Andrew Birk is a Mexico City based multi-media artist and painter from Portland, Oregon. His exhibition 'Transcending Humanity In Observance of Humanity Transcending Humanity' opens at Black & Yellow Gallery this Thursday, September 27th from 7-11pm.
Andrew Birk interview by Gallery Director Allison Mander-Wionzek
Allison Mander-Wionzek: You are in Vancouver to show your work “In Observance of Humanity Transcending Humanity In Observance of Humanity” exhibiting at Black & Yellow Gallery. Can you tell us about it?
AB: Instead of trying to make work, it’s dealing with why we make work: the narcissistic or the hopeful or the ideal issue of transcending life - or the fact that we are going to die. Dealing with death and dealing with how inspiration gives us a reason to live. Really, the show is kind of a portrait of the reasons why I make Art. I am trying to live beyond my corporeal being.
The show is rooted in examples of people or events that have happened that are perfect. Beyond the flesh.
AMW: Can you give me an idea of those examples? Of things that you’ve seen perfect beyond the flesh.
AB: Siddhartha (by Hermann Hesse) is the most formative book I've ever read. In Siddhartha there is this character, the boatman. All he does is trolley people back and forth over the river for his whole life. That’s it. And from this one repetitive action, he’s learned all of the secrets of the universe, to the point of enlightenment, or transcendence. Siddhartha is meandering through all these different life experiences to find an answer; meanwhile, the boatman, through this one rudimentary action, has the answer.
AMW: So why are you so interested in this idea of transcending the flesh?
AB: Well, because why would I want to die?
(Both laugh)
AB: I think that’s a really good answer. I want to put an idea into the world that is stronger than my body or my length on the planet and I want to push ideas using art as a vehicle that exists beyond me.
AMW: These concepts of purification and holiness are common themes in a lot of your work and there’s actually a quote on your website relating to your project Obra Perdida, which I’ll just say is partly a performance piece engaging with the public. In that quote you say that while being verbally challenged by a Catholic woman in regards to your use of the term holy, you responded, “Is not the sun and sky of God and thus holy and If so, is not Tupac and noise holy?” I imagine she walked away still disgruntled.
AMW: I’m sure she wasn’t.
AB: ...But I thought that defense was f**king hot.
AMW: Well, I’m interested to hear what these terms mean to you.
AB: I really like this electronic band from London called F*ck Buttons. They started out as painters and when I listen to their music I can tell because of the way they build sound and then let it fall. They are working with the same ratios painters work with. When I was at the concert and the sound was reverberating through my bones, something was happening. A coalescence of energy that felt important, to the point of lucidity. I wasn’t interested in dancing. I was interested in standing still and being a part of it. Feeling holy. The same holiness that we are filled with when we watch the ocean. I think these things deal with the same principles that reading the bible does for the most pious of Christians. I can’t imagine that there are any differences in the physical and spiritual results of these experiences.
Painting can’t reverberate through your bones like music does, which is why I am really excited about this show and this vein of investigation. I want the viewer to have an experience and have to have an opinion based on that experience. Or to choose to deny the experience. I like that. I don’t think you can be offered that choice by just looking at something.
AMW: You’re living in Mexico right now, which is traditionally Catholic. How do you feel that has influenced what you have been doing? Because, basically, purification, and holiness, these sorts of concepts are not very common in terms of society in Canada and the United States.
AB: I utterly disagree. I think they are the underlying features. I think these things are imbued in every aspect of the United States. But there’s something else. In Catholicism you can repent of your sins and you are forgiven. The underlying seed of culture in the US is hellfire and brimstone. There’s no f**king up. If you f**k up one time you are going to hell. I think it is way more intense and I think it’s way more pervasive, even omnipresent. Maybe I took us away from the topic?
AMW: No no, that’s fine.
AB: It’s absolutely fascinating and there’s something really beautiful because they are trying to find answers and I’m trying to find answers. We all don’t want to die. We all want to know why the f**k we’re here and we'll all take answers from any source we can until we find a satisfying one.
AMW: A lot of things are happening right now in terms of art online and not necessarily that you are not trying to be a part of that...
AB: I am 100% a part of that. Let me start there. I am out there engaging with people and learning about art and trying to share my message all the time online.That’s our revolution.
AMW: Absolutely, but with these pieces it sounds like you are also trying to maintain something that is a little bit separate from that. What’s your analysis of how things are working online? I find it is very easy to become an artist online.
AB: There are good artists and bad artists. I just want to make really honest work, you know? And if I can find a way to make something that is really pure and honest on the internet, please believe I will. I’m certainly not closing that door. We have moved away from a time when an artist had to make one vein of work. I can make 360 veins of work that are radiating out of my center like spokes on a wagon wheel. And if I feel like making paintings one day and I feel like burying them in holes for 1000 years the next day, I absolutely will. I have faith in my internal workings to know that my whole body of work is going to connect itself. In that sense, I think the Internet is amazing. The way the Internet destroyed that one line of making work is the best shit that ever happened for art or thinking.
AMW: Ok, so this blog is all about Vancouver and what’s awesome about the city. What are your expectations coming into the city?
AB: Did I tell you about the airport?
AMW: Yeah you did, but you can tell us again!
AB: I am coming from Mexico, so of course I must be a drug runner. I sat sweating in a room for an hour while an inspection agent in rubber gloves rifled through my shit with a scowl on her face. Whack. But outside of the cops Vancouver is really really beautiful and I am refreshed and elated to be here.
More info HERE.
