Last Friday was the opening of Miles Huston's first show as a resident of the Still House Group, the Red Hook-based artist collective. Named after Louis XIV's famous statement, L'état, c'est moi, the show's persistent theme (in keeping with the motif adopted by the Sun King) is light, luminosity, and grandeur. I caught up with Miles after the show.
Alexandre Stipanovich: Where did this show's idea come from?
Miles Huston: The Still House Group space is a great place, and I had a lot of fun there [during my residency]. It has an interesting model going for it––it's like a school or a competitive skateboarding team in that you almost have to fight for your slot. The studios have no doors and conversation seems integral to the studio process. For this show, I made ready-mades but I also wanted to present an exhibition that was active on its own.
AS: Tell us about the two-headed sculpture, which actually reminds me of the God Janus.
MH: The sculpture is most certainly a variation of Janus, but it tries to separate the two heads into two different characters. In this case, I chose Shakespeare's King Lear and King Louis XIV. They say Janus is the god of about transitions, beginnings, passage, and movement––which all fall into how I structured the work, including the materials. I cast Louis XIV in the matte black material, facing the circluar mirror, absorbing the reflected light. As for Lear, his eyes are covered and done in chrome, and he faces the light source to produce a reflection onto the back wall.
AS: How does the GPS piece about Felix Baumgartner (the B.A.S.E. jumper who free-fell from outer space) echo the king theme in your show?
MH: Firstly, Felix Baumgartner is both a hero and completely crazy––much like my two kings. Initially, I was thinking of people deciding to commit suicide by jumping from buildings or bridges. But it wasn't until my conversation with you about Baumgartner [several months before this interview] that it became clear to me that he was essentially doing the same thing, but he managed to cheat/beat death and live. The act itself––the theater of it––was extraordinary. A YouTube employee told me that one fifth of the entire Internet watched the event through YouTube! In the video, when Felix speaks just before he jumps, he says, "I know the whole world is watching, but I wish you could see what I see." At that moment, the theater became real for everyone. I tried so very badly to feel what he felt, to imagine this fall back to a home and a family that was waiting. It is this "state" that I was trying to make visible in this piece, which shows his trajectory of GPS coordinates.
AS: You play a lot with image projections in this show––Charlie Chaplin can be seen using binoculars, and the Sun King's silhouette projected onto a wall are just some examples.
MH: There is an emphasis on line and verse in this show. The line can be a physical line or stroke. It could be a sight line or silhouette. A line can also be a sequence or play on words. The line is the mark of thought, definition, and clarity. Verse finds its etymology in the line turning, bending, leading, and changing. Words like universe or inverse imply a kind of space. These were all things I attempted to imbue into the sculptures and drawings.
STILL HOUSE
481 Van Brunt St
Unit #9D (4th Floor)
Brooklyn, NY 11231
Alexandre Stipanovich: Where did this show's idea come from?
Miles Huston: The Still House Group space is a great place, and I had a lot of fun there [during my residency]. It has an interesting model going for it––it's like a school or a competitive skateboarding team in that you almost have to fight for your slot. The studios have no doors and conversation seems integral to the studio process. For this show, I made ready-mades but I also wanted to present an exhibition that was active on its own.
AS: Tell us about the two-headed sculpture, which actually reminds me of the God Janus.
MH: The sculpture is most certainly a variation of Janus, but it tries to separate the two heads into two different characters. In this case, I chose Shakespeare's King Lear and King Louis XIV. They say Janus is the god of about transitions, beginnings, passage, and movement––which all fall into how I structured the work, including the materials. I cast Louis XIV in the matte black material, facing the circluar mirror, absorbing the reflected light. As for Lear, his eyes are covered and done in chrome, and he faces the light source to produce a reflection onto the back wall.
AS: How does the GPS piece about Felix Baumgartner (the B.A.S.E. jumper who free-fell from outer space) echo the king theme in your show?
MH: Firstly, Felix Baumgartner is both a hero and completely crazy––much like my two kings. Initially, I was thinking of people deciding to commit suicide by jumping from buildings or bridges. But it wasn't until my conversation with you about Baumgartner [several months before this interview] that it became clear to me that he was essentially doing the same thing, but he managed to cheat/beat death and live. The act itself––the theater of it––was extraordinary. A YouTube employee told me that one fifth of the entire Internet watched the event through YouTube! In the video, when Felix speaks just before he jumps, he says, "I know the whole world is watching, but I wish you could see what I see." At that moment, the theater became real for everyone. I tried so very badly to feel what he felt, to imagine this fall back to a home and a family that was waiting. It is this "state" that I was trying to make visible in this piece, which shows his trajectory of GPS coordinates.
AS: You play a lot with image projections in this show––Charlie Chaplin can be seen using binoculars, and the Sun King's silhouette projected onto a wall are just some examples.
MH: There is an emphasis on line and verse in this show. The line can be a physical line or stroke. It could be a sight line or silhouette. A line can also be a sequence or play on words. The line is the mark of thought, definition, and clarity. Verse finds its etymology in the line turning, bending, leading, and changing. Words like universe or inverse imply a kind of space. These were all things I attempted to imbue into the sculptures and drawings.
STILL HOUSE
481 Van Brunt St
Unit #9D (4th Floor)
Brooklyn, NY 11231