Jesse Bercowetz received his BFA from The School of The Art Institute
of Chicago, and Matt Bua received his BFA from East Carolina University,
NC. Bercowetz and Bua's most recent projects have been featured at The
Brooklyn Museum, Exit Art, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Drawing Center,
Feigen Contemporary and PS1 / Moma. Their work has been reviewed in a
number of publications such as Artforum, the New York Times, Time Out/NY,
The New Yorker, the Village Voice, and Teme Celeste. Bercowetz and Bua
have received several awards including a Jerome Foundation fellowship,
Smack Mellon Studios stipend and residency, Bessie award for multi-media
installation and performance, The Joan Mitchell Foundation Artist / Mentor
Residency and the Henry Moore Foundation Contemporary Project Grant.
Bercowetz/Bua's work crosses disciplines and actively engages the community.
Recently, it has been an investigation into the acts of youth deviance,
social escapism, dissidence, utopian architecture and mobility. Often
blurring the lines between work, play, manhood and boyhood. The process
is elastic--crossing genres, mixing materials, and collaborating with
others. The projects are often interactive with an exterior and interior.
The subject matter is vast, experiential and vaguely didactic. Reality
and fantasy collide--realistic situations are pushed to a fantasy level
and that fantasy is treated as serious as real life.
Interview date: April 2005
Interviewed by Ka-Man Tse
LMCC: Tell me about your process, how do you work
together?
Jesse: There’s no specific way. We have
a whole bunch of ideas that we’re always talking about, and we’re
always talking. Then the situation will arise where somebody
asks us to be in a show, or asks us to do something, and we’re
like hey, that idea we thought of would be perfect, and so we execute
it. We work in all different mediums and styles too, so it all
depends. There’s no formula.… But we kind of know. We
have a loose theme, and lots of loose sub-themes. We go by them,
and know where each other are going. And we trust each other. With
the smaller work, we’re usually working on more than one thing
at a time, so it might be that he’s working on a painting over
there and I’m working on sculpture over here and we switch. So
we’re not just like, bumping each other in the head or something.
LMCC: Does that ever happen?
Jesse: Sure, there are times when we have different
ideas or we’re not sure where the other guy is going, and you
just sort of sit back and watch and try to respond. I don’t think
either one of us are too dead-set on any one thing that it becomes
a problem.
LMCC: Do you always work together or do you do
your own separate projects on the side?
Jesse: Within the contemporary art community, pretty
much the last five years have been one project after the next that
we’ve done together. But we both have a lot of separate
interests. We do a lot of things. Matt plays a lot of music. We
both do separate drawings. We also do drawings together. And
before we met, we were both doing a lot of work on our own.
LMCC: How did you guys meet?
Jesse: We met at an art trucking company called
TransArt. Matt’s
been in New York for 10 years, and he was already working there for
two years when I got there. I’ve been in New York for eight
years. And we were in the cab of a truck together for a long
time, talking. And then we kind of helped each other with projects,
and that developed into what we’re doing now.
LMCC: What influences your work? What sources
do you draw from the most, any interdisciplinary influences? You’ve
talked about music, and you guys sort of work like musicians, jamming
and tag-teaming.
Jesse: We have tons of influences. That’s
what’s interesting about what we’re doing: we’re
both two individuals with different backgrounds. Although some
of our influences and interests overlap, there’s a ton of separate
interests that we both bring in, and we’re both scattered all
over the place.
Matt: Infamous failed expeditions, things where
people bite off more than they can chew, and in the process that
falls apart. Failed
Jacques Cousteau voyages, failed mountain climbing attempts. Or
people that go for the largest something in the world and it’s
just like a celebration of failure...
Jesse: I think because we’re often doing these
big macho boy art projects— at least that’s what other
people have called them— I can see that, but there is this sense
of things falling apart, things failing and not working out
and being deflated. I think that’s important. We often try to
come up with these dream ideas and we just believe them. We just
believe it and believe it, like fanatics almost, working with whatever’s
at hand and by whatever means we have and then just see how it all
ends up.
LMCC: How do you describe your style?
Matt: It could be the elastic all-over the place
on one hand. Allowing: not pigeon-holding yourself as just doing
one thing. To just have fun. We just did a figurative sculpture
and that was fun.
