Nari Ward, like most of us this year, was feeling a bit anxious. The banking crisis, health care reform, and his neighborhood in Harlem, were just a few of the concerns he funneled into his current show at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, “LIVESupport”. Amazingly, in terms of sheer logistics and effect, the focal piece of “Live Support” is a smoke filled ambulance entitled Sick Smoke. Other powerful works include an actual Chase Bank sign teeming with hair picks and cowry shells as well as the video Fathers and Sons set in Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network House of Justice. Recently, Whitewall spoke with Ward about “LIVESupport” (open through April 24, 2010).
WHITEWALL: “LIVESupport” deals with the idea of support on several levels - physical, spiritual, social, and judicial support. What lead you to that subject matter?
NARI WARD: I think in general a lot of my works come out of personal anxiety or crisis or maybe even communal or national anxiety. In this case it was trying to ride on the coattail of the anxiety about healthcare and the banking system. Those are two main points that echo in my work and I was trying to find a voice to somehow mediate, at least on a visual level, to connect to that.
WW: Just given the timing of the show, that’s what I assumed but I wasn’t too sure if I was reaching with that idea.
NW: My work is always about trying to grasp that internal space people have. There is anxiety about where the country is headed and it’s a major issue that will forecast how the whole nation develops and changes and where we’ll head. I felt like we’re in a major moment that is being very politicized but does have implications for neighborhoods, the local communities, and just families. I needed to figure out a way to articulate it and the work is about that.
I feel those are the emotions that I’m trying to articulate, more about purging than actually having it effect you. It’s like you have a journal and you are writing your anxieties down and in some ways you are able to move away from it. It’s about moving away from these things psychologically and emotionally.
WW: Your materials are found objects. What do you look for in an object? Does it need to have an inherent emotional connection?
NW: One thing is the idea that the objects have sort of lost your way, or people don’t look at them as being necessary or meaningful as functioning objects. Then I try to put a narrative around it but the story has to be open ended enough that it’s not just my expectation or situation but there is a possibility of other people’s experiences being interpreted through the material.
This particular work seems to me very baggage heavy: the cane, the ambulance, even the Chase sign. And then the challenge was, could I fracture that? could I allow for other interpretations in that symbol? That was the constant is this idea of how far can I push this heavy thing without it’s losing it’s content?
WW: Is that the point where the idea to explore silhouettes came in?
NW: Yeah, because in a way the silhouette is similar to the X-ray for me. They are similar but there is so much that is ambiguous. You look at an X-ray and you know the body but it’s still very foreign and alien. The silhouette is the same kind of notion. The outline is very much about articulating something familiar but within a silhouette, because it is more like a signal of something you know, there is so much you can’t experience within it. I’m intrigued by something that oversimplifies but where you are aware of all the ambiguities.
In the past I’ve always left the object semi-concealed [but for this show] the black ink created the silhouette and formalized things, homogenized them, and took away the history of the objects.
WW: The focal point of the show is an ambulance, which I guess you could call a “found object” but that’s not really something you “find” per se [laughs]. How did you get an ambulance?
NW: Right [laughs]. The idea was to find a few symbols that were heavy and loaded and then to transform them. The ambulance was a challenge, even just the size and way to get it into the space. But even more problematic was that post 9-11, if you are selling an ambulance on an open market you have to take off all the insignias and all the letters and words. I went on Ebay and the prices were out of this world. But I was fortunate enough to go on Craigslist, believe it or not, and called the guy up who got it from a hospital in Brooklyn that had closed and had been leasing it out to TV sets. So timing was everything in that case.
All images courtesy of Lehmann Maupin, New York.
