Critter

 Started in response to the shift to online learning during the coronavirus pandemic, the Yale School of Art’s Director of Graduate Studies in Photography, Gregory Crewdson initiated and hosted a special series of pop-up lectures. In each Q&A, Crewdson asks a set list of questions to engage each artist in conversation about their practice, as well as how they’re adapting and responding to the current crisis. Many of the recordings have been published on the Yale MFA Photography YouTube Channel. This talk was not recorded at the request of the speaker.

 Critter is an artist, writer, and designer. In addition to co-founding SPF, he is the founder of Optical Therapy, Perfect Religion, ShartURL, and TimesWhat. He has published dozens of books through his publishing company Things Change Over Time, and its imprint Normal Fetish. He received a BGD from the College of Design at North Carolina State University. His artwork is exhibited internationally by IQ Archives.

 Gregory Crewdson is one of the most widely acclaimed fine-art photographers of his generation. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Skowhegan Medal for Photography, the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship, and the Aaron Siskind Fellowship. Crewdson has been a faculty member at Yale University since 1993.

Critter: Gregory! You said we could do this thing kinda like Jeopardy, so I’ll get us started. This first clue has a bunch of examples. One is bein’ taught how to make a wish on a poofy dandelion picked from a crack in the parkin’ lot. An other is watchin’ a girl mix diff’rent Play-Doh colors at a little table the same day she stapled her finger tip. An’ an other is bein’ encouraged to eat a booger on the playground. Those three are from Our Gang Day Care. I bet you know the question already, but I have some from Bryn Myar Apartments too. One is wakin’ up in the middle o’the night with my bed sheet attached to the scab on my knee after I scraped it on the sidewalk scootin’ aroun on a skate board. Scuzzz. An other is sittin’ in the front yard on a sunny day eatin’ a piece o’grass, a piece o’dirt, a piece o’mulch, an’ a pebble. An’ the last one is standin’ there lookin’ at my first snow angel with dead leaves an’ twigs poppin’ through it. That’s more than one obviously, but what am I talkin’ about?

Gregory Crewdson: What is your most vivid memory from childhood?

C: Yesss. I have some other good ones from my parents. One day when I was three or four, my mom came to pick me up from day care an’ a teacher told her they had to put me in time out because I called a girl a shit head. An’ my dad remembered a time when I ran cryin’ to him in the livin’ room an’ he asked me what was wrong an’ I told him I hit my peepee on the wall.

C: Next clue. I’m gonna say this one was me developin’ a preference for toys with variety, quality control, an’ attention to detail. Crayola for example had lotsa products, fluorescents an’ metallics, fun names like Wild Watermelon an’ Blizzard Blue, an’ classic packaging that was imitated by other companies. Learnin’ to spot imitations an’ becomin’ brand-savvy was part o’this. I only wanted Matchbox an’ Hot Wheels cars. Didn’t want rickety generic cars with sloppy paint an’ crooked stickers, wheels missin’, an’ nothin’ to read underneath. Legos were my absolute favorite though. I was always lookin’ through Lego catalogs, daydreamin’ about fantasy toy realities. I think it was the variety, quality, an’ details that made this stuff so real to me. Whatcha think?

GC: What was your first aesthetic awakening?

C: Yes.

Okay this next thing happened kinda late for me. I took art classes in high school but I didn’ care about artists or movements or themes. Then I went to college for computer science an’ got a job cleanin’ slides in the Design Library. That summer I got to keep workin’ there shelvin’ books, checkin’ books in an’ out, savorin’ silence. One day I found Nine Swimmin’ Pools an’ Twen’ysix Gasoline Stations in the Small Books section. Epiphanies. I found more Ed Ruscha stuff an’ loved it all, so he’s one. Ray Johnson’s an other. My neighbor Anna who also worked in the library had a few people over one night t’watch How to Draw a Bunny. Then I found the dingy binder of NCMA’s Correspondence in our library. God what an artist. Also aroun’ that time we saw a Corita Kent documen’ary in our Design Fundamen’als class. I grew up Catholic an’ here’s this hippie nun political pop artist printing these amazing, heartfelt messages. I was mesmerized. Then the film ends with her signature on the screen, Corita, which I read like Co-ri-ta, C-ri-tter. Ugh it was numinous. What an angel. So those three. Ed-werd Rew-shay, John-son, Ray, an’ Si-ster Co-ri-ta.

