Artists and Artwashing: A Conversation with Jess Thalmann
Jess Thalmann is busy these days. Her solo show, an endless, formless ruin, has just come down at Angell Gallery, as has her participatory installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto. She has also hosted workshops teaching her signature style throughout the month of May.
I’m drawn to her work for its aesthetic qualities and use of cameras, printers and bone folders — the most quaint of tools for scoring and creasing, mostly owned by bookbinding enthusiasts. Coming from a graphic design background, I appreciate her choice of materials. I also enjoy her conceptual approach, physically and metaphorically folding the past into the present as a way to process histories. It’s been less than a year since I joined the Akin studio programme at MOCA Toronto but my nascent artistic practice has benefitted massively from the opportunity to learn from the likes of Thalmann.
Given her accomplishments, it should surprise nobody that she was recently mentioned in Canadian Art. What may be more surprising is the context. Tak Pham’s article, From Affordability to Artwashing: An Inquiry, looks at the issue of “artwashing” — the idea that powerful organisations co-opt art to put on a friendly face, even as they act against public interests. Through the lens of Westbank’s forthcoming development on the former site of Honest Ed’s, Pham explores art’s relationship to gentrification. Thalmann was commissioned Alongside Naomi Moyer to create artwork for the site’s hoardings — the temporary fencing installed for safety and security. The author mentions both artists in the article, writing that their work “could be seen as lip-service to the developer”.
As we think about power in the context of making things, I have summarised a series of back-and-forth messages with Thalmann.
What’s your take on the concept of artwashing? In a broader sense, what is your view on art patronage, both in contemporary and historical terms?
With the proliferation of major festivals being sponsored by banks and large corporations, I had honestly thought we had moved past this kind of dialogue 10 years ago. Haven’t we as a culture come to the understanding that branded festivals and sponsored exhibitions are a necessary means to access funding, space and permits?
However, Pham’s inquiry is imperative. That article is a reminder of how we need to think critically about what is being presented and investigate which communities and peoples are being left out or hidden. I think “artwashing” can exist. But isn’t there a major difference in the power imbalance between an emerging artist like myself and Bjarke Ingels or Stan Douglas?
Recently, even Stephen Andrews recently discussed some of the thorny issues that arise with public art commissions and real estate developers in “When Your Art is in the Trump Tower” by Rosie Prat.
“The relationship between artists and patrons is a long and storied one,” Andrews points out. “One imagines that the relationship between Rockefeller and Rivera was a troubled one. Certainly the Church and Caravaggio had issues. The Medici were the mafia of the Renaissance.”
The part of Pham’s article that stings the most is the suggestion that the work lost its authenticity or integrity by being sublimated by a real estate developer’s vision and political agenda. It suggests the work “draws inspiration from and presents content about communities affected by real-estate development” but then is re-framed as a “celebration” of history; all of which is to accept or condone gentrification. To make that logical conclusion and false syllogism is to entirely miss the point of the hoarding artworks.
One aspect of the project that hasn’t been talked about is the educational outreach that Westbank did with the community. They commissioned me to lead a series of workshops with the senior students from Central Tech High School for two months to create their own hoarding artworks depicting their vision of the city in the future. I taught a range of techniques including origami/paper folding, comics, camera skills along with digital editing and Photoshop techniques. Westbank wanted the hoarding to offer a space to reflect on the neighbourhood’s heritage and context while making community and educational outreach a significant priority.
Did you feel at some point — or do you feel at any point working with/for powerful organisations — that you are somehow “covering up” for them?
Absolutely not. Full stop.
As someone whose current body of work has a clear voice, when you work with clients, are you looking at that as part of “your mission”, or is it a kind of “side mission”?
I don’t really differentiate between projects as to what my “main mission” might be, mostly because I will always imbue a commission or special projects with my natural stylistic tendencies and conceptual concerns. I don’t think I necessarily have a style, but there are lingering motifs, techniques and use of material that I continue to deal with. I think at a certain point when I have worked through or exhausted those ideas and obsessions they might fall away from my work but I still have questions and avenues of investigation that unconsciously come up in anything I make.
With that in mind, how do you feel about the Westbank piece? How does it differ from your other work, like the recent show at Angell Gallery?
“to dwell is to leave traces” was a work that took over a year to make; I am still honored to have been given the opportunity to show alongside Naomi Moyer and proud of what I made. My job was to look at the cultural significance of a place that many Torontonians hold dear, including myself and to represent it visually. Memories and my past experiences about that site are soaked in the work. In 2010, I had my first performance in the Fringe Festival in the Honest Ed’s Alley and spent countless hours eating, talking and hanging out in that city block.“to dwell is to leave traces” was made no differently than any other work. My process begins by researching the site, retrieving archival images from the past, photographing the site currently, spending time with the remaining buildings, reflecting on my own memories and then experimenting in the studio.
So there’s a definite personal connection to the work here for you. What do you think it means for the developer to choose and display this work? Some people might feel what you did went over their heads, others might feel that they acknowledged and endorsed the questions you were asking as important ones.
I’d like to think that they hired me precisely to ask those questions and make work that investigated the ways in which a city changes and evolves through the lens of architectural changes. I mean, they read and approved my statement, right?
Absolutely. As someone who also does commercial projects, I think nuance sometimes gets lost in talking about client work versus personal work. It’s possible for people within corporations to be completely supportive of artistic integrity. You can do great work with them and be able to pay rent as a result.
I honestly loved working with Ilana Altman, the main curator for the project and, particularly, the students at Central Tech. As an emerging artist who has had to move my studio three times in 2018 because of renovictions or rental increases, I am attuned to the complexities of the issue. I am grateful to have been given this project and to be able to pay my studio rent.
