Terminal 5, 2004
John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York

Curator Rachel K. Ward was interviewed by John Casey on May 11, 2004

John Casey:

You have indicated in your curatorial proposal a desire to create a relationship between contemporary art, the architecture of the airport, and travel which all seem to point to a certain nostalgia for air travel and even a nostalgia for the modernist architecture of the Saarineen terminal. You say that you want to revive an interest in flight. But it seems that this is a particular point in history where flight cannot be viewed with the same optimism which it stirred from the time of the Wright brothers on up to the construction of the Saarinen terminal. It seems that our interest in it should be a guarded interest, not one that necessarily embraces it. Can you comment on this?

Rachel K. Ward:
We are still at a challenging moment for air travel and this is one of the reasons I decided to pursue Terminal 5 at this time. It is also just after the first century of flight. Of course it is not possible to recall the original optimism of flight. That moment is gone forever but it is always possible to retain an outlook of possibility. I think that is what brings together air flight, modernism and contemporary art, each thrive on possibility. Without being sentimental or nostalgic, I want to respond to the sense of possibility that seems almost inaccessible to us at this present moment. Air travel, modern architecture and contemporary art share a certain sense of failed promise but also represent the potential of human will.
We have been describing Terminal 5 as a cornerstone exhibition of the 21st century, to the shock of many people who consider it a very pretentious statement. However, we are trying to allow the best of the 20th century to provide a platform for the best of today. Air flight is the invention of the 20th century and the airport, particularly Saarinen's, is the masterpiece castle of our historical moment. Therefore we are honored to join a legacy, not one we are exclusively making but one already in progress and it is to that which the artists respond.

John Casey:
I agree with you entirely about the necessity to avoid sentimentality and nostalgia. The exhibition that you have devised seems to be precisely the way to avoid this because of the fact that it is driven by contemporary art, a practice which still inhabits the structures, institutions and discursive precedents set by modernism in the 20th century. At the same time there has been a consistent critical distance set by both curators and artists in relation to modernism and the icons of modernism, such as the Saarinen terminal. How has this critical approach affected your approach to such a sacred modern space as a curator? And do you think the artists consider themselves as part of this legacy or do they stand in a different critical relation to both the architectural space and the idea of air travel?

Rachel K. Ward:
I would not agree that curators and artists practice such a critical distance from modernism, rather I think there is a certain decadence, almost a lack of awareness or neglect of the institution or gallery space as modern, that the ideology down to the office aesthetic is still high modernism, still minimal. But I would say what we are doing by claiming Sarrinen's terminal is taking on modernism as a scene of art. And Sarinen's space is not sacred necessarily. I think a museum can be sacred for some people but the terminal is shared space, social space, and that is also part of what we are trying to accomplish, to open the doors and prevent it from becoming too precious.
The artists each seem to have an individual relationship to the space. It should be noted that almost every artist instantly responded positively to the invitation, but each for different reasons. For some, the dialogue with Saarinen has been extremely important. Dan Graham for example has recalled his knowledge of Saarinen s mid-western origins. For other artists its was about the airport as concept. Several artists already had a project ready for whenever an opportunity at an airport opened up. This is when I knew the exhibition would be a success, when each of the artists could understand the significance but each had different expectations and intentions. The airport seems to be institutional and also governmental and also commercial and many things at one time permitting a plurality of style. While museums and galleries rely on a monthly blank slate to permit constant turnover, at the airport the constant turnover is already built in, it is already part of the scene. And I suppose I should mention that it just so happens that Saarinen's terminal, already the symbol of airports, is at an ideal moment to serve as art space. Monumental and vacant, it communicates the open awe that the best museums strive for.

John Casey:
In a sense you have taken a non-space with a specific function, a distinctly modern function that is often experienced and thought of as uncomfortable, frustrating and even alienating, and transformed it into a destination, not only for arriving travelers, but also for people interested in contemporary art. You mention that it is a governmental space, a space tightly controlled by strict security measures, yet it has also become a space for relative freedom - the freedom of the artist to transform the space according to his own measures and dictate the public encounter. The vacant and monumental qualities of the space is precisely what museums strive for, yet these qualities have not escaped critique in the past and still do not. I think these are some of the reasons and paradoxes that make the show interesting. You have escaped both the gallery and museum as institutions to create a new social space in an already rigidly controlled social space. In a sense there is an unmasking and a remaking of the space, but it is at the same time a space both quite different and quite similar to the typical to an art setting.

