Page 19 - Julia Cseko the Rant series

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Running Uphill with Julia Csekö
As appeared August 30, 2016 on Big Red & Shiny (bigredandshiny.com)
Jonathan Talit recently met with Julia Csekö to discuss her solo exhibition Straight from the Heart – The Rant Series (August 6-27, 2016), made possible with the generous support of the Walter Feldman Fellowship and organized by the
Arts and Business Council. It was hosted by the Piano Craft Gallery–a historic gallery space o Tremont Street, focused on promoting contemporary Boston-based artists.
Talit and Csekö struck a friendship after working together at the ICA. This interview is an extension of their numerous conversations about art.
Jonathan Talit: I thought a good place to start would be the title: Straight from the Heart – The Rant Series. What did you feel you needed to rant about?
Julia Csekö: The phrase comes from a performance created during my MFA. I melted sugar letters onto plates lled with Vodka, poured it into glasses and o ered them to viewers. The rst one used the phrase “straight from the heart.” But I stopped using my own phrases after a bad critique at SMFA.
JT: Yeah?
JC: Yeah, the worst I heard was that the performance was “masturbatory” and self-aggrandizing. I was writing personal things, those classic texts you send to a lover.
JT: Oh! Like “Here” or “You up?”
JC: Yes! It really pissed people o and that was not what I was going for. So I decided to use obscure philosophical quotes instead. But recently it felt like time to start writing my own text. That’s what I’m doing with these paintings. It’s all stream-of-thought.
JT: That stream-of-thought is three triptychs: each one a di erent color (black, silver, and gold) displaying the white of the canvas as text. Once you read them, you realize that the attitude of each triptych is distinct. How did they come to be?
JC: I was partially inspired to make this work while I was a Visitor Assistant at the ICA. It was a di cult job because you stood all day surrounded by art (which I love), but you’re guarding it, not experiencing it, and it’s a tense environment.