I was able to snag Exhibitions Manager Owen
Smith to get his thoughts on Schneider’s work, and also some closing
sentiments on Screenings.
CAITLIN HARPSTER: Carrie Schneider works primarily in photography, so video work is a relatively new
exploration for her. How do you think she did?
OWEN SMITH: I wanted a still photographer for one of the screenings because I
wanted to see what they would do. Carrie is a photographer, yes, but what she really is doing
is studying a subject, almost in an anthropological kind of way. She is the only person I
know who has been to every neighborhood of Pittsburgh and photographed it. She has been working on this great
photographic series of houses--88--in Pittsburgh that
documents the
identical underlying structures, along with how the houses have been personalized
over the years and now appear very different with their own rich social
history.
She approached Reading Women in a similarly rigorous way. She documented the women reading in
multiple ways. She had an idea of
something she wanted to study but was unsure of the final form. She has been taking photographs of the
women as well as video documentation. This is something she has been working
on for a very long time. It is a
work in progress.
CH: How did she determine how long to focus on one women over the next?
OS: The reason for the length of each clip is one page-turn. So it depends on what they are reading
and how they are reading. It’s a
very structural concept of editing, which pairs nicely with the photographic
series Hands. You see the photographs of the hands of the women and the way
each woman holds the book. There
is a complimentary body of work with this video. Carrie is exploring multiple ways of how to document and
present one single subject. I like
her practice. It is a very thorough,
almost scientific type of practice.
CH: Reading Women is kind of like
a series of portraits.
OS: They are always portraits. Even when she was documenting the houses for 88, that was a form of portraiture. The high art of portraiture is not just depicting the
likeness of a person or thing, but capturing the personality within it. I think that is what she is really
trying to explore, what creates the personality of each woman. She is showing us not only how each woman
is reading, but what she chose to read as well. The idea is that you are getting a portrait of this person
in her own kind of head-space, where she feels completely engaged and unaware, empowered
almost, while reading her favorite book by a female author. Coincidentally, Carrie’s work pairs
very nicely with our Feminist And… exhibition.
CH: This is the last work in Screenings. Overall, how do you feel about the
screenings and how they were received?
OS: I was really happy with it all and would like to do another screening
series again in the future. I was
really excited with the variety of works produced. It has been really lovely working on this project and I
think everyone involved really enjoyed doing it as well. I wanted the idea of the “gesture” to
act as a guideline for artists to produce something that was a little bit of a
sketch, something quick, or challenge them to show something that were not
necessarily prepared to do, like how Carrie showed a work in progress.
CH: I also feel that the “gesture” shows the viewer a different perspective
on the working artist. For
example, the work Tzarinas of the Plane exhibited, Meditation on the Making of Madness, which actually incorporated their artistic process as part of
their video.
OS: Yes, their work became kind of documentary. It is such a wide open field of things that can happen and
it has been nice to be able to give artists a space and a little bit of time
and a little bit of a goal to do something with.
Overall, it has been a lot of fun. There is a little bit of “the art of
the exhibition” that I might change or do differently in the future that might
benefit the artist but I am really amazed and grateful that so many people put
so much effort and dedication into this series.
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