_{Rose Nestler}

I started with neoprene because it was connected to sports and athletic wear. I really was interested in athleisure as a type of clothing and an industry and within the larger context of  garments. There’s different tech fabrics that go into athleisure, the athleisure industry, and I can't even get access to a lot of those, they’re almost impossible to find. For example, something like a pair of Nike jogger pants, I can’t actually get that fabric. It's really hard to source really fancy tech fabrics. So, neoprene was the closest, most affordable option. I started using it because it felt very sporty. It is also super sculptural, it can almost stand on its own depending on how I pattern it. I also like how it’s a skin in itself.

If I were making one of my older power suit pieces, I would search the shirt and suiting sections in the garment district. I would be really specific in buying poly-wool blends that look like a suit would be made out of. It’s the same with leather, if I want the piece to feel a bit kinky, I'll choose leather, but then I like to play with the color. I think when people think about the world of kink, they often go immediately toward black leather, so I like to flip that around and try different colors and different textures and patterns. There's sometimes a little confusion in the material too.

Do you have any background in fashion and pattern making, or did the need to learn those skills arise out of a preexisting sculptural practice?

Which brings us back to something I’ve been thinking about, which is how important is playfulness to your work?

Really important. For the most recent works that I made this summer and fall, I thought “Oh, no, these are pretty serious.” But I realized that I was wrong, they’re still a little darker, but the humor–the playfulness–is definitely still there. And, often, I don't even realize that until I see someone else chuckling at them. Humor is, I mean, we all know this, it's a way that we can talk about painful things with a levity, a little reprieve from the world we're living in. I don't always aim for it, but it comes out.

Do you think of the different sculptures having personalities, is there an anthropomorphizing of them? Something like, “Oh, they wouldn't do that. Or what they would do in that situation?”

They're all kind of character driven. That's the first time I've said that, actually. Each of them has their own personality and it's funny when I move them around, I talk to them like they’re people. I’m like “You don't like that when I do that?” It's totally like they're my pets or something weird. Yeah.

Is there an emphasis on either narrative or experience when you’re setting out to show a collection? Is one more important to the other?

I think both. It probably leans towards narrative. For example, the most recent show in Montreal that I'm in with GaHee Park and Daniel Orchard [Projet Pangée, Fantasy Body]. When I get paired with artists, or in this case, a trio, I like to make work inspired by their work, especially when there's narrative in the artist's work. I like to give life to other characters and their paintings and really respond to their work. I'd rather see a small, two person show or three person show where the artists are really in dialogue with one another.

I was planning work for the show, and this dialogue was the reason why I made Woman with a Book (after Léger) (2020). I was thinking about how both of their work uses the language of modernism in various ways. They’re connected to but also twisting and subverting these modernist ways of painting and image making, etc. I've never dealt with that in my work, really. But it sort of made sense, since I'm very interested in history in general. I started thinking about what objects are canonised, like paintings at MoMA. I thought about Léger’s painting as an object, since I've always really loved that painting, and because they are so formal. There's so much shape to the forms he uses. I immediately saw this piece as this relief. I was just like, “Oh, I'm gonna recreate that painting.”

After that, I started thinking “why the hell am I doing this? I don't need to boost Léger. Is it helping or hurting this white supremacist patriarchy that we live in and how it involves the art world? Why am I doing this? Why is this important?” I still can't fully answer that for you. When I was making the piece, I was going to fully copy the shapes and not change much. But I ended up adding the single, weaponized, conical breast, piercing through the book as kind of a last step. I don't know, I feel like it's a deeply sad piece, because it's trapped in this art historical legacy or something. Even just the title of this painting, “Woman with a Book” – it's not “Woman Reading.” The book is a prop that she's holding. And I don't think I really changed that. For some reason, I didn't want to make her read the book, I wanted this mirror reflection of exactly what it was. I guess the only thing that's puncturing is her body, the breast. And then the black leather roses are this a symbol of both life and death, almost like a memento mori.