Rachel K. Ward:
In some ways the Terminal 5 project has been a tremendous risk for myself as an independent curator and for each of the artists. I can remember several months into the project Toland Grinnell suddenly asking if the project would have insurance? It was challenging to have a person organize a project the scale of a museum without the security of an institution. At the same time, because the security of an airport is so excessive, we were forced to answer to a higher power than the museum standard. Not only did we have to arrange for insurance but insurance with fire and terror watch and security risks beyond the normal institution. So it was a mix of total risk and utter safety.
In this way I think it does have something to offer contemporary art. The artist's work should be protected like any valuable but there is something about providing freedom to an artist that is very exciting. It doesn't always result in a masterpiece but it is necessary to a larger process of art itself.
Also, I would say your terms unmasking or remaking evoke a sense of the theatrical. But we are not unmasking it or remaking it, time has done that already for us. There is no question we have a stage set. The only other people who have used the terminal since its closure have been film crews. The Port Authority still calls us "scouts" when we visit the site.

John Casey:
When you mention the need to insure the art and arrange the proper security measures with the Port Authority it reminds me of the concept of orchestration that you have mentioned before in relation to the vast three dimensional and global network that composes the space of air travel. Can you discuss this idea of orchestration not only in the art/performance works, but also in your own work as a curator for this show beyond merely the arrangement of insurance?
In essence you need to arrange and guarantee the arrival and departure, not only of the art, but also of an entire curatorial structure which includes education, performances, visitors, and a gift shop - the complete trappings of a museum. This also reminds of the structure that you used in curating the Eispavillion exhibition.

Rachel K. Ward:

I think there is something very cinematic to curating. Now that I think of it our sponsoring agency, the only non-profit that was willing to take the Terminal 5 project was Film-Video Art, the agency for Jim Jarmusch's and Michael Moore's first projects. They were the only people who got it - understood what we were really planning or orchestrating. I suppose that I work on a large scale way planning a project in total with many different aspects and unique collaborations. I also work with certain artists because I trust their abilities and what they offer to the overall aim of the project. It is not like ordering from a catalog, like selecting art that already exists. That is also curating and orchestrating but a bit too controlled for me. I like to provide the situation and see what happens.
Tobias Wong and Ken Courtney were both in the Eispavillon project. And what both Tobias and Ken offer are aspects of a museum but simulations. Ken's poster for Eispavillon was a promotion of a promotion. It was the best: a sign of labels, brands that had nothing to do with the content of the exhibition. I loved it and it would have never been approved by a board of directors of an institution. And now Tobias with the gift shop is offering something that investigates the whole notion of the commercial art space. Every museum has a gift shop now. When we did Eispavillon, which is a tourist attraction, it came with a gift shop already there so we used it and now the airport - it has one built in too. Even hospitals have gift shops. They are everywhere and totally the kind of place to investigate aesthetics and exchange. In many ways Tobias and I have discussed how it is a dream project to have an empty shop space to respond to aesthetically and ideologically but it is also very difficult.

John Casey:
I am quite interested in your role as a curator and how you went about this role in this project. I have been thinking recently about the importance of Szeeman in the late 60's and early 70's. He came up with unique exhibitions that created a notion of the archetypal all-star, curator-as-artist and the concept of the exhibition-as-art. The precedent set then provided the groundwork for the
"globe-trotting" all-star curator who is not attached to a specific institution. In essence, some curators are always in an airport traveling to their next big exhibition they are working on they are departing from the curatorial groundwork they have just laid and attempting to arrive at the next big thing before the rest of the fleet. The all-star international curator has become a sort of institution in itself. Can you discuss how this relates to the exhibition and your innovation to come up with such a unique concept for an exhibition?

Rachel K. Ward:
The curator is an important role in contemporary art. Szeeman in particular was influential in his direction of the Bachelor Machines in 1975. But you can go back even further to the Family of Man Show from 1955 which was for an institution MoMa - by Edward Steichen. The contemporary, freelancing curator is a lot more sexy than the original idea of the curator as a guard of objects keeping them dust free or what have you. But this is the nature of the machine. Art has changed to become more about the rotating events that involve curators. A combination of these things led to my pursuit of curating and especially working with Swiss curator Marc-Olivier Wahler. Marc-Olivier, along with Szeeman, Hans-Ulirich Obrist and Bice Curiger, are leading Swiss curators. There seems to already be a strong place for the curator in Swiss culture. My experience with the Swiss Institute in New York encouraged me to pursue projects like Eispavillon in Switzerland.
But I think what is unique to Terminal 5 as a curator is the international space of the airport. The exhibition is thematic and totally public and totally free of institutional association but it also already has the international element which is today what every biennial aims for. And finally, Terminal 5 is also a production of nothing - the theme is really about travel and transition and things moving on to the next event which also captures the current biennial and event trend of contemporary art. Terminal 5 is an event, not exclusively an exhibition.

John Casey:
I seem to have struck something you feel passionately about.

Rachel K. Ward:
Yes, Terminal 5 is something for today and like its theme totally temporal. This is also important, not that we don't have an institution to live up to but we also don t have to leave something behind. We have to leave nothing behind because the terminal will be closed and renovated and will never exist in its original form again. It will disappear and that is really excellent. Instant history. Yet the legacy we inherent, that of the role of site and the potential of art, that will outlive this project and it is really that which we are working on for the long term.

