Short Answer Sunday: Geoffrey Aldridge-Duncan

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Geoffrey Aldridge-Duncan is an artist who employs the tension of opposites in his work, chromatic ones, but also those of value, surface, and material. I’m head over heels for his recent sculptures, assortments of paring knives and structural I-beams that are constructed from porcelain, stoneware and colored glazes. These interpretations of common, utilitarian objects still carry symbolic resonance; however, any expectation of actual functionality is undermined by the surprising material switcheroo.

With shifting, sensitive surfaces that retain traces of the making process, I find Geoffrey’s I-beam sculptures particularly captivating. No longer capable of bearing weight (even the weight of my expectations), they become objects open to new interpretations. Rectangular colored glazes wrap around edges and corners, disturbing the physical shape with optical interruptions that flatten and distort the form (color power in action). I’m thinking, too, of the way Ali Smith writes about edges in her book Artful (excellent read recommended by recent S.A.S. subject Barbara Weissberger) as places of transgression, borders to cross over, and thresholds of forbidden magic. Finally, chef’s kiss to the whole installation of Geoffrey’s recent solo Heavy Load at Wagner College, esp. the pairing of the ceramic sculptures with plywood pedestals. I really wish I could have seen it in person.

Geoffrey is a grad school friend so that means I’ve been following his work for just about 20 years now. I found Geoffrey’s opinions incredibly insightful in school and I love how he speaks and writes about his work now (yes please to thinking about color as an argument) so go see more on his website and follow him on Instagram. Geoffrey never ceases to amaze and inspire so I know you’re going to love his Short Answer Sunday.
xo, Lauren

 

Name: Geoffrey Aldridge-Duncan
Occupation: Artist
Astrological data: Sun is Taurus, Moon is Scorpio and Rising is Virgo. Year of the rabbit
Hometown: Paxton, IL
Current location: New York

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Visiting galleries, alternative spaces, art fairs, museums

An artwork that makes you laugh?

Oops, Laurel Nakadate

Laurel Nakadate: ‘Oops!,’ 2000, 3-channel SD video installation, color, sound 3:42 min, video still; image source

An artwork that makes you cry?

Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Most underrated artist?

Most of us

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

Farnsworth House, Mies van der Rohe

Farnsworth House by Mies Van Der Rohe; image source

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

Anne Truitt

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

Any Monet Painting

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

how it engages the body

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

Yes: ✅

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

A guilty pleasure would be figurative paintings from the late ‘90’s/early aughts.

Most insane art piece?

White Snow, Paul McCarthy (insane in a good way) installation at Park Ave. Armory in 2013

Paul McCarthy, WS, 2013, mixed media. Installation view. Photo: James Ewing; image source

Fav monograph or art book?

Agnes Martin, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Anne Truitt, Tracey Emin…so many

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

Mrs., James Cohen, Theta, Alexander Gray, Matthew Marks

Last exhibition you saw irl?

Helen Frankenthaler at Gagosian

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Any of the Sinks from Robert Gober

Robert Gober, selected works from The Heart is Not a Metaphor, The Museum of Modern Art, October 4, 2014–January 18, 2015; image source

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Making my own slip and coloring it.

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

The Daily, NY Times

What’s a book that changed your life?

Moby Dick

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

The Grid Book, by Hannah B Higgins

❤

Geoffrey Aldridge-Duncan lives and works in NYC.

For more about Geoffrey’s work, go to his website and follow him on Instagram.

Short Answer Sunday: Darien Arikoski-Johnson

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

I write a lot like I paint, which is heavy on the cutting, pasting, rearranging, tearing away, and covering up. It’s a lot of editing, really, and I’m drawn to other artists and art forms that involve working in this way. Maybe it’s the use of destruction to access something new and different? Maybe it’s my obsession with fragments and scraps of all sorts? Regardless, it makes a lot of sense that I’m into Darien Arikoski-Johnson’s ceramic work as he is also interested in pieces, arrangements and destruction as a means of creation (watch this Instagram video). 