We recently spoke to Joani Tremblay, one of the founders of Projet Pangée, about artist run spaces. How important are artist run spaces to you? Have you found any significant differences in showing at artist run spaces versus commercial galleries?

Artists run spaces are hugely important to me. I actually had my first solo show [Strange Business] at Ortega Y Gasset Projects, an artist run space in Brooklyn. They are incredible. We all get our start through a community bolstering us up and helping one other out. It's how you get off the ground and get your first jolt, or your first show. Artist run spaces serve a really important purpose in the art world. I've just now started to show in commercial galleries, and while I'm not sure what the difference is, in terms of caliber of shows, per se, I do think that in artist run spaces you have more freedom because they're not tied necessarily to sales. You know, for good or for bad, that's just what it is. That's why they're so crucial, you're able to try something that you otherwise might not be able to.

What is the relationship to the body with something like Toolbag (2020), where you're literally objectifying something in a humorous way, but you're also breaking down the body into parts. There is definitely some humor there, but also feels like maybe there’s a bit of violence.

With Toolbag, and the Barbie doll legs that I gave it, I wanted to really get across that these aren't realistic legs, there's no one that can walk on these legs. In fact, the bag itself has to be held up. It's almost like a saddle that it's sitting on, the stool has holes in it for the legs. I was kind of thinking of a bag as a home, as a holder of things, as a person and as a woman. I mean, the term “baggage,” everything gets being pushed and put in this “bag” of our lives. The tool bag is a gendered bag, meant for men. I remember when I got my first tool bag, it felt really awesome, I felt really empowered, which in some way was tied to masculinity.

It’s a piece that I think has some agency, but it also can't go anywhere. It has the tools, but it’s trapped on this stool. It's also made of green snake skin leather, like a couture travel bag. I copied a classic Carhartt tool bag to make the pattern but everyone who saw the piece was immediately like, “oh, that’s a Birkin,” which I like. I like that there's that confusion. I'm presenting a space and a body identity that is based on the tools that it was given, and the space that was given to it in order to grow, and there's some deep trauma, sadness and pain in that body. I like to present that honestly, but I also hope that it's not just a pity party, that there’s some agency, there is a future, humor and brightness.

One of the sensorial components of video is sound. I’m wondering how you choose your sound. And when you show sculptures, do you often include a soundtrack in the space?

I don't usually. I've had video and objects in the same small room together, so the sound of the video was playing, and I liked that feeling. Sound is hugely important, because it gives the work an authorial, sensory kind feeling. I tend to use ASMR-like sounds, the slime piece [The Weird Sisters, 2020] was interesting because slime is a whole ASMR world, but I didn't want to be too obvious about that. So the sound I chose for that piece is an edit of Mozart's “Così fan tutte,” created for the piece by my husband, Dan Arlein, which is translated to “All Women Do the Same.” I wanted the song to feel familiar, so that people watching could recognize it, but it’s also a little bit psychedelic.

Does showing the video and sculptural works together bridge a gap of tactility? You can't touch the sculptures, even though you probably want to, so they're very much visual, but there’s a ton of action imbued into the objects. Do you feel a symbiotic relationship is necessary between the video and sculpture?

I feel okay with letting my sculptures show on their own without video. I've made a lot of works without thinking about video, because I knew I was making them for a bigger group show or something. In a solo setting, if it's just my work, it feels really necessary to have sound and video. Because, like you said, it bridges the gap between a physically static work and a story I'm trying to tell. I like to achieve a material/tactile feeling that you see with your eyes, but you get to fully experience it in the video. Maybe it's almost like a trance-like state for my viewers that I'm aiming for with some of my shows. Having video with the objects really helps to do that. I didn't grow up super religious, but as a kid I got really into church. Now I’m an atheist, but I got really into the ritual, and the materiality of the objects, and the sound and singing of a spiritual, religious experience. If I can get there, to the “church” feeling, I'm on the right track. That's a big goal, but somehow I feel like video really helps.