Matthew Day Jackson’s show “Everything Leads to Another” is currently on view
through July 30 at Hauser & Wirth London. The exhibition notably includes, among
other installations and videos, the nose of a B29 Bomber. That caught our eyes and ears
when we first heard about the show, and luckily, the artist generously agreed to answer
our questions and curiosities. Here, he tell us all about the works in the appropriately
named “Everything Leads to Another” and how that B29 Bomber “is part found and
simply left alone and part labor beyond pain and into insanity.”
WHITEWALL: Axis Mundi is the nose of a B29 Bomber, the aircraft model that
dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What was the impetus behind this
work and is it something you built or found?
MATTHEW DAY JACKSON: I had been searching for a B29 cockpit for a year to
use as a part of a sculpture that would be a continuation of a line of work that revolves
around the idea of the vehicle. Just as there are separate tracks in recorded music there
are several different lines of thinking that work together in my practice. The “vehicle”
could be considered one of these “tracks”. As these tracks are assembled they create
relationships that either resonate with one another or create a sort of dissonance through
which one level of meaning is brought to light. This could also be likened to the way a
writer creates protagonists or antagonists within a play or screenplay; it is how they relate
that determines their identity.
My cockpit is from a plane that was used during WWII in the pacific campaign. It
was later used as a trainer after the war, and its last incarnation was as a movie prop in
the film “The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark” (1980). This is the length of my knowledge in
terms of where my cockpit came from. I then bought it from a warbird restorer in
Sacramento, CA.
I had been researching the B29 superficially while involved in a deeper
investigation of our nuclear history, more specifically into the life of J. Robert
Oppenheimer (the leader of the Manhattan Project). Simultaneously, I have been
researching the history of the Natural History Museum which pointed me to Victorian
England, Charles Darwin vs. Science as an affirmation of god’s power and genius, and
my deeper interest in “colonialism” as another word for “exploration.”
Axis Mundi, is part found and simply left alone and part labor beyond pain and
into insanity. The exterior was refurbished to look as it did off the assembly line and was
done by a company called Aerotrader, which refurbishes WWII aircrafts professionally.
The interior and the skeletal supports underneath the cockpit were done in the studio.
This was hundreds and hundreds of hours of wood-working to create a sort of
gentleman’s study, using methods of wood-working to further create a feeling of a
Victorian interior. There is a spectrum of skulls from the earliest hominid to the current
human. These skulls are cast in a spectrum of colors in which the chronology is drawn in
how the skulls line up to create continuous rainbow. I use the rainbow to create a kind of
mobius loop. There is also a cabinet with the internal organs of a human body cast in
materials such as lead, copper, plaster and concrete. Also inside is a hanging, headless
human skeleton that may suggest the possible pairing of any of the skulls to its headless
form.
There is one unique object that may seem out of place – a molar from a mastodon,
which is there to discuss the early expeditions of Lewis and Clark ordered by Thomas
Jefferson. Lewis and Clark found Mastodon remains in Kentucky and sent this to inspire
national pride that even the ancient natural history of the United States was unique from
its European cousin.
There are many facets to the meaning of this work but my interest is quite simple.
Out of the belly of a B29 came the birth of a new world. Through the windows of a B29
the first light was witnessed.
WW: Reflections of the Sky is one of the largest of your crater works, replicating the
format of Monet's Reflections of Clouds on the Water-lily Pond. What connections do
you see between the surface of the moon and Monet's work?
MDJ: Monet’s Water-lily paintings were radically innovative in the way that the
landscape was largely painted as a reflection of the sky in the surface of a pond. Monet’s
paintings have become innocuous in the way that they have been used for calendars,
postcards, and even underwear for sale in frivolous commercial outlets such as Delta
Airlines Skymall. My interest lies in the innovation in artistic practice such as Monet’s.
This is the way in which quotation is used in my work. I use the knowledge a viewer
may have about the quoted artist to create a porthole to enter the larger concerns of my
practice. I do not see the need to reinvent the wheel, and this is often a devotional as
much as it is a critical move.
The lunar landings were military maneuvers reflecting the earthly concerns of the
technological collaboration between the United States and the Soviet Union otherwise
known as the Cold War. No exploration, only a colonial, technological feat to make the
mystery of the moon (ancient and beautiful) no different than the experience of exploring
ones own living room. Regardless, the lunar landings are the furthest, and fastest
humanity has traveled, which I still find beautiful.
My work titled, Reflections of the Sky, is made from laser etched drywall (wall
board, plaster board, etc) which is the same material used to create most contemporary
interior space. The image etched into the surface is taken from a Mercator map of the
moon. The size, scale, and method of install is identical to Monet’s Reflections of the sky
on water-lily pond which lives in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
