Tschabalala Self’s Personal Mythology (King Kong Magazine)

This interview originally appeared in King Kong Magazine’s Issue 14: AW22 Myths & Legends.

Tschabalala Self is developing her personal mythology with every work she creates. Her world is humanistic, built around relatable, nuanced individuals rather than superhuman-like gods. Self’s figures form a broader poetic narrative for Black American identity. Her work engages with the collective fantasies and stereotypes of Black popular culture at the same time as it transcends them.

America might be too young a nation to have established historical mythologies, but this lack of ancient history opens up a fertile and untapped frontier for contemporary artists like Self to fill the void and contextualize lived experiences.

Tschabalala Self is a Tri-State based multidisciplinary artist who grew up in Harlem. She received her B.A. from Bard College in 2012 and her M.F.A. from the Yale School of Art in 2015. After her mother passed away during her first semester at Yale, she began looking within herself to find direction. A year later, she picked up a sewing machine and with the help from her female colleagues, she learned how to sew. This developed into her technique of sewing scraps of fabrics from her personal collection directly onto her large scale paintings. She often places her colorful, patchwork figures against monochrome color backdrops that act as transitional environments. She has developed a striking and instantly recognisable individual style that places her work in dialogue with established artists like Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Faith Ringgold (who she has interviewed), Mickalene Thomas, Henri Matisse, and Romare Bearden.

Self centers her work in the subject’s form. Generally a body part anchors the entire figure. After Self completes a painting, she imagines a narrative for her character to inhabit that connects to a broader context. She considers the narratives to be boundaries projected onto the figures rather than inherent to their identity. Her characters may engage with these imposed narratives, but they also exist outside of them.

For her current show, Make Room at Le Consortium, Self looked at the home as a liminal, feminine space. Make Room is Self’s first international solo show in Europe and features sculptures and paintings that explore domestic life as well as the psychological space of the characters within the works.

Make Room also references a literal room from Self’s play Sounding Board, a conversation between two lovers. Self wrote, directed, and produced the play as a commission for the 2021 Performa Biennial in New York. The performance is projected in the mezzanine and extends into the rest of the exhibition. A pink metal table and patchwork chaise lounge chairs Self originally designed for the play set the stage at Make Room. Another room features two soft sculptures originally commissioned by playwright Jeremy O’ Harris for his play Daddy in 2019. The pair stand center stage back to back, hands interlocked, animated expressions as if they materialized out of one of Self’s large scale canvases. Performance has always played a role in Self’s work and here this influence is tangible and pointed.

Sounding Board’s effect on Self’s practice is dynamic. Self’s forthcoming solo exhibition in London, Home Body, is a companion piece and extension of Make Room. For these exhibitions, the imagined narratives surrounding Self’s paintings are alive, echoing from the other room, a collaborative theater production embedded in the framework of the artist’s expanding mythology.

For this interview, Tschabalala traces the origin of her personal mythology.

Make Room at Le Consortium in Dijon France runs until January 2023. Home Body in London at Pilar Corrias Gallery opens October 16th and runs until December 17th. Self’s site-specific sculpture with Avant Arte will be unveiled at Coal Drops Yard in London this October.

MB: How did you decide on the title Make Room?

TS: I decided on the title Make Room through trying to find an expression that simultaneously embodied important aspects of my work and the specific themes of the exhibition. Making and fashioning are important elements in my practice. The term “make room” implies movement, while conjuring the idea of a room or quarter in the mind.

MB: Is Home Body, your upcoming London show, an extension of Make Room?

TS: Home Body is certainly a conceptual and formal expansion upon Make Room. I hope viewers who have the opportunity to see both shows as each brings something different to the table.

MB: In your past works, environment and physical space are themes that you revisit, whether it was recreating a bodega or staging a play at Jackie Robinson Park, near where you grew up or even showing your work at the Baltimore Museum where you contented with the history of the institution. How important is it for you to be in conversation with the context where your work is showcased and how does the physical space influence the art? It seems like a lot of the time you are creating with the physical space that your art is shown in mind.

TS: Well, there are some instances like at the Baltimore Museum, where I wanted to make work that was connected to the history of the institution and its collection. I think that’s particularly important when you’re talking about institutional spaces; because institutions can be as oppressive as they are inspiring given the context in which their histories and objectives are communicated. For my exhibition at the BMA, By My Self, I wanted to interject myself into various narratives preserved and presented by the museum’s collection in the hopes of creating new stories. It’s nice to find opportunities to pay homage, but also to challenge preconceptions about what a space means, what it has meant previously and what it can mean in the future.

I enjoy building projects that are specifically inspired by the environments in which they are going to be shown. However, there are other instances in which I’m doing this kind of deep dive into a particular environment and the show functions as a re-imagination of this environment that is a source of inspiration for me. Those projects are more flexible because I’m choosing spaces that are complex enough, even sometimes complex in their simplicity, to inspire a new body of work. My Bodega Run project functioned in this way, the bodega was my muse.

