorn Youth: Do other media influence your art as well?
Swanson: I think that it all comes into play. Since the 80s or even earlier than that — and I don’t know if it’s a proliferation of grad schools, or the way that art is taught — but it’s gotten so segmented, where you’re either a painter or a sculptor or an installation artist. Since then, it’s seemed as though a lot of art collectives have popped up that combine a lot of that stuff. But I think about all of that all of the time. Because I lean towards sculpture and 3-D oriented art in particular, I think I think about that a lot, but I love to do it all. When I studied at Bard, everything that you do it cross disciplinary, so I also worked with a sculptor and a sound person. With her, I studied inner ear sound. But I also made videos with a friend who was a musician.
Popcorn Youth: Is there any media that you’d still like to explore?
Swanson: If I could come back and live many different lives over and over again, sure, I’d love to get into bronze casting. Lately I’ve been working a lot with glass, and with people who really know how to do it, so that the work that I do takes most people 15 years to master. (Laughs) The way that we’ve opened it up conceptually is that you can still explore it all, with the help of a person in that craft.
IT: That must feel very liberating.
Swanson: I really enjoy working with glass. People warn that it’s addictive, and it is. (Laughs) It’s really expensive and a really antiquated way of making something — and the eternal problem of it is that it is eternally fragile. Even though it eventually becomes a solid, it stays fragile.
I’m excited for glass as a medium. For a long time, as an artist I would stomp my feet around and go, “Hey! This is me, this is all about me, this is about my life but I also want you to relate to it!” (Laughs) But as I get older, my work gets more formally driven and material driven, and my interest in that side of things gets stronger. The personal is still there, but I feel myself becoming more interested by the materials that I work with.
I was really fortunate to get that residency at the Museum of Glass [in Tacoma]. There are about four or five similar museums across the country, and it was really interesting because they asked me what I wanted to do and I said, ‘I want to make a wasps’ nest.’ And they said, ‘Okay. But how? Can you send us drawings and photos?’ And it was really interesting because they wanted to know how I wanted to make it different, and I wanted to make it look as close as possible to an actual wasps nest. But then I realized that I wanted them monochromatic and one of the glass guys — to make a long story short — said that he didn’t know how we could do it. But we really pushed it on a sculptural level. Even after 1,000 years of glassmaking, people mostly use glass to make vessels, right? So to make something that is purely sculptural is interesting to me.
Popcorn Youth: For your show at the Johnson Museum, how did you go about assembling the works that are on display? Did you have a specific concept in mind?
Swanson: Andrea [Insellman, curator at the Johnson] had seen my work and was thinking about putting together a summer group show. But that didn’t work out, so we postponed my show for eight months, thought about adding other works, and that crashed and burned, somehow, budget wise. (Laughs) And then in the past year and a half, it turned into this. With each step of the way, it grew into the way it is now.
The one thing that she definitely asked for was my large installation, and we talked for the last year about what would be appropriate for the other rooms. It’s funny how much the work can change over the years, so bringing in various works really shows my changes in style. Adding things from different solo shows, for example, because it can be funny to see the same vein of work, but the materials change. So in the end we decided just to include my work from the last seven or 10 years.
The last step of the process was I think in March or April, when I came up to view the space and I brought images of my works with me. And she was ready, and we just hammered it out. Everything has been so great, and everyone was so supportive. I was able to bring my assistant and that was really helpful. It’s been smooth sailing.
Popcorn Youth: What was your art training like? Did you attend art school?
Swanson: I went to an undergrad program for a year… and that didn’t work out very well. (Laughs) I was sort of a bit of a crazy kid, and I couldn’t really stay in school. I had a scholarship and I screwed it up. Then I sort of went through the art world in a different way. I worked at some non profits in San Francisco and saw as much art as I could. In 2000, I went from Boston where I attended art school to San Francisco where I took a few drawing classes at City College, but nothing too rigorous. In 1998, I got a residency to go to Sweden for a year and work on projects in Stockholm.
Then I went to Skowhegan in Maine, which is basically a nine week residency and also a school. So I got a taste of that again and decided to go to grad school at Bard College.
Popcorn Youth: Do you see any major differences between New York and San Francisco as art centers?
