Katie Geha Interview
Katie Geha is a PhD candidate in art history at the University of Texas, Austin. She is a former curator at the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University. Geha recently curated, Pun Value, for the Blanton Museum of Art and is the director of SOFA Gallery in Austin.
Sam Korman: You currently run SOFA Gallery, which I had the privilege to visit while I was in Austin. You've also recently curated a show on Lee Lozano for the Blanton Museum at the University of Texas. How do you navigate curating on such different scales?
Katie Geha: The show at the Blanton is really small. Just 4 works so it's almost the same scale as a show at SOFA. However, if we want to think about scale more metaphorically, well...the difference is huge. The Blanton is an established art institution with track lighting and wall-text and installers. Also . . . Lozano isn't alive and I see most of my SOFA projects as being very artist run. I mean, we work together and I'm always curating and guiding, but it feels like a real collaboration. Whereas I see the Lozano show as much more of me doing archival research and putting together a show that highlighted the works the Blanton owns. So, while they are both small sized shows, the way I worked on each was different.
SK: And when you write a wall text or a press release for the Blanton, what kinds of things do you need to include/exclude compared with writing a press release for your gallery? What are you competing with in both?
KG: When I write something for SOFA it mostly comes out of my conversation with the artists. As well, I see it as an opportunity for a young artist to have a nice blurb. For the Blanton I had to be much more aware of the (ugh, I hate this term but am going to use it) "educated non-specialist." Which meant I just needed to be absolutely clear as possible (this is a good thing) and couldn't be very poetic with my language. I also had an editor for those write-ups and she was great to work with. In all my writing I try to be as jargon free as possible. But I also like to have fun with language and create a mood.
SK: Yeah, it's the fun part. But, when I look at the Lozano show, and "Drop Out Piece" was in it if I remember correctly, it seems like that show could have been exhibited very appropriately at SOFA.
KG: That would of been great! I would have loved to live with those works, but I also think Lozano has been on the fringes enough.
SK: Yikes, living with that huge drill!
KG: Right?! She should be in the Blanton and every museum.
SK: That's true, but how do you "pay respect" to what she did, to dropping out, to the life as art in a larger institution? You lose some the intimacy or immediacy that her work possessed now and then. I might also compare it to the Hyde Park Apartments show you held at SOFA. A small space with the ability to navigate its immediate social and artistic environment.
KG: I see what you're saying, but Lozano is a tricky character. As much as she may have "dropped out,” she was also very much "dropped in," in that she had a solo show at the Whitney, and exhibited at Virginia Dwan and hung out at Max's Kansas City. She knew how to network and, like anyone who works hard on their art, wanted some form of recognition. Also, I think people make too much of her dropping out, as if it's just this huge deal to leave New York—god forbid.
SK: That was the first time that I saw any of the paintings in person. Really, I had only been familiar with the notebooks.
KG: She was really an amazing painter. Very much a "painter's painter." So, the Blanton show was great because I did work on such a small scale, which allowed me to focus the research I've been doing for the past five years. And it tied me to objects, as well. I had to start with these 4 works that are vastly different: a tool painting, a later painting, a drawing of the later painting, and an art-life piece. Having these restrictions or this "scale" made for a type of case study of Lozano's art and life.
SK: So for SOFA, who are you looking at or how are you finding artists? What type of work or restrictions do you set for yourself in programming it? And, how many of them are your own (i.e. limited space, etc)?
KG: It's really loose. Basically, I try to do 4-5 shows a year. I want to make sure that I alternate between Austin or Texas area artists and artists outside of the state. I want to work with people whom I'd like to hang out with in my living room. That's a big thing. In terms of finding artists, I just look around at art a lot and often times they are friends or friends of friends. And sometimes they're strangers, too, but mostly it's just if I feel like I would collaborate well with the artist, then I want to do it. As far as restrictions . . . it often has to do with money and space, but those restrictions are usually what make it more fun. I feel pretty strongly that an art exhibition doesn't have to be big and doesn't have to cost a lot of money. I'm big into editing.
