This article is part of Hyperallergic‘s Pride Month Seriesfeaturing an interview with a different emerging or mid-career transgender or non-binary artist each weekday throughout June.
Brooklyn-based trans artist KC Crow Maddux views rectangular images as cropped. “Why is the rectangle a container? ” he asks. “I just don’t understand.” And in his opinion, many artists operate within the predetermined parameters of four-cornered surfaces mounted at eye level on white walls before they even begin to create anything. But for Maddux, these rectangular boundaries are akin to gender binary, and it just won’t be contained. The artist works in the realm of sculpture, although he describes his flat bisecting pieces as “frames” for his more intentionally cropped photographs. Emphasizing the presence of the hand, Maddux frames come to life amid their hazy translations of idealized concepts into real-world objects. In the interview below, the artist discusses how he constructs real spaces through the intersection of anthropomorphized planes, bringing bulky dimensionality to an otherwise flattened visual syntax.
Hyperallergic: What is the current orientation of your artistic practice?
KC Crow Maddux: Right now I’m interested in the (so often overlooked) Z axis of the image plane. Around the age of 19, through a process that was actually quite painful, I became completely disillusioned with the illusionist space and this inquiry has fueled my practice ever since.
I work with a flat, graphic, image-based visual language, but in sculptural time and form. For me, images are limited in their ability to concretely engage in embodiment. Images are related to reading and thinking, while objects are more directly related to being. Often an image exists within the confines of a rectangle that places it at a different time and place from the viewer – like a window into the past. The sculpture lives in the present, at the same time as the spectator.
In my work, the physicality of objects contrasts with the cerebral vocabulary – directly related to my suspicion that thought and being don’t often overlap perfectly – especially when it comes to identity.
H: In what ways, if any, does your gender identity play a role in your experience as an artist?
KCM: My transition and break from gender binary coincided with a much greater erosion of my trust in cultural conventions, more broadly. Often what is normative is not really backed up by cultural and historical impetus much beyond that. The familiar too often excludes the possible. I think one of the reasons some people feel uncomfortable with transited is that it doesn’t just add a third gender, it takes the binary and explodes it into multitudes.
The structure of my work grew out of a list I developed of conventions I not incorporate – working within the confines of a rectangle or using photography as a window into another time and space, for example. “Trans” means through, between or beyond. It is a strategy to be used against ideals, conventions and habits; make new connections while always expanding just beyond our current reach.
For example, I consider almost all of my pieces to be framed photographs. The framing is contextualizing, and I personally don’t identify with a rectangular frame, so I build these sculptural frames to house the photos. Because why not? Transit appears in my work in many forms, but primarily as a fierce aversion and discomfort with default methods.
H: Which artists inspire your work today? What are your other sources of inspiration?
KCM: by Paul Thek Technological reliquaries (1964-1967) makes me crazy. I’m on my third copy of Denis Hollier’s 1992 book Contre l’architecture — a must-read for anyone interested in Georges Bataille — I pick it up about every year. David Altmejd’s life-size plexiglass sculptures and Ed Atkins’ eerie videos are also excellent. Morgan Bassichis is fantastic. I also like Math Bass, Leigh Bowery, Rashid Johnson, Ever Baldwin, Natalie Ball and Genesis Belanger.
A lot of my inspiration actually comes from old objects. Basically anything set in stone, especially texts like Mayan hieroglyphs or Assyrian reliefs like the ones they have in the Brooklyn Museum. I like the carved frames from the Byzantine era. Ancient Egyptian sculpture is probably my favorite.
They are visually powerful, but these artifacts also testify to the brilliance and diversity of human voices across time and space. It’s very easy to become cynical and depressed about where we are today, but it’s hard to lose hope when you look back and see all that humans have built and endured in the past. Everything will change, as always.
H: What are your hopes for the LGBTQIA+ community right now?
KCM: I really hope we can stay together. As we continue to broaden the horizons of expression and sharpen the focus on our identities, I hope we don’t forget how much we have in common. As certain groups within our umbrella find more acceptance, I hope they choose to leverage their status in action by supporting and uplifting the most marginalized.
