Infinite Regress Mirror Image: Barbara Bloom speaks with Evan Moffitt - Capitain Petzel
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Mirror Image: Barbara Bloom speaks with Evan Moffitt
about intimacy, self-reflection and moving between dimensions
Infinite Regress
EVAN MOFFITT Mirrors recur through- BB I’m interested in worlds psychological sense of your having
out your work. What interests you within worlds, references within such an intimate relationship with an
about them? references – Charlie Kaufman, Jorge artwork that you could make it blush
BARBARA BLOOM I’m constantly Luis Borges. The first artists who by looking at it.
working in both two and three dimen- interested me were those making EM Did that inspire The Reign
sions, back and forth. Mirrors are phenomenological work about of Narcissism [1989], your installation
two-dimensional objects, but they the nature of seeing, like Robert Envy, 1987/2018. of a period museum dedicated to
reflect the third dimension. When Irwin and Eric Orr. When you look All images people – yourself included – looking
courtesy: the artist
a person looks at a mirror in an art- at Irwin’s dot paintings and then and David Lewis at themselves?
work, they see themselves looking at look away, they leave an afterimage. Gallery, New York BB I set out to make something
the work. I’m trying to call awareness I remember reading Lawrence cringingly embarrassing after The
to the active sense of looking. Weschler’s description of painting Gaze [1986], in which viewers lifted up
EM Is your understanding of as ‘blushing’ in Seeing Is Forgetting curtains to look at images. There was
active looking informed by mod- the Name of the Thing One Sees [1982] something very intimate and prurient
ernism, which centres on the way and thinking: ‘My God, that’s what about that. In the mid-to-late 1980s,
artworks situate the viewer? I want to do!’ But I meant it in the I started thinking about artists who
frieze No. 216 29 January/February 2021
BB I try to make beautiful
things that include some element
of confusion. The artist David Salle
once described me as a cruel hostess:
I make people feel comfortable, but
then I do all kinds of destabilizing
things to them. This is also true of
surrealism and the novels of Haruki
Murakami; the membrane between
parallel realities is so porous.
Right EM The Rendering (HxWxD), your
The Rendering 2018 installation at the Allen Memorial
(HxWxD), 2018
Art Museum in Oberlin, didn’t incor-
Below porate any actual mirrors, but you
The Reign of treated artworks from the museum’s
Narcissism, 1989
collection like mirrors, because the
two-dimensional depictions of archi-
tecture within them were projected Right
sculpturally into the gallery. Vanity, 2017
BB I made that work in response Below
to the museum’s 1977 extension, which Vanity (detail),
was designed by Robert Venturi. It’s 2017
the most ridiculous, ego-driven
Architecture with a capital A. The col-
lection contains a number of works
dealing with architecture: for instance,
a beautiful 19th-century Indian print
of a garden rendered in an impos-
sibly complicated two dimensions.
I wondered what would happen if these
images of architectural space reverse-
I want you to have such an intimate relationship with
rendered themselves off the wall and
into the space. In a way, this is the oppo-
an artwork that you could make it blush by looking at it.
site of a mirror, which renders a three-
dimensional object in two dimensions.
EM Venturi’s building seems
Barbara Bloom reverse-rendered. It looks much better
on paper.
BB It does!
EM Can you tell me about your
project for the Liberace Mansion
BB The Eve Arnold photograph
were known for their runaway egos, in Las Vegas? or Los Angeles, so the current owners
of Crawford that I used in Vanity is
and I had just been to Italy, where BB As Dave Hickey wrote in of his Las Vegas house have been
a depiction of what it means to concen-
I’d seen cameo portraits, which I loved. Liberace: A Rhinestone as Big as the Ritz buying stuff that looks like it belongs
trate on something. Crawford has her
EM You made The Reign of [2005]: ‘Bad taste is real taste, and good there. Now, it’s a simulacrum of
hand on her head, and she’s looking in
Narcissism at the tail-end of a decade taste is the residue of someone else’s Liberace’s taste.
a compact mirror. That’s the crux of the
dominated, in the US, by a celebrity privilege.’ Las Vegas seemed like the I discovered that there had been
photograph. It’s like Auguste Rodin’s
huckster president. It seems like perfect place to think about that. Most a piano-shaped pool in the backyard.
The Thinker [1880], with his fist on his
a critical reflection on a cultural of Liberace’s original possessions are The area now houses an events space
chin. I used a vanity mirror as a framing
moment that has now returned in in his former homes in Palm Springs featuring a copy of Liberace’s mir-
device, working again with two and
full force. rored piano. I thought if I put three
three dimensions: the sculptural and
BB Yes, absolutely – although no black baby grand pianos behind this
the flat surface. These works are primers
one could have predicted the infinite star piano, like backup singers, they’d
on how I read an image •
regress of where we were headed. stand in for all the famous Las Vegas
I don’t think I could make that work acts, like Gladys Knight & The Pips or
now, because I wouldn’t feel comfort- Smokey Robinson & The Miracles.
able reproducing its level of irony. EM Behind the candelabra, as it
I still find it haute creepy. were. You’ve used mirrors and images Evan Moffitt is senior editor of frieze. He lives
in New York, USA.
