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INTERVIEW: LEOPARDS IN THE TEMPLE

leopards in the temple

ART & CULTURE.

Written by Elsa Brown: The exhibition space at SculptureCenter in Long Island City, New York appears customary when you first arrive. The main level of the former industrial building is a traditional gallery with white walls, high ceilings and rotating exhibitions of contemporary sculpture and installation. But walk to the back of the gallery, and a narrow set of stairs descends to a basement where you will find artworks staked out in underground tunnels, nestled beside brick walls and projected onto stone alcoves.

Leopards in the Temple, an exhibition that opened in January and runs through March 30, 2010, utilizes both floors of the Center. Among the artists featured on the more cavernous level is Philadelphia-based artist Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, who answered a few of our questions about the show, the Center and the curious locale of Long Island City. Click Read More for the full interview and photos.

leopards in the temple

Leopards in The Temple is based on a Kafka quote. What does it mean to you, and how do you see your work fitting into the idea?

The parable is about a process of becoming permanent through a repetition that becomes ritualistic. The work in the show re-situates a formal language that grew out of modernism. It also allows a space for poetics to be reexamined and opened up, to possibly expose a new potential. I see my work doing both of these things.

Tell us more about your work.

I have a background as a choreographer and visual artist, and now I’m in a sculpture program [MFA at Tyler School of Art]. I’ve adopted a lot of choreographic philosophies into the way that I make installations. They very much mimic stages, or tableaus, where there’s an arrangement of things that speak to an event that has happened, or is about to happen. Sometimes they mimic the way that things are arranged in an interior space, or on a stage, or in an office. [It’s] kind of a conflation of stage and gallery.

What do you know about SculptureCenter, specifically about its history of using the basement as an exhibition space?

SculptureCenter is like a project space, almost. A lot of important, established artists show there, and also people who are emerging. They always give an opportunity for emerging artists with In Practice projects. The basement space allows for another way for artists to be inspired by a space, or just reconsider how work is shown in different environments. It’s an opportunity to show in a space that’s unique and not just stark, white gallery walls.

Explain In Practice. That’s how you came to be in this show, right?

Once a year, SculptureCenter takes proposals for installations that will happen in their basement space. Anyone can apply; they just ask that you submit a project that is site specific in some way. After I applied, the curator got in contact with me and told me, basically, that he was bored with the format of the In Practice show, and wanted to try something different. He ended up taking a few people who applied to In Practice and curating us into this show, Leopards in the Temple.

leopards in the temple

What is your impression of Long Island City?

It feels like a place that’s been a little bit neglected and abandoned, but not in a destructive way. It’s a strange mix of really tall buildings, and smaller townhouses and rowhouses. It doesn’t commit to a demographic or a community like other parts of Queens. It’s this in-between space—almost like they’re waiting to build a lot of things there, but it’s never gonna happen. It’s vague. But there are also really interesting art museums and stuff there: SculptureCenter, Socrates Sculpture Park, which is an outdoor sculpture park where work is commissioned. It’s free to the public, and right on the East River. And then there’s PS1. The basement at SculptureCenter is similar to the Boiler Room at PS1. They have a basement level that has some finished gallery space, but also has this one room where they do a similar thing. I think you can apply to show there, and it’s cement basement walls, and a weird, small space with different rooms and nooks and stuff like that.

How do you feel about living in Philadelphia as an artist?

It’s nice being an artist in Philadelphia because you’re kind of removed from the gut of all that drama of ‘the artist’ in New York, but you’re really close to New York, so if you have an opportunity there it’s easy enough to commute. As far as my relationship to the arts community in Philadelphia, there’s not so much I can say about that. Being in school, you’re removed from the greater dynamics of the city you’re in. It’s partly my fault, but at the same time, school is a restriction.

You come from rural Maine, and moved to Philly from a small town in Western Massachusetts. Do you feel like living in an urban space influences how you make art, or how you are inspired?

I think there’s a little more motivation because there’s more opportunity [in a city]. But at the same time, when you’re in a rural area there’s this other drive to be productive, or make work, because everything around you is so slow moving; you feel like you have to be stimulated somehow.

I know you take the bus back and forth between Philly and New York a lot. Do you have any travel tips?

If you take the Chinatown bus, get off in Tribeca, not Chinatown because it takes an extra half an hour to get from the Tribeca stop to the actual stop in Chinatown.

OK. Now, do you have one that’s funny?

Well… Make sure you look better in New York than you do in Philly.

el fin.