#alison kuo

[seewithalex]

“Steeped in Spilt Milk”

24ebroadway.com

24EB Graphics: Alex

[publiccollectors]

QUARANZINE #43

QUARANZINE #43: Alison Kuo. One of the most pressing concerns of the pandemic is surely: what can we be doing to improve the lives of cats? For this issue, Brooklyn-based artist and cat hoarder Alison Kuo provides a succinct tutorial on how you can build a cat castle that will make your four-legged fur-ball feel like the Queen or King that only they actually believe they are. If you make one of these, it is imperative that you share photos. If you’d like to support this project by ordering a set of 12 different issues, you can do that here and feel free to request a copy of this one in the notes. 

[publiccollectors]

Congratulations to Alison Kuo on the successful completion of her Public Collectors Joong Boo Residency!

Alison's boyfriend Williamson also tagged along. Normally residencies are for just one person (it can be really hard to seat three people at Joong Boo because the Snack Corner is so small) but this was the very last residency of the program's first year, and it was Williamson's first time in Chicago, so what am I gonna do? Not feed him? Sashimi Salad for everyone! Except me; I had the Spicy Squid.

I first met Alison way back in 2008 when Temporary Services had an exhibit and event in Austin, Texas. She was working at the late great Domy Books, where we had a booklet release. Since then she moved to New York City, where she works for School of Visual Arts. She also maintains her own art practice that sometimes involves performances that incorporate food. Her trip to Chicago is for a performance at Green Door Gallery (1932 S. Halsted) that's happening from 6-9 PM tonight.

Given that we've only seen each other for very short periods of time over the last nine years (usually in the middle of the chaotic NY Art Book Fair) we spent much of our meal just catching up and talking about light stuff like gardening, bookstores, Chicago food, friends we have in common, and different job and teaching related matters. The conversation deepened toward the end of the meal when Alison brought up the issue of institutions that want to work with artists in a performative or community engagement-related manner but are not always properly equipped to do so, putting undo stress on the artist to figure out how to develop audiences and bridge communities. Alison also described an experience of tokenism and we discussed the eternally fun question of whether to say no to an invitation, or whether to say yes but push back and challenge the institution. We talked a little about Aruna D'Souza (who both of us are friends or followers of on Facebook but have not met) and her sharp critique of MASS MoCA's recent inauguration of a new building where almost all of the art on view is by white artists but the performers at the opening celebration were largely people of color (http://momus.ca/awhite-space-black-spectacle-mass-moca/).

Just as we were really getting into the thick of things, a couple who had been eyeing our nearly empty bowls was told that their food was ready. It's very bad form to keep talking at Joong Boo after you have finished eating, and they both had trays of piping hot food in hand. I snapped this quick photo, we cleared our many bowls, and then we continued talking elsewhere in the market (the booze section, to be precise) for another hour.

Alison also used her residency to pick up ingredients for her performance this evening, which should be quite exciting based on the selections that I observed. Finally, she and Williamson introduced me to the wondrous phenomena that is the sweet corn-flavored ice cream sandwich, which consists of corn ice cream, with a little chocolate, encased inside a rice-based outer shell that is molded in the shape of an ear of corn. Sorry for the lack of a photo but I was too excited to eat this fucked up thing to bother with documentation. Maybe next time.

This concludes the first year of the Public Collectors Joong Boo Residency Progam. Residencies will continue and August is fully booked but if you are a creative person that does NOT live in Chicago, you can apply for September. More information, and reports on past residents can be found here.

[gymnosomata]

Alison Kuo (born 1985). You Pick the Moon, 2024. Found porcelain, glass, faux pearls, rabbit fur, fishing net, plastic decor, glue, silk, plywood and beads, 56 × 32 × 32 in. (142.2 × 81.3 × 81.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchase gift of Carla Shen and Christopher Schott, Jennifer and Jerry Lee, Andy Gao and Peter Wei, and Leslie and David Puth, 2024.57. © Alison Kuo. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

[apexart-journal]

We have each other.

Hello, journal, I'm back here after taking a break from writing. Truth be told, I have been conflicted about how to proceed in this forum. My couple days retreat into the quietude of the islands was nourishing, and coming back to Athens has felt like a return to reality.