I met Darien when we both lived in Detroit (my husband’s hometown) and now that he lives in Atlanta (my hometown), I thought it would be especially cool to check in with him. My instincts paid off because I love the perspective Darien offers in this Short Answer Sunday. For more about Darien and his work, head on over to his gallery’s website and follow him on Instagram.
xo, Lauren

Name: Darien Arikoski-Johnson
Occupation: Associate Professor/Artist
Astrological data: Aries
Hometown: Hibbing, MN
Current location: Atlanta, GA

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Honestly, not a lot of time is spent searching for other artists. but I enjoy the occasional interview/video on Art 21 or the Louisiana Channel

An artwork that makes you cry?

I can’t think of a time I’ve actually cried while viewing art, but the closest emotional experience I can remember was in a small gallery at the Walker in MN. It was a Sol Lewitt exhibition. Can’t remember the name of the piece but it was lines on paper. The horizontal line drawings by individuals one under the next in the middle of each paper. If my recollection is correct, I was by myself at the time and entering an intimate gallery surrounded by the subtle evidence of a group of people stirred an unexpected emotional response that was close to tears. It’s a strong piece, and surprising that a group of simple lines could evoke such an emotion.

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

I realize this is looking for something more fantastic but the honest thing that comes up is actually possible and it would be the Pantheon.

The interior of the Pantheon, Rome, Italy
Image Source

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

I tend not to dwell on the work of others, my own work has me perplexed enough.

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

Work that balances tactile knowledge and abstract ideation well. While I don’t have an underrated artist to point out, I do think material fluency is often underrated, or maybe the issue is that it’s often polarizing.

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

Yes: ✅

What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?

At this point that’s impossible to say. Placing anything in the right context identifies it as art. There’s olfactory work that doesn’t “look” like art as it doesn’t look like anything. Pull the banana off the wall and it stops looking like art. assemble some trash in a gallery and it looks like art. Everything and Nothing looks like art.

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

The idea that I would feel guilty for liking an artwork is a little absurd to me. There is some amount of subjectivity in this arena and if somebody disagrees with my taste that’s their prerogative but not my concern... When thinking of things I like that some portion of the art world has turned away from Klimt comes to mind. One would need to see his paintings in person to fully appreciate how well he could articulate subtleties of the body and portraiture.

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Fritza Riedler, 1906, oil on canvas, 153 cm × 133 cm
Image Source

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

it’s not much of a secret to those who know me, but approximately 90 to 95% of what is being produced I’m either indifferent to or strongly dislike.

Most insane art piece?

hard to label a “most” but it would probably be pulled out of the performance art movement in the 60’s 70’s. Chris Burden’s Shoot comes to mind. Yayoi Kusama comes to mind as somebody who uses more traditional media.

Chris Burden, film still from Shoot, 1971, performance/video
Image Source

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

Hard to play favorites locally after having lived in Copenhagen for three years. My favorite in Denmark was Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, they have an amazing location and great shows. The layout to get lost in also created a fun experience.

It’s not to say there isn’t good work being shown in Atlanta, There is. My current routine doesn’t involve much going out and as such I can’t point to a favorite.

Last exhibition you saw irl?

Chelsea galleries a few months ago on a NYC excursion. not sure which was the last one I saw.

An artwork that you’d like to see before you die?

It doesn’t exist yet, or I’d stop making things.

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Clay

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

Prob some finance podcast or a 90’s alt or punk station on Prime.

What’s a book that changed your life?

It’s probably the case that all new information/interaction changes ones life to some degree and as such all the books have done that. There’s not one particular that I feel drastically changed my trajectory.

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

Lex Fridman does a good job of digging at information.

❤

Darien Arikoski-Johnson’s work is recognized internationally through awarded grants, exhibitions, and residencies. In 2012 he was awarded the Emerging Artist Award through NCECA, he has received multiple grants including one from the Danish Cultural Ministry to complete a residency and exhibition opportunity through C.R.E.T.A. Rome. A-Johnson’s work was awarded the Gold Prize in the Korean International Ceramics Biennale 2021 and in 2023 his work was featured in the 62nd Faenza Prize – International Competition of Contemporary Art Ceramics. A-Johnson resides in Atlanta, Georgia and is an Associate Professor at Georgia State University. His work is represented by Alan Avery Art Company.

For more about Darien Arikoski-Johnson, find him at Alan Avery Art or on Instagram.

