An edited version of this interview was published in Time Out, New York, April 16, 2012, http://www.timeout.com/newyork/art/interview-e-v-day-and-kembra-pfahler. All images by moi.
E.V. Day and Kembra Pfahler, “Giverny”
After years of neglect following World War II, Monet’s famous Giverny house and gardens were restored to their former glory in 1980 and reopened to the public. The inspiration for the artist’s most iconic paintings, this pastoral landscape along the Seine once again became the living, breathing work of art that Monet cultivated and recorded between 1883 and his death in 1926. But for all its languid, postcard-perfect beauty, its extreme artifice is perhaps its most lasting “impression,” as the artist himself suggested when he noted, “People will protest that it’s quite unreal, and that I’m out of my mind, but that’s just too bad.… Nature won’t be summoned to order and won’t be kept waiting. It must be caught, well caught.” Taking Monet’s observation as a call to action, artist E.V. Day, who was awarded the Munn Artists Residency at Giverny by the Versailles Foundation in 2010, invited fellow artist Kembra Pfahler to join her. They collaborated on an arresting series of photographic mise-en-scènes featuring Pfahler as her infamous Karen Black persona posing amid the riotous wisteria, roses and hollyhocks of the Clos Normand flower garden, as well as the weeping willows and quaint bridges of the Japanese water garden. The result, “Giverny,” is a stunning installation that brilliantly positions these compelling images within a miniversion of Monet’s verdant oasis, replete with stone path, grass, flowers, lily pond and bridge.
JH) What was the weirdest part of the experience for you?
ED) The weirdest part was being in one of the most popular tourist destinations in France when no one else was there. It was so silent and surreal, and sometimes I wondered if the ghost of Claude Monet was hovering over us. Also, the garden is so culturally familiar—from paintings and photographs—you get a mysterious feeling of déjà-vu.
KP) The weirdest part of the experience was they they let us shoot in the Claude Monet garden in my Karen black outfit. No one had ever been photographed in the garden, except when they shot a geisha in the garden a few years back for a flat screen TV commercial. The weirdest part was when E.V. Day convinced them that I wasn’t nude but in fact in complete body paint. And covered from head to to in extreme decor. Another weird part was that they didn’t kick us out of the garden when I was rowing the boat under the Japanese bridge and making the best use of what was available on the pond…and that the trees made phantom sounds in the wind like the matahorn ride at Disneyland. another weird thing was that every one looked like Joan of Arc or Shrek in that part of the world. also weirdly enough the gardeners were so kind to E.V. Day, and me too…but wondered why she was microwaving the flowers she found in the garden (later which became her “seducers” series). Weird how they used the same seeds from the inception of the first beginnings of the garden all through out the years…season after season…weird how such a brilliant artist like E.V. could share the experience of her residency in Giverny France at the Claude Monet garden so generously with me, in a weird world that sets women usually against each other…the nasty alpha male driven culture…wait…we’re not in that world. I’ve never been in that world, and I don’t feel the least bit weird about that.
JH) E.V.s decision to invite you to collaborate is powerful because it does subvert the value system of that alpha male culture you speak of (with its emphasis on competition, ego, etc.) by offering up an alternative model of cooperation and sharing instead, which is weird and unusual, but beautiful as hell.
KP) Yes I thought you may get that..this was a great experience. Its very difficult to be chosen for that residency too. Its from the Versaille foundation. You get awarded the residency, you don’t even apply. i’ve learned a lot from her. E.V. is a sculptor, writer and scientist. Its also weird that we got Playboy to sponsor us too, right? if the whole world is changing, then the art world will have to change too…clearly we can’t function the way we were traditionally taught…suffer, starve, get a collector, suffer, maybe starve some more…you know like how Oscar Wilde died alone in his hotel room of an ear ache after he had been shunned by his community. Wilde went to the wild wild west on an expedition to see the indigenous people around 18-blahbitty blah…and I feel I made an expedition to Europe not unlike his. Mine was just in reverse. I had no education about European culture. E.V. generously laid out the bones for me to dust off. It was so utterly beautiful in that garden I couldn’t stop crying. It made a tremendous impression on me. To see one artist’s singular vision in real life not in a movie or on a postcard….Oh and about dying alone in a hotel room… its a priority that we look after one another and perpetuate our good ideas…not compete for the cash prizes. We can’t survive with pessimistic romantic morals traditionally given to the artist in our culture anymore. We can only survive by community and by optimism and by being inventive about production financing. Its very Malcolm X these days, by any means necessary. With a feminine touch naturally.
JH) E.V., what were your thoughts/intentions on making this choice?
ED) I tell this story a bit in the catalog that The Hole and Playboy are producing for the show, but the first day I arrived in Giverny, I visited the waterlily pond and had a vision of Kembra in her pink body paint, black patent leather boots, and black wig, walking on the water. She and I had collaborated before on a photo series called Chanel/Shazam that involved my sculptures, so it was natural for me to think of Kembra in a built environment. But the vision of Kembra was also subconscious—something about the bright colors of the flowers and the foliage contrasting with the dark blackness of the water—the scene has a similar graphic quality as Kembra does in her Karen Black persona. Also, Karen Black is an archetype, and it fulfills some part of me. It addresses the darkness that comes with extreme beauty, the Japanese Kabuki aspect, and the humor. It just makes perfect sense to me to see Kembra’s Karen in this garden. I am still trying to articulate exactly why, but I think the pictures speak for themselves. It was so surreal, Kembra and the garden, the two of them together look like a stranger-than-fiction phenomenon. The project was a dream come true. Karen Black rings true for me as an artist, and Kembra Pfahler is a great friend. It’s a bonus when you get two in one!
JH) I love the phrase, “the trees made phantom sounds in the wind like the matahorn ride at disneyland”. It conjures the same fantastical mix of artifice and mysticism that the garden, the resulting photographs, and your persona – if that’s the right word? – do. There’s a creepy synergy, a “perfect fit” in the way Kembra’s presence activates the landscape. Did E.V. “direct” the performative aspects of the work, positioning you, etc., or were the mis en scenes mostly a shared vision?
KP) I felt like I made an indentation in the garden, like a ding (in surf culture a ding is a dent in a surfboard). i made a ding in the garden. If an impression is to make an imprint somehow. I felt like the anti-natural wild west visitor. I don’t know if I charged anything up, but it certainly charged me up. We had to shoot when the garden was closed to the public, at 5 am or at night after the garden closed, so the schedule was olympic. I get into a sort of tireless blackout in my costume …..its weird. And it was easy to black out by the reflecting ponds because they are very black…you’d never think of them being so black, very hypnotizing. Yes E.V. did have a really specific vision about placement because she new about the history of the reflections in the pools. and how Monet painted so meticulously the changing light. She’s not usually a photographer with models per say, and she had a very quiet way about suggesting my movement. I tend to freestyle a lot, striking poses as fast as blinking, so its a challenge to slow down and let the costume do all of the work. So she did have a very specific desire..she had told me she imagined it when she first saw the garden. I felt like being angular some how, arms taught and militaristic, very serious. i like the way that looks when I am in full drag. Its an anti-camp stance: so serious its funny look.
ED) I had a very specific shot in mind of Karen Black walking on the water with a perfect doubling reflection. We were able to achieve this with the shot of her in the row boat. After that shot was complete, I kept my mind completely open, knowing Kembra would have reactions and ideas of her own to being in the garden. She is an artist, not a model, so that was really a part of the collaboration, us bringing our ideas together to make these images.