I did my first volunteer shift at the Khora Free Shop that provides donated clothing and, when available, sanitary items, toys, and household goods to the migrant populations here (any anyone in need). Spending the day with one of the founders and main volunteer workers at Khora and serving the visitors with him was a privilege, but also a sobering experience, reminding me of how challenging and even painful it can be to show up day after day in the face of the relentless brokenness and confusion of society. I saw and shared in his joys, exchanging bright, genuine affection with people, exclaiming at the cuteness of their young children as we helped them find clothing. Here's a truth to take with you: everyone needs new socks and is glad to get them. I also learned and shared in his frustration. Another truth: the allure of free things can become it's own obsession and there are people who will try as hard as they can to game the system, to take more than they need without understanding how much effort goes into acquiring and distributing resources and how much profound need others have. Human beings who devote themselves to helping others can be like drivers who keep going as long as they can with the fuel indicator of their vehicle pointing to "empty" - it's a risky game. Unforeseen circumstances might come along at any moment to deplete you, or likewise a wonderful occurrence might fill you up again.

The best thing about this fellowship for me has been to connect with people in Athens over our shared humanity. I can really thank Nia back in New York and my two artist hosts here, Tind and Alexandra, for guiding me with care. I've learned about the people of this city directly from them, in context with the last hundred years of history, and found a place so different from the image of Greece I had in my mind before I came here. Conversations get real here very quickly once I show people that I'm open to going there. Just in the past couple of days folks have opened up about their daily struggles with caring for ailing parents, about their fears for the future of their livelihoods and housing security, about their sorrow for how political life here has changed, and about what they do to cope. As I've been told, Greece is an Eastern European country trying to be a Western European country. Western countries might hold a grip on global power, but Eastern countries have something valuable too - the primacy of people's bonds with each other. There might not be confidence in the government to be there to catch people when they fall, but the people share everything they have with each other without reservation. This well of joy produces an energy that I see animating the eyes of Athenians as they speak. I think about the way these bonds have been strategically broken in my own country and it makes me sad. It's never too late though to learn the strength of banding together.

As I write this, we are a week into the second term of Donald Trump's presidency. By all accounts, it's going even worse than feared. His greatest supporter and the richest man in the world gave a Nazi salute to his inauguration on the world stage. Yesterday, Trump announced that he would freeze all federal funding. It's felt almost otherworldly to be so far away from my loved ones and my community while this unfolds. I am, we are, scared. We don't yet know what this terrorization from the highest levels will mean for us. What and where is safety and who is it for anymore?

[apexart-journal]

To Hydra

Hello journal, I'm back from my ferry journeys with tales to tell about a Greek island where people live somewhere in between 100 years in the past and the present. Early Tuesday morning I rode the metro to the ferry terminal (near where I'd just gone to look at the sea), and after some searching around found the ferry that would take me to Hydra. After an uneventful two hour journey, we arrived on this small island. Hydra is remarkable because it adheres to strict rules meant to preserver the integrity of the village. No cars, tractors, or even bicycles are allowed with the exception of vehicles used by the sanitation department. Construction must be done in the old way. People use donkeys to haul goods from the port up to homes and worksites that stack up the side of the steeply sloping landscape. January is the peak of the winter off season and so locals happily take back possession of their town, which is elbow to elbow with tourists in the summer. Many of the restaurants and boutiques that cater to visitors are closed, and it's also when more of the infrastructure work gets done. The most popular coffee shop, right by the ferry drop off point, seemed no less in vogue despite the workers jackhammering into cobblestone streets to install a new sewer line a few feet away from the cafe tables.

Somehow, Hydra has more cats, or at least more density of street cats, than Athens. There seem to be extra efforts to feed and care for them - many are very healthy, but equally many are sick. It's tempting to romanticize cultures that coexist more gracefully with street cats than we do in the US, but behind every photo op of a cute cat is a greater societal issue. I bought some cat treats from one of the pet stores on the island so that I could try out interacting with some of these solicitous and fluffy inhabitants. What I learned is that feeding one cat out in the open will lead to a couple more, then a few more cats running up to you. My best success was feeding a sweet cat who found me on my hike later in the day.

My hotel was in an older building with very high ceilings and a balcony overlooking the town's clocktower - a bit out of some European fantasy that also felt contrasted to the architecture of Athens. I rested a bit and then headed out for my afternoon hike. As much as I attempted to follow the trail suggested by my Apexart guides, the markers in the terrain seemed to have shifted a bit with the addition of a new road, which I wandered down for a good while. At the beginning I passed a giant Jeff Koons sculpture of a golden sun - more on that later. On the outer edges of the town I saw bigger walled off properties, then an empty beach tourism area, then a small farmyard with chickens and ducks that sort of connected to a gravel yard that was supplying the construction. In the distance I could see military forts that I thought I was supposed to hike to, but the trail no longer went there. All along I only saw a few other people. Doubling back, I came to a spot where there was a very clear trail marked. There was a path up the side of a rocky, green hill that pointed back towards town. So, I decided to take it. This ended up being a lot more challenging than the "walk" I thought I was doing. At a few moments I wondered if I should turn back, not knowing what would be next after reaching the top of the hill, which seemed dauntingly far away, but I wanted to see it through. The payoff was pretty magnificent. The view down into the valley and of the town of Hydra was breathtaking. I found a perch and sat for a while, feeling content and proud of myself for getting there, and watching a pair of crows that were flying back and forth. I made my way down carefully, and made a tentative friendship with a donkey as I got back to the outskirts of town, before walking back through the homes.

