Interview: Charles Long
The work Unity Purity Occasional, from 2000 was created by Charles Long in connection with the exhibition Siobhán Hapaska, Charles Long, Ernesto Neto at Magasin III. The exhibition brought together three artistic practices that worked with sculpture and tactility. With Unity Purity Occasional, Long wanted to invite a collective purification ritual, a washing of hands with antibacterial gel. The purification ritual, according to the artist himself, referred to not only physical, but also spiritual purification.
Before the museum’s reopening in October 2020, the work was installed in the entrance of Magasin III. In an email interview, we asked Charles Long to reflect on Unity Purity Occasional as it is reactivated in the current context.
OLGA KRZESZOWIEC MALMSTEN: What are your thoughts on Unity Purity Occasional (U.P.O) today? Do you perceive it differently now as our society finds itself in an utterly different state than when the artwork was created?
CHARLES LONG: U.P.O. has stayed the same for me but through its lens I perceive my art differently, and it confirms a new responsibility and relationship developing in my practice. When I made the work in 2000 I thought I had lost my mind. I had made the drawing, sent it to Stereolab, the piece was commissioned by Magasin III and I began fabrication. Midway through I thought, ‘what the heck am I doing, this piece seems frivolous, without merit’, and I was tortured by the preposterousness of it. Initially I had been quite compelled to create a work that made a sacred and communal act out of purifying the social body so that it could have safe physical contact. In the act of washing in public with a small group of people, it would simultaneously bring awareness to us of the sacredness of permeable boundaries; that we are here as separate beings in order to heal as one. To do this we first need to take care of our ‘viruses’, literally and figuratively. I believed this act was both spiritual and biological in the sense that we do not want to add harm in the process of connection. How could we cleanse our spirits and bodies so as to have safe union? The music, the hand gel, the glass and steel forms, and the bodies might reconstruct an ancient ritual we have been doing all along but also pointing to future ritual practices we will need and desire. It’s weird how that was on my mind in 2000 and still is. So the piece is the same! But this experience of having a work I felt lacked relevance in 2000 now finding a pertinent moment as it greets art viewers entering the museum in 2020 reinforces what I have been learning: I am not the mastermind of my art. I am its helper.
OKM: You have mentioned that this particular artwork was a transitional piece for you. Could you elaborate on that?
CL: So while making the work, I asked my assistant at the time if the work had integrity. He said, ‘maybe not but it sure is fun’. He was right about the fun. The Stereolab track is contagiously fun to dance to with others as you wash up. However, I had a begun journey at that time, and ‘fun’ was definitely not permitted. The idea for this work came to me while I was in the Sinai Desert recovering from nearly overdosing in a hotel in Cairo. When I got back to NYC and had committed to so many parties, (museum, Stereolab, glass blowers, etc.) to make this complicated work, I started to question whether my art was focused on the most important issues for myself. This was part of questioning everything, not just what was art, or what is my art, but all that I had been doing in my life until then. I began asking how I could do this life best. This led to my quitting the art world as quickly as I could, closing the Chelsea studio and going west to teach full time. Straightaway, and ever since, it is my work with students that has revealed to me the immense importance of art in my life and the universe. I now am convinced that this experience we are here to have is art itself, the universe is artwork. Art can be medicine even when, and perhaps especially when, it appears to be absurd or destructive. Perhaps the one thing I still would question is the value of works that could be merely distracting. Decide that one for yourselves. Is the work you make or spend time with leading to a better life for you? To me, U.P.O. seemed like a distraction back when I was making it, so, I don’t know about this.
‘…I am not the mastermind of my art. I am its helper.’
OKM: Unity Purity Occasional invites its audience to collectively perform a ritual of purification. Which aspects of the ritual were of particular interest to you when you made the artwork?
CL: All kinds of physical connection! I would love to make out with strangers occasionally if it were safe and welcome. I did do this once at an opening I had in Austin, TX. Happy pre-Covid days for sure. What will happen socially all over the world once the vaccine rolls out? Whoa, get ready folks! Marvelous that saliva is so protective. Coronaviruses are not sexually transmittable. So the next artwork I could design for Magasin III could be a collection of small rooms where people can enter separately and then I would just cut out a few small holes in the walls connecting them at around waist height. How’s that sound? ; )
OKM: Considering the new context that the work finds itself in, what is your hope for the audience today with U.P.O.?
CL: The quarantine has been an amazing time of reflection for me. Perhaps the entire world? A journey inward since March 2020. Time to see my sick country (not just the virus, but the entire ‘ill’-considered way we have been living) and ask how I can be part of its healing. The answer is the same as what happened to me in 2000 – to continue to heal myself and offer kindness and respect to all beings. And in our solitude anyone can drop into meditation at any moment. Just stop, and be still. Global rushing of progress gets to stop and reflect and heal the real wounds; the virus may save us.
It has been an outward journey too. I have met some of the most amazing human healers during this time, as well as healing pets, plants, wild critters and art works. I even ‘met’ the divine through a medicine called 5-MeO-DMT. So yeah, if I were to ‘hope’ anything for U.P.O. and its participants, it is that we see the benefits of tending to purify ourselves from within and develop our awareness. Also that we do not contaminate other souls with potentially harmful demons we are still in the process of getting to know. And then, with loving kindness, heal those unheard, unseen ‘viruses’. Kindness and respect to all beings. And fun.
