final form usually is quite different from my initial expectation. I guess it’s a combination of hard work and spontaneity.
a year later the current curator, Chris Murtha, got in touch,
and we got along great. A show came together pretty quickly.
Levitating or Flying Pictures have become very popular to the
point of being ubiquitous. Your early work, Flying Pictures,
is still special because of the composition, but also because of
how the hell did you not break your / the model’s neck?
We are neighbors, Musée is in Manhattan and your studio
is in Brooklyn. Would you ever consider a move to somewhere else? What do you like about Brooklyn?
I would set up the camera on a tripod, make a polaroid, and decide
where I wanted to situate myself within the landscape. Then I’d
head out there, and attempt to fly. Sometimes the friend who would
be helping me was able to capture a flying picture, and other times I
just looked like a dummy jumping around. So to answer your question, I only got as far as I could jump. Photography did the rest.
You now have a son. How do you think it will affect your
art and art practice?
I have no idea, he probably already has!
I can’t picture living anywhere else. In a lot of ways my work
has grown out of the space. It’s so important to me, I don’t
think I would want to be anywhere else.
Now actually think about where you would have your studio – the perfect place, a garden of earthly delights in some
Turkish field, a small place overlooking the Seine in the
middle of Paris, or even a bigger place in Brooklyn – maybe
move a little further out to avoid the encroaching crowds?
I’m in Dumbo now, and I like my space. But now that you’re
offering, sure, I’d take a bigger space with lots of light and a
roof garden that was right next to home – sounds good!
How did his last exhibit come to be?
What is your biggest fantasy at the moment?
I had done an interview with Jodie Jacobson for Blind Spot,
and she had been a curator at The Horticultural Society. She
mentioned the space, and I was really interested. Maybe half
That all kinds of Polaroid film were miraculously available
again, at bargain prices.
Daniel Gordon. Left: Portrait, 2010 Above: July 27, 2010, 2010. Following Spreads: Still Life with Fish and Forsythia, 2013., Pink Ladies and pears, 2012., Apple, 2013.
Courtesy the artist and Wallspace.