That night I had a meal in a small, inviting restaurant that seemed to attract a lot of the outsiders in town. It felt a little like being invited into someone's mildly chaotic living room, and the food was good. I ended up chatting with two women, friends, one Scottish and one Belgian, who met after retiring to Hydra. They were in a sort of fun girls clique with the quirky proprietress of the restaurant and their relationship made me think about how small towns can feel both suffocating and genuinely interconnected. I took a walk after dinner to really soak in the quiet of the island and enjoy the stars. It was more of the Milky Way than I'd seen in a long time. I don't think I'd realized how much the urban noise and smog of Athens was getting to me until I got to experience the profound quietness of Hydra at night. All was very still until six in the morning when the bells of the town clocktower started ringing again.

Before leaving the island, I met up with Sotiris, the owner of the English school for local children on Hydra. He filled me in on what drew him to living there and the challenges facing the community. As the population who are accustomed to the specific way of making a living there raise their children, there's a debate over whether it's best to encourage those children to get educations which would probably then attract them to careers away from Hydra, then necessitating that they'd hire immigrants to fill these roles. With the increase of wealthy outsiders buying homes there, it's becoming impossible for regular people, school teachers and police posted there by the government, to afford a place to live. It's a familiar problem, but one made even more obvious by the lack of transportation options. We also dished about the Koons sculpture - apparently a wealthy collector owns a home and an exhibition space on the island which is now becoming part of the art fair circuit. He gave Jeff Koons a solo show last year and the sculpture was produced for that. Koons then sold it to a collector and it remains on the island without any input from the locals on what kind of public art they might like to have. So while everything about the way the place looks is highly regulated, the art world is already finding its loopholes.

This is where I must confess that I went a little rogue on my program and decided that I needed another night away from downtown Athens. Having a clear schedule until the next evening, I booked a hotel room on the island of Poros, the ferry stop between Hydra and Athens. Poros is not unlike Hydra in some ways but it's bigger and allows cars and motorbikes, although most vehicles can't pass up the sides of the hill where the traditional homes are. I found that Poros has the same system of trail maps which allowed me to take another memorable hike through the town and up along the crest of the hill. I found a taverna, maybe the only real restaurant open on the island in winter, for dinner and people watching, and then I had a glorious night of sleep in the quiet of my hotel.

The next day I returned to Athens in time to meet with Nia for our weekly check in, a conversation that I always really enjoy. She's the puzzle-master, the schedule builder, the curriculum maker, and I am here on the ground doing the things, and it's nice for both of us to connect the dots together afterwards. After that, I went to capoiera class in a dance studio in the center of downtown. Surprise! I actually used to study capoeira long ago when I was in college. I've never done it in Athens though, and this class was definitely not for beginners. I really liked the ethos of the group and their commitment to the art form. They were very patient and kind with me as I tried to keep up with them. The thing about capoiera is that you do your best and don't get hung up on the ego of not being able to perform moves the way you'd want to (or the ego of being skilled), but you always push yourself as hard as possible out of respect for the training. Just as you have to learn to sing for when people are playing, engaged in a match, and contribute to that energy, even if your voice isn't great or you don't know all the words. I'm so glad I got to reconnect with that practice, and I am very sore now.

[apexart-journal]

Finally, the Sea

It was my day off on Saturday, and after a nice coffee and people watching at the farmer's market in the morning, I took the metro to the end of the line so that I could look at the sea. After being here for about two weeks it felt overdue to get close to the water.

Walking and talking (this time on the phone) is one of my favorite things to do in Athens, and somehow I logged over 12 miles without really noticing it.

Sunday morning I tried to rest in the apartment and got some light chores done. I find the stretches of down time during this program, which I usually approach with optimism about "rest" to be some of the most challenging moments. I've grappled with this feeling at home for years, but without the endless available tasks of life, or a studio available to me here, it's starker. In the afternoon, I met up with Alexandra to go to our women's self defense class at a Bruce Lee themed martial arts studio. I'm meant to be trying all new things in this fellowship, but I'm also full of surprises myself. Back home I co-founded a self defense training group for Asian American femmes called Sisters in Self Defense. This class was very different from what we do, and taught in Greek, so it was still a novel experience. Alexandra told me about attacks on women in areas where she's lived and how that's affected her life, and we had a lot of fun training together. And, I learned a new move I really liked that I might teach when I lead my next class.

