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Interview with Hudson of Feature, Inc. Dike Blair: What exhibitions are you looking forward to? Hudson: "Recent Autodidacts". "Oh don't be an asshole, silly; it's just a circle.". "The East Village and the YBA". Some women artists of the last 25 years, however not those who have been most celebrated, with essays and interviews which focus on differences between male and female art making and art. An exhibition of noted artists' works considered to be failures or atypical. And two small, amusing exhibitions: Richard Prince re-photographs and Alex Katz paintings l979 - 1988, as well, paired abstractions by Gerhard Richter and Howard Hodgkin. All up in that Imaginary Museum in my mind. Dike Blair: What do you think about what museums are doing these days? Hudson: They need to flee from hipness and the current notion of art as fun, and ditto for artists, galleries, and collectors. Museums are the big news these days, as their actions and changes deeply shape the art world. There should be a critical examination of such things as their reorientation toward mass entertainment and the scale of huge, and the expanding power of their education departments and their pervasive audio tours, which seem to churn out like-minded fact followers rather than observant eyes. Whatever happened to the museum as a place of study, aesthetics, and the subjective, or the quiet time wandering about a museum deep in thought or ecstatic with emotion? Perhaps museums should institute one silent day weekly. Also, why are museums collecting works by artists who have had fewer than three or four one-person exhibitions? And finally, curatorial positions should be created for those with training outside academia. Dike Blair: Speaking of academia, do you have any advice for the art student? Hudson: Hand in hand with the museum issue is the art school: the making of professional artists who are busy with positioning themselves in careers. These years, it's probably better to develop out of art school. It's quite odd now that art-school graduates expect immediate affiliation with a gallery, believing they are already artists of some development. Generally, it requires five or so post-graduation years to disengage from the teacher/school influences and create one's own effort. At this point I've stopped attending graduate and undergraduate art-school exhibitions as a way to remain in touch with younger artists and art. I'm looking outside the box. Dike Blair: It seems we could all use some of that. Hudson: Exactly. There are many ways to get outside the current commodification of art. For collectors, I'd say, turn your back on the obvious, and favor collecting art as a passion, a curiosity, or for discovery. I even think that collecting art as decoration seems more interesting than as investment. Investment collecting is seriously changing art in a bad way. Critics could be less agenda-oriented, and artists more severe with their editing and more honest with their selection of style and subject matter. Galleries should avoid art made for easy consumption. We should all pay less attention to the salesmanship and showmanship of auctions and fairs, and, of course, be more aware of the not new or hot. And lastly, stop running around trying to see everything everywhere, and spend more time with the richness that is close to home. Dike Blair: It's always struck me that you show work that runs somewhat counter to what's on view in other commercial galleries. Is this conscious, and if so, can you describe how you bounce off the status quo? Hudson: The exhibitions at Feature are not intentionally organized to counter something. They develop out of what I am most attracted to, and my decisions are far more intuitive than intellectual. On some level I see most of Feature's exhibitions as participating in the current trends, although from a personal or oblique perspective. Generally, I prefer art that is complex and multi-focused. Such work is, and probably always has been, out there, yet because it isn't an easy read, or easy to explain, it rarely functions in the market in a very big way. Dike Blair: Usually your selections and exhibition groupings anticipate or make more concrete certain concepts that artists are reaching for. Does the sense of trend interest you at all? Hudson: It is the artists who lead the way. Watch what they are doing and you will see what is happening. Trends do intrigue me, yet because of my hands-on approach, I usually assimilate or reject trends quite some time before they become pervasive. These years trends are so swiftly advertised and assimilated that it seems obvious to stick to ones own guns. For me, a glut of anything diminishes its power, and when that occurs, the desire for something else itches. Different people reach their saturation point at different times. Also, much depends on what understanding- art hysterical, social, and other-one brings to the evaluation. And sometimes oversaturation, the stay-and-play syndrome, may lead to something most unexpected and interesting. The process is not cut-and-dried. If one has a gallery committed to trends and sales, then surely following the cresting trend is most important. Should one have a personal gallery, one based on the owner or director's vision and ideals, or even a specific commitment to art and artists, then one follows some thread or intuition regarding the matter of when to grasp and when to let go. Dike Blair: So Feature is a personal gallery, and your selections are primarily intuitive. Do you ever fear that your intuition could be reactionary? Hudson: Definitely. For example, my current moratorium on photography, especially art-directed snapshot-quality images of low life, especially when class, gender, and sexuality are pictured. And I very much avoid the current notion of the largest possible photographs, particularly when laminated to Plexiglas. I remember traveling through the MoMA's Gursky exhibition thinking that this guy makes great postcard images and that many of them actually would be more significant at that scale and in that form. Yet if an artist presented me with photographs, or even large photographs laminated to Plexiglas, that riveted my attention, my current position would go down the drain. Even when deep in a saturated trend, there is always room for something extraordinary and more defining. Dike Blair: In the early '80s you were the director of Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago. How did you come to that? How did that shape your philosophy? Hudson: The director of the gallery headhunted me to develop a performance, live events, film, video, and music program. At the time, late '70s early '80s, I was president of C.A.G.E [Cincinnati Artists' Group Effort]. That organization's curatorial and administrative approach at the time is fixed in my mind as an extraordinary model for the administration of not-for-profit, artist-oriented arts organizations-very socially unencumbered, free, direct, accessible, and responsive. Dike Blair: So I imagine that's why Feature Inc. came about? When was that? Hudson: Feature opened on April Fools' Day in l984, with an exhibition of Richard Prince