GC: Who were your early influences when you were coming of age as an artist?

C: Yesss.

An’ the next clue is Yes in all the senses.

GC: Is your work autobiographical in any sense?

C: Unavoidably.

Alright, the next question is what role a certain thing plays in my work. I like to manipulate an’ complicate it through imitation an’ appropriation, real forgeries an’ fake forgeries. I’m tryin’ to subvert dishonesty, an’ I hope my art helps people exercise skepticism an’ avoid gullibility. An’ I hope people find this thing you’re askin’ about. It’s pervasive and pure. Even when it’s obscured by distortions it’s thoroughly present.

GC: What role does truth play in your work?

C: Yeah it’s every where. Same with the corresponding thing.

GC: What role does fiction play in your work?

C: Yeah. I’m inspired by all sorts o’fiction. Benevolent, harmless, malicious. There’s fiction in the creative, narrative sense too. I love metafiction. Constructed realities, embedded narratives, meta-references, self-reflexivity. Our Q&A has all these things. I’m describin’ my life an’ art in these clues to elicit the questions from your Pop Up Lectures. This text is a meta-referential, self-reflexive constructed reality, an’ so is this web page. It’s designed to evoke Interview magazine in its eighties heyday. An’ it’s one of multiple framing devices. If we go up a level, there’s the Inférieur Back Issues page, which hosts a collection of related interviews. That page is inspired by the Back Issues page o’The Atlan’ic. An’ if we go up an other level, I.Q. Archives functions as the portfolio of all the IQ, Inférieur, an’ Inferior Quotations brands. An’ that page is modeled after the Our Brands page of Estée Lauder Companies. Archetypal entities like these establish the criteria for correctness: what a publication of interviews should look like, what a collection of back issues should look like, what a portfolio of brands should look like. So a lot o’my work involves the adaptation an’ synthesis of corporate visual language, mappin’ corporate identities to individual interests, an’ transformin’ those established languages in to a rhizomatic archive an’ personal portfolio. Of course there’s fiction in all this appropriation, but there’s plen’y o’truth too. So yeah. Fact an’ fiction, major inescapable roles.

Mmkay. This next one’s short. Gettin’ stuck an’ losin’ int’rest.

GC: What is the least favorite part of the artistic process for you?

C: Yes.

Next one is serendipity, epiphanies, an’ delight.

GC: What is the best part for you, in terms of the artistic process, the part that you love the most?

C: Yes.

I’m open to recommendations for this next one. I usually reserve this kinda regard for people who don’t fit in to these categories. Unless I can say friends.

GC: What are the artists of your generation you most admire? Who are the artists of your generation that you most feel like you can learn from and admire and respect?

C: Yeah. I say friends because there’s an unparalleled intimacy that friendship offers, an’ there’s so much to love an’ learn from sharin’ quality time an’ combining artistic processes. Epiphanic quality time can happen with strangers too, asynchronously in books, museums, online. I don’know if Maria Popova fits your category of artist, but I feel like my strategies an’ ambitions are less like typical artists, an’ more like Brain Pickin’s. Makin’ connections an’ cultivating my share o’the rhizome. I admire an’ respect a lot o’visual artists, but I don’t think about how old people are. Lately I feel like I’ve learned the most from Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Sherrie Levine, an’ Richard Prince. Lemme know who else I’m gonna love.

Alright, my next clue is Too many to pick just one.

GC: What is your favorite film, book, or work of art?

C: Yeah. I like The Criterion Collection, Charlie Kaufman screenplays, Errol Morris any thing, Hollywood Shuffle, F for Fake, audio commentary, Infinite Jest, Candide, Ed Ruscha, On This Site, Artistic License, The Elements of Typographic Style, an’ a zillion other things. For works of art I’ll go with Fountain.