The conversation revolving around the surfaces imaged in each work are formally
identical. Both are looking down to look up, and in the conversation of exploration, this I
liken to the planting of the flag on the moon: claiming ownership of the earth and the
sky.
WW: The southern gallery includes pieces that deal more with notions of mortality, more
specifically your mortality. Me Dead at 37 is part of an ongoing series of photographs
that depict fantasy scenarios of your death. How did that series begin? Do you find
yourself thinking more and more on your own mortality?
MDJ: The “Me, Dead at…” series is a dark and humorous approach to contemplating
many mini-deaths in becoming the person I am, both in my work and my undocumented
life. They are mannered in the way society mourns and the way we finally leave the
physical realm. These are burials of the person I have been in the process of becoming.
WW: You’ve said that you feel a responsibility for the viewer looking at your work, that
you feel a need to try and clarify the read. Do you see your use of material a major way
to help clarify for your viewers what they’re looking at?
MDJ: I am not trying to clarify anything other than my own experience in becoming the
person I am. I only want to create open doorways through which the viewer can enter
the work. I want to be generous, and see making art as a way of finding people in the
world who share similar concerns through an affirmative gesture. Not “Positive,” but
AFFIRMATIVE.
WW: Do you see material as a way of connecting to your viewers, as you'’e said that
most of us have shared histories and shared relationships with materials.
MDJ: In the age of branding, and mass production, we share similar relationships to the
materials used to construct our natural environment. I say natural on purpose, because I
believe we live in a natural habitat made of concrete, lead, copper, steel, etc. This is the
Human Animal’s habitat.
WW: Everything Leads to Another is a video you made with Tim Bright and is also from
where the exhibition gets its name. How often do you collaborate with other artists?
MDJ: I am moved by the creativity of my friends and frequently ask them to participate
in whatever I am working on. Sometimes it is a collaboration and sometimes it is a
solitary work. I also am generally more excited about others’ success than my own, and
I am more interested in the idea of community rather than the myth of a truly individual
artist. I would be nothing without my predecessors or my contemporaries.
WW: “In Search of ... Ghosts” details your fictional disappearance and was shot at
Apple II house in Nevada where nuclear tests took place. What was it like visiting that
location?
MDJ: The Nevada Testing Range is the most bombed place on Earth. I think of it as scars
on a live human body from failed suicide attempt. It is a sad place, and its effects will be
felt for the duration of human inhabitation of earth.
My disappearance is actually in the first of the “In Search of…” remakes, which
was under the title “In Search of Eidolon” and considered anthropomorphism as the
primary lens through which the Human Animal sees virtually everything. Following our
critical path in this narrative, seeing becomes more of a projection rather than that of an
observation. The “In Search of…” series consists of two videos which will then become
four by 2012. The second video, which you mentioned is “In Search of…Ghosts” and
takes the formalisms of a haunting, or ghosts and applies this to the understanding of
history making itself known as a part of our current time. The third and fourth ISO’s will
be in search of zombies, and vampires respectively. The formalisms of the zombie and
bampire, both undead, will be applied to the previously mentioned idea of the
understanding of history making itself present in our contemporary environment. Each of
the videos take a different path of engagement with the viewer which also relates to the
general cinematic formalisms used to portray each of these mythological
figures. “Eidolon” was a very dry comedy, while “Ghosts” leans more towards
drama. “Zombies” will be slapstick in nature as the only way to kill a zombie is to
eviscerate its brain. “Vampires” will be akin to late night television on the Lifetime
channel, as both the becoming and killing of a vampire are intimate in nature.
These videos are partnered with real commercials that run throughout. Audi,
Mercedes, Duggin’s Scotch Whisky, and the television show “Ghost Hunters,” all help to
create the feeling of television and reaffirming the theme (anthropomorphic forms,
ghosts, etc.) of the ISO they interrupt. The ISO videos are all being made in a larger
project which is to make 24 hours of television programming. The history of art video
goes back to the television studio, and I believe it is still the medium responsible for the
way we understand narrative structure.
WW: Why explore your disappearance?
MDJ: I am not necessarily exploring my disappearance, however interestingly whenever I
think of my work, they are generally in a room by themselves. I think to a certain degree
all artists make work as a stand in for themselves, which is a way to make someone
metaphorically disappear.
WW: You've said that, "In my art, I'm trying to give my creativity complete free reign,
and acknowledge my location... In making art I'm trying communicate many things
simultaneously: my political concerns, taking responsibility for the art as a self-portrait,
amateur history lessons, etc. I'm interested in making art that can be a mirror of the time
that I'm in, art as a microcosm." Does this approach come naturally to you or is it a
struggle or challenge?
MDJ: There is always a challenge and what you have quoted remains true and although it
is impossible I will always be attracted like a moth to flame. It also comes naturally, just
ask my mom.

