Inside the Head of Lorenzo Pace Art, Life and Getting Out There (Excerpt)

7/23/2019 Inside the Head of Lorenzo Pace Art, Life and Getting Out There (Excerpt)

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ANTHONY CRISAFULLI WRITINGS

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Inside the Head of Lorenzo Pace

The Project

Lorenzo Pace, an artist whom I have admiredand known since the early 1990s, agreed to let meinterview him about his art and life. I explained to

him that the interview would be the cornerstone for anew series of books, whose primary objective is basedin the supposition that, "newcomers to the #eld of artmay have a greater appreciation of how art functionsor what art is, if they better understood those that

make it.$ "It was essential,$ I told Pace, "to be ashonest and as open as possible, in order for thisexperiment to work.$ Being friends with Lorenzo, Iknew his response would be a resounding, "Hey man, I wouldn%t give it to you any other way.$

I suggested, on the phone, that either we meetfor the interview at my o&ce or in his studio; whichever was more convenient for him. There was apause, in his large inviting voice he bellowed out, "Man

how about we go to Mexico and let%s #nd somewhere we have never been before.$ He arrived at my housean hour later and entered the front door withoutknocking. He introduced himself with a "What%s up?$ as he hugged me in the vestibule. I asked him to waita minute as I went upstairs to collect my recorder andbriefcase.

When I returned he was sitting on my frontporch, with his eyes closed, holding my 3'month'oldson. I waited 20 minutes before I disturbed him. I

asked him if he was ready, he opened his eyes andlooked at me and said, " This is as close as you get tothe divine.$ We put the child back in the house andheaded to my 1996 white Miata convertible. He tooko( his shirt, pointed to the tan lines on his Africanskin and said, "I got to get myself a little blacker,$ andthen pulled out a book.

Art, Life and Getting Out There ) Excerpt *- Anthony Crisafulli

SNAP SHOT:

Lorenzo Pace, middle child of thirteen,

was born in 1943 in Birmingham, Alabama. " I was just +oating in there, $ Pace describes it. "My father was the Archbishop Eddie Pace, a the leader in aBlack Baptist Church. When I was 13 hemoved us from the South to Chicago.My mother, never slept, she took care ofall of us kid, had a full time position as a

domestic and took care of every stray

cat in the neighborhood. My eldestbrother was a pilot, one of his sisters was a professor at mathematics, and my youngest brother is going through theseminary. But out of all my brothers andsisters, I%m only artist. I think I wassupposed to be the minister in thefamily, but I could never make it

Triumph of the Human Spirit, National Monument, New York, New Yor !




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Were on the Road to Progresso

Pace: Did you ever read The Hitchhiker%s Guide tothe Galaxy?

Crisafulli: I saw the movie. Does that count?

Pace: No ) Pace pulls an old tired paperback out of thisbag and begins. *

Pace: What I am going to read to you the essence of what making art is all about. We%re only on this planetfor a very short time and then we got to get out of

here. listen and remember, not all knowledge is cleanknowledge.

Crisafulli: OK…

Pace: "It is important to note that suddenly, andagainst all probability, a Sperm Whale had been calledinto existence, several miles above the surface of analien planet and since this is not a naturally tenableposition for a whale, this innocent creature had verylittle time to come to terms with its identity.

This is what it thought, as it fell:

The Whale: Ahhh! Woooh! What%s happening? Whoam I? Why am I here? What%s my purpose in life?What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm downcalm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interestingsensation. What is it? It%s a sort of tingling in my... wellI suppose I better start #nding names for things. Let%scall it a... tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what%s this roaringsound, whooshing past what I%m suddenly gonna callmy head? Wind! Is that a good name? It %ll do. Yeah, thisis really exciting. I%m dizzy with anticipation! Or is itthe wind? There%s an awful lot of that now, isn%t it? And what%s this thing coming toward me very fast? So bigand +at and round, it needs a big wide sounding namelike ,Ow %, ,Ownge%, ,Round%, ,Ground%! That%s it!

Ground! Ha! I wonder if it%ll be friends with me? HelloGround!$ -Splat.

Off the Beaten Path

We arrived at the Progresso border crossing a half hourlater; paid our 25 cents, walked over the bridge andheaded in the opposite direction of the crowds.

