Fragmentation and Unification: Interview with Michael Joo

Is there a relationship between your two institutional shows that are currently on view? 

Both of the exhibits deal with fragmentation and unification. You might say that one deals with human history and conflict in mind, while the other addresses mankind in terms of geologic time and prehistory.

Although “Drift” went on view before “Transparency Engine,” let’s talk about the latter exhibition first, since it consists of your earlier work. Farmers & Merchants (2012) depicts three stanchions with ropes made from mirrored borosilicate glass, which move from the floor to the wall to delineate space. Are you exploring a separation of class or identities through this work?

From the bank to the movie theater to the nightclub, and from customs to the immigration line, ropes and stanchions are a reminder of social constructs for keeping order. Class and identities definitely fall into this. The work deals with the contradictions and tensions of trying to divide the whole into parts. 

Who is controlling the stanchions—the government or the people reflected in the mirrored glass?

Neither is in full control. The ropes and stanchions are real, but only symbols of a construct that implicates our immediate environment and us. The titles of the works in this series are after banks that were bailed out by the US government during the 2008 financial crisis, further pointing to a shifting of control.

By making this form of control in glass, which is fragile, does it convey the fact that the controlling factor can be broken?

In a particular way, yes—the glass in these works is a borosilicate glass, used in laboratory glassware and instrumentation, so it is actually very resistant to extreme temperature changes and even to some physical hits. However, the smooth perfection of their surfaces can be disrupted with the right type of impact. This tension is meant to convey possibility and agency.

Death of a Party (2013) displays deconstructed elements of Farmers & Merchants on a mirrored table, like drinks on a bar. Is this piece an accumulation of fragments and test elements put to new use, or was it conceived and built this way? 

It is a composition consisting of fragments and tests, as well as components built in response to those parts. All of the elements on the stainless-steel base have also been subjected to different conditions, like temperature, chemistry and weather, resulting in the various states of decay of their silver glass surfaces.   

Equally powerful, Plexus (2013) offers a group of glass riot shields, mirrored and splattered with silver nitrate, which line the sidewalls of the gallery. Is this work representing any particular uprising or does it signify civil protest in general?

The work is about conflict in general, but played out through a symbol of civil unrest. It is about fragmentation and unification—of individuals and the state, of course—but also of the image and self, or, in psychological terms, the id and superego. The silver mirrored splatters reflect the viewer and are kind of a trap for entropy. In some ways, this conflict is compared to the artistic process. Specific uprisings have been referenced in other related works.

By making the shields reflective, are you aiming to put the viewer in the role of the protester?

The reflective surfaces form a barrier that absorbs all around it, as well as a portal that reverses space and roles. The mirrored, silver nitrate marks made in the studio reflect the viewer in the exhibition space and form a meeting point between the two. The viewer is both in front of and behind the shield.

While “Transparency Engine” addresses the power of people, “Drift” explores a force of nature—namely, the continental collision that initiated the formation of the Appalachian Mountains eons ago. How did you hit on this concept for a show?

I have been working on a few projects exploring the idea of deep time and forces beyond our control. “Drift” evolved as a result of researching subterranean landscapes that are interconnected without regard for state lines or territorial boundaries. I became interested in Cameron’s Line, a suture-like geologic fault that passes through the Aldrich Museum in Connecticut, as it runs from the Bronx to Western Vermont. I was drawn to the fact that one side of this rift is composed of almost uniform material, while the other is incredibly diverse. It’s like there’s a swirling barrier separating the two.

The show consists of a marble room with a frosted ceiling and reflective inner walls, a laser beam that flows through the museum and into the surrounding landscape, and a displaced architectural piece from the museum’s structure. How do these various elements convey the idea of what developed in the past and still lies underground?

I wanted to address the idea of time in terms of space. Displacement plays a large role in the exhibition. The walls of the marble room are made up of the four contiguous sides of a 280,000-pound cube that was extracted from a marble mine [located] a mile underground. Having begun in the mid-19th century, it took humans almost 200 years to tunnel through millions of years of metamorphic rock in the mine to get to this cube. Then it was transported 200 miles south, over the course of six hours, to exist in the museum for five months. In terms of the experience of this work, each of the elements you mention is meant to reflect a different scale of time. I think that the topographic landscape of the top of the marble room represents, and is read at, a different scale of time than the swirling horizontal strata of the rough, cut stone slabs that form the room’s exterior walls. Similarly, the mirrored, silver nitrate marble walls inside the cube, as well its frozen ceiling, make us more aware of both the immediate and fleeting.

What is the significance of the laser beam piece, Back Sight (Quarried) (2014), in connecting the museum and project to the Vermont quarry, where the marble was mined?

The line of the laser refers to the tools of land survey, which determine mapping and territory. The beam itself is only made visible by the moving particles around it; I think of it as a standard that shows the matter around it in constant motion. Its beam originates in the museum, passing through the floor, tracing its architecture and eventually exiting through a window to point back to the source of the material. It relates most directly as an unerring counterpart to the meandering line of marble and other rock the show is based upon.

The third element, Succession (Cored) (2014), displaces a section of the museum, but also involves embedding one of your earlier artworks into the infrastructure of the museum. Can you tell us more about this latter part of the project?

I wanted an older sculptural work to be combined with the architecture of the museum and thought of it as a fossil of sorts. This work, which was made in 1999, is to remain embedded in the floor for as long as the museum stands. After it was merged with the space, a cylindrical cross section was made, which consists of both the floor and sculpture. This core sample of sorts has been displaced to another part of the museum. This element of the exhibition speaks, again, to the idea of time and fragmentation.

As if this installation wasn’t already complicated, you have gone an extra mile to keep the ceiling of Marble Strata Room (2014) continuously frosted for the duration of the exhibition. What does this frozen domain symbolize?

It is frozen to the air temperature of the quarry during the time the stone was extracted, which was in the winter. It was February and minus 11 degrees Fahrenheit. The frozen ceiling of the installation runs at this temperature and absorbs the moisture from the viewer and the environment, causing it to grow continuously. As frozen breath and perspiration accumulate, the audience and space constantly change the piece and bring it to a new “present” (time) with each visitor.  

In his text for the exhibition brochure, co-curator Richard Klein mentions Robert Smithson’s 1972 essay Dialectic of Site and Nonsite as a reference point for “Drift.” Do you see the ideas as being related, and if you do, where does that leave us? 

Yes, Smithson’s piece is a reference point for “Drift.” Applying a dialectic approach to place through material is an aspect of the work; I am interested in the co-existence of contradictory content and material in a unified, though subjectively harmonious, way. In nature, matter and content are always in a state of transformation, though at different speeds and realities—process is continual and constant and things are always in a state of becoming. With “Drift,” I want to include time with regards to how the piece is experienced. Since site and non-site can be seen as being about place, as well as creating pathways that lead beyond limits, it’s interesting to think of it in terms of virtual spaces and simultaneity. I’m exploring sculptural strategies for bridging some of the gaps between perceivable and incomprehensible time.

“Transparency Engine” is on view at SCAD Hong Kong’s Moot Gallery until August 29, 2014, and “Drift” at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, is on until September 21, 2014.