Short Answer Sunday: Rachel de Joode

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, arts professionals, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

I have been a Rachel de Joode fan for nearly a decade now (the 2017 Myths of the Marble show at the ICA in Philly was my hook). If you are not yet familiar with Rachel de Joode’s work, I implore you to stop reading immediately and visit her website right away. Her work is featured in survey texts like Phaidon’s Vitamin C (Clay & Ceramic in Contemporary Art) and Photography is Magic. If you are a fellow de Joode-head, then please pat yourself on the back and do a congratulatory little dance. You know what I know, Rachel de Joode’s work is a force.

There are certain songs that I can’t listen to without dancing. It doesn’t matter where I am, what I am doing or who I am with, I will absolutely start to dance if you play these songs around me (thankfully only one or two other people know the power of this music over me—it is a powerful tool and should be used only for good). I bring this up because Rachel’s work is also like this for me. When I see it, I want to move. Maybe I digress, but sometimes I think that the response to contemporary art should not be to write intelligibly or to think rationally about it, but to follow it where it leads us. To let it move us.

Perhaps it is my god-shaped-hole talking, but I do look for spiritual experiences in works of art. Not every art object has it—but Rachel’s work does. I expect that it lives within the tension of the materials themselves, in the strange oppositions and mergers of color, shape, and form. These supply the messages that speak to me the most. Her nuanced use of color, light and shadow is unexpected, as is the surprising, subversive quality of her materials (clay as image and photography as object? yes, please). There is also often really fun slippage between the screen-based and the physical worlds (are they even separate places?? As time progresses, it feels harder to distinguish). Her sculptures are made by the body and speak of the body (the sloppy, fragile, disgusting gorgeousness of it all). While clay and paint are often used as metaphors for the body and it’s output, there’s something that strikes me as new and different here—an awareness of our physical forms as perceptual systems that have both allowances and terms (that can be manipulated). But whatever it is, it’s bigger than what I have the capacity to sum up, and that is something that I look for in a work of art.

Sending a giant thank you to Rachel de Joode for participating in this project! I know you will enjoy her Short Answer Sunday.

xo, Lauren

Name: Rachel de Joode
Occupation: Artist
Astrological data: Sun in Cancer, Moon in Taurus, Rising Sign (Ascendant): likely Virgo (late Leo into Virgo)
Hometown: Amersfoort, NL
Current location: Berlin, DE

An artwork that makes you laugh?

 

Can't say which but Sarah Lucas comes to mind. Or Mika Rottenberg.

 

An artwork that makes you cry?

 

The Kiss by Rodin

 

Image Source

Most underrated artist?

 

Jacoba van Heemskerck, Camille Claudel, Claude Cahun, Hannah Wilke, Hannah Höch

 

An artwork that you'd like to live inside for a week?

 

Inside a movie of Mika Rottenberg

 

An artist whose work you can't stop thinking about?

 

Duchamp

 

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

 

Vincent van Gogh's letters to his brother

 

What's your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

 

Surprise and layers of meaning

 

Erotic artwork? (editor's note: this is a multiple choice question)

 

Other: sometimes

 

What's an artwork that doesn't look like art?

Nature

  

What's an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn't like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

 

There's nothing one shouldn't like there are no rules about liking

 

What's an artwork that you secretly hate?

Too many to answer here

 

Fav monograph or art book?

I look a lot at Laura Owens' monograph

 

Fav museum or gallery in your current city?

Neue Nationalgalerie (the building)

 

Source: A.Savin, Wikipedia

Last exhibition you saw irl?

Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst at KW

 

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Basically all art materials!

 

What's a book that changed your life?

Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things by Jane Bennett

❤

Rachel de Joode (b. 1979, Amersfoort, NL) is a Dutch-born, Berlin-based artist working across photography, sculpture, and installation. Her work explores the relationship between images and objects in the digital era, treating photography not as representation but as material. Printed images are cut, folded, layered, and assembled into spatial structures in which surface, edge, and support become central elements. De Joode’s work investigates how images behave once they enter physical space. Photographs are materialized into sculptural forms and often re-photographed, creating a feedback loop between image and object. Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Oslo), ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Museum Prinsenhof Delft, and Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen. She is represented by Galerie Christophe Gaillard (Paris) and Annka Kultys Gallery (London). Alongside her studio practice, de Joode is active as an educator. She teaches in the MA Photography program at the École cantonale d'art de Lausanne (ECAL), where she leads the course Materialized Photography.

For more information about Rachel de Joode, take a look at her website and follow her on Instagram!