Sanford Biggers: What is re:mancipation?

Meet Me at the Chazen Host Gianofer Fields talks to Sanford Biggers, the artist at the center of the re:mancipation exhibition, about process, collaboration, history and dialogue as media, and placing faith in the viewer.

Meet Me at the Chazen is a podcast about the the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art, the largest collecting museum in the Big Ten. As we report what’s happening here, we'll also explore what it means to be an art museum at a public university and how art museums can help enrich and strengthen the communities they serve. Meet Me at the Chazen theme and incidental music is “Swinging at the Pluto Lounge,” composed and performed by Marvin Tate and friends, and is used with permission of the artists.

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Transcript

Gianofer Fields  0:02  
Meet Me at the Chazen. My name is Gianofer Fields. The Emancipation Group sculpture is the object at the center of the re:mancipation project. However, the man at the center of the response to the sculpture is conceptual artist Sanford Biggers.

Sanford Biggers  0:21  
My name is Sanford Biggers, and I'm a conceptual artist. And my definition of re:mancipation and the re:mancipation project really is a chance to reinvestigate the famous Emancipation Group sculpture, and all the other derivative versions of it. And what that piece means today, what it means in today's climate, what it means 100-plus years after it's been created, and how we can explore it, to find what is valid in its statement, and what things need to be modified and adapted to be more contemporary and make sense in the world in which we live.

Gianofer Fields  1:04  
So I've been looking at some of your other interviews, and one of the things that struck me is that you said that your medium is history and dialogue. So Sanford talk to me about that, within the working and the thinking of this piece.

Sanford Biggers  1:20  
So I've often said that a few of my favorite materials are actually history and dialogue. And I mean that in the sense that a lot of my references, conceptually and even formally and through materials, do reference things that have already happened in history. But through that, and the juxtaposition and contexts in which I placed those realized pieces, it creates a dialogue. And I'm interested to see how that dialogue can absorb aspects of history, and also talk about the present moment. And all of this, of course, is to serve us all better in the future.

Gianofer Fields  1:56  
One of the things that we talk about, because my background is art history and material culture. And so one of the art, not tenets, but one of our ideas, is that we don't look at anything through our own particular lens. So when you're looking at these pieces, and you're looking at historical references, are you shifting lenses? Are you time-traveling within that within that gaze?

Sanford Biggers  2:17  
Honestly, I think that a great work of art has the ability to basically shape-shift and change over time, the meaning changes over time. So as a viewer, I look at things through the lens of what did it mean to be made in the time that it was made from the perspective of the artists to the perspective of the viewership that was looking at that work, and then those people who are not even considered when those works were being made. And I you know, it's a very, it's not like I can make any factual observations from that, a lot of it is conjecture. But strangely enough, when we will talk about history and history of objects, we find that the meanings change over time too, as different people become the stewards of those artworks, as they go from one location to another location, maybe from country to country, and so on. So the meaning of the work itself ends up being malleable. And in that respect, history, to some degree, ends up being malleable. So it's asking a lot of the artwork, and it's also asking a lot of the viewer to do some of that time shifting, but I think it's important, so that the works are constantly being refreshed. And our interpretations of them are as well.

Gianofer Fields  3:30 
And so when you're, I do a lot of talk about time travel, because I'm kind of that's kind of the thing I'm fascinated with right now. And I'm thinking that in terms of then when you approach a work, and then you start to work with it, when you start to create with it, build with it, shape and form it, are you shifting also in time with your yourself? Are you not into that past, trying to catch the present and then trying to give the future? Or are you leaving that up to the viewer?

Sanford Biggers  4:02 
Honestly, I think earlier in my career, I tried to do a lot of that. Basically trying to predict and implant in the work of certain type of read. And over the years, I've learned that I can't control that. And I've started to put more faith into the subject matter itself, and my techniques or my aesthetic approaches to those ideas. And it's a process that I sometimes called front loading; I front load of a lot of information and research on my side into the creation of the piece, but through the conflation of several different items in any given piece, I rely on the viewer to then sort of dissect and analyze and come up with their own interpretation.

Gianofer Fields  4:49  
Sanford, that's putting a lot of trust in the viewer.

