Courtesy of Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
Dominic Molon is a blast. The Contemporary Art Museum’s successor to Anthony Huberman is not only responsible for the massive monsters-of-art-and-rock exhibition, Sympathy For The Devil, he’s also a fan of Steve Barman’s 2003 Wrigley Field “performance.” Formerly curator at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, he possesses all of the essential qualities St. Louis cultural connoisseurs hold dear: the value of sport (Molon’s a White Sox fan and regularly raves about Association Football), working-class heritage (before he curated shows at the MCA, he was one of their security guards), and exposure to alternative media (Molon’s spent considerable time in Chicago’s Wax Trax record store and attending their industrial music events). We spoke a bit at the Contemporary’s after-party for Richard Artschwager and Elad Lassry (geeked out mostly on Chicago music trivia… Paul Ha came over to where we were sitting, and I tried to start a nerd fight about Minor Threat guitarist Lyle Preslar’s time in Chicago), and I sent him some questions via e-mail a bit later. I don’t know what his first CAMSTL exhibition is going to be, but I can guarantee we won’t be disappointed.
William Gass: I don't remember if we talked about this at Brennan’s after the Artschwager/Lassry opening, but for many careering culture producers in St. Louis, Chicago is a considerable and logical next step. You, however, are doing things, as they say, backwards, no? Chicago has a considerably larger art-buying community than anything in St. Louis. You are coming into a town where there are probably about 15 individuals doing the most interesting programming for visual culture. We’re small potatoes, but we’re not Cleveland. What are your expectations of the cultural community here?
Dominic Molon: I’ll confess to being a huge Gordon Ramsay fan—both Hell’s Kitchen and especially Kitchen Nightmares. One of the simple lessons he drives home with many a failing restaurateur on the latter show is how much more effective and impactful a smaller and more focused menu can be rather than remaining slavishly devoted to trying to appease so many different tastes. The most exciting aspect of St. Louis and its cultural scene is the fact that the more modest scale puts the great things being done here in much sharper relief! My expectations are to join a small but very worldly and intelligent community in doing thoughtful and challenging programming that connects the city to the broader art world while still connecting with the local constituency.
WG: It may only be known to a few in St. Louis, but Anthony Huberman was largely responsible for establishing WPS1 Art Radio prior to his tenure as Chief Curator at CAMSTL. Do you have any similar or unique proposals for utilizing education/community outreach/merchandising programs within the scope of your curatorial interests? Will we be seeing CAMSTL’s first LP as exhibition catalogue?
DM: I’d like to get a better sense of who the audience is here in St. Louis, what kind of information they need from us, and then proceed to develop various forms of communicating with them in ways that are effective but also hopefully innovative and novel. It has to be organic and grow out of the necessity of either the program or how our audience is most advantageously receiving information. If the dynamics of an exhibition demand that an LP or a podcast or a ’zine is the right fit as the catalogue, I think CAMSTL, more than many other institutions in the country at the moment, has the flexibility and confidence to do what’s absolutely right for the show.
WG: The MCA and CAMSTL are vastly different institutions… it’s almost pointless to compare the strengths of each; however, one of the most prominent differences is that the MCA is a collecting institution and CAMSTL is not. Can you give us some insight into the pressures associated with thematically presenting (preening and/or pruning, perhaps?) an institution's collected work? Is it more of a chore as opposed to working on exhibitions that aren't dependent upon the institutional collection (logistically speaking, shows involving works coming from all corners of the world would be more stressful, yet perhaps more rewarding)?
