A.I.R Extension #04 - A conversation with Katleen Vermeir (20/9/2006, Istanbul)

Christodoulos Panayiotou: What exactly is A.I.R short for?

Kathleen Vermier: It is derived from the sentence “Artists In Residency”. We have recently purchased a Loft, and the project entitled A.I.R records its renovation procedures.

CP: Was it purchased with the intention that it would constitute your new projects, or has this research developed from the acquisition of a house with all this involves?

KV: It went both ways. Having acquired this Loft, we then decided to adjust it to our needs; this meant an archive, two studios, and everything else that we needed. The idea for this project arouse instantly.

CP: There are inexhaustible bibliographical references and referential artistic production on the house as a philosophical or artistic exploration and especially the urban house in the 20th century European scene. Nonetheless, I cannot recall of a specific art research on the historiography of the Loft; what does this, by nowadays commonly used term mean in the history of residence?

KV: Indeed, there are innumerable texts on “the house”, mainly on the house as it is organized by the urban class of the Bourgeois. Still, there is not so much written specifically about the Loft, perhaps due to the fact that it has only recently developed into a space of residency. The term Loft is used to describe several things but mainly a large unified space, on the top storey of a building, most usually industrial. Of course nowadays the Loft need not necessarily be on the top storey, nonetheless, the reference to the industrial aesthetics is maintained and we always refer to a large unified space without any divisional walls in it.

CP: In the current post-industrial cities, the word Loft is often used referentially, to describe even newly built spaces, which lack the industrial origin that you mentioned. It arises thus as a residential model and it no longer necessarily constitutes a space whose usage has been modified. In Cyprus for example, where there exists a negligible industrial tradition, the word Loft is used to describe a specific type of a newly built apartment which is something quite different to all descriptions you’ve mentioned.

KV: Indeed, that is true; nonetheless, the concept of an appropriated for residence is something that started in the United States around the 50s & 60s. The Unites States were the birthplace, so much of the term as well as the function of a Loft, and it clearly concerned ex industrial lodgings This was actually a very significant period in the contemporary history of New York.

CP: Are we talking about that same period where Robert Moses, changed the character of New York;

KV: Exactly, Robert Moses, this controversial urban planner, in that period proposed the automobile as the new King of a New York, which was under conformation, and imposed large streets, destroying thus the industrial heritage and demolishing huge apartments/buildings. The first to react to this tactics were artists, who hurried to inhabit the Lofts that were under thread. Immediately, this move was exploited by investors who were very well aware of the fact where artists go, many follow as the artists’ presence validates it as a life style model.

CP: Was then the only reason for this subversion the reaction to Moses’ tactics? I wonder what exactly this bizarre reaction presupposes… You know each era reveals a new residential behavior which very often constitutes a point of reference in the process of understanding that era. For example during the renaissance we observe the opening of the house towards the outside space, with the incorporation of large windows that would allow the light to enter the building, and hence one could support that this may well be a symbolic representation of the social and philosophical revolution that was being organized at the time. In your opinion, which is the social analogue of the American artists of the 60s who decided to reside in formerly industrial spaces?

KV: I think that mainly it was the intention to abandon the “charged” urban house. Of course a new series of problems arouse at the Lofts, as private moments were canceled. The cancellation of separate rooms imposes a constant living with one another, something with manifests and provokes several control mechanisms.

CP: It is a fact that for the past 100 years things are being organized round a new regime of cancellation of apparent diplomacy. The 60s, and even more the 70s, are not innocent decades with respect to this. They mark the times of the new-utopia and of sexual revolution. People no longer need to hide behind the walls of the 19th century; they may freely express themselves, all that was kept hidden before comes out. Is it in a way the end of the house for the family?

KV: Absolutely, the Loft is a space for one or two persons and certainly free. It is extremely uncomfortable for the family and in any case it requires the organization of a new mode of coexistence involving a lot more transparency.

CP: Beyond the revolution in the history of residence, and besides the science of art historiography, we are aware that the Loft has played an essential role in the formation of contemporary visual arts and actually, this is not restricted to the visual tradition alone, but it also holds true for the representational arts. From the theater of Scheckner to the postmodern choreographic research of Trisha Brown, Simone Forti and Steve Paxton just to mention a few. This involves creators that are closely-knitted with the potential of these new spaces.

