Pages: 23pp
In an interview by Tom Morton, writer, curator and contributing editor of Frieze magazine, Alison Wilding candidly discusses her artistic practice on the occasion of her solo exhibition Mesmer, Again.
Excerpt:
TM: It would be great if you could expand on this idea of the ‘wrong thing’ sometimes being ‘right’. Is this about material surprise, a shaking of the viewer out of a type of visual complacency? And a perhaps related question: does intuition or even what we might term ‘happy accident’ have an important role in the making of your work?
AW: I wouldn’t make a big deal about the ‘wrong thing being right’ – it has occasionally happened, yes, but it’s not the norm and I wouldn’t want it to be. And, I add, it’s never really about the viewer. The word ‘intuition’ is sometimes used pejoratively, but if something feels right I will see where that feeling takes me, because I’m not following a script. I start at a fairly random point and take it from there. And if I’m not alert to what’s going on – happy accident or whatever – then I really am making work in the dark.