Matthew Day Jackson’s show “Everything Leads to Another” is currently on view

through July 30 at Hauser & Wirth London. The exhibition notably includes, among

other installations and videos, the nose of a B29 Bomber. That caught our eyes and ears

when we first heard about the show, and luckily, the artist generously agreed to answer

our questions and curiosities. Here, he tells us all about the works in the appropriately

named “Everything Leads to Another” and how that B29 Bomber “is part found and

simply left alone and part labor beyond pain and into insanity.”

WHITEWALL: Axis Mundi is the nose of a B29 Bomber, the aircraft model that

dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What was the impetus behind this

work and is it something you built or found?

MATTHEW DAY JACKSON: I had been searching for a B29 cockpit for a year to

use as a part of a sculpture that would be a continuation of a line of work that revolves

around the idea of the vehicle. Just as there are separate tracks in recorded music there

are several different lines of thinking that work together in my practice. The “vehicle”

could be considered one of these “tracks”. As these tracks are assembled they create

relationships that either resonate with one another or create a sort of dissonance through

which one level of meaning is brought to light. This could also be likened to the way a

writer creates protagonists or antagonists within a play or screenplay; it is how they relate

that determines their identity.

My cockpit is from a plane that was used during WWII in the pacific campaign. It

was later used as a trainer after the war, and its last incarnation was as a movie prop in

the film “The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark” (1980). This is the length of my knowledge in

terms of where my cockpit came from. I then bought it from a warbird restorer in

Sacramento, CA.

I had been researching the B29 superficially while involved in a deeper

investigation of our nuclear history, more specifically into the life of J. Robert

Oppenheimer (the leader of the Manhattan Project). Simultaneously, I have been

researching the history of the Natural History Museum which pointed me to Victorian

England, Charles Darwin vs. Science as an affirmation of god’s power and genius, and

my deeper interest in “colonialism” as another word for “exploration.”

Axis Mundi, is part found and simply left alone and part labor beyond pain and

into insanity. The exterior was refurbished to look as it did off the assembly line and was

done by a company called Aerotrader, which refurbishes WWII aircrafts professionally.

The interior and the skeletal supports underneath the cockpit were done in the studio.

This was hundreds and hundreds of hours of wood-working to create a sort of

gentleman’s study, using methods of wood-working to further create a feeling of a

Victorian interior. There is a spectrum of skulls from the earliest hominid to the current

human. These skulls are cast in a spectrum of colors in which the chronology is drawn in

how the skulls line up to create continuous rainbow. I use the rainbow to create a kind of

mobius loop. There is also a cabinet with the internal organs of a human body cast in

materials such as lead, copper, plaster and concrete. Also inside is a hanging, headless

human skeleton that may suggest the possible pairing of any of the skulls to its headless

form.

