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"When Uri Aran finished installing his second solo show in New York, at Gavin Brown\u2019s Enterprise, he brought a friend\u2019s dog to the Greenwich Village space, put paint on its paws, and tempted it with treats to roam through the exhibition. The result was just one possible path through the work. Other courses were scattered throughout the pieces, marked by milk and cookies, Sesame Street characters, and old passport photos. Different stories were told while the possibilities unfolded. Every element in Aran\u2019s work seems to point toward some personal revelation in an indefinite and suggestive way, expanding our idea of what narrative is. Orit Gat spoke with the Israeli-born artist about his most recent work, which will be on view during Frieze New York, May 4 through 7, as part of Frieze Projects.Orit Gat: What are you doing at Frieze?Uri Aran: I am still developing the project. Something like this begins with an idea and it\u2019s then developed to form a proposal; I can talk mainly about the initial idea because I always leave room for things to happen when I\u2019m in the space. When Cecilia Alemani, the curator of Frieze Projects, approached me, we took a tour of Randall\u2019s Island and she provided me with material about the geography and history of the area. It was important for us both to be aware of what I\u2019m working with in terms of the site-specificity of the project and to think about the historical context, the structures, and the social environment on the island. I thought a lot about the huge hospital there. I always wanted to deal with the notion of the doctor, in the sense of the reproduction of images of doctors in the media and their role in popular culture. My proposal is to work in an abandoned ticket shack, a very small space. Very cute. Within that space, a kind of medical examination will be performed at different times during each day of the fair.OG: An examination of people at the fair?UA: No. What I wanted to do is actually create a viewing experience for whomever comes. Rather than use real people, I\u2019m making a point by bringing in actors\u2014not necessarily professional actors\u2014I\u2019m still working on the casting. There will be a pretty straightforward doctor\u2019s examination going on, while I shoot it on video.OG: Will the audience be able to visit the ticket booth itself, too?UA: Yes, from a specific view that I provide, in terms of which window I open and how and when: I am thinking of the manipulation I want to impose. The second level of the project, in that sense, will be the transmission of those images at the fair. The live video feed might be manipulated, if only a little bit, like slowing it down a fraction. It will refer to the notion of a televised doctor, and on a very basic level, the mediated image. I\u2019m interested in stock images of doctors and how the televised persona of a doctor is almost the definition of what that profession is at this point. I\u2019m interested in things that have a preconceived moral starting point. In society, a doctor is good\u2014simple as that. Almost like a dog is good or a bear is good.OG: How do you script something as basic as a physical examination?UA: I\u2019ve been consulting with doctors. But I\u2019m also going to leave some freedom within the performance, even though it will be directed in terms of what I want specific characters to do. I\u2019m going to be there in this very stuffy situation and impose my opinion.OG: The title of your recent show at Gavin Brown\u2019s Enterprise was \u201Cby foot, by car, by bus.\u201D What is that about, exactly?UA: It\u2019s about the range of possibilities. There are other pieces in the show that could have been called by balloon, by boat, or by train. Modes of transportation, as sentimental or poetic tools, suggest a certain notion of narrative. Like Around the World in 80 Days. There\u2019s a spark of excitement, a journey. It\u2019s also a reference to board games or set pieces on a board: a defined composition in which there are different routes, but the pieces are a representation of the social situation of the participants.OG: And the display obviously assumes a human presence. The works are set on tables, which suggests an idea of taxonomy and\u2014again\u2014directing or ordering.UA: My background is in graphic design and typography. Those have a lot to do with the idea of education, also with being a student and solving a problem. That\u2019s how the objects sometimes transform. I wasn\u2019t necessarily one of them, but I think a lot about those kids who used to make tunnels with their pencils in their desks. For me, it was more about drawing on the table or organizing my books in a specific way. So there\u2019s control, and there\u2019s anxiety. There\u2019s so much anxiety that has to do with the specific space you get as a student, as part of a system. In terms of ownership of space, there\u2019s this way in which the children\u2019s world has to do with the studio. The installations also contain a sense of topography in terms of landscape and composition on a larger scale. It occurs in how I installed and treated the show and the space in general\u2014I altered the gallery by making some specific architectural modifications\u2014as well as in the relationship between the pieces and the installation.OG: The works can be whimsical, playful. There are cookies, chocolate milk, and Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street.UA: Rather than playfulness, I would say play, in terms of things that you might know or wonder how they feel and how they\u2019re being organized. Some of the materials I use, like cookies, are there because I like their formal aspects. They have a certain kind of rhythm. It\u2019s very important for me to have rhythm in the work: physically, but also in terms of time-based work, music and sound, and harmony or discord. I find it interesting that cookies are used as an instrument for counting. It\u2019s not so obvious that one would learn how to count to 10 with cookies. But it\u2019s pretty obvious, when you think about it, why it\u2019s being used, because then the moral aspect comes in. If a cookie is missing, it means that someone took it. It\u2019s a desirable object, and it\u2019s being used as a teaching mechanism, both in terms of numeric quantity and also in terms of moral quality. Cookies are a reward both for being good and for being bad. It\u2019s not good to eat too many sweets. There\u2019s a strong interest in education here.Why do we have to learn through artificially produced things or through animals and animal metaphors? I think it\u2019s because it\u2019s easier to apply language to them. Bert and Ernie are puppets, not real people. I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re human, even though they have two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but they don\u2019t answer back. We assign meaning to these things\u2014for example, I wonder why we decided that mice love cheese.OG: I think it\u2019s obvious that mice don\u2019t necessarily love cheese, but we accept that without asking questions. And this failure of words to represent what actually happens is similar to the failure of puppets to talk back.UA: I think, if anything, that the fact that it\u2019s a truism, rather than the truth, doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t perceive it as such.The discord of meaning in language is something I\u2019m interested in. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s because English is not my mother tongue; I see a delay of meaning. I see things as mediated\u2014almost everything is quoted. Most of the text in my work is original, but it has a specific feeling of logic or narrative that has to do with existing genres. The installations and videos have a quoted quality to them in terms of formal elements: voice-over, specific kinds of music and drama. Almost as if they were taken from a storyboard but presented as only one still image, one frame. There\u2019s a notion of continuity with a before and after, but you\u2019re presented with this one still, this one open-ended image. For me, it\u2019s not whimsical. I\u2019m very, very careful: These things matter to me. The work has the idea of genre without belonging to one. So it\u2019s easy to say things are nonsensical, but I feel quite the opposite. Someone once asked me, \u201CIt feels so personal, how do you expect me to get this?\u201D For me, if you just try to take a step to the left or to the right and think about the idea of something feeling personal without having a specific personal narrative to it, it\u2019s almost like using it\u2014the idea of the personal\u2014as a formal tool. Using general forms that manipulate potential narratives, I try to explore triggers for default feelings.Click on the slide show to see images of Uri Aran's work at Gavin Brown's Enterprise.This article appeared in the May issue of Modern Painters magazine.[content:advertisement-center]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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