Adam de Croix
Hogar Dulce Hogar/Home Sweet Home, 1999, sugar, parabolic mirrors, carpeting, dried butterflies, crystal chandelier, alloy tubing, metal 2 x 4's.

The interview was conducted by Ilana Stanger of TheArtBiz.com.

What influenced your last project?

Over the past couple of years I’ve been producing work that has been informed by political and psychoanalytic theory. I began “The Other Blue Room” around the same time protests were being held regularly at City Hall in response to the police killings of Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, and Malcom Ferguson. The project required a considerable amount of research. I spent months with City Hall, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, Amnesty International, news journalists, and about twenty other organizations just to get raw data. I attended every lecture and symposium on police brutality. At the same time a number of us at the Whitney Independent Study Program were in someway engaged with questions regarding trauma and memory. There has been a considerable amount of work in this field recently, which gave me a framework to think about how to approach the project. Like most of the projects I’ve done, “The Other Blue Room” is composed from and influenced by a series of conversations, and lots of research.

How did you fund that project?

My Visa card. It cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 to 5,000 dollars, not including my labor, which may not sound like a lot, but considering my income that year . . .

What drew you to the Whitney Independent Study Program?

It was really a combination of things. I’d heard vague rumors about the program when I first moved to New York. Many of the artists, historians, and cultural critics that influenced me had some relationship to the program, either as participants or seminar leaders. I also became friends with people who recently went through the program, so I had a pretty good idea of what it was about. For me it was a perfect transition from Cooper Union because I really wanted to be in a more diverse community, where cultural and political theory was rigorously discussed and practiced.

You earned your BFA at Cooper Union. What attracted you to that program?

It’s hard to pinpoint what specifically attracted me to Cooper--the NYC location, the facilities, and its full scholarship tuition made the decision to go much easier. But if I look back it was really the work that students were doing, which was much more interdisciplinary compared to what I saw at other schools along the East Coast. It also had the most aggressive visiting artist program, which I still consider to be one of its strongest qualities. While I was a student there I was fortunate enough to study with Antonio Muntadas, Judith Barry, Ernesto Pujol, Greg Sholette, and Helen Molesworth, in addition to Hans Haacke and Doug Ashford from Group Material. I think if I hadn’t been accepted to Cooper I wouldn’t be here today.

Are you looking for gallery representation?

No, but I wouldn’t pass the opportunity up. Besides, I think I have a few more hurdles to jump through before I can even think about that--graduate school being one of them. Also, given the nature of my work I think it might be a little bit harder for me to even get the opportunity to exhibit in a commercial art space, at least right now. I think about this a lot since these projects take a considerable amount of time, money, and facilities to produce. It’s one of the reasons graduate school was inevitable. It will allow me teach and therefore fund myself, and it’ll provide me with the necessary resources to produce the work. Simple things like cutting a piece of wood or editing a video can be almost impossible unless you happen to know someone with the tools that you need, or you have an unlimited amount of money at your disposal. Again, this isn’t true for everyone, but if you’re like me and you tend to work in a variety of media, it can be difficult without some form of institutional support.

What was the Masters application process like for you?

It was a bit difficult for me to determine what I wanted. Most of the programs I looked at were very good; however, I really needed a program that would actively support an inter-disciplinary practice. I also had to consider my current debt load from undergraduate school and how much more I was willing to take on. Location was also another factor. In the end I decided to go with SUNY Purchase for a number of reasons: they offered a combined MFA and MA in Art History, the faculty was really supportive of my practice, its location allowed me to stay in NY, and I received a great scholarship.

How do you support yourself now?

This year I’ve just been doing freelance construction/cabinetry. Unfortunately it consumes all of my time and I have yet to figure out a way to make it profitable. I go through periods like this in order to have the money to buy the materials or tools necessary for the next project. I’m lucky though, working freelance allows me the luxury to drop everything if I have to work on a project or show.

What advice do you have for other emerging artists?

It seems that right now there are more “emerging artists” than ever before-- I’m not even certain what criteria are required to be considered as an “emerging artist.” We are at an interesting moment right now where there is certainly more attention being paid to younger artists with shows like P.S.1’s “Greater New York.” The real benefit of this is that it facilitates and expands the dialogue between artists whose work may seem radically different from one another. “Nomads and Residents” is another example--there artists, curators, and critics have collectively organized to negotiate space and time for artists from disparate locations to present their work. By participating in shows like this you have a much greater chance to expand the scope of your practice, organize exhibitions, and work on projects that would otherwise be impossible to do alone.

What is your artistic process like? Do you begin with a finished image or develop your piece as you go along?

I sometimes have an image in my head or a series of notes, but it almost never goes the way I expect. Usually this is because I have changed my mind no less than 100 times from start to finish. I suspect that the only way I can maintain interest in something is if I struggle with it. Sometimes I will come across a text or a work by another artist that will either shore-up or jeopardize my understanding of something--both alternatives require that I re-examine what I’m doing. Often it’s as simple as the introduction of a formal element that changes everything. For instance, I was well into “The Other Blue Room” when I accidentally came across an ammunition supplier’s website that recycled the empty bullet casings from NYC police shooting ranges. That changed everything.

This article was originally created for TheArtBiz.com. It appears on NYFA Interactive courtesy of the Abigail Rebecca Cohen Library.