0:00:18.580,0:00:21.500
I should've prepared for you guys more.

0:00:22.360,0:00:23.860
Things are a little unruly.

0:00:25.240,0:00:26.220
--Yeah, right on the...

0:00:26.220,0:00:28.060
--In the same line, right here.

0:00:28.280,0:00:31.249
I have this keen interest in

0:00:31.249,0:00:35.350
not just autonomous, singular objects,

0:00:35.350,0:00:37.400
but whole collections of things.

0:00:39.660,0:00:42.680
Part of the reason I think I'm attracted[br]to collections

0:00:42.680,0:00:45.839
is because they constitute one person's--

0:00:45.839,0:00:47.159
or one institution's--

0:00:47.159,0:00:49.030
way of seeing the world.

0:00:49.030,0:00:52.149
And it's like this little time capsule

0:00:52.149,0:00:53.989
of things that were important to someone.

0:00:53.989,0:00:56.430
And so, I spend a lot of time

0:00:56.430,0:01:00.960
looking for the personality of people[br]within their collections.

0:01:00.960,0:01:04.059
And then maybe even trying to tease out,[br]in a collection,

0:01:04.060,0:01:05.960
why those things are important.

0:01:09.620,0:01:13.120
So the first collection that I received is[br]Prairie Avenue Bookstore,

0:01:13.120,0:01:16.240
which was a architectural history bookstore

0:01:16.240,0:01:18.020
in Downtown Chicago.

0:01:18.500,0:01:22.460
The second collection I purchased[br]was Dr. Wax.

0:01:23.400,0:01:25.500
It was a record store in Hyde Park,

0:01:25.500,0:01:27.940
which is a neighborhood on the South Side.

0:01:28.720,0:01:30.280
I don't know how many albums...

0:01:31.040,0:01:32.039
Six thousand.

0:01:32.039,0:01:33.039
Eight thousand.

0:01:33.040,0:01:34.040
A lot of albums.

0:01:34.100,0:01:38.440
And the third collection was the University[br]of Chicago's glass lantern slides.

0:01:38.900,0:01:42.659
I'm using the glass slides to[br]teach art history sometimes.

0:01:42.659,0:01:45.590
Sometimes I include them as part of [br]works of art,

0:01:45.590,0:01:47.649
or they become the works of art themselves--

0:01:47.649,0:01:50.200
in the case of the Jet magazines.

0:01:51.680,0:01:57.020
I've taken an amazing canon of[br]Johnson Publishing magazines.

0:01:57.020,0:01:58.900
This is Jet magazine.

0:02:00.100,0:02:03.960
We had about twelve thousand unbound periodicals.

0:02:06.680,0:02:11.140
I had been binding them and color coding them[br]by decade.

0:02:12.520,0:02:14.140
It's exciting, this body of work,

0:02:14.140,0:02:18.580
because it gets to ask questions about [br]monochrome painting.

0:02:19.590,0:02:21.900
When they're functioning as a monochrome painting,

0:02:21.900,0:02:25.110
they're not necessarily functioning[br]like an archive.

0:02:25.400,0:02:27.840
But, in fact, my hope is that

0:02:27.840,0:02:31.400
the history and the content that's loaded[br]inside the books

0:02:31.400,0:02:34.480
will be waiting for people to unearth it.

0:02:36.940,0:02:40.660
As the magazine, it was making the work of[br]the present.

0:02:40.660,0:02:42.980
It wasn't attempting to make an archive.

0:02:43.440,0:02:48.080
But it's so amazing that these bound volumes[br]constitute the 1990s.

0:02:48.520,0:02:52.960
And it's a very particular 1990s[br]Black-American experience.

0:02:52.969,0:02:57.920
And I feel really fortunate to have been able[br]to bind these things

0:02:57.920,0:03:00.640
and then to make them present[br]in the world again.

0:03:06.100,0:03:10.440
Right now, we're working on archiving[br]this hardware store.

0:03:10.840,0:03:13.900
The hardware store was, again,[br]kind of like Dr. Wax.

0:03:14.740,0:03:18.099
This amazing guy, Ken,[br]had owned it for thirty years

0:03:18.100,0:03:19.900
and he was retiring.

0:03:20.909,0:03:21.900
We loved his building,

0:03:21.909,0:03:23.130
but we loved the stuff.

0:03:23.130,0:03:26.480
And so, we bought the entire hardware store.

0:03:30.360,0:03:32.040
In changing neighborhoods,

0:03:32.040,0:03:33.340
poor neighborhoods,

0:03:33.360,0:03:36.720
neighborhoods where a big box like[br]Home Depot might move in,

0:03:36.720,0:03:40.240
what do you do with Ken's legacy?

0:03:41.109,0:03:43.320
How do you catalog the everyday,

0:03:43.330,0:03:46.310
especially as the phenomena of the everyday[br]is changing?

0:03:46.310,0:03:51.060
And is this another way of[br]tracking Black space?

0:03:52.460,0:03:56.280
Black, not necessarily just about Black people,

0:03:56.280,0:03:58.100
but about forgotten people.

0:03:58.510,0:04:03.080
It's a space where things have stopped growing.

0:04:03.080,0:04:06.800
And then maybe it's also, like, the void.

0:04:08.280,0:04:10.400
Like, resources go in,

0:04:10.400,0:04:12.680
and you're not sure where they go.

0:04:13.200,0:04:13.960
Black space.

0:04:14.340,0:04:14.840
Like...

0:04:16.380,0:04:17.660
Galactic space.

0:04:20.580,0:04:22.400
These are the things that I'm working with.

0:04:23.500,0:04:26.130
I'm having a lot of fun looking at these objects

0:04:26.130,0:04:28.190
both as sculptural objects

0:04:28.190,0:04:32.290
and as objects that have the potential to[br]create new sculptural works.

0:04:32.290,0:04:33.360
It's the thing,

0:04:33.360,0:04:34.940
and it's the thing that makes the thing.