There is one unique object that may seem out of place – a molar from a mastodon,

which is there to discuss the early expeditions of Lewis and Clark ordered by Thomas

Jefferson. Lewis and Clark found Mastodon remains in Kentucky and sent this to inspire

national pride that even the ancient natural history of the United States was unique from

its European cousin.

There are many facets to the meaning of this work but my interest is quite simple.

Out of the belly of a B29 came the birth of a new world. Through the windows of a B29

the first light was witnessed.

WW: Reflections of the Sky is one of the largest of your crater works, replicating the

format of Monet's Reflections of Clouds on the Water-lily Pond. What connections do

you see between the surface of the moon and Monet's work?

MDJ: Monet’s Water-lily paintings were radically innovative in the way that the

landscape was largely painted as a reflection of the sky in the surface of a pond. Monet’s

paintings have become innocuous in the way that they have been used for calendars,

postcards, and even underwear for sale in frivolous commercial outlets such as Delta

Airlines Skymall. My interest lies in the innovation in artistic practice such as Monet’s.

This is the way in which quotation is used in my work. I use the knowledge a viewer

may have about the quoted artist to create a porthole to enter the larger concerns of my

practice. I do not see the need to reinvent the wheel, and this is often a devotional as

much as it is a critical move.

The lunar landings were military maneuvers reflecting the earthly concerns of the

technological collaboration between the United States and the Soviet Union otherwise

known as the Cold War. No exploration, only a colonial, technological feat to make the

mystery of the moon (ancient and beautiful) no different than the experience of exploring

ones own living room. Regardless, the lunar landings are the furthest, and fastest

humanity has traveled, which I still find beautiful.

My work titled, Reflections of the Sky, is made from laser etched drywall (wall

board, plaster board, etc) which is the same material used to create most contemporary

interior space. The image etched into the surface is taken from a Mercator map of the

moon. The size, scale, and method of install is identical to Monet’s Reflections of the sky

on water-lily pond which lives in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

The conversation revolving around the surfaces imaged in each work are formally

identical. Both are looking down to look up, and in the conversation of exploration, this I

liken to the planting of the flag on the moon: claiming ownership of the earth and the

sky.

WW: The southern gallery includes pieces that deal more with notions of mortality, more

specifically your mortality. Me Dead at 37 is part of an ongoing series of photographs

that depict fantasy scenarios of your death. How did that series begin? Do you find

yourself thinking more and more on your own mortality?

MDJ: The “Me, Dead at…” series is a dark and humorous approach to contemplating

many mini-deaths in becoming the person I am, both in my work and my undocumented

life. They are mannered in the way society mourns and the way we finally leave the

physical realm. These are burials of the person I have been in the process of becoming.

WW: You’ve said that you feel a responsibility for the viewer looking at your work, that

you feel a need to try and clarify the read. Do you see your use of material a major way

to help clarify for your viewers what they’re looking at?

MDJ: I am not trying to clarify anything other than my own experience in becoming the

person I am. I only want to create open doorways through which the viewer can enter

the work. I want to be generous, and see making art as a way of finding people in the

world who share similar concerns through an affirmative gesture. Not “Positive,” but

AFFIRMATIVE.

WW: Do you see material as a way of connecting to your viewers, as you've said that

most of us have shared histories and shared relationships with materials.

MDJ: In the age of branding, and mass production, we share similar relationships to the

materials used to construct our natural environment. I say natural on purpose, because I

believe we live in a natural habitat made of concrete, lead, copper, steel, etc. This is the

Human Animal’s habitat.

WW: Everything Leads to Another is a video you made with Tim Bright and is also from

where the exhibition gets its name. How often do you collaborate with other artists?

MDJ: I am moved by the creativity of my friends and frequently ask them to participate

in whatever I am working on. Sometimes it is a collaboration and sometimes it is a

solitary work. I also am generally more excited about others’ success than my own, and

I am more interested in the idea of community rather than the myth of a truly individual

artist. I would be nothing without my predecessors or my contemporaries.

WW: “In Search of ... Ghosts” details your fictional disappearance and was shot at

Apple II house in Nevada where nuclear tests took place. What was it like visiting that

location?