My new body of work deals with the domestic space, a space that is nearly universal in its cultural and psychological significance.

MB: Totally, as if you’re using the space as an extension of your medium.

TS: Yeah, exactly — and, for this kind of conceptual inspiration as well. All of the three projects I mentioned previously, the current show at Le Consortium, the upcoming show at Pilar, and the Avant Arte commission, are all related to one particular environment and that environment is the home or domestic space. That’s the environment that I’m investigating at the moment.

MB: Yeah. Which is so relevant. There’s such a strong history of the domestic space being gendered. I read that you grew up with your mom and with sisters and in a very in a feminine space.

TS: Well, I grew up with both my parents, my sisters and my brother. There just were a lot of women in the home because I have so many sisters — I have 3.

MB: Were you aware growing up with a lot of women that that’s not always the norm in broader culture. As you got older was there a moment that made you see this as something special or neglected?

TS: I guess growing up, I didn’t realize that it wasn’t typical. But as I got older, I realized that yeah I had a lot more feminine energy in my household than the average person does. But I think the reason why the feminine energy in the household was felt so strongly was because we had the foil of my brother and my dad as a contrast.

MB: And same with the way you employ male figures in some of your art. And then I read your interview with Faith Ringgold and you were talking to her about how at the time that she was creating that often Black artists were only portraying Black subjects and that she combined Black and white subjects in a way that was radical at the time. And I think that there is a correlation between that and also portraying gender in a way that is equal, but then also using these male figures to kind of illuminate or build upon the female figures in a way that subverts the normal gender dynamic where the woman is in the domestic place supporting the man.

TS: I love the correlation that you drew because I think Faith Ringgold’s take on depicting racial dynamics is still transgressive today. For a lot of contemporary artists whose work is dedicated to discussing themes surrounding race solely incorporate the Black body, naming that body as the site of racial trauma. When in reality, that’s not truly accurate– for Black bodies alone should not carry the burden of racism nor should the black body become a symbol for it. For these same reasons, I was deeply saddened to see the Philip Guston shows canceled. All bodies are racial, just within that racialization some bodies are pedestalized and others are objectified. Ringgold’s work and even the title of the show that Massamiliano Gioni curated at the New Museum, American People, speaks to this reality and the ways in which race truly functions in America.

When it comes to conversation about gender, I feel similarly — and this is why I started making male figures. I realized that I cannot tell stories about the lived experiences of women characters without speaking about men. It becomes even more relevant in the domestic space or home scenes. The majority of people experience both a feminine and masculine energy in the home. And it’s not always through the obvious dynamic of an archetypical mother or father. It can be expressed through any combination of how families are organized. The ways in which these energies interact creates the foundation for a lot of the ways in which we see ourselves. And these dynamics are things that people reenact over and over again throughout the course of their lives.

MB: Your work speaks to giving a voice and a sense of agency to those individual experiences that doesn’t just stop there, you enrich and add nuance to ideas about race and gender. At the same time in your position as a public figure, as an artist, is there a constant push and pull that you personally feel? How do you navigate what to preserve about yourself and what to share with the public in your art? Is that something that you think about or do you feel as an artist that art transcends that?

TS: I feel art transcends that or it is meant to at least. You can’t allow yourself as an artist to worry about how people will view you as an individual based on your art. If you’re trying to make good art, you can never ask yourself, ‘what will people think of me if I put this in my art?’ Because if you start going down that path, it can really damage your creativity, it can really damage the honesty and sincerity in your practice. I trained myself a long time ago not to even think about that question. I’ve trained myself to be comfortable with all the thoughts that come into my mind. I sort my thoughts and I rearrange them, I work through them but I don’t hide them away. I think that’s super damaging. Artists who do that I think their work always comes off a little bit repressed. I don’t think art like that moves anyone.

Outside of my art practice, I am somewhat of a private person. I am a bit of a contrarian — the culture is so open so I feel the need to be a bit closed. Besides, I think mysteries are exciting. It’s like poetry — within any poetic moment, gesture or pose there is a level of ambiguity that allows the reader, the person who’s engaging with the verse, to have an epiphany of their own outside of the writer’s intentions. So if there’s no space for personal interjection, because too many details have been provided, for whoever is interacting with an artwork or even an individual, I feel like there is a missed opportunity for a magical moment.

MB: Definitely. I think that’s really beautifully put. You’ve said that creating a perfect figure is akin to creating another myth. And in a way, I think you could also say it is akin to creating poetry or a form of language that’s able to use one meaning and create another meaning or and tap into a more complex or nuanced feeling. How do you understand mythology in relation to your practice?

TS: I’m really fascinated with mythology, especially the idea of an established myth. I’m also particularly intrigued at this moment in contemporary culture in regard to mythology, and the idea of a contemporary mythology. Contemporary mythology being the ideas that the collective culture currently holds and shares.

