Parking Lot is our lax interview series where we get to really know a creative. We get to learn about what they've been up to creatively, some random facts about them, some telling ones, and just about anything else that comes up. Over the last couple months we've been keeping up with multi-displinary artist Kyle Alden Martens as he packs his belongings and transitions to Montreal after years of residing in Halifax. For a while, we though we'd lost touch with him but he would assure us he hadn't. Over the course of roughfully four months of long distance internet communication we felt like we really got know the guy and what makes him want to create. We talked to him among other topics, a bit about his childhood, living in Halifax, being an admin boy, his performative based works and why tokenizing artists of diverse groups is frustrating in contemporary art today.
Luther Konadu: Are you originally from Halifax?
Kyle Alden Martens: I have lived in Halifax for the last five years, but have just moved to Montreal. I am actually from Saskatchewan, which I think is one of my best kept secrets.
[laughs]
LK: What's the art scene in Halifax like from your point of view?
KAM: It is a very small community of people that simultaneously compete with and support each other. There are a number of great artists working there.
LK: What are two things you don't like about Halifax
KAM: I wish there was easier access to the beaches and lakes outside of the city for people without vehicles. I'm not the hugest fan of the public art that is scattered around the city.
LK: Right now, where are you emotionally and existentially?
KAM: I have had a very intense transition to Montreal. As many things as you can think of have gone wrong since moving to Montreal, meanwhile I have been approved for a grant to create a new project and booked a solo show in Calgary in the near future. I think in this past month I have hit my highest highs and lowest lows. I am very positive and level headed, when I think back to this last month and a bit I just have to laugh.
LK: I'm pretty sure making work as an artist was probably a motivator but what about that place [Montreal] you reckon gave you the incentive to relocate in that sense of working as a creative...as oppose to moving to any other city or remaining in Halifax)...
KAM: For me it was really between moving to Toronto or Montreal. I was really interested in taking time out to focus on my art production and it seemed like Montreal would be able to provide that in a number of ways. My rent is cheap enough that I am able to afford a studio space and I am paying about the same as I was when living in Halifax for both. I truly love Halifax but I was feeling burned out of opportunities there. I'm still unsure if I can see myself living in Montreal for the longterm but currently it is suiting me well.
"It just seems that the galleries in Canada check off an annual box of an aboriginal artist, queer artist, woman artist, artist of colour and then fill the rest of the year up with men."
LK: What kind of kid were you in school growing up?
KAM: I was a quiet, soft spoken kid. I had many friends but really only made time for my best friend Emily, who I met on the first day of kindergarten. She has been my closet friend ever since. We were always off doing something weird and arty.
LK: Where you in any clubs?
KAM: I was in chess club for a hot second in grade 9. I still really like chess but the thought of playing it everyday at lunch was just too much for me.
LK: How were your parents like growing up? more hands-off? chill? or hands-on or somewhere in-between...what are their personalities like
KAM: Both of my parents are as close as you can get to being artist without being artists. They are both multi talented and excellent self-learners. My mother is a sewer and my father is wood worker. Between the two of them I was able to gather a lot of skills that have been the base of my art practice. My father is a deep thinker, very giving, and appreciates alone time. My mother is very personable, loyal, loves to laugh, and an amazing problem solver.
LK: Can you remember an early memory of feeling embarrassed? what was the situation? how did you respond?
KAM: When I was 8 I broke my sister's friends prize slinky that she got from somewhere cool. I hid it in the bottom of her lego bin and never talked to her again. When I ran into her when I was 16 I was still so embarrassed, sweaty, and didn't talk.
Photo by Brandon Brookbank
LK: What do you think is generally lacking in the world right now?
KAM: Free public wifi.
LK: Last time you felt like you are getting good at something...
KAM: I just left my job in Halifax as an Arts Administrator. I was starting to kick that job in the butt.
LK: Having been an admin boy back in Halifax, what did some of your day to day tasks entail and what are some things people on the outside take for granted or are oblivious about when it comes to arts administration
KAM: I mean being an Arts Administrator is pretty straight forward. I don't think people realize how far in advance galleries are generally planning and working. Installation week seems to be down to the last possible moment for every gallery that I have worked for. Somehow there always seems to be something that goes wrong or needs attention the opening day or right before the opening. My daily tasks were primarily emails and phone calls - lots and lots of emails.