John Casey:
But some people might argue that this is precisely what is wrong with curating today. That the exhibiton has become an event – transitory and quick, ultimately relating to our inability as a culture to concentrate on anything except for a brief moment in time. I have no problem with this, but the exhibition seems to be implicit in the showmanship that the contemporary art world demands not only of its artists, but also now from its curators. You need to have a Vanessa Beecroft performance, the fashion icons of Tobias Wong and Toland Grinnell's trunks. In a sense it unabashedly participates in the spectacular nature that is an inescapable element in the international art world of short term exhibitions and the never-ending cycle of biennials. You are of course aware of this problem and I am interested in what you think about this, particularly in a time when academia has been saturated with Marxist theory for so long.

Rachel K. Ward:

From the beginning, Terminal 5 has tried to involve a theoretical drive. At first look, it is another event with some of the more popular artists in the scene. But the exhibition also brings together some of the more critical and challenging artists in contemporary art. Anri Sala, Dan Graham, Jenny Holzer and even Jonathan Monk or Sean Linezo and not making art just for your pleasure. Terminal 5 also has a series of lectures and a catalog with a section devoted to theory. It was important for the catalog to be an alternative site for the exhibition. But I also didn't want to put together something MIT would offer because then why not just let them do it. Essentially I didn't want to be afraid of or fanatic about either fashion or Marxism. But despite that, I imagine this project will have considerable critique for being too set to please while other people will find it too theoretically conscious of its context and discursive moment. I don't think there is an answer to how to respond to the spectacle - to endorse or negate it. We are making the most of existing resources and that is a certain responsibility often neglected in the false consciousness of the spectacle. We now have, as Jean-Luc Nancy describes, the freedom of the surprise event that comes only through thinking. It is in thinking about existing resources that we found this surprise: a site, a group of artists and ideas that were already in place and are now being brought to the public. That is what Terminal 5 offers and its style is really subjective.

John Casey:

Surveillance technologies are hot topics for both artists and for the institutions and agencies controlling air travel. Artists are in the interesting position to effectively and ineffectively address issues that relate to surveillance technologies, most often, but not limited to video technologies, so that at times they decode the meaning of a technology that so effectively disguises its often oppressive and dehumanizing aspects. Artists and architects at their best engage in a critique of surveillance structures and simulataneously enable new relations to surveillance technologies. Artists often merely incorporate and transform surveillance for art purposes, taking an uncritical approach and merely appropriating surveillance technologies for uses other than security. How have artist's in the exhibition dealt with these technologies? And are they critical at all of these technologies?

Rachel K. Ward:
Jennifer & Kevin McCoy are making work about surveillance practices which is very interesting because they began making work years ago about television which I think is in some way a sort of mass surveillance. Sean Linezo's Staremaster is also related to the act of surveillance. And then we also have Ken Courney's paparazzi work - this is like the reverse of surveillance, the public obscenity of watching the rich and famous out in the open. When you ask this question it is not like I can describe a spy camera and a plasma screen where we have surveillance in art action. Daniel Buren's Pompidou retrospective "The Museum That Did Not Exist" was deliberate surveillance of his own exhibition and let people watch themselves inside the Buren installations. It is usually more subtle. An artist is always using surveillance. They often see things from a scope we cannot and that is what they offer us, a different perspective.

John Casey:
That is what I mean by decoding the surveillance technology and simultaneously enabling new alternative relations to these technologies.

Rachel K. Ward:

Yes the artist does decode, or at least, re-code the message of surveillance. I think one great example has been in planning the tunnel work with Ryoji Ikeda. Ryoji has had a vision to make the tunnel white with such intense light that the work cannot be looked at. With white vinyl flooring in a tunnel into white light it says something about what the viewer is seeking with contemporary art or with surveillance, to see something special, to have a revelation, or find the secret answer, the sublime. It is the same desire from the beginning of art.

John Casey:
In relation to the surveillance question, Nicholas Bourriaud says "By putting technology in its productive context, by analyzing its relations with the superstructure and the layer of obligatory behavior underpinning its use, it becomes conversely possible to produce models of relations with the world, heading in the direction of modernity. Failing which, art will become an element of high tech deco in an increasingly disconcerting society. " I mention the quote from Bourriaud because it seems that the showmanship of curators and the gimmicks that run rampant in contemporary art end up in this category of high tech deco. I find this to be an inescapable problematic and a difficult line for both artist and curator to walk.

Rachel K. Ward:
Showmanship accompanies every field though art resides in an arena, in a site of congratulations really, where we place special value on certain objects and individuals. But what interests me more in the concept of high tech deco is the deco from decoration. Decoration is the word of decadence and a difficult zone for high art. The idea of high tech deco also makes me think of machines without something substantive that can really move us. We still need beauty and substance in every era and ideally the work of art can provide these things, with or without the curator.