SK: And it's almost all solo shows.
KG: Yes. The space is small and I feel like it is easier/more conducive to good work to create shows with just one person. Also it's great to allow artists to have solo shows.
SK: Yeah, for real. I suppose then, you become an editor or collaborator more, rather than having a greater authorial role, which gets relegated to the gallery as a whole.
KG: I'm pretty opinionated when it comes to the shows and I think the artists I work with expect that or maybe appreciate it. I'm definitely not a space that just allows an artist to hang what he or she wants. I mean, I'm into the process; I want make the artist dinner and talk about it and argue about ideas a little bit. I don't try to be a pain in the ass . . .
I just want to be a little rigorous and also to have fun, to make a new friend, that kind of thing.
SK: Small spaces are all about those relationships. It also seems that the work you show typically relates to someone's practice or is a part not often exhibited, like Hyde Park or Renee Lotenero, photos and sketches respectively, rather than films or sculptures, respectively.
KG: Those relationships are really important to me. I like to think the shows can: 1) relate to the space. My gallery is my living room. No getting around that, so let's not pretend it's a white cube. 2) If an artist is a bit more established (as in the case with Lotenero) I try to encourage the artist to show work they might not show in their more proper gallery. It's very necessary to me that the exhibitions are experimental or not all the way finished. I want to be a step in something larger. I think this worked particularly well with the Barry Stone exhibit this past year. Stone mounted an entirely new body of work and then developed that further and exhibited an incredibly tight and museum worthy show at Art Palace in Houston this fall. I'm not really excited/interested in things that are finished or framed. I like it messy.
SK: It was really neat while I was there.
KG: It was empty!
SK: Ha, I know.
KG: But I made you a sandwich.
SK: That was amazing.
KG: And that's pretty much the one main rule of SOFA: I will cook you something.
SK: That rules. A very good grilled cheese and sliced apple on the side.
KG: I burned it, though! Oh well.
SK: It was still good. Hard to ruin a grilled cheese.
As you mentioned with the Barry Stone show, he was able to show new work that expanded into another show in Houston. What do you think the role of small, DIY-ish spaces is in relation to larger spaces (i.e. commercial galleries, museums, etc.) in communities like Austin?
KG: When I worked at the Ulrich Museum of Art in Wichita, a lot of people complained that we didn't show enough Wichita artists. But I felt like it needed to be a space where students (it was a university museum) could see work that they couldn't see in the community (i.e. these kids couldn't go to NYC or LA), so why not bring that art to them? The role of SOFA and other small spaces (why do I dislike the term "DIY" so much . . .) is to show artists in the community, to build that community up, to allow artists to experiment, to work towards something, to collaborate. I mean, when I have a show by an Austin artist, the attendance is almost double than when I show someone from outside of Texas. It's about you know, community, but, most importantly, it's not just about affirming that art group, it's about challenging it (I hope) and creating discussions. It sounds corny, I know . . . I see the larger institutions as bringing in art from other areas (they have the money to do so). And of course showing Texas artists, too. But I do feel that with SOFA I've decided to engage a small group of like-minded people and, at the end of the day, I try not to think too hard about it.
It's important that SOFA remain a side project
SK: I was reading this essay and it talked about the relationship of conceptualism to art education and it made me think about something you said about wanting to work for a gallery or museum with ties to education or the university. UT seems like an awesome example of different ways to navigate that, both the Blanton and Visual Art Center. What is your attraction to that kind of gallery setting?
KG: I think a gallery that is solely based on the market for its survival is just less appealing to me. That's what I love about the VAC. Students walk by it, through it on a daily basis. Classes are held there. Students get to see real live art and not just projected on a screen. Not to sound drippy, but I think that experience is really profound and I want to be part of it, promote it, share in it. See . . drippy!
SK: Nah, that's real talk. I love the Internet and probably see more art there, or have seen more art there than I have in my lifetime, but there is nothing like that encounter--drip drip.