rephotographs. The gallery name was chosen as a way to deflect a personality from the gallery, an attempt to let the exhibitions be the focus. And the structure of having several galleries simultaneously show differing exhibitions was my move against stardom and a push for pluralism and multiplicity. Dike Blair: Your reputation is as an artist-friendly gallery. Your practice of looking at artists' slides and responding with a written note is legendary. How, when, and why did you start doing this? Hudson: Sometimes those notes, which I've written since day one, cause a backlash. The most oppressive response yet, and it truly shook me, questioning my making any comment at all, was "So who the fuck do you think you are-God?" Dike Blair: How do the sheer number and intensity of these exchanges not overwhelm you? Hudson: The lack of a wall between my office and the gallery's exhibition space is a joy but also a problem that I've not been able to resolve. So far my best solution has been to partially obstruct the entrance to the office area with a bookcase. The back of the bookcase, which faces the exhibition space, is an inoperable door. This hints at privacy while allowing for easy access to the office and the storage space behind the office. Yet it hasn't at all worked well in creating much privacy. Visitors are frequently interrupting my work with mundane questions, or unaffiliated artists' needs drive them to introduce themselves, something I find annoying as I am almost always quite obviously working. If I were leisurely sitting around, all that would be quite different. The artists who intrude don't seem to ask themselves why I would care to meet them while knowing nothing of their work. I usually attempt to disarm the intensity of the situation with a bit of friendliness and an off-the-cuff remark. Dike Blair: Do you ever consider altering or suspending your slide viewing practice? Hudson: No, reviewing slides is important to me. I do learn many things about art and artists from the experience. And I just could not send back a package without some kind of acknowledgement, as that seems too cold, too corporate. This current, impersonal corporate model, with the invisibility of gallery staff other than a receptionist, which continues to dominate our field, is not for me. Mom-and-pop operations charm me as a form, but that doesn't mean that I do not appreciate organization and exactness. Dike Blair: Speaking of modest operations, I think that the artists you work with, almost across the board, make or fabricate their own stuff. Does that sound correct? Is this simply a matter of your taste or is there a politic involved, or both? Hudson: That's correct, but it developed over time and without deliberation. My experience has been that most artists' work cannot withstand out-of-house production. Essential things, the things that let an object live, that make it art, become lost. There are few instances when the artist's intent is so transparent to the produced objects that out-of-house production works. Usually a sense of hand allows the eye and mind to more readily linger and engage in the object and its resonance. The viewer is also vaguely reminded that a person is involved. Most outsourced production results in more attention to the surface; the object becomes a shell, and the read of that shell or surface is fast. I am more interested in the idea of being arrested by the object. The qualities brought about by the out-of-house production most often re-represent and deflate both content and meaning. Yet, again, there is room for everything, and certainly inherent to art making is an attitude that one may successfully do what was not possible before. That is a laudable and worthy attitude, one that contemporary art currently depends on. Dike Blair: Do you think Chelsea gallery architecture has impacted the art? Hudson: Well, I wouldn't exactly call it architecture. Dike Blair: Feature really caught my attention in the early '90s, when you showed at least some erotic art. This was a time when political correctness had fused with identity art, but you allowed for pleasure. Can you describe what you were responding to and creating at that time? Hudson: Political correctness is a bad thing. It's shortsighted and encourages repression and polar reaction, rather like Shakespeare's lady: she doth protest too much. For me, art is about the mind, and the mind is an arena in which anything goes. One learns there to distinguish between the personal and the public. Morals develop as one moves through all the possibilities. Discernment is a must. Dike Blair: Many consider your spaces eccentric. Hudson: Part of that, I think, comes from the fact that Feature presents multiple exhibitions simultaneously. The current Feature uses its tiny mezzanine space as a discrete exhibition area, and we have an inoperable door space on West Twentieth Street known as "The Wrong Gallery." There are so many interesting artists whose work should be seen and injected into our art discussions and art markets that no space should be left unused. It is the responsibility of the galleries to challenge and broaden the market, not to acquiesce to it. One goes to art for expansion, striving, and perhaps for some experience of an Other. I'm rather opposed to art being made or presented to further satisfy more of the same. Dike Blair: I've never really known your spiritual beliefs, but I think you meditate, and you might be Buddhist? And I've always sensed that you're attracted to an art of the mind and to alternate realities. What are your thoughts about reality? Hudson: I don't follow any specific ideology or religious belief, and I'm not a Buddhist, although I wish I had a better understanding of Buddhism. And while I have strong spiritual interests, I also keep at least one foot in the carnal garage. For about thirty years I have happily engaged in a form of contemporary, secular meditation, one that requires neither a master/student relationship nor any need to be part of a community, yet I also wander alertly around, sampling a bit from here and there. I consider making and appreciating art a spiritual endeavor. It is generally about bringing life to some otherwise inert thing. Dike Blair: In closing, and very generally, what has your experience as a gallerist taught you? Hudson: One of the great things about aging and having the gallery for twenty years is that the cycles by which things come and go and return yet again become humorously obvious. The notion of the new appears in a more realistic perspective than we are generally willing to acknowledge, one involved with novelty, fashion, and style. As a result, art with deeper levels of personal meaningfulness have become increasingly important. In terms of artists, those with sincere, personal investigations hold greater magnitude, regardless of much else. It's all very freeing to be rid of this new thing, and as the urgency for mapping or recording this immediate moment decreases, a much larger world is open to appreciation. Dike Blair: And if you weren't a gallerist, what might you be doing? Hudson: Chef for a tiny restaurant. Gardener. Sanskrit scholar.
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