The Artist and Professor: Dannielle Tegeder
It is my hope that this crisis will lead us to a complete rethinking and revaluation of the arts in the United States. Artists are in a sense the cultural recorders that try to make sense of the world and reflect it back to us.
5 QUESTIONS WITH Dannielle Tegeder
Visual artist and professor
New York City
Born in Peekskill, NY, Dannielle Tegeder currently lives in Brooklyn, New York and maintains a studio at The Elizabeth Foundation in Manhattan. She received a BFA from the State University of New York at Purchase (1994), and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago (1997).
For the past fifteen years, her work has explored abstraction. While the core of her work is paintings and drawings, she has recently begun to include large-scale installation, sculptural objects, video, sound, and animation
Since receiving her MFA in 1997 from SAIC, her work has been presented in over 100 gallery exhibitions, both nationally and internationally in Paris, Houston, Los Angeles, Berlin, Chicago, and New York. She has participated in numerous institution exhibitions including PS1/MOMA, the New Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Several of her drawings have recently been purchased as part of the Contemporary Drawing Collection at the Museum of Modern Art, and her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Weatherspoon Museum of Art in Greensboro, NC. She is an Associate Professor at the City University of New York at Lehman College. Images of Dannielle’s work and Pandemic Salon follow this interview.
1. How has your studio practice been impacted this year, and what most surprised you working in a quarantine dynamic?
My studio practice has been altered and changed dramatically. A large portion of the income from projects that would be sustaining my studio has now been cancelled or postponed. I depend on creating and selling my work in physical spaces, and all of my exhibitions, visiting artist talks, and residencies for the next six months and further have been cancelled, including a major solo exhibition at a gallery in Mexico City planned for May and a large public art project for a Queens Hospital, which was scheduled to start in March. Further, I have not been able to go to my studio at the Elizabeth Foundation located in Times Square, which is not walkable from Brooklyn where we live.
There have been a number of surprises during these crises. The delicate balance I maintained between my vocations as artist, educator, and mother became a melting pot of all three, in the same confined space, and at the same time. Since I lost access to my studio and materials in Manhattan, I am now working at a different temporary space in Brooklyn. This is thanks to another artist residency, ArtCake, that is hosting me as a displaced artist and I am very grateful for it. Still there is too much time and also not enough of it. Currently, I’m working on a series of drawings made during quarantine. They are not for a show, and are made with minimal materials that I can access, mostly colored pencils. They are large plans and schematics, utopias, and are trying to make sense and order out of the chaos outside.
I am also shifting gears and making plans to work on outdoors installations, on streets or rooftops. I would like to create temporary abstract installations in public spaces around the city in non-traditional no commercial spaces. This summer I had also been planning to create a number of installations on rooftops in Mexico City, which will now be transferred to NYC.
The most surprising development has been The Pandemic Salon, a bi-weekly online collective that I created.
2. You have created a virtual salon, Pandemic Salon, with guests from all over the globe. Tell me about this program.
The Pandemic Salon started the second week into the pandemic. We were in the epicenter of New York City at the height of the crises, and my shows and projects and all else was being cancelled. The salon was inspired by Gertrude Stein’s Salon where artists and writers would meet for discussion, but was born out of a seminar I teach at Lehman College, bringing students out of the physical classroom and on visits all over NYC to hear speakers.
After the class ended, my students — all also stuck in their homes, many of them in the Bronx which was one of the hardest hit neighborhoods in NYC—asked me if I would continue these gatherings. I did, and opened it up to the public as well with different topics and visitors and participants from all over the world. I always knew I wanted the class to transcend the limiting structure of the classroom, but the salon and being virtual helped us transcend international and distance borders, with participants and speakers from different countries that added to the conversation.
By connecting all over the world through my computer every week, the salon is an opportunity to bring together artists, writers, thinkers and other creative minds to discuss selected topics in an informal Zoom environment. Discussions usually have a central topic connected to the pandemic which is then explored through a selection of presentations on music, poetry, and art, among others. For example, one theme was “Illness” and our lineup included philosophy, classical music, history, art, and photography. Other topics have included, memorialization, magic, architecture, and artists creating through difficulties.
I hope to create a sense of community and discussion through the salon, and dismantle hierarchical structures often seen in traditional forms of art making and showcasing.
3. How do quarantine and social distance audiences turn into long-term audiences and arts advocates? Do you think we have created two distinct audiences going forward?
I think we tend to underestimate the importance to establishing habits. This is why we’re all reeling right now, because every aspect of routine has been upturned. The key aspect to “quarantine audiences” sticking around is whether, in the reformulation of their routine, they can become solid art advocates. People who previously didn’t engage because they didn’t have the time or the interest might be able to incorporate art into their lives at this point, and if it’s straightforward and rewarding, they probably will strive to keep it in their schedule, even after things “go back to normal”. I think it’s a great opportunity to expand audiences – not necessarily classifying them into two different types, but entirely consisting of individuals who are passionate about art; enough to create and maintain a space for it in their lives, be it a recent or long-established practice.
4. How do you assess the current landscape of cultural support and patronage?
The current landscape seems unrecognizable. Circumstances have changed radically overnight and continue to do so. Some features have disappeared, with galleries and museums closing, gatherings banned, artists and institutions alike struggling for funds, and close contact interactions out of the question. Yet other traits remain familiar, such as thought-provoking conversations, resourcefulness to continue creating and sharing, or the generosity of art advocates providing crucial support. The change of format into Zoom salons, online exhibitions and auctions, or even just FaceTiming a colleague to brainstorm about a new project makes me hope that, even though the landscape is challenging, the exchange and evolution of ideas and art will adapt, evolve, and endure. History has shown us that during these times of crises and upheaval great developments, such as Modernism, were created during the World Wars. I am excited to see where this all leads us.
5. What changes to the cultural industry do you most want to see emerge from the events of 2020? And how do artists best contribute to that change?
It is my hope that this crisis will lead us to a complete rethinking and revaluation of the arts in the United States. Artists are in a sense the cultural recorders that try to make sense of the world and reflect it back to us.
I have listed below a few changes I would like to see happen:
-Art becoming more relevant to the general public - catharsis after trauma and art/socialization deprivation;
-Art becoming a collective healing tool, receiving more government funding to this end;
-Acknowledgment of the contribution of art workers to society and the creation of protections for the cultural sector;
-For the general public to realize what a big sector of the economy revolves around art, generating more jobs in this area for the restructuring and adaptation of institutions for post-COVID world;
-The recognition that artists are the fuel for this entire microcosm. We are the source of the capital which is, in essence, materialized ideas.
-Interview conducted June 9, 2020
Born in Peekskill, NY, Dannielle Tegeder currently lives in Brooklyn, New York and maintains a studio at The Elizabeth Foundation in Manhattan. She received a BFA from the State University of New York at Purchase (1994), and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago (1997).
For the past fifteen years, her work has explored abstraction. While the core of her work is paintings and drawings, she has recently begun to include large-scale installation, sculptural objects, video, sound, and animation
Since receiving her MFA in 1997 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, her work has been presented in over 100 gallery exhibitions, both nationally and internationally in Paris, Houston, Los Angeles, Berlin, Chicago, and New York. She has participated in numerous institution exhibitions including PS1/MOMA, the New Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Several of her drawings have recently been purchased as part of the Contemporary Drawing Collection at the Museum of Modern Art, and her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Weatherspoon Museum of Art in Greensboro, NC. She is an Associate Professor at the City University of New York at Lehman College.
