Barbara Zucker, Mix, Stir, Pour (White Floor Piece)

[0:00] [music]

Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:05] I’m with the artist Barbara Zucker, looking at a work that she produced called “Mix, Stir, Pour.” It’s a series of white plaster forms that have been poured almost like pancakes. They’re different sizes, they’re different shapes, and they’re stacked and grouped together.

[0:25] They create this landscape of forms and colors and shadows, but they also feel really fragile.

Barbara Zucker: [0:32] That’s because they are fragile. The life expectancy of the piece in [a] way is an unknown. When I first titled this piece, it was called “White Floor Piece,” because I was embarrassed about why I had really done them. I didn’t rename this piece until this show.

Dr. Zucker: [0:50] “White Floor Piece” is a generic title, and it would be fitting for a Donald Judd.

Barbara: [0:57] I was pretending to be a minimalist while actually being a maximalist. I couldn’t wed who I was with the kind of work that was being accepted at the time, and initially, this was a rectilinear piece.

[1:11] This most recent iteration is so much better because I’ve certainly acknowledged who I am, and what I’ve been, and what this piece was really about.

Dr. Zucker: [1:19] Because it goes under the wall at the left, it does have a sharp edge, but the object itself is completely organic. It’s a response to gravity. It’s a response to the thickness of the plaster.

Barbara: [1:32] It was a lot of fun making it, I have to say. I think I used some kind of canvas on the floor, and I would pour a certain number each day, and I would never know how they would look, how big they would be, if they would be good puddles, bad puddles, interesting puddles. It went on for many many many many weeks until I thought I had enough.

[1:51] What is enough? I don’t know, but there was a point at which it seemed to be sufficient. Ultimately, it’s called “Mix, Stir, Pour”, not just because that’s literally what I did but because it was a feminist action. I was never a good welder. I’ve never been a good carpenter. I’ve sort of muddled along, and I thought, so what am I really good at?

[2:10] What women are good at is we can make an omelet, or we can mix up something, and so I figured I would mix this stuff up in my expert way, and I would pour it out as if it were a griddle.

Dr. Zucker: [2:24] But over and over and over again, so that this is a kind of labor, but a kind of domestic labor that is intersecting with artistic labor.

Barbara: [2:34] There’s a kind of pissed-offness to the labor and there’s also a joy in the labor.

Dr. Zucker: [2:39] Because of the new title, when I look at the individuality of each puddle, I’m seeing a different experience, a different moment in time, a different experience that you’re having at that moment. I don’t mean that these are expressions of a specific moment, but these are the result of a specific moment.

Barbara: [2:58] Some of them are very funny. They had a life of their own. I would stand up. I would take the bucket and I would do a little teeny-weeny pour. Then I’d say, “Okay, I’m going to make a bigger pour.” Then I would make a pissed-off pour and I’d go really hard.

[3:11] Nonetheless, they always were what they were. I had some control, but not a lot of control. Also, part of this piece was about the patterns that the ocean makes on the sand after a storm. So even though it’s a feminist statement, it also was close to nature, which has been an important part of my life.

Dr. Zucker: [3:29] I want to go back to this issue of the labor of the home because the kitchen is recalled here. This is mixing like pancake mix.

Barbara: [3:36] Absolutely.

Dr. Zucker: [3:36] This is mixing like eggs as you mentioned. A kind of labor that is always devalued.

Barbara: [3:41] I think that things that are considered trivial are actually as important as things that are considered profound. This activity is actually a profound activity. It’s a universal activity. It’s feeding, it’s primal. And also, the color white reminds you of milk. It could be chalk. It could be shells.

[4:01] For me, it was a trivial action in my way made profound. Even though it’s presented differently every single time, every time you see something on top of something or something beneath something, that was a consideration. It should look as if it just flowed out naturally, but it isn’t.

[4:21] It’s an obnoxious, tedious, hair-raising, awful process to come to a conclusion.

Dr. Zucker: [4:28] And yet for me, it’s also wildly beautiful. It’s almost as if during a rainstorm when you see the rain forming into puddles and creating those qualities, but here they’re made permanent.

Barbara: [4:40] Yes.

Dr. Zucker: [4:41] It becomes almost musical and…

Barbara: [4:44] Nice.

Dr. Zucker: [4:44] …incredibly beautiful.

[4:45] [music]