15 Questions with... Autumn Knight
This series aims to showcase the varying approaches creatives take to making art and how their relationships to the so-called art world differ, but also reveal what unifies those responsible for the art we love.
Autumn Knight is an interdisciplinary artist working with performance, installation, video and text. Her performance work has been on view at various institutions, including DiverseWorks Artspace, Art League Houston, Project Row Houses, Blaffer Art Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum, Skowhegan Space (NY), The New Museum, The Contemporary Art Museum Houston, and Optica (Montreal, Canada).
Later this month, Knight will unveil the first major presentation of her work in the UK with her show I Can’t Complain, which opened on September 29 at the ICA in London. The show aims to disrupt the taboo surrounding the act of complaining and will remain on view through 29 November.
1. What is your earliest memory of a work of art?
This would have to be a work of performance in the form of stand-up comedy.
2. Where do you turn to when you're in need of inspiration?
I turn to interviews, films, magazines, text, archives, fashion, music and of course conversations with friends and colleagues.
3. What do you like to do when you need to take a break from your practice?
Not sure there are breaks. The observation at the heart of my practice is all-consuming, it's constant.
4. Who is your favourite artist?
Time.
5. What's the biggest crime an artist can commit?
Not trying, not experimenting, not believing in their own vision.
6. Which gallery or museum should everyone try to visit at least once in their life?
The Rothko Chapel in Houston, TX.
7. What is the worst thing about the art world?
The worst thing about the art world is that it's described as a “world” when actually it is a slice of a slice of a version of reality - and not a world. It seems to imply that if you are not in this “world”, then you don’t exist. When you are indeed “out of” this world - and that’s a good place to be. And shouldn’t a “world” have room for us all?
8. Whose opinions on art do you actually care about?
People who are seeing art for the first time.
9. What trend in art makes you roll your eyes?
I'm trying to claw my way back from that cynical position. Not because I need to have some grandure, more evolved view of things. Tired of rolling my eyes. Time to steady them.
10. Who are the last three musical artists you listened to?
I tend to listen to lots of mixes by incredible DJs.
Saige Sounds, based in London, DJ Tara, based in New York, DJ Lynee Denise, based in Amsterdam/Joburg
Vinyl albums from my favourite record shop in Rome: Sounds Familiar.
Sunny Ade. I found this amazing record shop in Brooklyn with all West African vinyl records. Can’t say where. Don’t want it to get overexposed. But it's a little haven. Danced for an hour straight right there in the record shop.
Writing this, I just saw that the great jazz vocalist Cassandra Wilson passed away. So she’s definitely on this list.
11. What's your favourite colour and why?
I need 3 answers.
Green. It's verdant. It's alive. It represents living things.
Blue. Someone told me once, quite matter-of-factly, that I need to wear blue. Since then, I have surrounded myself with blue. It's cooling, serene. It's connected to wisdom and intuition.
Black. Ultimately, as a New York resident, I’m very comfortable in black. It's cool, it cloaks, it's a workhorse, it's elegant. It's home.
12. What three items would you grab if your house was burning down?
Now that I’ve done a ton of clearing out, it's a bit clearer what my priorities are.
My passport.
My computer.
My bike.
(The phone is a part of my hand at this point- no need to “grab” it.)
(Also, I have a history of fires in my past, so this question is always triggering, but necessary and quite clarifying nonetheless.)
13. Is there an artistic skill you wish you were better at?
Moving/Dancing.
13. What can you tell us about your show, I Can’t Complain, that's about to open at the ICA?
We’re looking at complaints. And how and why it is that I can’t complain. Who amongst us can?
The show is moving through definitions, revisiting taboos, punching through to the future.
14. Which piece in the show took the longest to perfect and why?
The audio work. It's such a collage, it's a new experiment, so perfection is about achieving a certain level of experimentation. I’m developing a new way of working with audio/sonic material for the future.
15. What impression do you hope people get after seeing your show?
I hope people think about their relationship with complaining one way or another. I also hope there’s a space in that impression that shifts something inside but is ultimately illegible yet sustains itself inside the viewer.
