The Alchemist Interview with JAY HEIKES

Maria Rauter | 15th February 2020

Photos by Andrea Rossetti from JAY HEIKES Installation “Before Common Era” www.federicaschiavo.com Milan

It is a weird feeling – expecting what can’t be expected. Yet in times of constant social and environmental change it seems to be a skill that’s never been required more. Allowing a sense of uncertainty and having an interest in diversity has never proven more useful to the human experience. An experience very much akin to ebbing and flowing.

Minneapolis-based artist Jay Heikes is well known for his heterogeneous mix of materials that borrows from the oldest philosophical traditions of alchemy, the mother of transmutation. The only son of an educator and a chemist, his preoccupation not only with the theoretical but also practical ideas of action vs. reaction is the prism through which we’re allowed to see the world in all its beautiful and painful glory – no embellishments, no filters. Through a thorough and refined blend of materials – a trenchant comment on the limberness of the modern world – he manages to echo an evolutionary process that takes the audience on a trip from genesis to corrosion, authenticity to hypocrisy, or on a rather blatant note: from pain to relief. 

We’re living in an era where humans are in a constant process of creating malleable truths about their selfs. Your work seems to be on the run from this delusion. Do you consider yourself an escapist?

JAY HIKES: I do. And I would be lying if I said I’ve been only daydreaming and staring at the sky for the last three years. It has been much longer than that, much longer... 

Do you consider art a coping mechanism through which we can make sense of the world and, hence, exist within its frameworks, or is it a means of escape, a desired breather if you will?

JAY HIKES: I do, but I think everything is a coping mechanism to some extent. Although I don’t know what a desired breather exactly is. We all have daily rituals of self-preservation. Art is only one of the rituals out there but for me, it has always delivered a kind of euphoria that satisfies me enough to get to the next lilypad. Maybe that’s a desired breather.

What has working with different kinds of materials taught you? What kind of freedom do you obtain from this practice?

JAY HIKES: It’s taught me about what it means to be an American, which I see as a comedic delivery, knee deep in alchemy. The melting pot was a dream that I always saw as desirable but now we’ve seen a move towards a tribalized separation of people and their interests. The parallel in art is uncanny with materials and it’s why I still try to join disparate materials, especially in the minor planets, to try and forge unlikely alloys and hybrids for the sake of the melting pot. I know this sounds silly but if I am being honest, the promise of controlled chaos within the confines of the mess that is America has always been the starting point for my work and I will resist a tribal art until the end. 

Has your approach towards artistry changed over time?

JAY HIKES: It has changed quite a bit over time but it has also, strangely, remained within a triangle of three interests: comedy, sound, and alchemy and everything that encompasses – from the delusional theories of people like Cagliastro to even my father who was a chemist by trade. I had always hoped my work would become less refined over time, but there was a particular moment in Amsterdam in 2014 where I had gone as low as I could go, quite literally, by covering all of my work with dirt and it was at that moment when I realized I had to start moving towards the sky. If I went any lower there would have been irreparable damage.

What experience does art have to give you in order for you to be able to enjoy it?

JAY HIKES: It cannot be fun.

You once said that „there is a point just beyond corrosion (…) where there are things to be discovered.“ What things? And what do you do once you’ve found them?

JAY HIKES: Pain! Acidity. The joy in crossing a line. We’ve become so averse to any kind of discomfort in society that I find myself romanticizing the act of putting myself in a position set apart from luxury whether publicly with my statements or personally in my thoughts. Although I have to admit, I am prone to statements of grandeur, and if I was forced to back them up in reality, I would most likely announce my own pathetic hypocrisy. Am I staying in the hostel or the four star hotel? The answer seems obvious.

Do you think a forced destruction of and in art is a way of resetting moral problems? Do we have to get rid of certain dogmas first before alternative paths can be opened up through which something new might evolve?

JAY HIKES: I’m not sure if it is a way of resetting moral problems but it is a way to get to the bottom of things so that when they are built back up again they can take that descent along for the ride. I think of the Japanese noise band Hanatarashi started by Yamantaka eYe in the early eighties in Osaka, Japan - where the sounds of objects being smashed and steamrolled were thought to be their music. But years later, as the Boredoms, the smashing was still there only disguised in the form of more ambient and meditative soundscapes. The threat of cutting up the sound was still there and you were aware of it as a listener but it never had to come to form in its new incarnation because it already contained it subliminally. This was necessary to form, as you say, a new dogma, and yes, I believe it is vital but it is not always destruction, sometimes it is just loud and surprising and smelly.

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f you could change one thing about contemporary art, what would it be?

JAY HIKES:That it is still called contemporary art. Maybe it is time for post-contemporary art! But seriously, the thing I would change is how a lot of speculators confuse scale and volume with ambition and some of the more humanist approaches happening now are just trampled. Perhaps a result of this more regional, community based push towards art will result in less sculpture being packed and stored and moved endlessly for the sake of the new but I think not as the bigger seems to get bigger and the Earth continues to suffer. I never thought I would be excited to see a more regional approach to making and showing art but at this point I’m not sure there is an alternative. But, of course, we can stay in denial and exist in some kind of Dionysian haze, celebrating every hour with a wasteful spectacle for the sake of keeping busy. 

Do you notice any significant differences in the reactions of people toward your work in Europe vs. the States?

JAY HIKES:I do and I’m hesitant to say it but all the cliches are true, art is just more in the water in Europe so people are used to drinking it down and incorporating it into their daily lives while a huge portion of Americans hate Art and still feel cheated by it. Even people within the artworld here feel that many forms of art are unfair. There is a new, figurative moralism going around and I’m not a fan.

What feeling/idea would you like to share with your audience?

JAY HIKES: How long do we have?! Ha, what a great question or maybe a really terrible question. I’ll quote Alfred Jarry’s final words on his deathbed, „Can I have a toothpick?“