Pace: " This place reminds me of Africa, without theblack people. All the buildings are small and made ofcinder blocks. When I go somewhere I like to go andsee what the scene is like where the regular people live; you know, check out the scene.$

We saw a dog with no hair, or at least with very littlehair, we went into a church that could seat no morethan 20 people, and counted 13 dental o&ces on oneblock. Along the way Lorenzo picked up a bottle capand put it in his pocket. But before he put it in hispocket and said, "How are you? I think I%ll take youhome.$ With our legs tired and his pockets #lled weheaded to an upstairs bar that I had come across two weeks prior. It was dark, clean and patron'less '' aperfect place to open up. I turned on my recorder and

had the bartender bring us a beer and tequila each and we began.

The #rst half hour we avoided talking about art. Wediscussed the signi#cance of the Obama candidacy andhow much the world had changed since theassassinations of Marin Luther King, Malcolm X, andBobby Kennedy.

Pace: "I talked to some of the cats from the hoodabout you and where you are at. How your kids run upto me and hug me when I come over and how your

daughter, Mia, calls me your brother. $ Lorenzo wenton, " And they said, this is a white boy? And I said, thisis a white boy, who wears a shirt and tie to workeveryday. I never thought I would be a friend with a white boy like you. But see, in life you never know…even white boys like you can change.$ Lorenzo grinned, grabbed my hand, and laughed.




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Hearing something like this made me feel strangelyhumble, partly because it smacked of the truth butmostly because of a late'night conversation Lorenzoand I had the last spring that completely changed who I am. This probably requires an explanation.

HOW ART CHANGES LIVES

The last time Lorenzo visited me he gave mychildren a very special gift, a signed copy of hisaward' winning book " Jalani and the Lock.$ Then hesaid, "I have another gift for you, but everybodyneeds to get up.$

So, my three children, my wife, and I got up.

"Now repeat after me,$ Lorenzo went on."Whatever I say, I want you to say. And whatever Ido, I want you to do. Let%s practice. "

He cupped his hands like a megaphone, "When I goHey Hey. You go Hey Hey. When I go Ho Ho…$

We responded, "Ho Ho.$

Lorenzo, " good, now lets get started.$

He open the book and read the #rst page like aBaptist Preacher on Easter Sunday he began to

preach, " A long time ago.$

We repeated, " A long time ago.$

Lorenzo continued, "No, a long time a time ago. Weneed to go way way way way back…To thebeginning. To where we all come from. You and meand mommy and daddy. To where it all began ' AFRICA!$

Throughout the performance we clapped our hands,called out for freedom, sang the national anthem,drummed on the tables, stamped on the +oors,marched around the house, and danced with delight.I was truly amazed watching my young children, void of inhibitions, celebrate Jalani%s message ofuniversal freedom and human dignity.

Shortly after the performance several facultymembers arrived at my house to meet Dr. Pace. Wetalked about the New York scene and his monument

on Wall Street, and how he was a ( ected growing upas a P.K. ) Preacher%s Kid.. My # ve' year'olddaughter, dressed in a Dora nightgown and fuzzy

JALANI AND THE LOCK

Lorenzo Pace makes a stunning children%s book debut. Disarming in itssimplicity, his narrative conveys complex themes in a fairy tale structure." A long time ago in Africa,$ reads the left'hand page of the #rst spread,opposite a childlike outline of the continent in orange, clearly labeled, which vibrates against a cherry 'red background. The next two spreads

continue, "a little boy named Jalani/ loved to play in the forest.$ Jalani%ssmiling face dominates his portrait; the forest is a grove of lollipop trees.In these three spreads, Pace introduces the key elements of his story. Likeother classic fairy tales, the forest, once a child%s magical kingdom,becomes a source of terror; this is the scene where "a strange man cameand took him away.$ Pace marks Jalani%s transition into life as a captive in America with a single word, "Locks,$ paired with the image of a padlock socarefully rendered that it seems to be animated on the page.




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pink slippers, ran downstairs to say goodnight: whilethe other two children peaked around the banister, sheasked Lorenzo, "Could you read us the book again, Ilove this story.$ The generous soul that Lorenzo is

replied, " I want everybody to get up.$ And for the nexttwenty minutes Professors and my children and myselfshouted back Lorenzo%s words, clapped our hands,danced around the living room, and became a little bit wiser for the wear. And the Shaman of Brooklyn grinned like a Cheshire cat.

After all the guests had gone home and the children were asleep, Lorenzo and I were at the sink; I washingand he drying. We were talking about the evening, sinceit was fresh on our minds, and from nowhere I started

to speak out loud.

I said, " Lorenzo$ as I handed him the next dish to dry,"I realized tonight, no, I realized right now, that slaveryis my fault. And I want to apologize to you ,cause I amdeeply sorry.$

He looked at me and his smile ran away from his faceand for a second I was scared. I had never seen Lorenzoso serious. He turned to me and said, " Thank you

brother; no white man has said that to me before. What you told me right now, I% ve been waiting to hear myentire life.$

I don%t know what made me say what I did. All I can sayis that the Lord works in mysterious ways and I amthankful for his grace.

