{"id":14779,"date":"2021-10-18T15:04:17","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T19:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=14779"},"modified":"2021-10-18T15:04:22","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T19:04:22","slug":"episode-456-zoe-beloff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-456-zoe-beloff","title":{"rendered":"Episode 456 – Zoe Beloff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 456:
\nZoe Beloff<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_456_-_Zoe_Beloff.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“I’m a story scavenger. I’m not like a novelist who comes out with stories from scratch. I find stories, whether of real people, or just a scrap of film or old postcards. They’ll tell you stories. I think of myself as a voice through with people speak. They’re my partners.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>With Parade Of The Old New<\/a>, artist Zoe Beloff<\/a> has created a panoramic history painting documenting the depths of the Trump years. We get into the impetus for that project, its enormous scale (140 feet long), its Brechtian roots, and its reproduction as a 19-foot accordion book (available only from Booklyn<\/a>). We talk about notions of rights and responsibilities for artists, the debate over displaying Philip Guston<\/a>‘s work, the angry e-mail Zoe received from a white male Marxist that critiqued her for “her own benefit”, and why Parade Of The Old New<\/em> is getting exhibited in Europe & Russia but not America. We also dive into her fascination with artists and thinkers of the interwar era, like Bertolt Brecht & Walter Benjamin, her family’s refugee history and why it left her feeling like a Rootless Cosmpolitan, the ways she interweaves painting, film, installation, picture-storytelling (or cartooning) and other forms, the vision of NYC that brought her to the city in her 20s from Scotland, and why being a story-scavenger rather than an inventor means she gets to live in the worlds of her art. Also, we talk about her new multimedia project to celebrate essential workers, my no-fly list for pod-guests, why telling her mother and grandmother’s refugee story is the closest she’ll come to autobiography, and a LOT more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go check out Parade Of The Old New<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“I think I realized around age 12 I wanted to be an artist because the art room was the only place where people didn’t tell you what you had to do, and there was no right or wrong answer.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n