Some conversations feel “heavier” than others. With John Divola, I found it sometimes difficult to articulate my thoughts on his work in our conversation.
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Episode 19: Some conversations feel “heavier” than others. With John Divola, I found it sometimes difficult to articulate my thoughts on his work in our conversation.
Most of this stems from the gravity of the artist in my own history. With John, his work weighs quite heavily on me and it was really hard not to be nervous at times. You can feel it in the conversation and I express a few fumbles in asking questions about his associations to other giants like Lewis Baltz. These fumbles are inherent in trying to provide an adequate conversation for listeners, but also in developing my own consistency with the format, which is still new.
Further, with John, it is very hard conceptualize his overall practice given that it spans five decades and multiple projects within. His output has always been prodigious to say the least. A center point for our conversation has been his recent book Chroma with Skinnerboox. The book was covered recently in my review on American Suburb X. It is one of my books of the year and stands as brilliant contribution to John’s color work.
I hope to catch John again. I think with an artist of such magnitude that the task of assessing each significant body of work could take years…