Swanson: Well, I moved to San Francisco in 1991, pretty soon after the earthquake. Major museums were shut down, other major museums they have today like the MOMA wasn’t built yet or the Yerba Buena, so at first, it seemed like a wasteland. But during the time that I was there, all of these public and storefront spaces opened up. There was a very vibrant art community and it was great because no one was really paying attention to us. (Laughs) You couldn’t sell work or get written about, but it created this utopian experience where you could really experiment and cut your teeth on the scene. It was so great for me because I did a number of solo shows there without a lot of pressure to perform, so I developed a portfolio that eventually got me into grad school and then move to New York.
Popcorn Youth: You currently live in NYC. What is the atmosphere like for contemporary artists working today?
Swanson: In a way, there is so much more support here, almost easier. When I moved here from San Francisco, it seemed like there were so many more spaces to show work. Like, there are 1,000 galleries and they all need to have 10 shows a year, you know? There was so much competition to show in San Francisco. There’s amazing support from the community, from people who buy the work to the people to write about it to the people who are purely fans. For me, I find that if I put in 100%, I get 100% back, you know?
When I first moved here, I had been to Skowhegan, which is 65 people in a tiny camp that is basically in the middle of nowhere. That was for nine weeks, and then it was Bard for three summers with 100 people — I got to know a lot of artists really quickly and get close to them and develop and intact community. So I was really lucky in that way. But it just depends on how you look at things. You can look at the [NYC] art world as cutthroat and competitive, or you can realize that you’re seeing what is considered the best art from all over the world. From my experience, that access to seeing others work really raised the bar on my own work. I think that’s common for other artists, too. It kind of works through osmosis. But I do hate those blanket statements like, “the art scene is so much better in New York.”
And also, there are way more freelance jobs here, which is why I moved here. If you got a job in San Francisco as a freelancer, then they would try to hire you, you know? Here, there’s a lot more freedom to do photoshoot work or freelance in general, which still gives you time to work on other projects.
I think that what is interesting as an artist is that it can be incredibly intimidating when you’re in other places. The entire idea of coming here at all – it kind of levels the playing field, in a way. Like, I remember when I was in San Francisco and I met a friend of a friend who was working on a photography commercial and had just shown some of his artwork at this space. And I didn’t know the gallery, but I was still in awe, you know? But now that I live in New York, you, like, overhear the conversations with older artists and they’re, like, mentioning a group show at MoMA as no big deal. It’s completely different level in a way.
Popcorn Youth: Elements of nature and the natural seem appear often in your works.
Swanson: That’s something that I miss about California, for sure — the access to nature, and the most dramatic and beautiful nature. I definitely crave it. The access to nature is so easy — I used to be able to walk to the beach. Or, it was a 10-minute car ride and you’re on the Pacific coast. It wasn’t just getting into nature, but the most dramatic and beautiful nature, right away.
Popcorn Youth: Can you talk about growing up in the New England countryside?
Swanson: I was born in Connecticut and grew up in New Hampshire. Where I grew up in New Hampshire, the woods were my favorite place to be. My dad was a Marine and an avid hunter and fisherman. He was really outdoorsy and into camping, that kind of thing. But once I hit adolescence, I was dying to get into the city. What with figuring out the gay stuff, I was a very different kid. Where I grew up was suburban but also pretty conservative. I do miss it, but a funny thing has been happening lately, where I miss it less, strangely. Central Park is getting to be enough. (Laughs) But I am lucky to be able to get away, like for a summer in Maine or the Hudson Valley. My parents are still in New Hampshire, and I love being able to spend time with them.
Popcorn Youth: Figuring out your identity; the role of nature - do those conflicts emerge in your art?