EM Oftentimes, when you use of celebrities in other recent works,
mirrors, they’re partially occluded like Joan Crawford in Vanity [2017]. Barbara Bloom is an artist. In 2020, she had
or pitched at odd angles, bringing Does the mirror in that work flatten a solo show at Capitain Petzel, Berlin, Germany.
She is currently working on a book and
a degree of instability to the spaces the star into a sign, or does it offer us exhibition in collaboration with Ben Lerner.
in which they’re installed. a greater sense of her vulnerability? She lives in New York, USA.
frieze No. 216 30 January/February 2021 frieze No. 216 31 January/February 2021
BB I try to make beautiful
things that include some element
of confusion. The artist David Salle
once described me as a cruel hostess:
I make people feel comfortable, but
then I do all kinds of destabilizing
things to them. This is also true of
surrealism and the novels of Haruki
Murakami; the membrane between
parallel realities is so porous.
Right EM The Rendering (HxWxD), your
The Rendering 2018 installation at the Allen Memorial
(HxWxD), 2018
Art Museum in Oberlin, didn’t incor-
Below porate any actual mirrors, but you
The Reign of treated artworks from the museum’s
Narcissism, 1989
collection like mirrors, because the
two-dimensional depictions of archi-
tecture within them were projected Right
sculpturally into the gallery. Vanity, 2017
BB I made that work in response Below
to the museum’s 1977 extension, which Vanity (detail),
was designed by Robert Venturi. It’s 2017
the most ridiculous, ego-driven
Architecture with a capital A. The col-
lection contains a number of works
dealing with architecture: for instance,
a beautiful 19th-century Indian print
of a garden rendered in an impos-
sibly complicated two dimensions.
I wondered what would happen if these
images of architectural space reverse-
I want you to have such an intimate relationship with
rendered themselves off the wall and
into the space. In a way, this is the oppo-
an artwork that you could make it blush by looking at it.
site of a mirror, which renders a three-
dimensional object in two dimensions.
EM Venturi’s building seems
Barbara Bloom reverse-rendered. It looks much better
on paper.
BB It does!
EM Can you tell me about your
project for the Liberace Mansion
BB The Eve Arnold photograph
were known for their runaway egos, in Las Vegas? or Los Angeles, so the current owners
of Crawford that I used in Vanity is
and I had just been to Italy, where BB As Dave Hickey wrote in of his Las Vegas house have been
a depiction of what it means to concen-
I’d seen cameo portraits, which I loved. Liberace: A Rhinestone as Big as the Ritz buying stuff that looks like it belongs
trate on something. Crawford has her
EM You made The Reign of [2005]: ‘Bad taste is real taste, and good there. Now, it’s a simulacrum of
hand on her head, and she’s looking in
Narcissism at the tail-end of a decade taste is the residue of someone else’s Liberace’s taste.
a compact mirror. That’s the crux of the
dominated, in the US, by a celebrity privilege.’ Las Vegas seemed like the I discovered that there had been
photograph. It’s like Auguste Rodin’s
huckster president. It seems like perfect place to think about that. Most a piano-shaped pool in the backyard.
The Thinker [1880], with his fist on his
a critical reflection on a cultural of Liberace’s original possessions are The area now houses an events space
chin. I used a vanity mirror as a framing
moment that has now returned in in his former homes in Palm Springs featuring a copy of Liberace’s mir-
device, working again with two and
full force. rored piano. I thought if I put three
three dimensions: the sculptural and
BB Yes, absolutely – although no black baby grand pianos behind this
the flat surface. These works are primers
one could have predicted the infinite star piano, like backup singers, they’d
on how I read an image •
regress of where we were headed. stand in for all the famous Las Vegas
I don’t think I could make that work acts, like Gladys Knight & The Pips or
now, because I wouldn’t feel comfort- Smokey Robinson & The Miracles.
able reproducing its level of irony. EM Behind the candelabra, as it
I still find it haute creepy. were. You’ve used mirrors and images Evan Moffitt is senior editor of frieze. He lives
in New York, USA.
EM Oftentimes, when you use of celebrities in other recent works,
mirrors, they’re partially occluded like Joan Crawford in Vanity [2017]. Barbara Bloom is an artist. In 2020, she had
or pitched at odd angles, bringing Does the mirror in that work flatten a solo show at Capitain Petzel, Berlin, Germany.
She is currently working on a book and
a degree of instability to the spaces the star into a sign, or does it offer us exhibition in collaboration with Ben Lerner.
in which they’re installed. a greater sense of her vulnerability? She lives in New York, USA.
frieze No. 216 30 January/February 2021 frieze No. 216 31 January/February 2021
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