Y’ALL STARTED THIS SHIT ANYWAY, 2021

Narrator: Taylor describes the improvisatory way that he came up with this work—and its title, Y’ALL STARTED THIS SHIT ANYWAY. 

Henry Taylor: You hear writers who talk about, oh, I wrote that song in twenty minutes, and it was a hit. This one just came together. And it seemed to have a nice compact little story—for me anyway. There's a head, a decapitated…or just a mannequin's head. And maybe I was thinking of just putting everything together or some of the materials like, oh, I had a bull. I have the head. I'm thinking about Native Americans. I'm thinking about green pastures and I'm thinking about golf, and I'm thinking about land and you know the white golf thing. I just thought that the buffalo and everything just kind of worked for me. And the cowboy boots, you know, that kind of goes. The buffalo, the boots. [Sing-songy] Buffalo Bill. Hey! 

Narrator: Taylor’s creative approach here is loose and playful. Yet he uncovers a thought-provoking way to tie together the issues of segregation, and the displacement and genocide of Native Americans. 

Andrea Bowers: I think that he uses humor, both in a loving way, but also, a kind of politically biting way.

Narrator: Andrea Bowers.

Andrea Bowers: You know, I do these photo-realist drawings and I want everything to be perfect, and I work a quarter of an inch, an eighth of an inch, a sixteenth of an inch at a time. And Henry would be like, "Stop." And I'd say to him, "But why is that so badly drawn? Why is that arm crooked? Or why is the foreshortening off? I know you can do better. Or you can actually record it, but you purposely make it that way. Why do you purposely make it that way?" And he was like, "Because the world's screwed up. And so, things need to be off. Things need to be awkward, because it visually talks about how messed up the world is.”