DUMBO ARTS CENTER: Interview with Robby Herbst by Rose Lou (DAC Intern): "New Pyramids for the Capitalist System"

Artist Robby Herbst

Upon the installation of his show, "New Pyramids for the Capitalist System" I had the chance to interview artist Robby Herbst about his projects, grandfather, and socialist endeavors...

Rose Lou: Since capitalism is clearly depicted as a corrupt system in this exhibition, what form of a social/political system would you like/hope to see applied instead? What is your main issue with Capitalism?

Robby Herbst: I’m into sharing with people, long hikes, growing and making things, a good sandwich, comic books and non-fiction writing – so naming social or political system is nothing I'm so interested in. I guess when we see that system we like I’ll let you know- perhaps then you can name it. Till then let’s keep playing and demanding. OK?

My beef with capitalism is mainly extinction and poverty.

RL: Where are you on the Capitalist Pyramid? Would you consider yourself a socialist like your grandfather and his troupe of acrobats?

RH: As a teacher and an artist in the developed world I’m second rung as will everyone who reads this interview I imagine- a member of bourgeoisie (petite or otherwise). Sometimes I feel like I’m the shit bottom, but then I leave the situation in some manner.

I like socialism, yes. It seems fair.

RL: Why did you chose the medium of graphic drawings/watercolor, photographs and amateur acrobats? How do these modes of representation best represent your working method and message to be conveyed?

Robby Herbst, New Pyramids for the Capitalist System, 2012

RH: With visual art I work on two levels: action and interpretation of action. I am interested in this because at heart I am interested in the schemas of interpretation; how some one comes to understand something internalizes it and re-presents that concept to the world. These chains of mediation are involved in the publishing that I do (currently the Llano Del Rio Collective, previously with the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest); making themselves known all the way through the writing process, the editing process, the process of distributing text, and then the process of hearing or seeing a public form around a text and respond to it.

Working with people in my artwork- I am generally interested in the ways individuals work through physical, emotional, ideological, and intellectual demands placed upon their bodies. Generally I’m not satisfied just displaying photographic documents of performance because I am not solely interested in the fact that an event took place. Within the fact of an event physical, emotional, ideological, and intellectual transferences between subjects occur. I am interested in furthering that transference through a second (third?) act of transference; where these physical, emotional, ideological, and intellectual events are reinterpreted through a language other than verisimilitude.

If radicalism is a message that passes like a virus between people- lets say from reading or acting upon Marx or an Occupation- than I am interested in exploring how virus move between people. The chain of developing a score, asking someone to perform it, them interpreting and then performing it for me, documenting the performance, reinterpreting the evidence, then displaying those documents as artworks to a public to interpret and perhaps re-perform; this is interesting to me.

RL: Do you feel a closer connection to your grandfather after carrying out this particular project? Is he a prevalent figure amongst most of your work?

RH: Yes.

This is the first time I’ve ever worked directly with my grandfather. I guess though that he’s a part of how I came to be me. So in that sense he’s always a figure in what I do. This is a chain isn’t it?