March 7, 2013



Back in graduate school I won the weekly studio visit lottery one week and got to have a visit with Allen Ruppersberg. Looking back, it was a momentous occasion, making a connection with one of the grandfather's of American conceptual art, but at the time, it just felt like I got to spend a few hours with a really cool dude. 2 things stick out from that meeting. (1) After having showed him my film  I Love You he laughed to himself and said that I was probably the kind of filmmaker who, even given a million dollars, would still make the same kind of looking film and (2) He told me to photograph my studio walls every so often and to look back at those photos every once in a while. This is my wall (on the 'studio' side of my bedroom) today.

I grew to appreciate Allen Ruppersberg more when my friend and former boss, the late Joni Gordon, recounted his work "Al's Cafe" from 1969, a cafe serving inedible assemblages of often drug paraphernalia and other scavenged objects, made by Ruppersberg.