MDJ: The Nevada Testing Range is the most bombed place on Earth. I think of it as scars

on a live human body from failed suicide attempt. It is a sad place, and its effects will be

felt for the duration of human inhabitation of earth.

My disappearance is actually in the first of the “In Search of…” remakes, which

was under the title “In Search of Eidolon” and considered anthropomorphism as the

primary lens through which the Human Animal sees virtually everything. Following our

critical path in this narrative, seeing becomes more of a projection rather than that of an

observation. The “In Search of…” series consists of two videos which will then become

four by 2012. The second video, which you mentioned is “In Search of…Ghosts” and

takes the formalisms of a haunting, or ghosts and applies this to the understanding of

history making itself known as a part of our current time. The third and fourth ISO’s will

be in search of zombies, and vampires respectively. The formalisms of the zombie and

vampire, both undead, will be applied to the previously mentioned idea of the

understanding of history making itself present in our contemporary environment. Each of

the videos take a different path of engagement with the viewer which also relates to the

general cinematic formalisms used to portray each of these mythological

figures. “Eidolon” was a very dry comedy, while “Ghosts” leans more towards

drama. “Zombies” will be slapstick in nature as the only way to kill a zombie is to

eviscerate its brain. “Vampires” will be akin to late night television on the Lifetime

channel, as both the becoming and killing of a vampire are intimate in nature.

These videos are partnered with real commercials that run throughout. Audi,

Mercedes, Duggin’s Scotch Whisky, and the television show “Ghost Hunters,” all help to

create the feeling of television and reaffirming the theme (anthropomorphic forms,

ghosts, etc.) of the ISO they interrupt. The ISO videos are all being made in a larger

project which is to make 24 hours of television programming. The history of art video

goes back to the television studio, and I believe it is still the medium responsible for the

way we understand narrative structure.

WW: Why explore your disappearance?

MDJ: I am not necessarily exploring my disappearance, however interestingly whenever I

think of my work, they are generally in a room by themselves. I think to a certain degree

all artists make work as a stand in for themselves, which is a way to make someone

metaphorically disappear.

WW: You've said that, "In my art, I'm trying to give my creativity complete free reign,

and acknowledge my location... In making art I'm trying communicate many things

simultaneously: my political concerns, taking responsibility for the art as a self-portrait,

amateur history lessons, etc. I'm interested in making art that can be a mirror of the time

that I'm in, art as a microcosm." Does this approach come naturally to you or is it a

struggle or challenge?

MDJ: There is always a challenge and what you have quoted remains true and although it

is impossible I will always be attracted like a moth to flame. It also comes naturally, just

ask my mom.

Installation View, Matthew Day Jackson, Hauser&Wirth 2011 (1).jpg

Installation view, 'Matthew Day Jackson. Everything Leads to Another', Hauser & Wirth London, Savile Row, 2011

© Matthew Day Jackson

Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Photo: Peter Mallet

Installation View, Matthew Day Jackson, Hauser&Wirth 2011 (2).jpg

Installation view, 'Matthew Day Jackson. Everything Leads to Another', Hauser & Wirth London, Savile Row, 2011

© Matthew Day Jackson

Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Photo: Peter Mallet

Installation View, Matthew Day Jackson, Hauser&Wirth 2011 (3).jpg

Installation view, 'Matthew Day Jackson. Everything Leads to Another', Hauser & Wirth London, Savile Row, 2011

© Matthew Day Jackson

Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Photo: Peter Mallet

Installation View, Matthew Day Jackson, Hauser&Wirth 2011 (4).jpg

Installation view, 'Matthew Day Jackson. Everything Leads to Another', Hauser & Wirth London, Savile Row, 2011

© Matthew Day Jackson

Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Photo: Peter Mallet

Installation View, Matthew Day Jackson, Hauser&Wirth 2011 (5).jpg

Axis Mundi (detail)

2011

Repurposed cockpit of a B29 aircraft, aluminium, red oak, glass, steel, plastic, lead, bronze, iron, obsidian, leather, silver, stainless steel, concrete

373 x 480 x 590 cm / 146 7/8 x 189 x 232 1/4 in

© Matthew Day Jackson

Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Photo: Peter Mallet