"I think it is awesome that a diverse group of people is being showcased but this limited or systematic representation sets up a structure where it seems like one is being shown so the other can be showed without contest."
LK: Do you have a morning routine?
KAM: Yes. I eat the same thing for breakfast almost every weekday. Melon and a croissant, or yogurt and granola. I shower, moisturize, put cream in my hair, brush and floss my teeth. Lately I have been exercising in the morning but prefer to in the evening.
LK: One thing that's annoying about contemporary art right now...
KAM: Lack of diversity of artists without those artists being tokenized.
LK: How do you mean?
KAM: When galleries showcase work by POC, queer people, and women their identity is almost more at the forefront then their work. I guess I find this awkward sometimes because it positions artists of diversity in another category from the other work that may be exhibited. It positions the work on a different route and pursuits than the "regular" work shown. It just seems that the galleries in Canada check off an annual box of an aboriginal artist, queer artist, woman artist, artist of colour and then fill the rest of the year up with men. Yes, I think it is awesome that a diverse group of people is being showcased but this limited or systematic representation sets up a structure where it seems like one is being shown so the other can be showed without contest. Like we are showing this queer artist making queer identity focused work so we can later show this group exhibition of minimalist sculpture without criticism of the lack of diverse representation in the show. It just feels like a strategy of defense for the gallery and becomes a type of separation.
EQUIPMENT: Documentation by Jordan Blackburn & Brandon Brookbank
Live performers - Brandon Brookbank - Brent Cleveland - Shaya Ishaq - Maddie McNeely - Lucy Pauker - Camila Salcedo
Video performers Brandon Brookbank - Maddie McNeely - Alyson Samways
Video excerpts from PANTS (9:24 min) & EQUIPMENT (11:11 min)
The Khyber Centre for the Arts, Halifax, NS
LK: You seem to be really prolific. Are you just naturally inclined to put out work?
KAM: I am constantly working on something whether I have a studio or space or just my sketchbook. Currently I have two large projects that I need to get up on my website. An exhibition called EQUIPMENT that was held at the Khyber Centre for the Arts and a video piece called SOFT PLAYERS that I made in a Media Arts Scholarship Program I did with the Centre for Art Tapes in Halifax. In the last year I got out of the habit of working piece to piece and I am not more focused on creating a larger series of works under the same theme, either visual or conceptual. Right now I am in a gather stage as I completed everything I was physically working on before moving. I'm working in my sketch book creating more detailed plans for work.
LK: How do you think your various ventures in the work you have been making flow into each other thematically or do they all stand on their own in terms of what you end up making...
KAM: Everything I make is always about the same underlying themes, which I genuinely hope is becoming more sophisticated and expanded. I'm trying to create work that has some sort of slippage, where it seems to be about a number of layered ideas. My work is always employing a combination of subtlety, duration, humour, anticipation, boredom, restriction, and repeated motion. I'm very much interested in quietly undermined rules.
LK: I know some people think about the work they want to make for a really long time and it works for them. They end up creating amazing series after that and then they will go on a long thinking/idea-gathering hibernation...do you freely jump into projects and see what can generate from them and then analyze later or what kind of working process do you subscribe to?
KAM: I definitely work in a combination of long arduous planning and spontaneous work. I do make a lot of careful plans but often those plans are hooked together with other plans or quick changes are made to something I thought I had planned out. Sometimes something needs to be adapted quickly to make something feel more comfortable and less forced. I really value thinking about what I am doing when I am physically making something. I am obsessed with making small mockups and samples that often inform or change my plans or become part of the work in some cases. Both my parents worked this way and I have found that it personally saves times and eliminates frustration.
LK: I really like the install of your A Null Beats...i like your use of the space and how your work engages with it and it looks like it was an interactive piece...can you talk a bit about that whole project, the variety of materials you used and what your thinking process for that came from
KAM: A NULL BEATS is combined of installation, sculpture, and performance. The installation and sculptures that comprise the series are made to appear as purchased objects. They are tactile and seem to want to be touched and used. The work ranges in combinations of materials of rubber, foam, rope, marbles, keychain rings, keychain cords, clay, paint, latex, silicone, and miniature plastic sandals. The installation of the works is clean and simplistic - treating the entirety of the exhibition space like a collage of objects.
