Artist Snapshot: Georgia Küng

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At what age did you decide to become an artist?

I always loved making things, and I was seen as skillful in my family and in my school, so I definitely got positive reinforcement. It was difficult for me to take on the title “artist,” partly because of self-confidence and partly because I had many interests. I probably started calling myself an artist when I really started showing my work in 2013.

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How did your parents react when you told them you wanted to be an artist?

I grew up in SoHo and the Village completely surrounded by artists, so it was not ever out of the realm of possibilities for my family to understand. Artists Camille Billops, Ida Appelbroog, and Jonas Mekas lived and worked in our building. My parents are artistic–my mom makes fabric art, and my dad is a graphic designer and builder. It was understood from my interest that I would head in this direction.

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Who are your favorite artists?

Artists I come back to often are Rosemarie Trockel, Christina Ramberg, Matt Mullican, Paul Pfeiffer, David Hammons, Laurie Anderson, Terry Fox, Jef Geys, Hans Haacke, Ai Weiwei, Robert Morris, Isa Genzkhen, Nam June Paik, Lee Lozano, Charlotte Posenenske, Chantal Akerman, Paul Thek, Melvin Edwards. From that list, you can see I like artwork that is bold, political, maybe irreverent but which has a tenderness. A lot of it is from artists who got their start in the 70s. Lately I’m into Pati Hill, Bei Rubbings, and Ashevak Kenojuak, an Inuit printmaker. As I continue teaching printmaking, I am looking to build an expansive list of references.

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Who is your favorite artist whose work is unlike your own?

Chaim Soutine comes to mind.

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Art book you cannot live without?

Hokusai manga is extremely inspiring.

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What is the quality you most admire in an artist?

Experimentation, bravery/vulnerability—going for it.

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Do you keep a sketchbook?

I have a journal and a sketchbook, but mostly I accumulate notes on scraps of paper and snapshots in my phone.

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What’s your favorite museum?

Here, in New York, I will say The Met because you always find something you’ve not seen before and you can find quiet corners to explore. I love the visible storage. There are so many wonderful places–the Noguchi Museum, for example. Wish I could rattle off some more right now.

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What’s the best exhibition you have ever attended?

It sounds like you are asking about curation. Some more recent shows I can recall are The Young and the Evil curated by Jarrett Earnest at Zwirner; Matt Mullican in Grand-Hornu in Belgium; Just Above Midtown at MoMA; Art Club2000 at Artists Space; Park McArthur: Ramps at Essex Street in 2014. Further afield, I recall Kiku at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a show of Japanese chrysanthemums in 2007, which astounded me and happens to be open again right now in the Bronx. Memling’s Portraits at the Frick in 2005… Walter De Maria’s The New York Earth Room.

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If you were not an artist, what would you be?

I could have been a psychoanalyst. If I was better at math, I would have liked astrophysics. I could see myself growing food.

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Did you have an artistic cohort that influenced your early creative development?

Cooper Union was pretty formative–I felt like I could understand myself there. I learned a lot being surrounded by so many unique people. Everyone was doing their own thing.

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What is one thing you didn’t learn in art school that you wish you had?

That the art market and institutions want specific things from artists that suit their needs and are not often in the service of avant-garde and revolutionary ideas. It’s OK not to always be visible. Your work also doesn’t need to be easily understood. Also, don’t take rejection too deeply. And the reverse–don’t take being chosen too deeply either. Find a way that will sustain you ethically, emotionally, politically and I’m not sure art school can teach you that.

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What work of art have you looked at most and why?

Just for the pleasure of looking? I could look at Middle Eastern carpets and other textile and ceramic work from the ancient world forever.

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What is your secret visual pleasure outside of art?

Watching runway shows is one.

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Do you listen to music in your studio?

Yes, sometimes.

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What is the last gallery you visited?

I saw a group show last night at Subtitled NYC in Greenpoint curated by Elzie Williams, which included my friend Nancy Paredes.

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Who is an under-rated artist people should be looking at?

This is a difficult question. So many artists are working under the radar. Some historical figures I haven’t seen get their due are Hedda Sterne and Albert Yorke and M. K. Čiurlionis, and those are just three people that come to mind. Follow me on Instagram. I often post work I like from my peers.

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What art materials can you not live without?

I could make things out of whatever was available if it came down to it. Whatever there is an excess of can be used to critique the culture. There will always be something to draw and write with even if that’s your finger and a dirty window.

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Do you create art every day?

Not by a long shot!

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What is the longest time you went without creating art?

I don’t make such a distinction between art and life.

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What do you do when you are feeling uninspired?

In order to get inspired? I look at books or I draw a card from “Oblique Strategies.” I keep a list of small tasks to do related to different projects; the trick is to get started. When I’m unproductive, it might mean I’m not ready for that next step. Plenty of things keep me connected to my creativity–cooking, taking care of plants, meditation, reading, walking, good conversation.

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What are the questions that drive your work?

What is the relevance of the past? How much of ourselves comes from socialization and culture, and can we escape that? How do I take account of my own subjectivity (as a white woman today for example) and use the specificity of that to make something broadly relevant? How do I tell a story I feel is important in a way that allows people to enter the work? How can I shape a politics based on revolutionary love? I am largely at work on an ethical project: how to live, how to speak, how to connect.

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What is the most important quality in an artist?

The sensitivity to know what’s important for you to do or say. The skill to make that understood. The courage to go deep into your project to do something special.

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What is something you haven’t yet achieved in art?

Having my work in a public collection.

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What is the best thing about art in the era of social media?

I think social media serves to allow people to appreciate what you do especially if you are isolated geographically or by your identity. However, people tend to think it can do more than it can, it has an outsize influence on our lives. Meanwhile, it takes things from us–our focus, our data, our desire to meet physically, and makes money off of what we share. We can’t even choose how we use it because what we see is controlled. We are human, and we’ve evolved in the physical world. Other things happen, more is communicated, when we meet in person.

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GEORGIA KÜNG (@georgia.kung) teaches Etching, Relief, Monoprint, Lithography, Silkscreen at the Art Students League of New York.