ALIVE SHOES: Interview with the Artist, Jonathan Allen

After the action-packed day of bringing the shoes to life to then subsequently kill them, we headed out for a well earned meal during which time I had the opportunity to sit down for a proper chat with  ALIVE SHOES founder Luca Bottecelli, art curator (and very interesting woman--check out this cool pic of her on her website) Camilla Boemio, the artist, Jonathan Allen, over a nice big pizza at 1AM. So Jonathan, when he returned to Brooklyn, was kind enough to sit down and answer some of my lingering questions.

Rightio. Here we go.

Clothes Whisperer: Tell me a little bit about yourself as an artist, your aesthetic, creative process, etc...

Camilla interviews John about the installation for the ALIVESHOES website.

Jonathan Allen: I moved to New York when I was 18 to become an artist. I studied visual arts and art history at Columbia University, and have lived and worked here since. When I started out I was strictly a painter. Over the last few years my work has embraced collage and mixed media. I've also worked in installation, curated shows etc. I feel it's important to stay open as an an artist to these sorts of different art practices & disciplines.

The overriding intent of my work is to evoke the absurdity and poetry of what it means to be alive in 2010. This can include social and political themes/critiques, but there is an equal emphasis in my work on aesthetics and visual intricacy/beauty. I often appropriate imagery from online, advertising, media sources. I find that when people recognize imagery from their daily life, they immediately feel invited into the work. And without this visual point of entry, it's difficult to sustain or even initiate a meaningful conversation with the viewer. I want this type of engagement--it's vital.

I'm currently in residence with Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, my studio is two blocks from Wall Street! It is a surreal experience working in the financial district, at the epicenter of global finance, but it is feeding my work in a satisfying way.

CW: How did you become involved with Alive Shoes? Why did you decide to do it?

JA: I was contacted via email last fall by Camilla Boemio, a curator who works closely with Alive Shoes and recommends artists. Camilla is familiar with my work, and a terrific force on the Italian art scene. She's curating an upcoming show at the Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles.


http://www.camillaboemio.com/

The reasons I decided to participate are numerous. First, working in a creative territory that is neither strictly fashion nor art fascinated me. Second, the project works with an international group of contemporary artists, which excites me--everyone is working with the shoes differently and infusing them with their own interpretations. Third, I had traveled in Italy twice before this installation and absolutely love it; the people, culture, and cuisine are wonderful. It was the perfect setting to realize a project of this ambition. Finally, the ecological and social consciousness of Alive Shoes aligns with my own beliefs.

CW: What do you think about Alive Shoes' efforts to push the limits of what we think of as fashion and blurring the boundaries with art?

JA: I find these efforts exciting! Shoes are the ultimate common denominator of fashion. Everyone needs them and uses them daily. Art exists somewhere on the other side of the coin: there's not a clear 'usefulness' to it, it's not enjoyed daily unless you're a professional, and access to it is often restricted based on class/geographic demarcations.

Alive Shoes demolishes these boundaries in enigmatic ways. Shoes are never thought of as an artistic medium, but with this project they are. Unique site-specific art installations are never presented online in a multi-media format, but here they are. Consumers are never given the chance to purchase something that they can readily put on or enjoy as an artwork--but again, it's happening here. In its own way the project subverts and then inverts expectations of art and fashion.

CW: Essentially, what's at the heart of the crossover of disciplines as it pertains to this project?

JA: To me it boils down to the transformations ushered in by the digital age, coupled with growing social, political and environmental awareness. Every creative field, it seems, is in a profound process of reassessment and self-evaluation. Access to digital technologies is changing the face of journalism and with it ideas surrounding democracy. The music, film, and television industries have been forced to devise different distribution systems. Social networking and texting technologies are even changing how people donate money following disasters like the recent earthquake in Haiti.

Against this backdrop of collapsing boundaries, Alive Shoes is proposing a vision of how art and fashion might commingle in the digital age.

CW: Tell me a bit about the process of conceiving the installation. Did you pick the arch or was it suggested to you? Why did you decide to create what you created?

JA: From the outset I knew that I wanted to use some aspect of Roman architecture in my installation. Obviously Italy has an overwhelming art/architectural tradition, and I wanted to embrace it in a colorful, epic, yet playful way. I also knew I wanted a public dimension to the installation. To that end, I initially proposed an installation that 'filled in' the negative space of an arch or a series of archs (like those of an aqueduct) with color. The colors of the shoes are fantastic, and I wanted to emphasize this by using the shoes as paint, not as shoes. Since the Alive Shoes team (being locals) knew the region far better than I, they took my sketches and suggested a couple of specific sites. Together we settled on the Porta Pia arch.

Since so much of my collage work creates tension between disparate imagery, I felt the bright colors of the shoes contrasting with the austerity of an ancient Roman arch was a good match. Calling attention to the new and the old generated (I hope) a captivating friction. Also, using a simple formal element (stripes) to work with created an order that connected with the imposing order of the arch architecture.

CW: What was the process like: working with shoes, such a grand scale, and so on. What were the unexpected challenges?

JA: Although I'd seen photographs of the shoes before arriving for installation, when I saw them in person I was struck by their appealing simplicity. At their root they are sneakers, yet they have a streamlined, inviting, pop quality. The colors are colors everyone knows. To me this elemental quality of the shoe design conjures associations with famous consumer product designs like the Ipod or the Volkswagen beetle.

Working at the scale of architecture was extremely challenging. To their credit, the Alive Shoes production team told me they would execute whatever my vision was. There were no limits. When I sketched my idea for the project, I did so with no real sense of how complex it would be to execute!

Preparation for installation took several days. The 'stripes' were actually painted and fabric-covered wood, ripped to a uniform width. Since the shoes all have my sketch in them, and are being sold online as an edition, we couldn't alter or damage them. This posed a challenge, so we devised a way of lashing them to the boards. We also experimented with a number of 'stacking' techniques. We chose the one we did because the shoes interlocked nicely and it revealed the most color. We also decided to use some soles to vary the appearance of stripes between one another.

The morning of installation a team of ten of us packed the truck with the stripes dissassembled, and traveled to the site. The first step was assembling the wooden support structure that actually held the stripes of shoes up. After this was done, the stripes of shoes were carefully aligned and fastened. The most time-consuming and exhausting part of the installation was raising the eleven 10 meter sections vertically! This took a team of six slowly hoisting the stripes up, which were received by two workers in genie trucks who connected each stripe to the support structure. Finally, we lit the installation with flood lights, as night fell.

Joanna, Jonathan and Luca (left to right

CW:  The installation came down as soon as it went up, was this a fundamental part of the project or more due to logistics?

AJ: This is a fundamental part of the project. Most art installations are conceived as limited engagements, and defined by logistics and time/spatial constraints. Their life is constrained to the length of the exhibition or the size of the gallery etc..

In the case of Alive Shoes, the installation is designed to be heavily documented. This visual documentation--the interface of the physical installation with ephemeral time-based media like video and photography--forms the basis of how the work thrives. Video and photography, in the age of the jpeg and the mpeg, is precisely the modus operandi of our digital age. Like it or not, most art is experienced online in the form of reproduction. Here, the installation is actually conceived with that fact in mind. This makes it especially apt for the internet, and puts it in a unique place: the artwork lives online, ostensibly forever. And online is the most open, interconnected means of communication. What better way to experience a site-specific art installation than one whose very conception/execution fits the contours of the online experience?


Jonathan will be back in Italy this fall. He'll be showing a new selection of mixed-media works on canvas at Galeria Monocromo in Rome.  Be sure to check out his website! http://www.jonathanallen.org/