A Null Beats (2015) Documentation by Joel Probably - Meghan Ross - Brandon Brookbank
The sculptures in this series have specific performative use that were revealed through performances by two performers. We circulated throughout the space activating the objects periodically. Standing on the rubber faces with rope to maneuver on the marbles (Keepsies). Climbing through or tugging on the clay beads and keychain cords (A Null Beats). Hiding behind the pink latex (Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion). Walking up and down with our fingers through the arch of rainbow coloured sandals (Flipflop). Our movements were slow and decisive, we moved independently from each other.
This exhibition reclaimed queer culture through sculptures created with imbedded queer history. The pink triangle, the rainbow, the sexual innuendo - is all present - altered and updated, not hidden but guarded. The marbles acting as a sort of visual hazard to the viewer without the knowledge of the tools developed to manage the space. The visual meaning in this exhibition is just under the surface - coded however accessible.
LK: I find your integral involvement of live human beings in your work particularly interesting. Body-based work has been around for some time now it is always interesting to see how today's artists take on that way of expressing their ideas. Making use of the body to create physical images both in Equipment, Null Beats and Soft players remind me of work of Anne Imhof's Ansgt and Eddie Peake. How did this way of working first occur to you as a possible route for making work and articulating ideas...and it looks like, in those works you having to orchestrate a number of people to be able to realize your ideas.Can you talk a bit about what goes into doing that, in terms of logistics and aligning everyone to perform your ideas...
KAM: Going through university I was making a lot of collaborative work with photo based artist, Brandon Brookbank. I was making pieces that used my body in my solo work that in the beginning were extremely personal and very specifically identity based. I got really self conscious as time went on about my work coming across as narcissistic which in the beginning didn't bother me as much because I was producing work that was specifically about me. After awhile I began producing work that wasn't so personal, definitely influenced by personal experience but not just about me. The people I have worked with for performances are usually quiet, shy, not looking to showoff or get attention.
SOFT PLAYERS
Performers - An Dy - Brandon Brookbank - Ellen Graham
Video excerpts and video stills (9:54 min)
Centre for Arts Tapes, Halifax, NS
Racquetball Court, Dartmouth Sportsplex, NS
Over the last year I have worked with around ten people to make performances and video work, some people I am really close with and others I didn't know very well at all. I generally have an idea of how I think things will go but I am more interested in how my idea is going to be interpreted by someone else. Generally, I am talking with the performers throughout the video recording process as a way of performing through them and keeping them comfortable and casual. I'm not wanting something to seem stiff or super planned but rather like a familiar action or an old routine that is being revisited. So far working with others has been very smooth. I am really organized and accommodating and usually make my schedule work around theirs. I am always so grateful for their participation. In A Null Beats Brandon was such a good sport and performed live with me with only ten minutes of prep time. Him and some friends were driving up to NYC to come and see the show and they got into the city later than expected so when they arrived I quickly showed him the space and then we went into a back room and I described the actions that I was hoping we could do and then we went and did the performance for a bit less than an hour. We were very aware of each other without making eye contact and moved throughout the space shifting through the elements of the performance. He rules! I can't even articulate how cool he was for being down to just go for it.
Anna Imhof: Deal (2015) Image Source: MoMA PS1.
I am a huge fan of Anne Imhof's work. I really like the understated actions that she has her performers repeat and the simple casual clothing she has them wear. I saw her piece Deal at PS1 in 2015. I was so captivated by the transition of simple and complicated action of the passing back and forth or this small metal baton and the sound created from it. I was enamoured by every aspect of the performance but thought the use of the large rabbits was a bit of a gimmick. There was this beautifully crafted performance of actions and then they brought this rabbit out and it was just there and then it was put away. I'm not sure how the use of animals functions in her other work because in the visuals it seems really seamless but in person it was extremely clumsy. Even when I was at the entrance to PS1 they were like "Today we have a performance happening in the courtyard tent, with large live BUNNIES!" and I was thinking no with Anne Imhof.
I always see images of Eddie Peake's work floating around online. I would have loved to have seen his most recent piece Head. His performers are almost always nude or semi-nude which I have a harder time getting into with contemporary work as it seems like an easy reference back to early performance work but also a way of bolding and underlining performance art, like this is art because there are naked people. I guess I am usually more draw to work that employs subtly however I find the visuals of his documentation really interesting and always have a feeling of wanting to have been there, like I missed something.
Cover image by Brandon Brookbank