Mariah Robertson, 336 (detail), 2016. NOISE FOR NOW Benefit Auction.
Phillips is proud to present an online-only auction in partnership with the nonprofit NOISE FOR NOW, which raises funds and awareness for reproductive rights in the US. The sale features work personally donated by contemporary artists, including Lesley Vance, Erin Shirreff, Mariah Robertson, David Mramor, Uman, and Sheree Hovsepian. NOISE FOR NOW's proceeds will benefit two important 501(c)(3) charitable organizations — The National Network of Abortion Funds, which helps move financial and logistical barriers to abortion access, and The Abortion Care Network, which aims to create a network for independent providers across the country.
Here, NOISE FOR NOW's Executive Director Amelia Bauer speaks with artist Mariah Robertson about the important role of artists in advancing social issues and how Robertson's work uniquely captures the creative impulse to affect change.
AMELIA BAUER: To start, how do you think about the role of artists in relation to advocacy and advancing social issues?
MARIAH ROBERSTON: I'd say pretty much all artists are sensitive people, and some are sensitive to things going on in the world and want to have some agency and put energy into that. I think some do it explicitly in their work, and some do it as just part of being a human being.
AB: That makes sense to me—just the impulse to create things and feel that you can affect change, even if it's upon a material or in society. Your work has a distinctive chemical reaction process that's very unique to you. Can you talk about the role of chaos in your work?
MR: Even before working with photography and performance, as a young person, I found there was a relationship between planning and improvisation. And then later on, the more I read about art practice, I was like, Oh, this is just what everyone does, at least in photography. To me, it's about 10%-25% plan, and then the rest of it is a chanced operation. It's very clear in photography, but I think it's happening in mostly all creative fields.
AB: I wonder if there are varying degrees of that – the desire to explore improvisation is very pleasurably forward in your work.
MR: Oh, thank you for describing it that way. My work often is framed, and there's zero improvisation there, so I rely on the framer to be sort of a rigid structure, which I can work against. Mine might be more of a performance of improvising or dealing with a volatile set of reactions in the look of what I do. But I think that thing is there in anyone's creative process, whatever is happening in their life or along the road to the work being done.
Mariah Robertson, 336, 2016. NOISE FOR NOW Benefit Auction.
AB: I never thought about using a frame as a kind of rigid structure that gives a boundary.
MR: A lot of these things are objects – they’re trying to foreground their objectiveness as paper as something that's happened to this paper. Then the frame is both a protector and a discipline against which the sort of irregularity can butt up against, and they have a relationship. I mean, that's the way I see it. I don't really know what's going on for other people or how they're taking it.
AB: Well, speaking of that, do you consider the viewer? And if you do, what kind of experience do you want your viewer to have?
MR: Oh, I have no idea, and I'm always curious, and I'm always deadly frightened that it's wrong or what people are taking away is not what I was going for. Feedback from people you trust can help you sometimes see things that you didn't realize were happening and hopefully the things that are important to you get across, but I've zero concept, if any, if that gets across.
AB: Do you want to share anything about the piece you decided to donate to this auction? You wrote me saying that this was a clear favorite of the people in the studio when you chose it, which is exciting – thank you for sending a favorite.
MR: It’s a photogram from 2016. The focus of that group of work was to repeat a unique moment in time. The evidence of that moment in time is this small exposure of light with a mask, so it makes it a shape, like a fingerprint. The funny thing is, that was just an exposure test, so at the time, I didn't think it was a print. A couple of times a month, I have three people come into the studio all at once, and it's fun – we have wine – but it forms like a little committee so I can show them things. We were going through boxes, and they liked this one; they all responded to this one. I'm like, the lighting test, you guys like that?
AB: Does it happen often?
MR: Yes. The test was a lot freer than the one that was the planned project, which looked pretty boring, a little contrived. It hit the thesis points exactly, but then it’s kind of lifeless.
Chance-based work is a lot about the perspective of appreciating what is really happening as opposed to what you want to happen.
AB: Oh, interesting – so then that kind of circles back to how I feel improvisation really does come to the fore in your work, because you're saying that something that you felt slightly more in control of ended up not being alive in the right way.
MR: I think the thing that I've just had to do for the last like 12 years is keep everything, every scrap, every trial, because my perspective will change. Chance-based work is a lot about the perspective of appreciating what is really happening as opposed to what you want to happen.
AB: Well, thank you. I really appreciate your generous contribution to this auction that will raise money for independent abortion clinics and abortion funds throughout the US. These are much-needed funds.
MR: I'm very happy to support Noise for Now and to be part of an amazing list of artists.
AB: I'm very thrilled by all of the artists participating; I feel it's an embarrassment of riches. Thank you, Mariah.
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