Swanson: Oh, for sure. I think that at the time, especially in San Francisco, I was really cutting my teeth with showing artwork. But it was this complication of feeling like a New England kid brought up by this really masculine man. It was definitely confusing once I left New Hampshire, when I didn’t realize that it was so nostalgic and different from the rest of the country. Like, I was surprised that there wasn’t a gazebo in every town. (Laughs)
So when I moved to San Francisco at 21 I thought I was so old and experience, but I was really a kid. And that created a real dichotomy with living out my formative years in a place that was the opposite of New England. [With something like ‘Untitled (Black Full Sneak)’ it’s like, the masculine trophy covered with rhinestones. It was a simple synthesis. For me, it was how I was feeling and a lot of my work has that duality to it. And it’s still there — there’s a part of me that thinks I can never leave New York, and another part of me that thinks that maybe I can. You can take the boy out of the woods, but you can’t take the woods out of the boy. (Laughs)
Popcorn Youth: Was it difficult adjusting to life in San Francisco?
Swanson: It’s funny. I didn’t know how to deal with it, being there. It was like going from zero to 60. I didn’t really understand everything that was happening, and in hindsight, with the AIDS crisis, I think it was generational. The gay community was having a hard time in 1991; it was like everyone had been to 100 funerals and it felt decimated. It was confusing at first, but I quickly found was I consider the artsy, alternative gay crowd. (Laughs) It was like, seeing Castro and the rainbow flags and feeling like, ‘Well, this isn’t me, either.’ But I did find my friends, and I realized that I didn’t have to live in the Castro to feel safe. And that was a real learning experience, to separate myself from the rest of that community. But it was definitely a formative experience.
Popcorn Youth: A lot of people comment on the self-awareness or self-reflection aspect of your works. How hermetic in nature do you see your art as being?
Swanson: I think that’s where that duality comes in, actually. It’s really important to me that my work isn’t hermetic and it isn’t just autobiographical, but that there is a driving force behind it. I’m interested in the conceptual side of artwork, about referencing other things going on in the world that don’t have anything to do with me. In a way, I try to do both. It’s funny, I think that I try to do a lot of things at once, which is something that excites me.
I get so excited about art, and I’ll see a Louise Bourgeois show, which is painfully personal but also speaks volume to a lot of her audience, and then I’ll go over to MoMA and go crazy over super formal things, like Ellsworth Kelly. They do different visceral things to me. And that was one of the things about San Francisco, was that I didn’t want to be put in a box, sexuality-wise. I didn’t want to adhere to all of those things around me. And I feel that way about my artwork too. I try to make art that is personal but also open to interpretation, open for other people.
Popcorn Youth: Do you find that viewers will take away their own meaning that is personal to them in their own works?
Swanson: Oh, for sure. A good example is the title of one of my works, ‘The Saint at Large.’ The Saint was a nightclub in the East Village in the 80s that I once went to as a teen. They started this party called ‘the black party’ and it became this huge thing and started the circuit parties which is an entirely different subject. (Laughs) But the production party called it the saint at large. And for gay people they know it’s a direct reference to that party, how it’s tongue in cheek, but it’s also not. So there’s even a duality there. And I’ve had other friends who have called me and thought the title was poetic and perfect for my work. I knew that it would reference the work in another way for people who had no idea about the Saint, and I like that, too.
Popcorn Youth: Finally, what are your plans for the future? Are there any ongoing investigations?
Swanson: I have some work up right now for a show called ‘Night in Two Spaces’ at the Hunter Gallery, mostly 2D work and video. I’m doing a show in April in Chicago at the Richard Gray Gallery, and working in the studio a lot. The great thing is that these days I get to work here full time and I think, for a lot of artists, that it’s close to obsessive compulsive how much you think about your art.
Popcorn Youth: So the art world still engages you? You still seem so excited about it, not cynical at all.
Swanson: I get more and more excited all the time. I’ve known that I wanted to do this since I was a little kid, and it’s such a treat. Like, to pull up to the Johnson Museum and see the banner for my show … it feels very full circle to see that there. Growing up in New Hampshire, a lot of my inspirations as a kid were the smaller museums, and not the ones in the city. So it feels really important to me. I like art, and I like to make.
Popcorn Youth: Was it tough to transport some of your more intricate installations to the Johnson?
Swanson: It took about a week to put it all up. And the first time I went to my dad’s house and we took a chainsaw and cut trees down and put them in a truck. Those were for my installations. But from the gallery, it went into storage and we had it all packed up and ready to go. It’s amazing to see these shows come together. There’s so much involved that people don’t realize. And I am blown away by the Johnson Museum — it’s their professionalism and the collection.