KG: And I guess that experience just appeals to me way more than selling a work of art to a rich person.
SK: Something Jan Verwoert said this morning when I interviewed him is that he had a conversation with Vito Acconci once and he asked Acconci about the rise of interdisciplinarity and Acconci responded that he was a poet at the time, but he was hanging out with dancers and performers and painters and that he saw all of that work and decided that he could do it as well and extend his poetry practice into other forms.
KG: Perhaps an art form does not need to be determined by its media.
SK: Sure. By what methods do you envision a space like VAC working toward that kind of student or community development? In the article I mentioned by Theirry de Duve, he brought up the new painting or conceptualism of the 80s, where there was an influx of conceptual posturing, rather than a dialog or extension of theory into art.
KG: Right. Are you thinking that academia or art in an academic setting is somehow not part of the actual art world?
SK: In a way. Yes. I think that it is a strange position, partly because I see some projects like this, where, under the auspices of the university, these artists or curators develop academic programs as though they are art pieces and then extend only a temporary experience to their graduate students to participate. But then, that might only be a very personally grounded skepticism toward the university setting.
KG: Sure, I think it's healthy to be skeptical of the university system, but maybe it would be better if galleries created programming that was more about learning instead of looking cool? Or that the gallery experience could be less of reaffirming a class situation and more about creating an experience? Though, I know that the university itself is a major division of class . . . not trying to say otherwise. But just personally not as excited about the kunsthalle or gallery. I'm excited about learning environments, turning kids on. I think the art world is full of posturing and I wouldn't say this is excluded from universities. I guess I just think there's a little more sincerity with the university museum. More purpose, perhaps?
SK: It does extend to the larger community, as well.
KG: Right.
SK: Where does the Blanton fit into this as a collecting institution? Does it only function as an experience of art history?
KG: I think it could be . . . but maybe more like a lab. Not only to experience art but to practice the act of looking at art, or practice the act of experiencing art. Most of the "labs" that I taught in art history classes at UT when I was a TA were held in the Blanton and this was the first time a lot a lot of kids had ever even been to a museum. Lots of people just don't grow up with it.
SK: Is the curator at this type of institution an educator, a facilitator, or what?
KG: When I was the curator at the university museum in Wichita, I think I thought a lot about what I wanted to show. I mean, a curator is someone who mounts exhibitions, but I also considered, you know . . . who would be experiencing it (i.e., there’s a huge ceramics dept at Wichita State), so that was a consideration. Mostly, though, I just tried to bring in art that I thought was important for these kids, who rarely ever travel outside of Kansas to see it. So, for instance, in a painting exhibition I showed Amy Sillman and Dana Schutz and Mequitta Ahuja and Joanne Greenbaum, because at the time, I thought these artists had the best things to say about contemporary painting. So if these students were to see the show, in a way, I think I was hoping the painters at that school would stop imitating Picasso…
SK: Ha!
KG: …and start imitating art that was contemporarily relevant. Not to say that Picasso isn't relevant . . . it's just to say that to paint like him is to bow out of a dialogue. I wanted to do away with anachronism in art.
SK: You learn how to speak a new language with exposure to this stuff.
KG: And how are you to speak that new language if you're not exposed to it? I mean, at heart, I think I'll always be an educator, but I think of that term broadly.
SK: Like sharing? Scheming?
KG: At heart I'm a schemer. Ha.
SK: I suppose what is involved in a university gallery, then, is a certain kind of generosity that hopefully the classes or instructors are grounded in as well.
KG: Yes. And it's collaborative, too. There're students but there's also faculty. If it's done right, I just see it as this hub of activity that includes all kinds of people. I know it seems all ivory tower-y and whatnot, but . . .I mean, I'm getting my PhD. This might just be the world I feel I fit in most. I hope this interview gets me a job. Ha!
SK: Ha!
KG: And this is not to say you need to be in school, or anyone else does. I walk out on a college campus and I just . . . I don’t know. I totally fetishize it. I feel at home at land grant institutions.