Return to Mexico

When the Bartender returned with our drinks, we saltedout glasses and toasted to friendship.

Crisafulli: Lorenzo, I want you to tell me about thelock which keep appearing in your work.

Pace: In 1991 I went back to Birmingham, Alabama tobury my father. After the funeral all the family came

back to the house to eat and celebrate my father%s life, as we knew him. My Uncle Julius Pace, who was 80 at that

time, began to talk about our family history and beganto talk about my father%s life. Then all of a sudden heasked my mother, "Mary, do you have the…$ Uncle Juliusmade some hand gesture with his hands, …$ that I gaveEddie, 30 years ago.$ My mother went to the bedroomand came back with a little brown bag. Uncle Juliusopened it up and took out an old lock. He placed it onthe table in front of him and my uncle began to speak.

Uncle Julius: " This lock was given to me by my father Joseph Pace and it was given to him by his father StevePace, who was a slave. This is the lock that shackled him when he was a slave. $

Pace: Everything stopped, the eating, the laughing, ourmouths +ew open, "Like What$? When Uncle Julius was #nished talking, he picked up the lock, handed tome and said, "I want Lorenzo to be the keeper of thefamily lock. I didn%t know why the family put this onme. I guess it was because I was the Artist.

So I took the lock back to New York and put it in thecloset, because I didn%t want to deal with it. It was tooheavy. And as far as I was concerned that damn lockcould sit in the closet forever.

Crisafulli: So how did you start to use the lock in your work? What was the #rst piece you did with the lockand what inspired you?

Pace: Then one day, several years later, my 8' year olddaughter asked, " Daddy, are we from slaves?$ It was a

heavy question and I had never thought I would have toexplain to my sweet beautiful innocent child. Before myfather%s funeral, we had never talked about slavery in ourfamily. So I gave her some answer, but she deserved abetter one. I knew what I had to do. So, when no one was around I went to the closet, pulled out that littlebrown bag, sat down on an old wooden stool, took outmy legacy, and cradled the it between my hands. After a




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while, I looked at the lock and said, "Why was I soscared of you?$ And the lock said back to me, "I don%tknow; Julius sent me here to tell you something.$ "What?$ I said back. And in the voice of the ancestors

the lock whispered, "Now you need to # gure out howto tell the child about our history without her feelingashamed, and let her know that we are all more than we appear to be.$ Over the next several hours the lockand I communed with each other and by time we weredone I was inspired to write the book Jalani and theLock. Afterwards I developed a performance piecebased on the story. Since then I have explored thesigni#cance of the lock as a subject and catalyst for my work.

Jalani and the Lock is a story about a little boy from Africa who was playing in the forest. Then one day abig man came along, put him in chains, sailed himacross the ocean and sold him into slavery. Jalani wassad because he was never allowed to play, ever again.Many years later when Jalani was freed, he kept thelock that held the chains that held him in slavery.When Jalani died he gave the lock to his son and askedhim to pass it to his children when he left this world,so that his family would never to forget where theycame from.

Crisafulli: What kind of artist are you?

Pace: What do you mean, man?

Crisafulli: Are you a painter, sculpture, do you deal with found objects?

Pace: I do all those things but I see myself as aninstallation artist and a performance artist.

Crisafulli: What is installation art?

Pace: Installation art isn%t like painting and it isn%t likesculpture. Installation isn%t something you can hangon a wall or put on a pedestal. When you look at

painting you understand it through your eyes. It%s aone'dimensional understanding; on the other hand,sculpture '' you can move around it but it%s still verysight'oriented. The goal of installation art is to engageall # ve of your senses or at least more than one. All artis an experience but it is di( erent type of experiencesthat de#ne the genre the art falls into.

Crisafulli: Explain what you mean by "all art is anexperience.$

Pace: If you buy a drawing by Picasso, what are youreally buying?

Crisafulli: Do you want me to answer that?

Pace: No it%s rhetorical. Your buying what came out ofan artist experience. The act of Picasso%s artistic drive,his direct contact with the act of drawing itself wasthe artist%s moment or in other words it was the art.

The drawing that you purchase is a result of theartistic moment, a sort of record of what he wasthinking, feeling, of what he was in the process ofcreating.

Homage to the Broom, 2002




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Crisafulli: So where does this artistic drive or,another word, the artist emotion come from?

