WEBVTT 00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:12.860 When I was younger, I would do this a lot. 00:00:12.860 --> 00:00:15.850 I would cut faces or pictures out of books 00:00:15.850 --> 00:00:17.560 and I would tape them to sticks-- 00:00:19.140 --> 00:00:21.640 set them up in my room and shine lights at them, 00:00:21.650 --> 00:00:24.100 so that when I turned my own lights off, 00:00:24.100 --> 00:00:26.060 they were reflected in my windows. 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:30.640 I was trying to get over being scared of this idea 00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:33.000 of this presence in my window. 00:00:46.480 --> 00:00:49.530 I wouldn't say that that actually helped. 00:00:49.530 --> 00:00:50.940 But it was sort of exhilarating. 00:00:50.940 --> 00:00:51.920 It was sort of fun. 00:00:54.540 --> 00:00:59.200 And it was the beginning of a process that maybe is helping me. 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:04.600 The voyeur in my work is not supposed to be a scary or threatening presence 00:01:04.600 --> 00:01:08.220 in the way that I feel like it's often portrayed in movies and novels. 00:01:12.880 --> 00:01:16.180 It's maybe somebody that feels just outside the equation. 00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:21.160 The voyeur is actually what I am in the process. 00:01:25.900 --> 00:01:31.720 ["Dan Herschlein Looks Inside"] 00:01:33.520 --> 00:01:37.440 [Dan Herschlein, artist] 00:01:37.540 --> 00:01:43.020 I was driving out to Long Island each day to work on these sculptures 00:01:44.300 --> 00:01:48.280 in the den in my parents house on Long Island. 00:01:48.280 --> 00:01:50.060 They gave me half of the room 00:01:50.070 --> 00:01:52.350 and rest of it was everything else that was in the room, 00:01:52.350 --> 00:01:53.340 pushed over. 00:01:56.940 --> 00:02:01.660 The sculptures are very much based on Long Island, 00:02:01.670 --> 00:02:03.360 and my growing up there, 00:02:03.360 --> 00:02:05.740 and my feelings of growing up there-- 00:02:05.740 --> 00:02:11.000 and the specific kind of aloneness that I felt there. 00:02:27.420 --> 00:02:29.720 Part of my fantasy about this place 00:02:29.720 --> 00:02:34.530 was that I was going to be able to stay up all night working in here 00:02:34.530 --> 00:02:36.430 and be alone. 00:02:36.430 --> 00:02:38.600 But then my parents are sleeping 00:02:38.600 --> 00:02:41.320 and I can't even, like, drill into the wood. 00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:46.300 Realizing that this fantasy of solitude 00:02:46.300 --> 00:02:48.460 is just not even real. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:01.760 The "Night Pictures," 00:03:01.760 --> 00:03:04.740 they're a sequential set of images 00:03:04.740 --> 00:03:06.640 that are of plaster reliefs on wood. 00:03:09.640 --> 00:03:11.820 They are different from other pieces 00:03:11.820 --> 00:03:15.000 in that they've really accepted the fact that they're on a picture plane. 00:03:26.500 --> 00:03:31.260 It's using a rectangular form to say the same thing that 00:03:31.260 --> 00:03:34.880 I often try to say with a sculpture on the floor. 00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:37.980 What people deem to be creepy-- 00:03:38.480 --> 00:03:40.240 categorize as horror-- 00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:42.900 that's the language or the genre 00:03:42.900 --> 00:03:45.500 I think that I'm working within, is horror. 00:03:45.500 --> 00:03:47.890 The thing that I'm emphasizing within that is 00:03:47.890 --> 00:03:50.950 desire for comfort or need for comfort 00:03:50.950 --> 00:03:53.440 or even the ability of horror to comfort. 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:03.580 Before I was even making sculptures or anything, 00:04:03.580 --> 00:04:07.140 a close friend of mine died in a fire. 00:04:07.140 --> 00:04:09.690 I built up this leg 00:04:09.690 --> 00:04:14.860 that I made to look as if it was burnt. 00:04:15.220 --> 00:04:16.880 I kept coating it and coating it 00:04:16.880 --> 00:04:21.740 until it became the flesh of a normal leg. 00:04:22.580 --> 00:04:27.000 That was the beginning of me making these more figurative sculptures. 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:38.520 There's definitely fear involved. 00:04:38.520 --> 00:04:40.889 There's a pain to that. 00:04:40.889 --> 00:04:46.680 But it's more helpful than just sitting with my own thoughts. 00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:49.320 I think it was important to do something with my hands. 00:04:52.260 --> 00:04:56.660 There's certain body parts in each sculpture that I'll cast. 00:04:57.700 --> 00:04:59.580 Cast my hands, my feet, 00:04:59.580 --> 00:05:01.540 my knees, my nipples. 00:05:06.940 --> 00:05:12.260 Those are the things that give more a sense of reality to these things. 00:05:12.260 --> 00:05:16.480 It lets everything else fade and break down at points. 00:05:26.380 --> 00:05:32.080 The big mission of mine is reevaluating maleness and masculinity. 00:05:32.080 --> 00:05:36.160 The ability of a man to bury their own emotions 00:05:36.169 --> 00:05:38.270 to a point where they can't even find them again 00:05:38.270 --> 00:05:39.800 is unparalleled. 00:05:42.580 --> 00:05:47.180 The headlessness is because of the head just being totally inverted. 00:05:47.200 --> 00:05:49.640 It's absolutely just down inside the body. 00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:54.719 It feels really emasculating in this really great way to me. 00:05:58.520 --> 00:06:01.000 It's a kind of self reflection. 00:06:34.280 --> 00:06:36.759 I am very anxious. 00:06:36.760 --> 00:06:37.860 I am scared. 00:06:39.980 --> 00:06:41.000 I am sad. 00:06:41.200 --> 00:06:44.020 But here are these moments where, 00:06:44.020 --> 00:06:47.580 if I can look at that at face value-- 00:06:48.640 --> 00:06:49.980 see these things-- 00:06:53.620 --> 00:06:56.820 maybe it's fine to be scared or sad 00:06:56.820 --> 00:06:58.140 or anxious. 00:06:58.580 --> 00:07:00.820 It's not such a threat or something. 00:07:00.820 --> 00:07:02.600 It's just normal.