After self defense, I went on to the Megaron Concert Hall to a screening of a documentary about Greece in the interwar period between 1922-1940. Readers of this blog will know that I've been learning a lot about this time period! It was an unusual context to watch a historical documentary with the well dressed upper crust attendees in a packed-out massive theater. The film presented a lot of primary source photos and moving images of Athens from that time period of great societal change. As I write this, Donald Trump is being inaugurated as president of the United States again. Thinking about political polarization and societal unrest from the distance of time and so many miles from home, in some ways makes everything we are going through now seems like a normal, if still harrowing part of humans doing what we do, and in some ways makes me feel like we are inching closer and closer to the edge of a precipice that we've been flirting with for centuries.

Today I had another helpful therapy session, and then walked over to a shop near Tind's silkscreening studio to buy some ingredients for our lunch: feta cheese, capers, and olives. We met up and hiked to the farthest point on Philopappos Hill where he taught me how to make a field worker's style meal. You first rehydrate a special kind of dried bread, then add crushed tomato, feta, olive oil, and if you're fancy, some dill, rocket greens, capers, and foraged wild green onion. Mix it and let it marinate for a bit but not so much that the bread loses its crunch, and then enjoy. Since my flamenco class tonight was cancelled at the last minute, I'll leave you with some photos of our meal. I'm getting ready to leave early tomorrow morning to catch the ferry to Hydra.

[apexart-journal]

Catching Up

Hi journal, I have some catching up to do from my last writing. I've been feeling a little under the weather the past few days and not up for putting down anything coherent here.

Tuesday night I went to a language exchange meetup. Since I'm going to activities held in English it's a gamble every time if I'll get to interact with Greek people, so it was nice to find some Athenians and a friendly guy on vacation from Belgium at the event. I also met an American who had been an expat in Athens for many years and was reminded of a certain type of pedantry about the US that people like that can assume. As a former English language teacher I can smell one of my own who has gotten a little to high on their own supply. It's interesting how being in another culture far from home can give one perspective while also introducing the temptation to oversimplify complex matters in which one is no longer immersed. There's something there about running away from pain, or fear, or maybe the burden of empathy. It's probably true too that most people are more interested in dwelling on their local problems, which makes it less rewarding to have a nuanced conversation about American issues, but let's just say that I can't tolerate people joking about things like the LA fires. In any case, I enjoyed the way one of my Greek speaking partners would ask a question of me or someone else and then follow it up with a sort of multiple choice verbal challenge - giving us clear and playful options of how we would feel most comfortable interacting. I think I might use that one.

Wednesday I walked in the National Garden and visited the Zappeion building, which is a part of modern Olympic history here. There are green parrots living all over the gardens, loudly making their presence known and building nests the size of exercise balls, weighing down the branches of the trees. According to my online research, the parrots arrived here in the 1990s, probably as exotic pets that were released into the city, and while they are normally found in hotter climates it's temperate enough here for them to thrive. Given that the gardens themselves are made of a collection of plants and trees from all over the world by Queen Amalia of the Greeks, it seemed almost appropriate for the parrots to be there, sort of blurring the lines between "invasive species" and "exotic collection" in a festively annoying way. There were also some humans quietly making their homes in the park in tents. Who belongs where is a sort of theme of this trip for me, and of current events.

I then went over to the First Cemetery of Athens and wandered through the narrow pathways between the crypts. The landscape felt like visiting a miniature, solemn version of the city. I was surprised to smell the oil of the lamps that burn in from of some of the markers. Of the other scattered people visiting the cemetery I suspect that some of them were there to feel the cat colonies.

I got some lunch afterwards, and when the cashier joked with me that I couldn't pay for my food with my bus card (oops, I could have sworn I was handing him my debit card), I realized that I really wasn't feeling 100% and that it was time to go back to the apartment early and rest.

Thursday morning I watched a lecture of what happened to the Jews of Greece during the Holocaust by Professor Davin Naar. The story really starts with the Greek city of Salonika which was a majority Jewish population for hundreds of years. Again, we link up to the Christian Greek refugees from Smyrna. There was a devastating fire in Salonika in 1917 that paved the way for the city to be used as a relocation site for displaced Christians after 1922. I really recommend listening to the lecture to hear all the facts, but one thing that stuck with me was that the largest Jewish cemetery in the world was once there, and Greeks demolished it to build a university on the site, re-using graves markers for paving stones and even as liners for a swimming pool. Towards the end of World War II, almost all Greek Jews were handed over to the Nazis and sent to concentration camps where they suffered immensely before they were killed. Only one island refused to give up their Jewish population.

