I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art: Spotlight on a Student Performer
Jul 12, 2010

When does an art student get to write on the wall of a museum? This summer, twenty-eight students will have the chance to do just that in the re-performance of John Baldessari's 1971 work I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art. This week we caught up with Murphy Chang, a student in the Illustration Department at the Rhode Island School of Design, to talk about her experience participating in the performance.

Whitney Museum of American Art (WMAA): What does it mean to you to participate in this kind of performance as an artist yourself?

Murphy Chang (MC): Well I think it's funny because when I was really young I had to do lines whenever I got in trouble, and I would do them in Chinese. So I came up with this method of doing them in columns. I would just do all the same characters down the columns, so it would all be really neat on a grid system. And I've never done lines in English, so it was just a perfect opportunity to try it.

WMAA: Do you think this work relates in any way to your own artistic practice?

MC: Well, I don't know. This is one of those things I can just do and think about other things at the same time. There's a little wiggle room because it's pretty much set that you're writing the sentence. So it's a nice space to just start thinking about my own work.

WMAA: You're the only artist writing for an entire day. Why was it important for you to do that?

MC: Well, if I'm going to do something, I like doing it for a long time. Every time I go to the studio I just work for a lot of hours. I don't like going in and then coming back out because if I'm thinking about something then it just gets cut off. I mean, it's not that I thought I had to do it for an entire day. I just wanted to see how I would be by the end of the day and how the words would be. You know how after a while if you repeat the same word it means nothing? I thought it would be kind of interesting to see what happens. I'm just curious to see how I'm going to react to it.

WMAA: How has the experience been in the galleries so far?

MC: It was fun!  It was really fun just looking at how other people write and where they change to all caps or all lower-case or the left-handed guy that went before me who has all the smudges on one side. I thought that was great.

WMAA: Did you go in with a particular style or concept in mind?

MC: No. This project has really specific instructions, so I wanted to respect the original piece. I'm not bringing myself into it at all, really I'm just doing it because it’s a nice routine thing. You know what to expect, you're not going to do anything crazy. It's kind of calm.

Chang's grid method will be put to the test on Friday, July 16, when she will perform in the second floor galleries from 1 pm to 6 pm. Students will be performing throughout the month of July during the Museum's hours on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays or until the walls are full.

This work is presented in conjunction with Off the Wall: Part 1 - Thirty Performative Actions.

By Danielle Canter, Education Intern