The fact that something is even considered a myth alludes to the fact that a society at one point believed this to be true and now has evolved to regard it as a fable of sorts. ‘Oh, this was an allegorical story’ or this was a falsehood that was used in this way to tell a broader truth. It’s interesting what is considered a myth and what is considered something else, what is considered a myth versus what is considered religion and so on and so forth. A lot of things that are considered myths now were at one point religion and/or facts.

MB: That makes me think of your audio track that collaged different voice notes and clips from popular culture at one of your exhibitions.

TS: I played that audio piece at my show Cotton Mouth in New York at Eva Presenhuber Gallery. That show was all about the question ‘What is Black America?’ and framing that as a mythology in relation to the idea of an origin story. If you were to build a mind map surrounding the idea of a “myth,” the origin story would land somewhere towards the periphery. When you hear ‘origin story’ you may think of a comic book figure, a hero or villain. However, we all have origin stories.

MB: In the audio track, you say that Black pop culture is the oral history of contemporary Black mythology. And I think it’s an interesting and poignant parallel to make between popular culture, whether it’s music or whether a soundbite from a show, and oral history.

TS: Yes. You reminded me of that bit from the piece. It makes so much sense to me because I’m the kind of person who is inclined to believe a myth. I’m somewhat superstitious. I love religious and fantastical stories, — not to compare them — and I love anything that deals with the supernatural. I think ‘supernatural’ is a great term. For the word perfectly describes itself . S-u-p-e-r-n-a-t-u-r-a-l speaks to the fact that there’s an element rooted in reality as it’s “natural,” — just “super.”

So when I say that Black pop culture is the oral history of contemporary Black mythology, I mean that everything people associate with contemporary Blackness as a construct in regards to it being a reflection of various attributes, symbolisms, ideologies and tenets is communicated through popular culture — for better or worse.

MB: In the sense of collective myths, you’ve said that mythology is inherently American, whether it’s prescribing myths to different racial tropes or even the political landscape that makes politicians appear larger than life. As a culture, we kind generalize things in a way that fits with a bigger narrative. But is there also a presence of more of an individual mythology within the characters that you depict?

TS: To the first comment you made, I think the myths are things that are completely universal. But because America is such a young country, we still believe our myths to be true. We still believe the stories we tell ourselves about our histories, past, present and desired in future. America is not mature enough to realize these stories are fairy-tales.

That is what makes America different as opposed to other nations, other older cultures and societies. We’re still so nascent in that moment in time that not everyone has the self-awareness to even say that some of these things we believe to be true about our culture are myths.

MB: I think that’s such a fascinating point that there is this lack of self awareness in the kind of broader popular culture. I think art is a really great, immediate way to question that or to kind of point to that without directly saying it in a way that maybe people aren’t ready for. You can show it without saying it.

TS: Yes — I agree. I describe all the different characters in my paintings as existing in this pantheon. I believe I am developing my own narrative, possibly a mythology, around them. Have I fully named it? No, not yet because I don’t feel like I’ve had enough distance to spell it out clearly. I’m too much inside of it. It’s something I’m brewing, it’s something I’m developing, but it’s an ongoing process.

MB: I read that you grew up around your mom sewing and that you began to pick up sewing after she passed away. Was that a way to connect with her to carry on a tradition or a conversation? What was the first time that you remember picking up the sewing machine and having an intention?

TS: My mother passed my first semester in graduate school and It was about a year later that I began to sew. My mother always supported my art and me in all of my endeavors. Sewing allowed me to honor her through the most meaningful gesture in my life, my art making. Additionally, sewing allowed me to approach painting in a completely unique and authentic way. So through my Mother’s influence I was able to find my voice and power as a painter.

I wanted my work to be constructed and made in a way that would be moving and be culturally and historically relevant. For me to do that, I knew my works needed to be made in a completely unique fashion. I remembered the sewing machine being an object that I’ve always seen my mother use as a creative outlet. She would make things for me and my sisters that were beautiful and that were imbued with her affection; dresses, skirts, embellishments on old clothing all beautified by her own hands. That was really meaningful. So I became aware that the machine had the ability to be used as an extension of my hand and my intention. That it could be something that I could use in my art.

At the time, I didn’t know how to sew and the women in my graduate school program taught me how to do it. Once I learned, I started experimenting with it more and more, pushing the boundaries for what was possible with the use of the machine. Today sewing is a foundational element within my practice.

MB: That must have been a really moving experience learning from your women colleagues and. Did you feel like you were retracing the ways that your mom would have learned? Did the learning process influence you as well?

TS: Looking back on this moment in time, I am really thankful for that sororal memory and proud to have learned that skill from other women in my program — that’s a beautiful thing. That’s how my mother would have learned as well, from other women around her. That experience being tethered to other women, their support and our shared knowledge is important to my story.