Issue 2 - The Art Newspaper

14
INTERVIEW
Cécile B. Evans
Artist
The Belgian-American
artist Cécile B. Evans, 29,
is the winner of the 2012
Emdash Award for
emerging artists living
outside the UK. Her
proposal—an audio guide to Frieze—
was selected from more than 700
applications, and the work forms part
of Frieze Projects (P3).
For This Is Your Audio Guide, which
is hosted by the historian Simon
Schama, Evans asked well-known
people from other fields, such as the
model-turned-cook Sophie Dahl and
the astronomer Patrick Moore, to
respond to the works on show. The
artist’s prize includes a £10,000
production budget and a three-month
residency at the Gasworks studios in
south London, where, last month, she
showed a series of rejection letters
from celebrities who declined to take
part in the project. She is not
currently represented by a gallery.
Evans was born to Belgian parents
in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in
Jacksonville, Florida. She began to act
at the age of five, and spent four
THE ART NEWSPAPER FRIEZE ART FAIR Wednesday 10 October 2012
years at New York University’s Tisch
School of the Arts from 11 September
2001 (“it was my first day as an
adult—the plane flew over our
heads”). After working in film and
television in Paris, Evans moved to
Berlin to pursue a career in art. Her
work often refers to both high and
low culture; the video Countdown,
2012, updates Anne Teresa De
Keersmaeker’s performance Rosas
danst Rosas, 1983, with the novel
addition of animated asparagus.
The Art Newspaper: This Is Your Audio
Guide counters art-world jargon by
asking non-experts to respond
emotionally to the works at
Frieze. How did the project begin?
Cécile B. Evans: I took a group of
teenagers to this year’s Berlin
Biennale, which was notoriously
dense, and asked them the questions
I was working with. “Does this
remind you of anything? How do you
relate to an object in here?” You strip
away all the things you’re supposed
to say about art and then you go for
the emotional value.
Why did you ask Simon Schama to
host the audio guide?
Simon Schama is art history. He lives
it, breathes it, walks with it every day
to work. He’d say: “I’m concerned—is
this what we want people to think
about art?” My reaction is that I’m
not telling people how to look at art.
Simon is very good at explaining art
in a way that people understand, and
it’s been amazing to see how some of
[the contributors] hit the mark. It
gives me chills.
Why did you create a hologram of
Schama to introduce the work?
It’s a way of connecting the ears with
what you’re seeing, and also playing
on the dynamics of subjectivity and
reality—anything to [increase] the
suspension of disbelief. There are also
small hologram boxes [throughout
the fair], which use the Pepper’s
ghost technique, a 19th-century
theatre trick. One of them looks as
though Simon has been kidnapped
and put in the box.
Who were your favourite
contributors?
Rabbi Lionel Blue and Sophie Dahl
Big in Germany: Evans’s
Paula Abdul-influenced
video Straight Up, 2011
With a little help from
her (celebrity) friends
This year’s Emdash Award winner has created the first ever audio guide to Frieze—
starring Simon Schama, Sophie Dahl and Patrick Moore. By Ria Hopkinson
were fantastic.
With Rabbi Blue,
I just turned on the
dictaphone and got everything
from what he thinks heaven is
going to look like to how he thinks
a piece by Ryan Gander looks like
perfume bottles. I’m still adding
people. I’m exhausted.
Many of your works attempt to
measure emotions, including the
“Schirmer Collages”, 2011, which
juxtapose film stills with tearmeasurement
strips.
I took screenshots from movies starring
Meryl Streep, which are the ultimate
cryfest, and named [the works]
after the tearjerker line—You May
Keep One Of Your Children is [from]
“Sophie’s Choice”. This is my year of
tears. I set out to say that it’s the
clearest representation of emotion,
and I think it’s something I’ll always
work with. But I don’t want to look
back and say: “That was my crying
period.” I’m starting to do research
into ghosts, and the idea of loss.
Are you interested in displays of
collective emotion, such as the
Come and visit us at
FRIEZE MASTERS
Stand M14
FRIEZE LONDON
Stand M1
The judges’ verdict
Members of the selection panel on
Evans’s work
Sarah McCrory
Curator, Frieze Projects
“We realised that Cécile had a really good
understanding of the Frieze audience.
Her background as an actor shows her
interest in understanding the world
around her, and the work couldn’t have
been made without that aspect of her
personality; it helped convince wellknown
people to be involved. Until the
project happens, we don’t know what
the outcome will be, and that was part of
the reason for choosing it.”
Andrea Dibelius
Founder, Emdash Foundation
“Frieze has never had an audio guide
before, so this is totally new territory for
the fair. The work is conceptual but
accessible, and this is one of the main
messages of the project—to give visitors
a different and possibly more inclusive
way of understanding and questioning
works at the fair. I also hope that industry
people will be challenged by being
confronted with a radically different way
of talking about art.” R.H.
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STRAIGHT UP: © CÉCILE B. EVANS