Cello excerpt from Proliferation in the background Paul Rucker: I actually worked as a janitor at the Seattle Art Museum and my art education was pretty much going through the galleries every night, sweeping the floors. I remember when I first started working, there was a Cindy Sherman show, and there was a Chuck Close show, and I would see these works of art along with the permanent collection, and that was my education. You really learn a lot just by being around art. And then there was a Christian Marclay show and he did a lot of things that were around music and he’s one of the people who inspired me that “Okay, I can do my own thing, I can combine music and visual art in my own way.” And that’s kinda how I got where I am today. Adam Kampe: PAUL RUCKER IS AN INTER-DISCIPLINARY ARTIST. HE’S A SKILLED COMPOSER AND CELLIST WITH AN IMAGINATIVE MIND FOR VISUALIZING COMPLEX STORIES THROUGH OBJECTS AND DIGITAL MEDIA. BUT REALLY, AT HIS CORE, HE’S A HISTORIAN WHO MAKES ART OUT OF RESEARCH ON (TYPICALLY) UNCOMFORTABLE INCIDENTS AND EVENTS FROM OUR COLLECTIVE PAST. FOR EXAMPLE, THERE’S HIS BEAUTIFUL ALBUM, HISTORY OF AN APOLOGY, WHICH EXPLORES THE DELAYED APOLOGY TO THE MEN WHO ENDURED THE TUSKEEGEE EXPERIMENT IN RURAL ALABAMA. AND IN HIS MOST RECENT SHOW, REWIND, RUCKER TRAINED HIS UNFLINCHING EYE ON POLICE BRUTALITY AND LYNCHING. WE TALKED A FEW MONTHS BACK INSIDE HIS STUDIO AT CREATIVE ALLIANCE IN BALTIMORE, MD WHERE—IN THE MIDDLE OF A THREE-YEAR RESIDENCY—HE MOUNTED THE BIGGEST SHOW OF HIS CAREER. PR: So the show is called ReWIND, and it’s showing parallels in history with the past and the present with atrocities such as lynchings and shootings, as well as paralleling slavery and the prison system, taking a look back on history at the things we’ve done or that have impacted us that we haven’t really talked about. Excerpt of “Napal” I use objects to tell stories and I created this soundless series, these violin-shaped bodies and cello-shaped bodies to tell the stories about atrocities of the past. Many of the bodies represent civil rights’ deaths. It’s just a way to tell the story about the history that we’re not taught about in school. You know, we have history classes but there are certain things we avoid talking about because, I think one thing is they’re difficult to talk about, especially atrocities that really have shaped us into who we are in the not so positive ways. It’s close to home. I mean, I think deaths of the 50s and 60s, people that were around during that time, some are still alive that were a part of these deaths. If you take the Alabama church bombing, the person that committed that crime in ’65, they were free until 2000, 2001 and they were bragging to their family that they were part of that murder of those four black girls and then they finally did time and they passed away in prison. I use symbolic images to tell the stories about things: a lot of musical related things, animation and video. Like, I created this piece called Proliferation, an animated map of the US prison system. Instead of just saying, we have over 2.3 million people in prison, one in every 99, I decided to make an animated map that showed the density of our prison system because you start talking millions and billions and you know, people kinda glaze over. Excerpt of “Parent’s Dance – Part Two” Lately, I’ve been working a lot with images of lynching, lynching postcard images. I’ve been taking these images and then have been bringing them back to life. And I have these tapestries and throws of people that have been lynched, that have been placed on these things that were mainly used for comfort and now there, you know, being shown….horrible atrocities. But we have modern day lynchings where people are being shot by the police with large amounts of ammunition and, you know, it doesn’t take 50 bullets to take down one person but that’s what happened with Sean Bell. It doesn’t take 41 bullets to take down a person but that’s what happened with Amadou Diallo. And but even with Oscar Grant who was shot with one bullet, you know, that’s an excessive use of force. We have Eric Garner who was choked live on camera but, for some reason, you know, the grand jury decided it was not a murder. And I think this is another prime example: you don’t have to be in a noose to be lynched or to be suffocated and die. You can be in the arms or by the arms of another person. So it’s an ongoing thing and I don’t run out of source material, unfortunately. But I like thinking about these things, you know. You definitely feel like you’ve got a sense of purpose but, you also, it’s for self. You wanna deal with these things yourself; you don’t wanna be ruled by the past and, if I’m fearful of something, I’d like to know why I’m fearful of it. I like to lean into the sharp edges a little bit or lead into the situation and try to figure out how can I not let this event or this aspect of the world have, I don’t want it to have so much control over me. Excerpt of “Some Are More Equal” The arts matter because problems can be solved through the arts. The arts can tap in to our ways of thinking that will help us solve major problems. We’re not so cut and dry, you know, we’re not all one plus one equals two. There has to be a heart connection when we’re making decisions about how we’re going to proceed with this problem. And if we don’t have that heart connection, which I think the arts can bring, then we’re not making the best decision. I think we will always look at the cost-benefit analysis, but I think arts help us connect to the human-benefit analysis. AK: THAT WAS COMPOSER, MUSICIAN AND VISUAL ARTIST, PAUL RUCKER, ON HIS EYE-OPENING APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING HISTORY THROUGH MIXED MEDIA ART. I’D LIKE TO SEND A VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU TO PAUL WHO GENEROUSLY GRANTS THE NEA PERMISSION TO EXCERPT HIS MUSIC FOR ANY AV PROJECT. YOU CAN OFTEN HEAR IT AT THE TOP OF OUR WEEKLY PODCAST AND OCCASIONALLY AS A SOUNDTRACK UNDER SHORT VIDEOS WE PRODUCE. PAUL, WE DEEPLY APPRECIATE IT. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HIM, CHECK OUT PAULRUCKER.COM. YOU CAN ALSO SEE SOME OF HIS WORK, INCLUDING THE VIDEO PROLIFERATION AND IMAGES FROM HIS SHOW, REWIND, ON THE NEA BLOG ART WORKS @ ARTS.GOV ALL THE MUSIC WAS COMPOSED AND PERFORMED BY PAUL RUCKER AND USED COURTESY OF PAUL RUCKER. EXCERPTS FROM “PROLIFERATION” FROM THE VIDEO INSTALLATION, PROLIFERATION. “NAPAL” AND “SOME ARE MORE EQUAL” FROM THE ALBUM, OIL, WITH HANS TEUBER. AND “PARENT’S DANCE – PART TWO,” FROM HISTORY OF AN APOLOGY