Sanford Biggers  4:51  
Well, I think it's important I think viewing art and any thing that is created from one individual and put out into the world is, it's an act of generosity, but it's also an act of sharing. And to meet that generosity, the viewer has a bit of work that they need to do themselves. And I trust the viewer to do something with it; I often learn much more about my own work through the lens of other viewers looking at it and hearing their comments. I think it's interesting when people say they have no artistic bone in their body, or they don't know about art history, but they do know how they feel about something. And often, I think those feelings are as valid as those from people who have studied the subject matter for years.

Gianofer Fields  5:30  
So Sanford I'm gonna stay a little bit on the idea of feelings. Because a couple of weeks ago, we had a tour of all the indigenous monuments and things that wouldn't be considered monuments, because they're plots of land and, and what, because there's no building on it. The idea is to call it the vacant space. But it's not because there's so much meaning there. And one of the things that the guy talked about was that he tries not to punch the viewer he didn't, I'm using my words, now punch the viewer, or punch his crowd in the face with all the facts, because he feels that it may cause them to go into that sort of glaze. Do you ever, for lack of a better term right now pull your punches? Do you ever hold a little bit back to give the viewer more access into the work? Or do you give them all that information and what may be hard for them to understand you just give it all to them? Or do you hold some of it back and hope that they on their own figure that part out?

Sanford Biggers  6:29 
I feel in making a singular work or a body of work, certain elements are very important to me, one of them being tone. So in an any group of works, I do, I'm changing the tone, sometimes subtly, sometimes a little bit more overtly. And part of that reason is, so the viewer can see multiple works and start to understand that there's a lot more happening than just what they're seeing at once. It's also once again back to giving, putting some faith in the viewer, it's really about stimulating them and for lack of a better word, seducing them to move to look deeper into the work itself and the reference to then unpack the work later. A dream situation for me is if you have two or three different viewers looking at a piece of work, and each of them, of course, is bringing their own subjective history and understanding into that work. But if the three of them were to have a conversation, they might be enlightening each other with different aspects of the work itself. So once again, that creates that dialogue that allows the advocacy to be on the part of the viewer to start to figure out what they're getting from the piece and to share that with others, and hopefully expand everybody's understanding.

Gianofer Fields  7:44  
So in the beginning of this Sanford, I asked you what your definition of re:mancipation was in the project. Give me a sense of how that's changed since the first time you were here in April. And now you're back here in November, or has it? It doesn't have to change.

Sanford Biggers  8:01  
One of the interesting aspects of this project is that, I think from its inception, it's been a very, very organic process. There's a lot of moving parts. But with that being said, I think every participant is learning as we do this, each of us comes in with a set of ideas. And the moment that we share that with the rest of the group starts to change and morph. And I feel that the project is reflective of that. So you know, my initial interest in this project, from the very beginning was really just a deeper dive into some of the objects here at the Chazen's collection, and specifically the Emancipation Group. But through that, and through, you know, the addition of all the other multimedia approaches we've adapted for this project. The conversations have become myriad and so much more expansive than just that one piece. And now we're starting to look at other aspects of the history around that object, things that were happening in conjunction within things that were happening in other parts of the country, and how to bring some of that information to flesh out and give a broader picture and portrait, if you will, of the context around that work. I think that also helps us deal with how do we look at past monuments and memorials. Now, what do we do with that there's been all of these contentious conversations and, and works that have, you know, gone into hiding or been vandalized or have been thrown into bodies of water and so on. And I think all that is part of this organic processes of how we're coming to reckon with some of these vestiges of the past. So the re:mancipatoin Project itself, is yet another example of how we can explore and still learn from these objects, but also change what they mean and how they, how they live today.

Gianofer Fields  9:44  
From my perspective, when I do interviews, usually I'm not this embedded in it. I come in, a pop up for my one day, I do my thing, usually talk to one or two people and I'm out. This is the first time I've gotten to see this process. Is this how you normally approach, is this how how you usually, I hate to say normal, because what's normal? Is this how you usually approach a project? Is it a consortium? Is it a group? Is it a community that's actually working on something? Or is it you, Sanford, working on an object with your, with your hands, and then that's it?

Sanford Biggers  10:17  
I think throughout my career, I have approached a lot of projects in very different ways. But I'd say coming into this project, I had some tried and true formats that I've worked in before and approaches that I would engage with when dealing with an institution, you know, research, similar objects that have inspired me or have, that I had some visceral reaction to making physical responses, making sketches writing about and so on. With this project, working with Mark and the MASK team, who I've obviously worked with for several years on other projects, but this was when in which I think the conversation, they have watched me work long enough. So they sort of know my process. And then they added extra things into that process, that then I would then add to it. So it was sort of start, we started to ping pong ideas back and forth. And when we started to engage the larger institution, of course, in the university, a lot more input came in. So I think we were in a space where we could shoulder some of that, but still, it is very new and very organic. And it's still evolving, as we're, you know, engaged now.

