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AI: You know, one other kind of, the big historic event that we're dealing with right now is, we had September 11, 2001, of course, the attacks, in the United States, and then today, in fact, our president, George W. Bush had called for attacking Iraq. And I wonder if you could say a bit about these two events and whether, and you have said in an earlier conversation, about how after 9/11 you did incorporate some of that into your work, and your thoughts.

RS: Yeah, maybe I could put that in the context of the keynote address that I gave to the College Art Association this year. About a year and a half ago the New York Times came out, there was an article written by the New York Times critic Holland Cotter, calling for an end of multicultural art. He said that artists of color have ghettoized themselves by constantly bombarding the public with issues of their identity and problems and so on. And he said that by ghettoizing themselves they'll never become part of the mainstream, they'll always be sort of a chapter in books and be treated differently, and all of that. And I thought it was just sort of a general, I saw that as a general, sort of condemnation of the kind of work that's propelled me for, for all these years, and I really resented a white person coming in and making that decision, once again, on behalf of all people of color and for women. And so I decided that I would, I would use that as a single focal point for my keynote address, which I thought would be a really important venue to do that at, because of the people that would be in the audience. And indeed, Roberta Smith, the New York Times was in the audience.

And so what I did was, through the lecture that I gave, I used examples of the kinds of things, a lot of the things that we've been talking about for the last couple of days, that have caused me to do the kind of work that I did, and tried to build a case for the fact that I didn't make these choices, to do the kind of work that I do based upon academic training or upon wanting to deal with some theoretical idea that might sort of fit into the history of art. But these were things that were on my mind. These were things that were right in my face. And so I did this by showing slides of all of the evidence of the internment of my collections and so on. And I did it without showing one slide of my work, because I wanted to keep myself out of this entirely, I didn't want this to be representative of some self-serving kind of activity. And I told a lot of the stories that I told you and how I responded by doing artwork. I talked about the conversation with the farmer. I talked about all of these kinds of things, and just sort of said, "And so I did a piece of art about that," without describing what that art looked like, and same with the performances and so on and so forth. And then sort of ending up at the end of the lecture with 9/11 and how as soon as 9/11 happened, all of a sudden there were calls on the Internet and in the magazines and everything else that we should be doing art about 9/11. And I said, interesting, that when something happens to white people, all of a sudden what's out of fashion becomes in fashion. Because for the first time, they know what it feels like to be victimized.

And so that, that was sort of the, the wrap-up point that I was trying to make, that, and a call that women and people of color should continue to paint and sculpt and do performances and so on, on what they know best and what they're most affected by, and not allow those taste-makers, in the New York Times and other positions of authority dictate what we should or should not be doing. And I drew the parallel to, white people telling Native American people they shouldn't be offended by the Cleveland Indians mascot. I mean, always making decisions on behalf of other people as to what they should be involved with. And that those of us that are dealing with issues of multiculturalism, for example, should not be treated in the same way that abstract expressionists or color-field painters, or that kind of work, that it doesn't go out of style, it doesn't go out of fashion. So that's, that was the whole point of, that I was trying to make in that keynote address. And I think I made it.

AI: Well --

MT: It was very good. I read the whole thing.

RS: Oh, did you?

MT: Yeah. It was really good.

RS: Thanks.

MT: Yeah.

AI: We've covered a lot of ground, but I did want to ask if there's anything else that you wanted to touch on, or add, make a comment on?

RS: No. [Laughs] That's the last thing I expected you to ask me. [Laughs]

MT: Well, we could ask you what you're gonna do after you retire, but you might not know the answer to that.

RS: No. I mean, I have such a full plate that that's... I just tell people that I know what I'm not going to do, and that will be, I won't be going into the classroom. And I won't be teaching. But everything else is in place to sort of continue. I have a lot of lectures to give, I have a lot of shows to do. I have a lot of... like I say, a full plate.

AI: Well, thanks very much for participating in this and giving your time.

RS: Yeah.

AI: We really appreciate it

RS: Well, thank you.

<End Segment 67> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.