As a learn more about the history of this time period, there's a sort of constant unfolding of what parts of the story are being told or purposely omitted. I have yet to learn about what happened to the Muslims living in Greece who were expelled from homes they'd been in for countless generations during the "population exchange."

With a lot of heavy feelings, I went to my first activity of the day, meeting with a couple who owns a really lovely shop called Flaneur. They are situated in the midst of a very touristy area of souvenir shops, but they have a completely different approach to their work. They sell all kinds of items with designs from local Greek artists, posters, t-shirts, stickers, almost all printed here in Athens. We talked about the logistics of how they run their business, the joy they take in building their network of artists and interacting with their customers, and how they area also managing to raise a small child while they do it all.

After that, I took myself on a long walk through the old wholesale section of downtown, which is a mix of old school shops and gentrified businesses, until I found an area where the Chinese dollar stores and wholesalers have their stores. I spend a lot of time in places like this at home, and so I was enraptured to find one after the other in Athens. This eventually led me to an area where they blended with Pakistani and Indian wholesale shops. I noted that there weren't any businesses, like restaurants, groceries, or hair salons, specifically catering to the Chinese workers, but that the Pakistani businesses seem to have adopted to include things that Chinese people would want. At least, I saw the evidence in the produce.

I had my weekly check in with Nia on the phone while I was still walking because I was near enough to my next activity, and when we finished up I checked the map to learn that I was in what some Athenians consider to be the sketchy part of town. The edge of the immigrant area is often like that. All was totally fine though, and I went to the Theater of NO for my joke writing workshop. The students were just me and a very enthusiastic middle aged French woman, who while she could barely contain herself to focus on the writing part had amazing energy onstage. The teacher was a stand up comic originally from San Francisco. She taught us about the structure of jokes needed for a basic stand up routine. I was feeling lost and in an unfunny headspace, but she quickly picked my brain for material, helped me craft it into some efficient one-liners, and got me up on stage to try them out. In the space of an hour, I tried something I'd alway been curious about and found the barrier to entry to be much less intimidating than I'd thought. Liberating!

I decided to stick around for the comedy night. The comedians where good but seemed disappointed that there were initially only about the same number of people in the audience as there were performing, one of whom was a 14 year old boy from Israel. They all agonized onstage about needing to change their dirtier material so as not to harm him, and in the process he almost became a part of the show. He and his mother said they were in Athens because their people were on the wrong side of history. By the end of the performance I was starting to get a little weary of these awkward in-between English speaking spaces, but at the same time the awkwardness and the trying to understand one another seems like part of the project.

OKAY. We made it to today. My late night comedy jaunt set me back and I was kind of feverish today. I didn't want to miss the day's plans and bed rot in the apartment though, so I rallied and made it to the volunteer orientation and an organization in my neighborhood called Khora that provides services to refugees. The meeting was at their free store and when I arrived they were serving their final clients of the day, which included a mom and her two small boys picking up clothes. The orientation was given by a member of the group who explained their non hierarchical structure and consensus based decision making process. We - an exchange student from India and I - were asked to agree to their community guidelines and safety procedures, which I found to be very well thought out. Sadly, the group, which does not accept any government or EU money, is having funding issues and just decided not to renew the lease on their soup kitchen. I do admire the way they arrived at such a hard decision and prioritized the survival of the organization. All in all, the attitude of the place was about doing what you can and treating others with respect while facing the massive injustices of the world with a good humored smile. I'll be going back there for my volunteer shift next week.

My next stop was supposed to be the chess club of Athens, but when I arrived no one was there to answer the door. This may have been an example of "Greek time" - I wonder if they opened later in the evening. Then tonight I went to an English language AA meeting very close to my apartment. It was in a small building dedicated to AA, tucked underneath a staircase in the residential neighborhood. I had never been to an AA meeting before, and admittedly, I'd always been curious about them. There have been other activities I've been to in this program where I was clearly not a part of the target audience, but this was the first time that I felt I really shouldn't have been present. The meeting starts with an explicit statement that it's only for people who are trying not to drink alcohol. Everyone is asked to introduce themselves as alcoholics and share a story of their own experiences. It was emotional and eye-opening, and people were very kind to each other. When it was my turn I said that I didn't feel I could share anything, but that I appreciated the way they cared for each other, and they were very accepting of that.