After hanging out with Jeanine Oleson during the installation of her show, "Urd Up", at Lump, we decided to have Teamlump all-star, Tory Wright, conduct an email interview with her about IKEA, road-rage, and weaponry.
Tory Wright: Jeanine, I thought I would drop you a note to say hello and
start an interview of sorts for the TEAM LUMPS BLOG!
It was so much fun hanging out with you and Marina. Especially leading up to the show. Good times.
Jeanine Oleson: It's great to hear from you. It was super fun to hang out with you too. You are a funny one.
TW: How was the trip back? (NC to NY) Did you buy anything at rest stops that was terrible and terrific at the same time?
JO: The trip back was tots fine. Weirdly fast, even though there were crazee winds by the time we hit Delaware, your home state. We got stuck in traffic and decided to chill at a rest stop where there were throngs of people acting like rabid animals at the Roy Rogers counter. The only thing I got was a corn dog meal at Nathan's. Mister (the dog) was too freaked out to shit at that rest stop cuz there were crazed busloads of teens running around on the grassy dog-shitting zone.
Other than that, we tried to figure out what DVDs people were watching in their cars and also the usual hexing of assholic drivers. Marina kept threatening that we were going to stop at Ikea, just to torture me. That's all though. It was an easy drive.
TW: Poor Mr. Teenagers make me constipated to. I hear they have that affect on their high school teachers as well.
JO: And you? Has anything tried to run you off the road on your way to MICA? Did you buy some Swisher Sweets at the convenience store; smoke them, and then puke? Enquiring minds wanna know.
TW: Actually the last time I went to Baltimore I stopped at IKEA. I didn't puke up any Swedish meat balls or anything....but I sure got a great area rug for under $60 dollars.
JO: I just agreed to take two non-drivers to IKEA in a coupla weeks even though I feel terrible every time I step in the door. Ah, the perils of friendship. I'm-a sit in the cafeteria the whole time with a flask.
TW: There's an art project in side of that somewhere? Speaking of art. (your show) I loved the relationships with the photographs to the objects. Performance, documentation, constructed myth and it's relics. All functioning together with a soundtrack adding yet another critical layer of perception. BLABLABLA....Grad school damage....but really ...were there any other tools or weapons that you made?
Did you have a favorite piece in the show?
JO: Hmmm, I can't decide what my favorite piece was...I think the speaker simply because it actually works and I wasn't sure that would ever be the case. I like that it looks like a Martin Puryear sculpture as well as a beaver dam and vajayjay. This is my idea of a good combo. I also really love the fur suit because well, in one way, I've always wanted something like this to get into, plus I love the photo of me in it in Queens looking like I'm having a delusional ritual.
But then the fence is also something I am happy about and it as a catalytic object/myth with the miniature horse was a pinnacle moment in my year (at least). Yes, I love the idea of making a performative relation between the objects, ritual and photographs, while preserving some humor.
TW: Have you made any other tools or weapons?
JO: I love making tools and weapons. I liked the pink axe cuz I found that perfect stone and also collected the beaver-chewed handle- I was so happy to unite them and make an object that looked primitive while obviously, it functions as a fantasy of the primordial, which is what the whole show sort of revolves around.
I've made other tools like walking sticks, bows, arrows, clubs, and also tons of other stuff when I was a kid. I was going to run away and live off the land, with my horse, of course. Ask me anything else, I love grad school damage.
TW: So how did IKEA bring the pain? This place keeps coming into ya life.
JO: I have avoided Ikea. Whew.
TW: Mass produced design does kill the last unicorn.
JO: You got that right!!
TW: Speaking of unicorns I did explore the U Tube videos of Unicorn Planet you
spoke of. (very catchy opening song.)Heyyyy! I prefer the remix episode. Purely due to the Tyra Banks reference.
JO: OMG. I love Planet Unicorn- everything about it. I love their names, I love how they all talk at once and spend a lot of time giggling. Plus, the gay haus jamz intro is a part of my psyche at this point. It reminds me of a music downloading odyssey I went on to gather all the music I remember from gay clubs in the 90s. So GOOD. It can undo any queen or dagger in seconds. Just the slightest bit of Crystal Waters and they're on the ground.
TW: America’s Next Top Model is an epidemic. I fell off after Mel-rose got the shaft and Kerry D was crowned commercially viable for cover girl. RANT,RANT, RANT!
JO: Oh girl, I HATE Tyra Banks. I can't even go over to camp appreciation. I once had the flu and ended up watching her talk show which made me think she was HORRIBLE. It is funny on ANTM sometimes though...I'm trying...
TW: Anyway...You should have a book . I know I selfishly would love to flip through the history of these objects, photos, and performances.
JO: OKAY! I would love a book, I guess I can publish one on the mac site for now.
It's nice to know you like the work enough to want some pictures of it in a permanent way. Thanks, man!
TW: You should also have a trophy case!
JO: Ugh, I almost brought home cases from the Museum of Nat. History a few years
ago, but they were HUGE. And well, I do live in NY and I do have way too much crap. But yes, I wanted my own displays. Maybe a fossilized menstrual pad, etc.
TW: HA HA...I am projecting ….(damage, damage, grad school damage)
JO: I dunno, your damage is fun. We get to talk about unicorn planets, IKEA, and
Tyra unease. If that's what you're "learning" at grad school, sign me up. Plus, who wouldn't want a book. It's like a family photo album of the things we labor over, PLUS it is a sign of legitimacy/worth (for yourself as well as others) in the form of a physical object. It must be weird to be a writer and have a world of ideas that pretty much need a physical form in order to be distributed. Sorry, I digress.
TW: Wait there is more: I could totally see you excavating a history, real or invented. Like an archaeologist. I guess you are already doing that, but with the end results. The objects.
JO: I've thought about this and been a little afraid of neat classification categories, but I would take things from one context to this as another. I do love the idea of becoming a freaky Margaret Mead character who examines her own work as subject.
TW: What I am getting at is ...Have you ever documented the work coming into existence as part of the work? Or would that be more of a private studio practice? Perhaps securing the mystery of creation and or origin.
JO: OOOH! I love the mystery of creation and or origin! What nice words you use,
Tory! Yes, there are some great shots over the years. I know people who really concentrate on that aspect. I've thought of it, but also like to leave things unseen, to allow some aspect of fantasy projection on the part of the viewer.
TW: All is good in NC. Just lots of rain and Internet surfing to break the boredom. Do you have a favorite web sight? Better yet if you could require reading what would it be?
JO: WELL, I just read all of Ayn Rand's books (appalling and amazing all in one), then I moved left from the far right and read Doris Lessing's Martha Quest series and also her Canopus in Argos collection, plus two new post-apocalyptic books. That's one of my fav topics, as well as sci-fi (esp. Feminist Revisionist histories like Herland and The Female Man). I am also am a huge fan of Samuel Delaney, Angela Carter, Linda Barry...could go on. I like to read that newish genre of natural history/travelogue books too. You know, people who go to the Artic and write about surviving on the flowers and fauna, another fav is one about searching for Sasquatch in the area where I grew up while picking mushrooms, berries and dodging drunk hunter bullets. Last but not least are the art/cultural theory stuff, which might be what you were aiming for in the first place. I'm constantly reading journals, anthologies, etc. I especially love artists' writings. Something I always give out to classes is on by Adrian Piper called "identity, Confrontation and Political Self-Awareness, and Essay, 1981." It's a brilliant article about the human social condition and what perpetuates it.
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Xo,
Jeanine
