With the end of school and a thesis show behind her Tory Wright asks Matt Keeney a current grad student at MICA some questions (via e-mail) about his work.
Tory Wright:
So Matt, over the past three years you have explored performative acts in public spaces such as the internet, baseball parks, football stadiums, Wal-Mart and sidewalks lining the streets of Baltimore. How did you begin using your body within these performances?
Matt Keeney:
I first began using my actions as way to activate the sculptural pieces that I was working with, however I quickly found the medium of performance to be the perfect fit
for exploring the questions that the work was asking.
TW:
Curious! What were these sculptures that you were activating? What were these questions?
MK:
Well at first I was purely interested in our relationships with space, however making static sculptures to address this never quite seemed to fit. Once I started inserting myself into them I realized that there was a whole new set of possibilities that emerged. It was at this point that I started working in public space.
TW:
Did these activated static forms become the starting point of performances that moved from your body and on to Sports?
MK:
Yes, the more I worked this way, the more it became apparent that I was concerned less with the form and more with the actions as a way to express my ideas. As I focused on the actions I found that I was referencing many of the ones that I had seen or experienced through my involvement with sports.
TW:
I can’t see that. In the video (below) outside the Orioles stadium you seemed to collect Hi-fives (with a mostly dead pan look on your face) as though you were a spectator of sports fans themselves more so than the game. The video, a documentation of the hype that exists without a physical cue from the team’s actions but with your visual cue. A typical sports fans gesture of a simple high five. An action that activates a physical connection loaded with questions.
TW:
A game outside of the game or commentary on community within spectator-ship??
MK:
In the newer work, I am beginning to focus in a little more on the spectator-ship that exists in sports. It is amazing to me the way that sports/games have a way of creating commonality among groups of people.
TW:
Football or Basketball?
MK:
Well, I am interested in working with all different types of sports (games). However, being that I live in Upstate New York, these two, along with hockey, seem to get most of the attention.
TW:
Do you see a connection between athlete and fan and artist and viewer?
MK:
Yes, I do. In many ways the relationship between the artist and their audience is much like the way a fan follows their favorite athlete or team.
TW:
You were able to participate in one of Lee Walton's remote instructions projects, Let's Push Things Forward. How did that opportunity come together? Any awkward moments, with doing it in Baltimore?
MK:
There was an open call for participants posted on Walton’s website, and I simply applied. He was very personable in his emails, and the directions he provided were very thorough.
Shooting the piece was a lot of fun once we got started. A friend of mine at MICA was able to get a couple of her students to help, which really got the project started, and the rest of the people who participated we simply approached on the street. It is amazing to me how willing people are to do anything in front of a camera.
TW:
Has Lee Walton become a mentor or model for you, of what conceptual art could be? If so, how?
MK:
I have been following his work a lot over the last four years or so. For me, I find that his work remains very fresh, because it is constantly changing, which makes it exciting to follow.
TW: After looking at Lee Walton's drawings I read the essay "Drawing Baseball", by William C. Agee, 2005, he wrote,
"But Walton’s model of structural clarity, of the very architecture that he values so highly, has been, above all, the work of Richard Diebenkorn, a fellow Californian he has long admired."
-William C. Agee
TW:
Do you have any influences that I would find surprising?
MK:
There are many other artists besides Walton that I have been following closely over the past few years. I have been drawn to the work of individuals like Francis Alys, and Eriwn Wurm; as well as groups such as The Art Guys, and Harvey Loves Harvey.
TW:
The Checkout video filmed at Wal-Mart seems so different from the rest. It was as though the scanners beeps mimicked a heart monitor and the lens cap could be an eye opening and closing. How did you see that video functioning, could you tell me a bit about that day?
MK:
That video was meant to serve as a follow up to the piece “Honk”, which I did in Washington, DC. For that piece I walked around the National Mall, stopping and starting based on the frequency of car honks.
In the video “Checkout” I wanted to do something similar, but from more of a first person perspective. However, in Upstate New York people rarely use their car horns. The scanner beeps at Wal-Mart were the closest thing I could find to the environment that I had at the mall.
TW:
The Waiting project from 2007-2008 seemed to be an important performance for you. You and your BENCH. You documented it, posted it on a blog, and youtube. Then finally after 7 months and 3 weeks someone ended it by meeting you in Clinton square in Syracuse.
TW:
Usually women are the ones waiting. However cliché that is, do you have any comments on that idea?
HA,HA!
MK:
Well, I just find it interesting that with all the different modes of communication we have and with so many things being in “real-time”, we still spend a lot of time waiting. Also the time that we do spend waiting isn’t usually that long when you put it into perspective, it is just that we are so used to things happening instantly.
TW:
Sort of like E-mail.
For more information on Matt Keeney's video work visit, www.matthewkeeney.com .
And for updates and images from Tory Wright visit, www.torywright.com
