A still from What is Gone, 2014, video, 15 min
inspired by Marguerite Yourcenar’s That Mighty Sculptor Time. When did you come across Yourcenar ’s essay ? I was in the midst of making What is Gone when I was introduced to That Mighty Sculptor Time. I had written a draft of the text for What is Gone before we shot the video and it was not until I started editing the video that I became intrigued with the statuesque quality of portraiture. That, as well as the connection of “stone” running through all forms of archival processes— a material so much more durable than ones used today. It was after shooting the video that a mentor and poet friend of mine, Michele Glazer, gave me a copy of Yourcenar’s essay. I was so inspired by the work that I couldn’t help but feel part of its message belonged in What is Gone. “It goes without saying that we do not possess a single Greek statue in the state in
which its contemporaries knew it…” Yourcenar’s thought on Greek statues is akin to the images we keep of everyday life. That is really the foundation of What is Gone: holding an image that represents someone and coming to know its distortion within your own mind. The inspiration leading to production was primarily painters’ work, like Richard Diebenkorn and Edvard Munch. Recently, I went to Norway and visited the Munch Museum. I like the way Munch overlapped the human form and, in a sense, contorted bodies into one. I think that is initially where the idea for What is Gone began. Diebenkorn, with a slightly different effect, also does this, but mostly Diebenkorn’s lines… ah. The way these painters blend bodies, is reflected in my attempt to blend images and text in the mind of the viewer. Video is a cool medium because you are not only flattening space but also time. And it is the memory that the