Dwayne Butcher: Artist Interview with Tad Lauritzen Wright 10/31/06

Dwayne Butcher: I have to get this question out of the way. The question that is on everyone’s mind. Are there really words in the word finds?

Tad Lauritzen Wright: There are words in the word finds. They are buried in between a bunch of letters that are filled in within the space. There are words as well as phrases. I get the phrases from all over the place, sometimes I make them up. Generally, after I have gotten bored with reading quotes from other artists, I look for whatever I can find online.

DB: What is the main idea or goal behind your one-person show at David Lusk Gallery, “philosophy of beauty.” And how did this idea come about?

TLW: I titled a painting “Philosophy of Beauty” about eight years ago. It was the second word find that I ever painted. I knew that I wanted to use that title again. The last show that I had at Lusk was also titled after a previous painting that encompassed a lot of different things. I wanted to examine these abstract concepts of beauty, based on images that I have made. So, like with the collages, these were drawings, my mistakes, things I really liked that I have never found a place for. I started to recombine these images. It wasn’t necessarily the object that I had that had to be beautiful it was the idea. A good idea that had gone bad.

DB: You have used thousands of doodles and to do lists in these collages. Are you spending every second of every minute making these drawings?

TLW: I never thought about using them. I have saved these things for a long time. Notes that I took while on the phone, doodles that I made while on the computer. There is also a lot of note taking that is specific to another word finds. These collages contain the answers to other word finds. The sheets that I saved where I have marked off the words I have used had formed these weird lists, where the painting is examining something that has a lot to do with the content. With the new collages, I wasn’t really destroying older work. Maybe I had a one-line drawing that had a smear or a tear in it and that was easier to part with and use for a bigger piece. I tried to stay away from the idea of filler drawing, drawing for the purpose of putting them in these collages. I really like to think that these collages are built out of ideas.

DB: With the mazes, word finds, the shuffleboard table, and with past works including the foosball tables, audience driven remote control cars over paper, there is plenty of audience participation with the work. How important is this aspect of the work and do you have this interaction in mind as you begin a piece?

TLW: The viewer participation is a very big part of it for me. The word finds originally came about because I wanted to present something that was imageless so someone could find a word and have their own association, their own mental image with that word. The mazes turn into this logical game, even though they look very different from the one-line drawings I have been doing for a long time, (the mazes) are extensions of these drawings, where I ask people to create a mental one-line through the piece. The whole desire and need for these things to be interactive comes from experiences going to museums with my family, my dad might just be pretending to be enjoying himself, or just bored. With this in mind, early on I started more aggressive projects where I turned paintings into large dartboards and targets covered in things I was giving away to the viewer. As people played darts I would ask them to exchange something for this piece of the art they were getting. I traded people their social security numbers and finger prints. The dialogue between the people became as important as the final image. Especially with the foosball table, the dialogue between the people showed up on the paper the game was creating. The new piece, the shuffleboard table is the only piece that has not made its own image. I wanted to transform the game into something that had other implications, in this case you are playing to see how beautiful or ugly you are.

DB: What have you done with these social security numbers and finger prints, have you kept any of them to be used in a future collage?

TLW: I did not necessarily save them to make a collage piece. I am a keeper and saver of everything, so I have all these big sheets of paper with peoples social security numbers and fingerprints. I never really did anything with them. It seemed like they were trading something that was a value of their identity for something that was a value of mine. It seemed like an even trade to me.

DB: How do you feel about being the most gifted collage artist around?

TLW: The Leonardo of collage artists. Well, it is very flattering and I am not sure how I feel about it yet.

DB: What is the greatest piece or show you have seen?

TLW: It is a Tom Friedman piece, it is called Untitled Stare, it is a blank piece of paper that the artist stared at for either 30 or 3,000 hours, regardless of how long he stared at it, I really like this idea that the paper is blank but it can still contain all the thoughts and ideas that he wanted to put into it. It is really hard to beat a blank piece of paper as the best art. I really like his work a lot and it was framed really well.

DB: What piece or show do you want to see?

TLW: I would like to see a Jonathan Meese piece, a Jonathan Meese show. I would like to see some shows that I have missed that I will never see, like Jeff Koons “Made in Heaven.” I would like to see a full Tom Friedman show. I would like to see a Tom Sachs show. Tom Sachs, he wins.

DB: Here are my questions I always ask: What do you think about the current state of the Memphis art scene?

TLW: Well, I think good things about the Memphis art scene. I know a lot of people that are making work, really interesting work. The hardest thing that we have going against us is that we do not have anyone that is able to attract national attention as a writer writing about the art shows that we have here. Also, I think what this town is missing is an artist run co-op where younger artists can have their first shows. There are so many young artists that are making this really interesting work that you never get to hear about or see.

DB: What is in your CD player right now?

TLW: Well, I am using my computer as my CD player and I am in the process of putting most of my CD's on that computer now. My count today, as I was burning a disc, was something like 2764 songs. Intentionally, there are a couple of things I really like right now, this band called Cocoa Rosey, a happy punk band called The Gerbils, and the new Sparklehorse album.

DB: What are you going to be for Halloween?

TLW: I always end up with a lame costume, my wife will have some great idea for a costume and I am usually an accessory to that. This year she wants to be a Japanese rock star that is stuck here in America and she is selling stickers to get back to Tokyo, I will probably get stuck being her manager.

DB: What is in the future for Tad Lauritzen Wright?

TLW: I am about to go on a vacation and when I get back I really am interested in making short films. I am interested in evaluating what I have been doing and focusing a little bit more on short, accessible ideas that will keep the same kind of pedestrian theory I have with the other work and maybe make it more approachable.

DB: Who could win in a fight? A lion or a gorilla.

TLW: A gorilla all the way. Opposable thumbs, opposable thumbs.

DB: Umpa-Lumpa or The Lollipop Kids?

TLW: Umpa-Lumpa would beat their little asses, but honestly, I really am scared of both.

DB: Fraggle of a Smurf?

TLW: Depending on the smurf, handy smurf could nail those fraggles shut.

DB: Transformers or Gobots?

TLW: Since I do not know what a gobot is, a transformer.

DB: Word finds or one-lines?

TLW: Depends on how bad the topic is.

DB: Debuffet or Basquiat?

TLW: Debuffett.