Gianofer Fields  11:24 
I think one of the things that I really appreciate about it, is the emotion behind it. There's love in that room, like this caring in that room. And when I interviewed Mark, it was almost like he could not answer a question without mentioning your name. I kept asking him I questions and he kept answering. And we, and I was like, okay, then I have to approach this from a we standpoint, because it's usually me and this machine. And that's it. So, in watching you work at Quarra, and watching you have the conversations at Quarra Stone today, the idea of getting what's in your head into the hands of other people? And how does that communication work? Do you feel like, sort of break that down to me. I always say, when I edit, it's a hatchet, then it's a saw, then it's a saber, then it's a laser, and it's a scalpel? That's sort of the process of how I edit my work. So do you approach it from that standpoint? Is it marks and stages?

Sanford Biggers  12:24  
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you know, if an apt metaphor is literally carving from stone, you have, you know, the raw material, and then you get the rough shape. And then you start to refine it, and then you start to detail it, and then you start to finish it, you know, you go through all these things where you're taking away, taking away and then bringing out and bringing out, sometimes adding and then taking away, until you get into that final product. But it's something that didn't just happen overnight, you know, this has been decades in the making. And I think, once again, to extrapolate a bit, working with Quarra are working with MASK, working with different companies and creators. They are tools in a sense that they're part of a larger toolkit, you know, and we're using each other for like, Okay, you this is your area of expertise, this is mine, this is yours, how can we get this into something that is starting to feel like a finished piece. And that's when I have to come in and start to do a finer job of editing, so on. But, you know, I think back to that idea of love and collaboration and sort of all of us working together on this project, I think, we realize that what we're dealing with is literally history. These objects are just proxies, the larger story is history, and how what we do and how we can look at history to affect our future. And sometimes that's through a critical process. And that's what we're doing right now. So we are carving and reinvestigating and re-sculpting and sort of redefining and trying to find a new way for these works, how can they function to serve us better?

Gianofer Fields  14:08  
And one of the things I noticed today at the meeting is that, I watch faces and I'm listening, but I'm also watching. There was a point when someone referred to the man in the sculpture as a slave and you're just a little bit, I saw a little bit of a reaction in approaching these difficult conversations with these people that you have to work with. How do you how do you how do you navigate those conversations? How do you because these are people that you have to not only have them understand what's coming out of your head, but also respect the idea of history and all this happened in this history and that heaviness of the piece?

Sanford Biggers  14:44  
Well, I mean, I think it's about keeping always at the front of my mind that it's the end result, it's the end project that we're trying to get to. So all these machinations are a way to get there. So rather than get stuck in the minutiae, and the micro arguments and conflicts and things that can happen, because this is, you know, sensitive material, you have to think about the end. How do we get past this to get to the end. And once again, we're using a metaphor for sculpting, you know, from beginning to end of any artwork is not necessarily a path of success. There are several failures and hiccups and road bumps along the way. And what you learn after years is a way to turn those instances into something that's generative, and not prohibitive.

Gianofer Fields  15:28  
As we think about this project in time again. Is it ever done? Is it ever finished? Is there ever a point where you think you get, I can tell by the look on your face. Maybe the answer is no, that you look back and you go, Okay, I'm done with this? I can. I've said all I need to say, and I'm on to the next?

Sanford Biggers  15:49  
I think, yes, you get to a point where you said, Oh, you could say but you realize that you only said one sentence that might be part of a much larger paragraph or narrative or, you know, volumes of statements. So, with this project, I mean, even one of the final objects that we make for this piece might not be the end. It's really a proposition, you know, and that story has to go through other artists and through the public and other processes have to come into play to even define the work itself. So I think this is just one step in a much larger narrative.

Gianofer Fields  16:28  
You've been listening to Meet Me at the Chazen. Our guest Sanford Biggers is a conceptual artist and at the center of the re:mancipation Project at UW-Madison's Chazen Museum of Art. Meet Me at the Chazen is a production for the Chazen Museum of Art on the campus of UW-Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information about the museum, its collections and exhibitions, visit chaszen.wisc.edu. I'm your host Gianofer Fields. Thank you for listening.