Pace: It%s an instinct; the artist has an artistic instinct. This instinct is developed and nurtured over timethrough making art, studying art, and experiencing art.Maybe an analogy could be this: lions instinctuallyhunt, would you agree with this?

Crisafulli: Yes.

Pace: But before a lion hunts he play hunts.

Crisafulli: What do you mean by "play hunt$?

Pace: He pre'enacts the hunt through play.

Crisafulli: So what you are saying is that play andinstinct, in an artistic sense'' some how the lines areblurred in the beginning.

Pace: Exactly. Most people underestimate play. Playis how we learn everything. Little kids play house,they color, they freely embrace their imagination.

Crisafulli: Are you saying that artists get to knowthemselves through a sort of play that engages theirimagination?

Pace: Imagination, creativity, and instinct are thestu( that we are made of; it is the authentic part of us.

Crisafulli: Sounds kind of dangerous.

Pace: Whenever you are liberated it can be dangerousbut it%s real, it%s true.

Crisafulli: So are you saying that art is about truth?

Pace: Not exactly. I%m saying that truth is about art.

Crisafulli: Sounds like a slippery slope to me.

Pace: I%m not talking about the kind of truth that is

on the surface of things. I%m talking about a truth froma highly individual perspective. It%s not about aPlatonic truth that%s not very interesting. It%s abouthow my truth is di( erent from your truth, how myaesthetic is di( erent from yours. Art #nds its value inthe individual rather than the consensus. That%s whyit%s real tough for folks to understand. We are broughtup not only to ignore our instincts, but also to #nd value in things that we create based upon other folks#nding value in them. You can%t base your work onother folk%s expectations and acceptance. I mean weall like to get paid but at what cost. I guess that is

kind of ironic to say because the kind of work that Ifocus on, Installation Art, subvert art market becauseit can%t be sold; it can only be experienced.

Crisafulli: So when did installation art come intoprominence?

Pace: Installation art starts to creep into the scene in amajor way by the early 1970s. It was a naturaloutgrowth of the conceptual art of the 1960s. That%snot to say it wasn%t in+uenced by earlier artists such asMarcel Duchamp, and his invention, or should I sayconvention, of readymade.

Crisafulli: The Readymade?

Pace: The readymade, or in French object trouve,refers to a type of art that is constructed fromeveryday objects being used outside of their context. The artist modi#es or interprets or adapts an object.It can be a personi#cation or a metaphor for a larger

idea. The artist re'contextualizes the object bynaming the object, designating it as art. It is art fromthe artist as much as it is by the artist.

Crisafulli: Can you give me some examples?




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Pace: Sure, most famous examples are Duchamp%s 1913Bicycle Wheel and his 1917 piece The Fountain, whichis an upside down urinal he signed "R. Mutt.$ There were other folks who also explored the boundaries of

art, such as Man Ray. Man Ray %s most well knownpiece is called the Gift. These are still all just objectsbut these folks paved the way for installation becausethey broke the boundaries of the artist having tocreate everything themselves. What they also did wasforce the viewer to disconnect from the traditional artcontext. This opens a +oodgate. Artists have theliberty to do anything they want to.

Crisafulli: Like what?

Pace: Like site'speci#cinstallations of Walter DeMaria %s Earth Room,Gordon Matta 'Clark%sSplitting Four Corners orSmithson%s Spiral Jettie.On the black side, someartist that really a ( ectedme was David Hammonsand Martin Purrier. Theypushed boundaries of

aesthetic expression andhelped to de#ne my generation%s commitmentto the creativeexploration of self 'identity outside thetraditional context of art.

Pace: D%Ham has been showing everywhere for overthirty years. So, its 2002 and I got a card stating thatDham was doing something local. And by local I mean

in New York City. Cause New York is the place forartists. So I head down to Hudson Street to check outthe installation Concerto in Black and Blue. Just to#nd out that there was nothing to see, except thebeam of light that was emitted from the +ash light I was caring as I walked through a completely darken gallery space I thought, where the hells the art, did Imiss it? Then I realized that I was part of the art. Oneof D%Ham%s tricks again. In a strange way it reminded

me of an installation we collaborated on two yearsearlier in Tribes Gallery in New York City; it was meand Dham, Gerriald Jackson. The Show as called TheHouse of Blue Lights and it was to honor the great jazz

musician Charlie Parkers on his birthday.I love Dham. His has always been crazy, the good kindof crazy. I think its because the craziness liberates himI remember this one piece he laided out, called FlyingCarpet ) 1990 *. It was this Persian rug with all thesechicken bones attached to it. Well I got it. It was theChicken Bone Express that brought black folks fromthe South to start a new life in the North.