DM: The greatest benefit of a collection is that it provides the strongest possible identity for an institution through the art that is central to its mission. It is how the public comes to understand what that museum’s focus is and what its values are. Building a collection is of great importance to a curator in establishing that institution’s identity both present and future; in enhancing the collection that her or his predecessors built in meaningful ways; and in developing the history of art by working with the collection to continue telling that story. I’d say the greatest challenges of working with a collection at the MCA were the limitations one would encounter with many of the works that one wanted to show. While in theory, the collection seems to be always “at the ready” to be selected from and installed in the galleries, the complex nature of many works of contemporary art make that prospect much more complicated (and expensive) than simply hanging a drawing or a painting. I think the great challenge of an institution like CAM that does not have a collection is to develop an identity through programs that are always changing, always impermanent. It therefore becomes an issue of providing consistency in the level and nature of the exhibitions the public can expect to see at the museum, maintaining those standards, and finding ways to allow the program to become even more relevant to a broader cross-section of the institution’s potential and actual audience.
WG: In general, what do you think about regional contemporary art museums exhibiting the work of local artists from their area? Regarding local outreach programs for current art in St. Louis, the Contemporary has the Pierogi Gallery, modeled Flat Files, the annual Open Studios weekend, and the Great Rivers Biennial. Do you feel a professional necessity to go beyond these resources to highlight St. Louis local talent? I ask, because I'm mildly curious about the Chicago climate of local artists and their demands of their major contemporary art institution, the MCA. My personal experiences at the Contemporary were that local artists had unrealistic demands of the museum. Also, I feel that any contemporary art museum’s first priority should be programming that is compelling globally, regardless of whether or not such forceful work may be found under one's nose.
DM: I agree that the primary responsibility of a city’s contemporary art museum is to bring the most compelling art being made around the world to that city. That said, it’s important that the museum remember that its home city is part of that world too and to pay close attention to what artists based in the city are doing. Chicago’s artist community has been very demanding of its institutions for many years, and that made the MCA such an exciting place to be. While I think it’s fantastic that artists have expectations of the cultural institutions, there’s also the understanding that we have expectations of the artists as well. Just as we strive to keep St. Louis up to date with what’s going on nationally and internationally (through travel, through correspondence with colleagues abroad, and through periodicals and other research), we hope that the artist community here will similarly see itself in relationship to the larger scope of what’s going on in the world of contemporary art. I do feel that the Front Room, Flat Files, Open Studios, and the Biennial are quite substantial ways that the institution makes itself available as a resource to perhaps its most important audience. I’m sure there are opportunities to do more, but I’d be most interested in seeing how the global and local can be elegantly and productively intertwined rather than seen as mutually exclusive in terms of programs and the like.
WG: Regarding some of your initial feelings toward the Contemporary’s exhibition opportunities, are you planning on more major group shows à la Sympathy For The Devil in St. Louis? Will we see a continuation of the “Artist Pairings” strategy pioneered by Huberman, or perhaps you have plans of forging a new path entirely?
DM: I’m still recovering from the major group show I closed in late May at the MCA about the artist’s studio, Production Site, but I do think it’s critical for CAMSTL to bring this kind of exhibition to its public on as regular a basis as possible. I think it’s what defines the museum in relationship to the other cultural institutions devoted to the visual arts in the city. I want to do exhibitions that have my own imprint while encouraging my colleague, Associate Curator Laura Fried, to continue doing great shows in her own curatorial voice. I also wish to continue building on the extraordinary work that Anthony has done, particularly in working with Paul Ha and Laura to realize the building’s strengths and potential. The current exhibition pairing of Richard Artschwager and Elad Lassry is not only phenomenal in terms of the quality of the individual parts, but also in the intelligent and sophisticated relationship between the two shows. They hold the space in such a remarkable way that it more than recommends finding ways to extend this idea into the future.
WG: One thing that will be staying and growing as well is the Front Room. Previous installations have included projects by local art collectives and curators, a weekend seminar on circuit-bending provided by Jessica Rylan and the MIT Center for Visual Arts, a Korean and German dinner in addition to a musical serenade during a teeth cleaning courtesy of Machine Project, oh, and Tris Vonna-Michell “rapping.” The space is incredibly eclectic, and nothing like it exists in St. Louis. What are you hoping to bring to this project?
