Art in America - March 2016_

KATHE BURKHART ART IN AMERICA 135

the canvas. Earlier in our conversation, you called it the most

important work in the LTS. Can you explain?

BURKHARTWell, it’s the first fully realized

single-panel work in the LTS. There was a bit of formal

thrashing around until I found the right combination of

image and text; this was the first one where I thought,

OK, I hit it.Fuck Youwas the first cuss-word painting, a

strategy I then parlayed into a “signature style.” At the

time, there were not many cuss words in art, believe it or

not. I seem to have unlocked the door because suddenly

lots of artists were cussing in their work, much to my

consternation.

HARRISWhat’s it like to see so much of what you’ve

been exploring in the LTS—particularly genderqueer

sexuality and notions of self-portraiture as conceptual

practice—gain traction now, both in the art world and the

general public sphere?

BURKHARTIt’s completely weird. It’s gratifying to

see gender-nonconforming subjects enter mainstream cul-

ture, and yet they’re often distorted through a light, stupid,

trendy, anti-critical fun-house mirror that makes me wince

because of the political and personal complexity of these

issues. Now we get it watered down through people like

Caitlyn Jenner, and cameras in phones that make everybody

work is done at that point. I mean, the conceptual work is
done, and then the labor starts. he rest is labor.
I use an old-school opaque projector to enlarge the
images and the text and draw them onto the canvas. All the
collage materials are then assembled.
HARRISMany of your collage elements—some of
which are actual objects, like fake fur, and others photos of
things—are autobiographical, symbolizing personal experi-
ences and events that are transformed and embedded into
the work through a kind of code. Can you share more about
this coding system?
BURKHARTIt’s similar to the way I useictional
names for characters drawn from real life. Each work relates
to my life in its own way. Some of them have a very high
degree of coding, and some of them have less. It’s organic
and speciic to the piece. For example,Junkie[2008, a large
painting made of acrylic, fake tattoos, mink stoles, veterinary
syringes and personal ephemera on canvas] has so much
coding that it has a legend with numbers and descriptions
exhibited to the left so that the items can be identiied.To
a certain extent, Liz overall is code for me, singular, and/or
plural, functioning as a type. And the male igure in my work
is generally “the big Other”—the symbolic order in Lacan’s
schema—but hey, if the shoe its, wear it.
A lot of the collage elements have become motifs over
time, like the temporary tattoos, fake fur, trompe l’oeil-
patterned fabric, keys, faux gems, etc., while others—such
as cotton balls, rope, head pins, veterinary syringes, playing
cards with naked igures and condoms—have been used
in particular pieces. Many of the photos collaged into the
work are personal snapshots, whether of my genitalia,
books, tarot card spreads or landscapes. hese are some-
times scanned and then printed onto canvas, or cut out and
glued in.
HARRIShe majority of the LTS, over 200 works to
date, have been produced in your Brooklyn studio, where
you’ve resided since 1986. How important has this space
been to the work’s ongoing creation?
BURKHARTMaking large-scale paintings requires
a serious inancial commitment to a big, traditional studio.
he privacy itafords is sacred and gives me the space to
process information, images and lived experience. In a live/
work space, there is no separation between life and art, just
as there is none in the way that I work. If the works can be
thought of as cells or organs or memories, this place is their
body and spiritual home.
It’s also great for being able to split up variousbodies
of work: the photos in the front, the torture paintings
in the bedroom, the number paintings and prints in
the print room, etc. It allows me to give people a walk-
through of my practice. Then, when they realize how
interdisciplinary and interconnected the work is, they get
it on a palpable level.
HARRISFuck You(1984), one of the earliest paintings
in your upcoming survey, depicts Liz in Cleopatra mode on a
turquoise ground with the title words in big red letters across

Opposite,Junkie:

from the Liz Taylor

Series (he Only

Game in Town),

2009, acrylic and

mixed mediums on

canvas, 102 by 79

inches.

Fuck You: from the

LizTaylorSeries

(after Ben Stern),

1984, acrylic and

composition leaf

oncanvas,72by

48 inches.