Crisafulli: The ChickenBone Express?

Pace: Yes, The ChickenBone Express! That%s what we called thenorthbound buses andtrains in the 1950%s and1960%s. The north hadjobs and opportunities.So if you were a poorblack person from thesouth, like my family, you

would save your moneyfor a ticket and Mama would pack you somechicken, in a brown bagto eat on the trip. Andmama %s chicken was so

good that you would be eatingit before you could tell old Jim Crow good'by.

Crisafulli: Where did Jim Crow #rst come from?

Pace: You. ) Pace laughs and slaps my hand. * He wasborn in New York in 1808 and died in 1860, before thecivil war. Jim Crow did Thomas Dartmouth, "DaddyRice$, play a black stage character. He was this whitesong and dance man who performed in "black face.$ He is considered the father of American minstrelsy.But folks have been doing the black face thing as earlyas 1441 in Portugal. Even Shakespeare has Othello.

David Hammons, U.N.I.A., 2000




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But, minstrel shows were more than white actors

playing black forks. They lampooned blacks asignorant, lazy, bu( oonish, superstitious, carefree, andmusical. A typical show was broken up into three acts. The #rst act was characterized by dance routines, wisecracks and singing. The second act consisted ofsmall skits and "stump speech,$ pun #lled rants. Andthe last act was most often a slapstick one'act play thattook place on the plantation. The show had stockcharacters that developed over time. They were theslave and the dandy, Mammy and Old Darky, Mullatothe slut, and the Black Solider.

We don%t know where the name Jim Crow originated.We believe that Thomas Dartmouth got it from overhearing a black performer sing the chorus: "Weelabout and turn about and do jis so, Eb%ry time, weelabout, jump Jim Crow. He may have gotten more, hemay have gotten less, and he may have made some up.

" The tune became very well known not only in theUnited States but internationally; in 1841 the USAambassador to Central America, Lloyd Stephen, wrotethat upon his arrival in Merid, Yucatan the local brassband played " Jump Jim Crow $ under the mistaken

impression that it was the USA%s national anthem.$ Maybe it was.

The name was so popular that it was adopted to referto state and local laws between 1986 and 1965 thatmandated the segregation of public schools, publicplaces and public transportation, and the use ofrestrooms and restaurants for whites and blacks in theSouth. I went to one of those one room segregatedschools with little or no books, when I was a kid in Alabama. I remember those distinctive signs that readcolor and white. But all that changed when United

States Supreme Court determined Jim Crowunconstitutional in the 1954 ruling of Brown v. theBoard of Education and the Voting Rights Acts of 1964and 1965.

Crisafulli: You have a piece by Hammons in yourstudio. It looks like an American Flag but the colorsare di( erent.

Pace: That%s right, the colors are di( erent. The American Flag is red white and blue but Hammons%s

Flag is Red, Black and Green. On August 13, 1920,Marcus Garvey ) a Jamaican'born black'nationalistleader who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914 * introduced the Universal AfricanFlag to the world. The colors red, black, and green allhave special signi#cance. Red symbolizes the "color ofthe blood which men must shed for their redemptionand liberty,$ black, "the color of the noble anddistinguished race to which we belong,$ and green for"the luxuriant vegetation of our Motherland.$

But Hammons though that, Garvey %s +ag, "looked likethe Italian +ag except that it is red, black, and green.But it is so abstract, so pure, that the masses werefrightened by it. I made my +ag because I felt thatthey needed one like the U.S. +ag but with black starsinstead of white ones. But then who needs stars when we have Michael Jackson.$




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Hammons explained, "I feel it is my moral obligationto try to graphically document what I feel socially.$

Crisafulli: Is this what you are doing when you

incorporate a readymade in your work. ?

Pace: I don%t usually work with ready 'mades but I douse everyday objects in my work. Most of the time I#nd these objects when I%m walking around the streetsof New York or wherever I am at the time. When Irescue these objects from somebody %s garbage or a +eamarket or wherever I #nd them, I don%t know whatI%m going to use them for. I just bring them back to mystudio and let them age. Then when I%m making apiece or an installation I start to play with them, like a

poet does with words.

Crisafulli: When did you start working with foundobjects and ready 'mades?

Pace: While working on my doctoral degree at IllinoisUniversity I had come to a crossroad in my life and work; I had to take a walk. One day I walked into thecorn#elds in search of a direction where I wanted to go in my life and work. I came . . .

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Inside the Head of Lorenzo Pace Art, Life and Getting Out There (Excerpt)