On June 2, 2017, I arrived in New York to begin a residency at ISCP in Brooklyn. ISCP stands for International Studio Curatorial Program; the building at the end of Metropolitan Avenue is on the edge of urban residential area where it transitions to business park. Huge, honking trucks and vans drive in and out at the intersection with Grand Street. The block the building is attached to also houses other creative businesses and artists. The part of the building that houses ISCP has 35 studios. When you ring the doorbell you enter a project space and three offices. My studio is on the corner of the building on the 2nd floor. There you will find the ISCP bookcase and the window overlooking the roof terrace and skyline of Manhattan, in the distance you can see Queens. I share the lounge, kitchen and toilet with five artists from Taiwan, New Zealand, Japan, Italy and Argentina. In the studio you can hear the traffic noise, but also the view of the semi-industrial landscape is clearly present.
I am here to work on my project for three months. My work consists of letters and images, compositions on paper, on panels or on murals. Sometimes with existing words, sometimes just a letter or a sound. During this residency I want to work on a project that I have had in mind for some time, but didn't have the space for in my head yet. The working title is FIVE FOUR, MORE LESS, using a collection of existing English four-letter words as the starting point. Words that everyone around the world knows. In doing so, I am using an iconic piece of art, the LOVE letter image by Robert Indiana as the format. In this simple two by two arrangement, the meaning of the word and the letter image with associated residual forms, are equivalent. The use of words really only provides a reason or coat rack or architecture for the image. I didn't quite know how the image should take shape, although I had made sketches at home. That's why I wanted to get started as soon as possible. I was also curious about how English speakers see the letter images and what kind of associations they have with them. I wanted to start a conversation about that.
The ISCP proved to be the right place for this. The available network of visiting critics, for example, offers a program of the curators or art critics who come on studio visits. Every month you can sign up for a one-hour talk. Four curators came to see me and I told them about the project I am working on.
Outside of the ISCP program, I benefited greatly from the contacts I made in 2011. Together with a friend who already knew a number of artists, I got to know other artists and visited their studios. Since then those contacts have been strengthened, also because of joint group exhibitions in the Netherlands and in the US. This loose-fixed network offered me a warm bath. To be here and to go to openings together to be reintroduced to other artists there as well. The generosity with which you are introduced to others makes you feel welcome.
I visited seven studios in New York: Mid Town and Uptown Manhattan, and in Brooklyn East-Williamsburg, Sunset Park, as well as in New Jersey, to Newark and a gallery and studio building in Jersey City. Those I visited also came later to make a return visit to my studio. I enjoyed the conversations that ensued about each other's work and visiting these places. The work gave rise to the conversations and the content could be about anything. Many artists have busy lives; most of them teach at academies or have full-time office jobs.
ISCP has a program coordinator who organizes lectures and field trips almost every week that you can sign up for. I myself did the field trips to the Judd Foundation in SoHo, Socrates Sculpture Park and visited Martha Rosler's studio and house. We also went for two days to The School (Jack Shaiman Gallery) in Kinderhook, Mass-Moca, Williamstown College Museum, The Clark Institute. Usually we are welcomed with a tour tailored to us.
Of particular note is that as early as the introduction of artists and staff, the director of ISCP, Susan Hapgood, asks to stop by your studio, "whenever you're ready." That moment came for me in the third week of my stay. During a studio visit, she asked who I wanted to be introduced to. I asked if she knew artist Kay Rosen. That same afternoon, she provided an introduction by email.
On another occasion, we were invited for drinks at her home in Chelsea and then walked to the openings of a couple of galleries. The personal commitment to getting the most out of your stay is characteristic of her and incredibly important; the same goes for the ISCP staff, by the way.
Within the program are a few opportunities to talk about your work. 'Salons' are bi-monthly public short talks by ISCP participants; in addition, there is 'One Artist, One Work' studio presentations about your work (not public). At the end of my stay, the timing of this did not come at the right time for me to participate in this. So I decided to hold a mini open studio myself in my studio. This way I invited New York friends to come and see the result of my three-month residency.
Although I speak English at a reasonable level, I find that my vocabulary or skill is not sufficient to initiate a deeper dialogue about my work. This realization is sometimes frustrating because you can't really understand exactly what is being said and convey what you mean and how you might respond. The English language has many words to aptly express different nuances. My impression from some of the artist talks I've been to is that art is talked about much more associatively and freely. Approaching a particular topic gives different entry points that are not obvious to me. In general, I encounter freedom, openness, and friendliness in the art circles I have been in for the past three months.
You can apply directly for ISCP. It is also possible to apply through the Mondriaan Fund; the permanent studios and related funding are then provided by the fund. If you apply directly, you have to provide your own funding and accommodation. I was able to fund this residency through crowdfunding at Voordekunst.nl and with a contribution from the Mondriaan Fund for Proven Talent.
By searching for housing myself, I ended up in different neighborhoods: in June I stayed in Bushwick, in July/August in Lefferts Garden near Prospect Park both in Brookyn, in August in SoHo in Manhattan. You get to know the city better by traveling a lot on public transportation. Outside the circuit of ISCP you meet people with surprising contacts. My room mate in the apartment in Lefferts garden turned out to have contacts with an interesting art complex in New Jersey, for example. Through channels, I found a property on Stephanie Diamond Listing Project, a weekly listing of homes and opportunities for New York and other cities. On a side note, I also got to know the subway system better. I bought an unlimited MTA card and accessed ISCP from different residential addresses. Sometimes the commute is 1 hour and 15 minutes, sometimes I was there in 25 minutes. New Yorkers use the overcrowded subway a lot; a conversation often turns to that - how long it takes you to get somewhere.
Is three months enough to get anything out of your residency? Yes and no. On the one hand, the time is too short to build up a relationship, that takes years, it works the same way in the Netherlands. But this period is excellent for converting existing relationships into closer contacts and especially for working out a specific aspect of your work, experimenting and talking a lot about it.
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