Jesse: We don’t really have a specific style
in that sense, right? Before we came here, the reason [LMCC]
invited us here, the slides they saw were all large-scale sculptures,
or installations, or sculptures you could walk into and environments. And
now we’re making these paintings and drawings. We can switch
gears really quick, and maybe that has something to do with our style: We
have the ability to work in different styles.
LMCC: Your work has been described as— and
I see it as— playful. It has these worlds, and there’s
this element of games and humor and adventure.
Matt: And with two people, it has to be playful.
It can't be too serious. One person gets serious and the other person
is like "Eh, Pkshoo." [mock crashing noise] and then frees
it up again, and gets it out of its shell.
LMCC: What are some goals, what are you
trying to achieve, in general or with this body of work?
Jesse: Well, with specific goals, for instance with
this painting [The World’s Largest Bowie Knife] we hope
to make the world’s largest bowie knife in the world. We’ll
use a refrigerator for the hilt of the knife, we’ll use a three-wheel
Cushman Scooter for the handle, and then some type of boat for the
blade. That’s something we hope to realize. And then
long term, I think…
Matt: More architectural projects. The clubhouse
that we did in collaboration with these teenagers. We were at one
point looking for a vacant lot to kind of further that project. That’s
a good goal, that you move… out of the art world and you’re
in the real world, so to speak. Just furthering the process where
you’re working with teens, for them to see a beginning point
and an end point. But it’s also just that urge to free-build
and take advantage of empty space.
Jesse: Yeah, the vacant lot is definitely a goal. And
also we have this goal to start doing home editions. We hope
to be invited to people’s houses and add a section onto their
house or a small appendage. We’re going to be proposing
things like that, and we actually proposed one for Governor’s
Island. Of course, at the same time we’re working on our
other art projects. And to not compromise, that’s a major goal.
LMCC: How has this studio space and this specific
area of Manhattan influenced your work?
Matt: For me, I get on the J train, and the J train
pops up inside of the building, so it’s that step up in professionalism. Somehow
it’s a transformation. You’re coming in with the suit people
and you know, it wears off. It comes off on you. Making
these paintings was nice. Knowing that you only have six months
and we better do something with this space and then hopefully we’ll
take what we do out with us out of here, rather than having a year
and building something and trashing it at the end. A lot of things
gelled…
Jesse: [The LMCC Residency] was really a good opportunity
to focus and almost treat it like a nine-to-five even though those
aren’t our hours, and we can obviously stay later. But
coming in with the crew on the train in the morning, and, as Matt said,
pop up in the building, and then focus on the paintings, because we
have this space, that has certain limitations, which are good. We
also always try to work off our limitations. So it’s been
good to push the paintings. Also the DuBuffe Sculpture over here
in the Chase Manhattan Plaza . That’s
been interesting, just going by that everyday. Imagining the
gargoyles on the U.S. Realty Building and the Trinity Building coming
to life at night. Because at night it’s great around here,
when everybody leaves and you can wander around. I imagine them
feasting on the DuBuffe Sculpture. Matt and I were talking about it,
wouldn’t it be more interesting if we climbed it and roasted
a pig on top. [Joking] I don’t know if it’s too late
to get help [from LMCC] facilitating that.
LMCC: How long do you work on something, when do
you know it’s done, complete?
Matt: Deadlines.
Jesse: That, or boredom [laughs].
LMCC: What else do you pursue?
Matt: Either music or instruments or game-call-animal-mike-motor
sounds. They’re supposed to automate themselves. Something
in conjunction with the 3103 pirate cohorts. Jesse’s got
a new insect kick.
Jesse: Yeah. Travel and collecting are kind
of an interest to me.
Matt: Got him bonsai trees last year, so that’s
kind of new.
Jesse: I just got a scorpion.
Matt: He sleeps with it.…
Jesse: It’s in the eye of our sculpture. [the
scorpion] You got to see it.
Matt: He got everything in the pet store for it.
Jesse: Crickets, green krypton water gel stuff. [laughs]
LMCC: Wow, that’s hardcore. Finally, how
do you personally get rid of the hiccups?
Matt: Combination of all of those things, you stand
on your head, you drink water, and
Matt and Jesse at once: hold your breath
Matt: All at the same time.
Jesse: Hold your breath and then have somebody scare
you.
Matt: And you tie your tooth to a string and slam
it, the door. That will get rid of it, have you ever done that?
Jesse: Drink Maalox.
