Psychology of a Trick
PHP: I was thinking about how your work reminds me of what some of the Dadaists were doing.
KH: I’m very interested in Dada and the idea of the absurd. I loved that the Dadaists would do things like give lectures and purposely plant people in the audience to disrupt the proceedings and other audience members would then try and intervene. It was part of the ruse; I love that: that sort of tricking the general public. I’m very nice when I do it, though. I hate when people are discomfited, so it’s kind of a struggle for me. I think that’s part of the reason why I don’t want my work to actually be scary.
I also think about Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor, even though they talk about their work in a more spiritual way. Even to see a photo of it is such a mind-blowing experience just for the spatial relationship of yourself to the room or the outside of the work. I’m definitely trying to work in the context where I’m making works that really affect the physical and psychological bases.
It’s the same thing with Anish Kapoor. You don’t have to know the meaning behind his pieces to feel this kind of resonance when you’re in the room with them.
With Aberrations, in particular, my goal is to create things that someone would find in the ordinary world—in the urban infrastructure—but that have been mutated and consequently subverted any utilitarian purpose. If they were real and really had happened, that would be scary, but I’m presenting them in an appealing and rounded way that makes them funny.
The psychological is important to me. I grew up with my mother when she was going through grad school to become a therapist, and my childhood was her practicing sort of an 80’s “Reason I feel statement.” I also think I’m good at engaging with people and articulating hard-to-explain things. I’m the third child, and so everyone got to talk over me and explain things better than I could before I had the words to do it. Also, I think growing up in a Southern, conservative environment and dressing differently and so on, I had to get really articulate about myself and be able to explain things as a method of survival.
PHP: What are you working on now, aside from having a baby?
KH: The baby is definitely the most immediate thing. But I want to make a whole series of aberrant projects. This is a giant goal, but I would love to create an installation of the side of a building as if it were frozen in the middle of an earthquake or as if it had begun melting but stopped in the moment as all the bricks had begun sliding down. It could be an addition to building that was cast out of something—a corner of it puddling out.
PHP: That would be alarming.
KH: But still beautiful. Visual rhythm is really important to me. I think that helps make things more palatable while you’re being stopped in your tracks.