KV: Yes, these references are actually part of our research. The title A.I.R, about which you were inquiring earlier, is derived from this very tradition and we are exploiting these characteristics that it offers. It has been used by the New York artists as an inscription at the entrance of their buildings. Originally, living in a Loft was illegal and this sign was imposed so that in case of fire, firefighters would know that there are persons a particular abandoned industrial building.

CP: So, how does this new space, affect the visual production in particular?

KV: In painting for example, we observe the following phenomenon: In their effort against the organized market of the galleries, artists produce huge paintings: this is enabled by the large spaces of the Lofts, which eventually also become the exhibition space…

CP: That is to say that this new space affects the morphology of artistic production?

KV: Yes, something which has proven to be opposite to the reactionary intentions of the artists. The bourgeois quickly became interested in this new lifestyle. Consequently the Loft was reduced by the urban class, into fashion.

CP: As it seems, this is where this reversal arises, that is, how the Loft developed into the absolute space of the successful New Yorker businessman.

KV: Yes, and not only that; it is indeed interesting how the Loft which originally constituted the locus of residence for an exceptionally Boehm group of artists, and with very specific intentions, eventually ended up as a model of success, like you said before, in countries without any industrial prehistory. To go back to art, as the artists changed the dimensions of their work, new exhibition spaces for these became necessary. Large paintings would not fit into the traditional galleries which were designed so that they would remind of the collectors. Hence, the White Cube gallery type was created. In the meantime, art was no longer an innocent internal affair, this was happening in the Cold War years and the United States were using art as a propaganda weapon. This is a nation that has spent a lot of money to export its art, mainly by promoting the idea of free expression by saying “look how free we are”. Almost just as the Soviet Union has used art as propaganda, so did the United States with a different application.

CP: Indeed, the political representation in American art is camouflaged, or functions metonymically, while Soviet art quickly became the graphic representation of the ideology that it promoted.
So, you purchased a Loft referring to this whole story …

KV: Yes, and we then began expanding all that we have discussed already. Lately, my boyfriend was working with large wooden installations, where he would used the same material in different forms, by recycling them. We would always make fun saying that with all this effort and work we could build a house, eventually that’s exactly what we did; we used all this pieces to organize the Loft that we have purchased. Of course they can no longer be recognized as such. The wood that made up Ron’s sculptures is now the wooden floor in our house.

CP: And how do you plan to exhibit in this idiosyncratic piece of art/house?

KV: Our house is our work; that which we exhibit to the public is not the house in itself. For Instance, we do not invite people over to show it to them, and we are not going to do this, it goes beyond our intentions and there is nothing in particular for anyone to see other than a house.

CP: So, in what way is this research being promoted?

KV: We have decided to promote a series of Extensions; that is activities that will present out house. Consequently, this also constitutes a comment on the way in which we often get to know about contemporary architecture. Architecture is communicated in a strange way; it does not constitute an experience as it should. It would be reasonable for one to visit a house in order for them to see it, just as it is reasonable to do with a piece of artwork. To walk in it, to sit there... Nevertheless, we only know architecture through books and magazines. That is, we know more about architecture as an image rather than as an experience.

CP: The other day we were talking about Julius Schulman’s show in Istanbul. This great photographer has organized the aesthetics of modernist architecture through the known sterile method of its presentation, creating thus the image that has prevailed about the modernist house.

KV: Exactly, as for Julius Schulman the interest was to create a perfect image that would represent these houses, in the same manner, we create the desired representations for our house via these Extensions.

CP: So you call an Extension any exhibition that you produce which refers to your Loft.

KV: Yes, but not only exhibitions, not in the strict sense. An Extension is any presentation of our house. For example the conversation that we are holding right now is one of our Extensions. In the past we have done an analogous radio show.

CP: So, your work is concerned more with the image of the house rather than the house itself.

KV: It’s the house but it begins to exist outside the house. For example Le Corbusier’s Villa Saviye must certainly exist somewhere but we all know it as an image. That is exactly what we mean by the term Extension…

[Katleen is coming today with Roni in Cyprus to give a lecture. We had this discussion some months ago when we were both residents at Platfrorm-Garanti (Istanbul). Pictures: Kathleen, Sophie and myself getting bored a Sunday afternoon in Platfrom, I think the day we had this discussion.]