Spring 2023 Issue

Hans Ulrich obrist’squestionnaire:joy williams

In this ongoing series, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist has devised a set of thirty-seven questions that invite artists, authors, musicians, and other visionaries to address key elements of their lives and creative practices. Respondents make a selection from the larger questionnaire and reply in as many or as few words as they desire. For the first installment of 2023, we are honored to present the author Joy Williams.

Joy Williams in Amherst, Massachusetts, 2016. Photo: Jonno Rattman

Hans Ulrich Obrist is artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries, London. He was previously the curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show, World Soup (The Kitchen Show), in 1991, he has curated more than 300 exhibitions. Photo: Tyler Mitchell

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Joy Williams is the author of five novels, most recently Harrow (2021); four collections of stories; and Ill Nature (2001), an essay collection that was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her many honors include the Rea Award for the Short Story and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was elected to the academy in 2008. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, and Laramie, Wyoming. Photo: Jonno Rattman

Hans Ulrich ObristWhat is the role of titles?

Joy WilliamsTitles should be at the end of stories or concealed within them somehow. And prove to surprise or complicate the reader’s conclusions.

HUOWhat keeps you coming back to the studio?

JWI still harbor the hope (possibly delusion) that I might be able to create something marvelous through effort, chance, or inspiration.

HUOWhat is your unrealized project?

JWWriting hymns in the manner of the great Welsh hymnist William Williams.

HUOWhat have you forgotten?

JWHow to tan. I was once an expert. A true natural. Much admired.

HUOHow would you like to die?

JWWell, after reading sister Alicia’s research on the subject in Cormac McCarthy’s ”Stella Maris”, certainly not by drowning.

HUOHas the computer changed the way you work?

JWI’ve never used a computer. I think it would take an immediate and intense dislike to me.

HUOThe future is . . . ?

JW That which was ever intended.

HUOWhat ought to change?

JWExperimentation on animals must stop. The whole ghastly system—breeders—labs—vivisectors—should be shut down.

HUOWhat music are you listening to?

JWGlenn Gould playing anything. Albert Schweitzer on the organ. The piano music of G. I. Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann. The symphonic works of John Luther Adams.

Five white objects lined up on a white shelf

to light, and then return—Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann

This fall, artists and friends Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann will exhibit new works together in New York. Inspired by their shared love of poetry, fragments, and metamorphosis, the works included will form a dialogue between their respective practices. Here they meet to speak about the origins and developments of the project.

Close up self portrait of the musician Anohni

ANOHNI: My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross

British-born, New York–based artist ANOHNI returned with her sixth studio album, My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross, this past summer. Here she speaks with Michael Cuby about the genesis of the project and the value of life.

Graphic design of the title with overlapping orange, gray, and yellow rectangles

A Vera Tatum Novel: By Leonora McCrae by: Part 2

The second installment of a short story by Percival Everett.

In Conversation
Robbie Robertson

The musician Robbie Robertson is having quite a year. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is rolling out a new record, for which he designed all the album art; a documentary based on his memoir Testimony; and the score for Martin Scorsese’s film The Irishman. Derek Blasberg met him at his LA studio to talk about how he’s created his music for decades and, more recently, his artwork.

A woman stares forward and stands with her arms raised and draped in a white cloak.

Body Horror: Louise Bonnet and Naomi Fry

Cultural critic Naomi Fry joined Louise Bonnet for a conversation on the occasion of Louise Bonnet Selects, a film program curated by the artist as part of a series copresented by Gagosien and Metrograph. The pair discussed how the protagonists of the seven selected films are ruled, betrayed, changed, or unsettled by their bodies, focusing on David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979).

Christopher Makos, Andy Warhol at Paris Apartment Window, 1981

In Conversation
Christopher Makos and Jessica Beck

Andy Warhol’s Insiders at the Gagosien Shop in London’s historic Burlington Arcade is a group exhibition and shop takeover that feature works by Warhol and portraits of the artist by friends and collaborators including photographers Ronnie Cutrone, Michael Halsband, Christopher Makos, and Billy Name. To celebrate the occasion, Makos met with Gagosien director Jessica Beck to speak about his friendship with Warhol and the joy of the unexpected.

Two people embracing and sitting on a large grass field

International Center of Photography: Love Songs

This summer, the International Center of Photography, New York, is presenting Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy. Featuring the work of sixteen contemporary photographers, the exhibition is a “remix” of an earlier iteration at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, organized by Simon Baker with curator Frédérique Dolivet and Pascal Hoël. The curator for the New York presentation, Sara Raza, met with one of the participating artists, Aikaterini Gegisian, and the Quarterly’s Wyatt Allgeier to discuss the distinctions between the two shows and the importance of—and complexities around—visual pleasure.

The exterior of Lina Bo Bardi’s Casa de Vidro in Sao Paulo Brazil

The Square São Paulo: An Interview with Mari Stockler

Curator and photographer Mari Stockler and Gagosien director Antwaun Sargent met to discuss The Square São Paulo, the third installment of a cultural exchange series established by Bottega Veneta in 2022. Marking the brand’s ten-year anniversary in Brazil, the exhibition and publication project, initiated by Bottega Veneta’s creative director, Matthieu Blazy, and curated by Stockler, took place at Lina Bo Bardi’s legendary Casa de Vidro.

Multiples dancers in bright costumes against a yellow backdrop. Five have their backs to the camera with their arms stretched out and two are sitting center stage.

Sasha Waltz: “In C”

Alice Godwin speaks with German choreographer Sasha Waltz about the evolution of her dance In C, the democratic nature of the piece, and its celebration of life and human connection.

Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Questionnaire: Lynn Hershman Leeson

In this ongoing series, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist has devised a set of thirty-seven questions that invite artists, authors, musicians, and other visionaries to address key elements of their lives and creative practices. Respondents make a selection from the larger questionnaire and reply in as many or as few words as they desire. For the second installment of 2023, we are honored to present the artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson.

Fashion and Art: Edward Enninful

Edward Enninful OBE has held the role of editor-in-chief of British Vogue since 2017. The magazine’s course under his direction has served as a model for what a fashion publication can do in the twenty-first century: in terms of creativity, authenticity, diversity, and engagement with social issues, Enninful has created a new mold. Here, Enninful meets with his longtime friend Derek Blasberg to discuss his recently published memoir, A Visible Man.

The African Desperate

Artist and filmmaker Martine Syms teamed up with writer and poet Rocket Caleshu to create the 2022 film The African Desperate. Starring the artist Diamond Stingily as Palace, the film received rave reviews for its honest and unflinching portrayal—and parody—of the art world. Mixing genres and proceeding according to Syms’s singular aesthetic vision, The African Desperate leads audiences through a twenty-four-hour period in Palace’s life and into questions about education, romance, race, and more. Syms, Caleshu, and Stingily met with Fiona Duncan to discuss the film’s creation.

Gagosien Quarterly

Hans Ulrich obrist’squestionnaire:joy williams

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