I create objects and installations which bring about collaboration. Collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of two practices, that alone one could not. -Peter Tabor
Stephanie Sypsa: What has been your art education background thus far?
Peter Tabor : I graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2009.
SS: Is there anything you consistently draw inspiration from?
PT: Inspiration is a tricky word. However, I’d say one of the origins of my work is a desire to connect with people and to build relationships.
SS: There are so many ways one can connect with people, but what motivates you to build relationships through an art making process?
PT: I’m interested in art as a utility. Art can provide many different things for participants depending on how it is managed. The building of social relationships is one possible outcome. For example, you sell any given painting and you interact with a client and a gallery. The sale improves your relationship with both.
SS: May I ask then, how have you been able to connect and build close relationships through your art? Any good or bad experiences you would like to share?
PT:I haven’t had many bad experiences. It depends on one’s expectations when entering into collaboration. I try to only work with people that are either more intelligent than me or harder working. Jon Gott, an artist I collaborate with often is probably both.
SS: What is your work about?
PT: My work investigates collaboration as a subject: what is the definition, what are the limits, how is it organized.
SS: What percentage of your work is collaboration verses say, interactive? Or are the terms in your work interchangeable.
PT: All work has the potential to be collaborative as well as interactive. If the work is discussed critically, that’s a type of collaboration and it has a real impact on the work. It’s the conversations and criticisms that I’m really interested in.
SS: There seems to be a need to have control in your work, while at the same time a need to relinquish control? What is that about?
PT: It’s a political relationship. There is both my power to influence the viewer through the work and the power of the viewer to influence me through the work.
SS: Have you ever felt let down if a project doesn’t go the way you intended?
PT: Of course but the trick is to work through it so that you arrive at the next project.
SS: If you were to stop making art, what would you replace it with?
PT: Playing games and inventing races
SS: I’ve heard that all artists reference their childhood experiences within their art in some way, no matter what age they are at while making art. Do you think that your art could reflect your childhood experiences at all? If so, in what ways?
PT: Having a twin has always made me look for the same type of closeness in other people. I think it’s made me a lot more competitive. I think this certainly comes out in the work.
SS: You stated before that you create objects and installations which bring about collaboration. “Collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of two practices, that alone one could not”. Have you always made work where you need another party so involved?
PT: No. I was a painter for a long time before becoming more interested in discourse and dialogue.
SS: Could you ever invest time in a piece of art and never share it with another person?
PT: Maybe but I’m too excited in working on my blog and website to work in secret.
SS: Would you consider work to be all for nothing if it didn’t have an audience?
PT: There’s always an audience. Even if an artist doesn’t show a work, she is “talking” with artists from history and from around the world just by making it and reflecting on it. This is a simplified example of discourse.
SS: What is your ideal ratio of theory to practice in your work? Is one more important in your work?
PT: In the way that you mean, theory is much more important to me. However theory doesn’t exist without a practice. A practice can be the creation of theory- I don’t think of the terms as opposed.
SS: Do you predetermine meaning or does it arrive later in your work?
PT: The meaning is constantly changing and slipping away. I try to frame meaning but it can expand or get away from you. What’s important is the conversation, trying again and again to zero in on the meaning.
SS: Do you leave the conversation open ended or is your work more of a controlled study of conversation? For example when starting a work do you feel you are designing an experimental study that leads to a hypotheses or do you leave it open to move in any direction?
PT: In the case of Archive 2, it wasn’t carefully measured. It was more of a shot in the dark, an experiment without a hypothesis. If I allow access to my work in this way what will viewers do and how will they interact?
SS: In what way does organization and archiving play in your art Archive 2?
PT: Organization and archiving are methods that let me share information in different ways. An archive, for example Archive 2, lets a participant look at a body of text and images. Organization is what holds it together. Then the participant can have a response whether it’s internal or external.
SS: How is this interaction or experience different than say, when a viewer is in a gallery and looks at a work on the wall and signs or comments in a typical guest book at an artist’s reception? Or look through your facebook gallery and posts a comment?
PT: It’s not that different. Except in this case, I consider the responses themselves to be the artwork. Everything else is just providing a context and platform- applying gesso to a canvas.
SS: You have to admit, in this piece you leave it into the hands of any passerby to alter or shift your work in various directions. Did you have any hesitations or concerns in leaving you work in the hands of others?
PT: Definitely not. I would be all the more excited if the work were destroyed, stolen, or drastically altered. My only fear would be a complete lack of interaction.
SS: Why the fascination with organization? Do you admire organization as a structure or is your work a practice where you discover structure within chaos by establishing order?
PT: That’s hard to say. I’ve always been drawn to organization. I used to organize my Halloween candy by variety and flavor, all laid out on the floor. I intend to keep working with it to find answers to questions such as those.
SS: Are there any historical artists that you admire? Have they affected your work?
PT: Two of my favorites are Chris Burden and Tom Sachs. I admire the amount of research and labor that goes into their practices. I’m sure they’ve affected my work.
Written by Stephanie Sypsa for the The Artists Interview publication http://www.theartistsinterview.com