DM: Not much like it exists elsewhere either! I’d like to work with Laura to keep the Front Room’s eclectic, flexible, and unexpected nature intact and to continue to find ways of bringing “gravitas” to the space by incorporating historical work. I’d really like to explore how to make the programs in this space play interestingly off of the larger exhibitions—drawing out particular themes, providing a deeper dive into some aspect of the show, or even forming a sort of argumentative counterpoint of sorts.
WG: Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I think I remember reading an interview of yours, in which you stated that you didn't care much for political art that was purely pedantic. To elucidate, I’m visualizing an art that talks a good, aesthetically impressive game inside of the white cube, yet lacks any real-world revolutionary application whatsoever. Do you think it's possible for real political/social action to have a visually stimulating element? I'm thinking of the work of Michael Rakowitz and Nato Thompson's The Interventionists show.
DM: It might have been the opposite (and it’s a position I’d probably drastically reconsider) in the sense that I found the realpolitik work a bit wanting, and that work that held up aesthetically AND had a point to make politically was what I felt was the more valid approach. I’ve begun to wonder in recent years whether the opposite isn’t true. I’ve come to have a great respect for Nato’s work—partially because he’s so committed to it, partially because it’s the kind of work that I could never do, and partially because art seems to be one of the last areas within in our culture for expression that must continually justify its own existence, develop novel ways of addressing the audience, and pose questions about why things are the way they are. I don’t think I feel quite as strongly that art needs to be art and politics but I do want political work to be more than a wan aesthetic gesture. I think it works best when it’s able to infiltrate structures of power and not necessarily subvert them but at least reveal how they work or make us less immune to their effectiveness.
Dominic was also kind enough to indulge some of my prods for nonsensical information and attempts at a Proust questionnaire.
Pitching an STL-CHI idea here: split 7-inches, with a Chicagoan on the B-side and a St. Louisan on the flip. Wouldn't it be great to see a Juan William Chavez/Juan Angel Chavez collaboration?
Well … I’ve got to become more well-versed in sonic St. Louis to properly answer the question, but your proposal to put Chicago on the B-SIDE is a good start ;)
Who would win in a fight: Rowley Kennerk or Matt Strauss? [Kennerk is a burgeoning Chicago gallerist, whose eponymously-named gallery represents Gaylen Gerber, a previous White Flag Projects artist. Their spaces are similar in interests and age – ed.]
Rowley seems to have an advantage in reach, but is so sweet-tempered I can’t imagine him ever being in a fight with anyone.
Please list 5 legendary shows you witnessed in Chicago between 1985 and 1995. Sonic and visual culture.
1.) Anselm Kiefer at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1988. It pains me to admit that the neo-expressionist painter provided the inspiration for me to pursue a museum career, but the installation was really quite phenomenal.
2.) My Bloody Valentine—The Vic—198 … well, probably their "Loveless" tour. I regrettably missed their double-bill with Dinosaur Jr. a year or so later (I got stuck with a decent, if uninspired, Buffalo Tom opening set) but what M.B.V. show ISN’T legendary?
3.) Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1992. A traveling show from the Menil but a curatorial master-class from Walter Hopps regardless.
4.) Ron Athey performance, Lawrence “Larry” Steger’s garage, probably 1995. I was working on a show of Chicago performance, film, video, and sound for the MCA at the time which is the only reason I’d have been invited to be one of 20 or so people in a garage to see Athey’s extreme and politically-intense gestures of physical endurance and manipulation. Sadly, the gifted and generous performance artist Steger, who hosted the event, passed away in 1999.
5.) Revolting Cocks—then Cabaret Metro—1987—memorialized on their double-live You Goddamned Son of a Bitch album. I’d forgotten, but Metro proprietor Joe Shanahan recounted how Al Jourgensen sent what he thought was his $10,000 fee blowing into the audience (it was mostly singles, actually.) Nonetheless, the show was intense, insane, over-the-top … Gosh, I kinda miss Wax Trax!
