Accepting Uncertainty

A conversation with Genevieve Goffman: fantasy, gaming aesthetics, and old world decadence.

Sergey Guskov: Are fantasy, esotericism, science fiction, pulp, and comic culture just sources of inspiration among others or the air that you breathe?

Genevieve Goffman: One reason I love fantasy and anime is because I see it as tapping into some core desires and just letting us experience it to the fullest. I want to ride a dragon. I want a pet griffin made of fire that will protect me forever. Why shouldn't I have that? I want to fall in love with a man who can turn into a tiger to protect me. People should have what they want. I grew up reading fantasy novels constantly. I used to get in trouble because I would hide in different parts of school to get out of gym class and read fantasy books. When I was younger it was always Tamora Pierce, Warrior Cats, and Redwall. Now I am always listening to fantasy books on tape at work, it's a really important part of my practice as an artist. There are some fantasy books I would consider literature; Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Susanna Clarke, and recently Tamsyn Muir’s The Locked Tomb Trilogy are so cleverly thought out. While all of Patricia A. McKillip's books are so beautifully written, you have to see them as art. But really I love fantasy that could be considered trashy or non-serious, I aspire to the humor and self-awareness of Terry Pratchett as well as the luscious self-indulgence of Emily A. Duncan. I love supernatural Victoriana. Jonathan L. Howard’s Johannes Cabal series cemented my interest in necromancy; the defeat of death or halting of the passage of time as something I return to over and over again in my art.

SG: Do decadent, fin de siècle, aesthetics easily fit in with both popular culture and contemporary art?

GG: I don't think it's our general architectural or decorative style at all and I think that's a pity. I don't want everything to look like a Chipotle or a Starbucks. I'm always scared people will see the aesthetics I use and think it's like thoughtless romanization or intentional reactionarism. But I know what I'm doing. I don't know, maybe this makes no sense. I love constructive sculptures and I love Brutalist architecture as much as the next over-educated millennial, but undeniably some of the buildings in Poznań in Poland were the most beautiful I have ever seen. I love old world decadence and, trust me, I understand how entrenched those aesthetics are in wealth and power disparity, but it doesn't mean it’s not still beautiful. I have received a lot of pushback around this. One time I received an email that literally just said “What is up with you and the Baroque?” But sorry I genuinely find gaudy representational decor to be beautiful and I think that we are all entitled to see beautiful buildings, beautiful skylines, and beautiful interiors. And I think in repurposing these troubled historical aesthetics, we can begin to add second and third stories to them; shift their meanings while also remembering and negating what they used to represent.

SG: Would you like to live in any other epoch? Which century, which country, and why?

GG: Maybe I would be a Neanderthal. I would literally die in almost every other time period. I’m so sickly and addicted to computers. My art draws from hyper specific historical events that I research, like the Manhattan Project or the discovery of radiation, but I would not necessarily want to live through them. Wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall to specific historical moments, or go to specific parties. Maybe I would visit The Weimar Republic, but if I absolutely had to go back to stay, I would like to go back to when we were just like monkeys and ate fruit. I would much prefer to live in an alternative reality, maybe the Pokémon world or somewhere with dragons.

SG: Do you find many good ideas on various online platforms?

GG: The internet confirms the aesthetics I have in my head from all the nonsense I read. Sometimes I think I'm a bad artist ‘cause I don’t spend enough time looking at other art, that's not like terrible fan art. But I do get a lot of inspiration from people who draw their own comics and original characters online. Most of my ideas begin with my widely disorganized and scattered historical research. I just finished Kalyvas’s Modern Greece: What Everyone Needs to Know, which is why I'm working on a piece about the imaginary assassination of Winston Churchill and I am just starting History of the Balkans, Vol. 2: Twentieth Century by Barbara Jelavich.

SG: What is the most powerful thing on the internet in terms of artistic inspiration?

GG: DeviantArt, and like teenagers doing cosplay and making up original characters on TikTok, and moms on Pinterest.

SG: What role does gaming play in your practice? Do you use game engines as a producing tool or just for its aesthetic dimension?

GG: When I'm being rude I would like to say video games are influenced by my art. I do play video games, I love Zelda, Final Fantasy and Pokémon and often rip Steam games for 3-D files to take apart, but my fantasy worlds are my own. I am more of a storyteller and romantic than gamer. Video games just often share a similar fantastic aesthetic.

SG: How important are found objects and found footage in your artwork?

GG: Very. I consider myself a collage artist above all. I was born with a pretty significant physical disability. I couldn't put my hair up in a ponytail until I was 16. I still struggle to hold a pencil properly. Cutting up internet images on the computer and sticking them together is how I made all my art until I learned how to do 3-D design. Now all my designs are intermixed with ripped files from video games and exciting architectural models.

SG: The age of Instagram and aggregators of art show photos has deeply influenced the art world. Because of the way online platforms present artworks, singular objects became prevalent over installation views and fragmented documentation of extensive un-instagramable pieces. And the majority of the audience an artist finds are online, rather than offline. That’s why many of contemporary exhibitions are initially made for a certain type of documentation—objects are spatially separated and the show as an integral piece doesn’t work anymore, it’s just a temporary constellation of artworks which will be recombined next time the other way. Do you reflect on the medium of exhibition, or is it a day that passed for you?

GG: I make work to be installed in space. I actually often struggle with documentation, because my approach to art is always imagining someone viewing it in person. I am not an online artist, though my work is influenced by the internet. Before I had a better linguistic grasp on my practice I would refer to myself as an installation artist. Even though this is not true, my work is intended for physical space.

SG: We witness overproduction of alternate realities in mass culture and, at the same time, experience fragmentation of humanity again—countries and social groups are reinventing their myths and histories with renewed vigor. So how does creating an alternate world work in modern circumstances? Which problems do you see in such artistic practices? And how do you solve them?

GG: I spend a lot of time at a distance marveling at other people’s fabricated versions of history and mythology. I feel like today people have defined their whole identities around histories that are, at once, completely fictional and deeply rooted in truth. History and mythology/fantasy are very similar to me. In a way, creating fantasy worlds out of history is as true as the actual history we learn or tell to others. My worlds do not run the risk of misinformation because they are fantastical, but I do often intersect with political interests that I don’t identify with. I think as an artist one has to trust themselves. I trust my own politics and my grasp of the truth, or else why would I make art. I also trust that I don't know. I don't know more than anyone else and part of making art about the past is about accepting uncertainty.