In Discussion with Lisa Le Feuvre

courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery

Lisa Le Feuvre is a writer, curator, public speaker, and editor. She is the inaugural Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation, dedicated to furthering the creative legacies of Nancy Holt (1938–2014) and Robert Smithson (1938–73). Le Feuvre's curatorial practice started in artist-run spaces, with her first published writing on dance music and the London night club scene. Since then, she has been pivotal in shaping academic and arts organizations by curating exhibitions as an institutional and independent curator. She has published more than 125 essays and interviews with artists. She has spoken at 150 museums and universities worldwide and edited over thirty books and journals.

In the early 2000s, she co-initiated the experimental exhibition and performance space Hoxton Distillery in east London; between 2002 and 2003, she was Curator of Public Programs at Tate Britain, and from 2003 to 2005, co-ordinated the Parknights series of talks, discussions, and films at the Serpentine Gallery. Le Feuvre served as the Head of Sculpture Studies at the Henry Moore Institute, where she led a program of education, research, publications, and exhibitions.

Le Feuvre has curated such exhibitions throughout her career, including Jiro Takamatsu: The Temperature of Sculpture, The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetics, and The Event Sculpture, and edited the Institute's journal Essays on Sculpture. Gego: Line as Object, Katrina Palmer: and The Necropolitan Line, she co-curated with Tom Morton In the Days of the Comet and led the art program at the National Maritime Museum from 2005 to 2009. 

Since 2017 Le Feuvre has written on artists including Auguste Rodin (2021, Tate Modern, London), Kiki Smith (2021; Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne), Eva Rothschild (2019, Ireland at Venice, Mario Merz (2021 Hangar Bicocca, Milan),), Günther Förg (2018, Yale University Press), Michael Kienzer (2017, Gerhard Marcks Haus). She has published interviews with Thomas J. Price (2021, The Powerplant, Toronto), Emilia Kabakov (2017, Art Monthly, London and Christine Corday (2019, Contemporary Art Museum St Louis).

Le Feuvre has delivered lectures at international museums, universities, and art schools, including, Dia Art Foundation; Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome; ICA, London; Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź, Poland; Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey; Tate, London; and University of Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. Le Feuvre has held many titles in academia, holding positions where she taught in the post-graduate Curatorial Program at Goldsmiths College from 2004 to 2010. She was the course director of the post-graduate Arts Policy and Management program at Birkbeck College, University of London. 

Le Feuvre has sat on various juries, including the Max Mara Prize for Women, Sculpture Dublin, Hepworth Prize for Sculpture, Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation Prize, the Turner Prize, and British representation at the Venice Biennale. Le Feuvre has been crucial in shaping many academic and arts organizations. She continues to examine doctoral research and deliver guest lectures to international art schools and universities.

I had the pleasure and honor of asking Lisa what the most challenging task of being a curator is, how important it is to have artist-driven organizations preserving other artists' legacies, and so much more.

UZOMAH: If talking to someone who has never seen Smithson's artwork, you could only select a few artworks from a period/era of his life; what period would you suggest for them to better understand Smithson as an artist?

LISA:  Well, Smithson had such a short life: he was born in 1938 and passed away in 1973 when he was just 35. His most famous work is Spiral Jetty, which was made in 1970, but for me, his early drawings are the ones that really hold the key to his work. They show how he looked at the world around him, and there is something so very special about that. I would say looking to the first five years in the 1960s is the place to begin – you can see his ideas of entropy, his attention to the ways we humans have occupied the surface of the planet, his interest in belief systems and dogma, and you can see his humor too.

U: What is the most challenging task of being a curator?

L:  Making exhibitions is always challenging – and that is why it is something so wonderful to do. An exhibition is a place where ideas are proposed, where questions are raised, and where everything becomes a little more difficult than it was before. It is a process that always involves much research, and then it is always about negotiating between the poetics and the practicalities. I would say that every exhibition brings with it a new challenge. Sometimes, it will be a complex philosophical question; other times, it might be something very logistical – like how to fit an artwork through a narrow door.

U: How did working with Professor Adrian Rifkin on developing this exhibit help establish the type of exhibit where you know the audience will take something more about Smithson's artwork that they didn't know about before?

L:  Professor Adrian Rifkin is a wonderful thinker, and sharing ideas with him was a privilege. Like Smithson, he has a mind that is incredibly erudite, and he has an ability to chart a route through the world of ideas that is unexpected and elliptical. Also, like Smithson, his writing produces an atmosphere of ideas that have the ability to open ideas to new perspectives. We knew that we wanted to share these early drawings in this exhibition at Galerie Marian Goodman, and as soon as we made that decision, we started thinking with Adrian about how to approach them.  

U: How does the exhibit of Smithson's drawings, collages, and works on paper expand on his philosophy of what art can be and where it can be found?

L: Smithson's overall artistic practice made radical shifts in thinking about what art can be and where it can be found. These early drawings show his beginnings; they show ideas that are familiar with his better-known earthworks and sculptures and reveal where they started. 

U: Do you collect anything yourself? If so, what is your favorite work of art?

L:  I do not collect art – for me I love seeing art in spaces that are there for everyone to experience. I am not really someone who collects anything – but, in saying that, at home, I do have an excessive number of books. There are so many that I think if I allow any more into the house, I will need to add bookshelves to the stairway leading up to my apartment.

U: Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt were artists whose impact is still felt today. How important was thinking of alternate viewing experiences when preparing their shows?

L:  Making exhibitions of the work of Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson always involves thinking about how they are experienced – so, putting yourself in the place of a person visiting the exhibition who has never seen their work before. I always spend a lot of time thinking about sightlines – so, asking what you see when you first enter the door, thinking about what you see through the windows, and thinking about how you move around the space. 

U: What's your favorite artistic style, and why?

L:  I think this is an impossible question for me to answer. I don't really have any favorites – it is more that, at certain moments, certain artistic styles resonate in a way that makes them especially urgent and relevant.

U: How important is it to have artist-driven organizations preserving other artist's legacies?

L: Artist-endowed foundations are very particular organizations – that are dedicated to the legacy of single or sometimes—like us—grouping of artists' work. At Holt/Smithson Foundation we see ourselves as being the hub of both Holt and Smithson Studies. This does not mean that we know all the answers – every day, we learn something new about both artists – rather, we are a nodal point from which ideas can be researched. We understand legacy as being all about asking questions, about thinking through why the art of these artists matters today, and about connecting ideas and people. I think that specialism is important, and I am always super-interested in the fact that artist-endowed foundations always start with the artist.

U: How is the role of a curator similar or different from that of an artist in terms of their role in society?

L:  There are similarities, but a curator cannot manage without artists, and artists can manage perfectly well without curators. Both artists and curators have a responsibility to produce new knowledge and make a difference in the world. Curators are there to support artists, but artists have no obligation at all to support curators!  

U: As an educator, what role does art play in helping those of all ages enhance themselves in other subjects with the help of art?

L:  Art is in and of the world, rather than simply being about the world. What I love so much about art is that it exceeds anything we could say in words, or indeed anything we could write. Art draws on the very nature of being human, and such an investigation by default will also draw on its opposite – the very nature of inhumanity. Art is all about being in the world. This is something we are all experts in, simply by being alive. And we all know how very complicated it is to be human. Art always speaks to other subjects, and it can open a door to thinking in different ways about all that surrounds us.

U: What is your curatorial philosophy?

L: To be curious, to listen to others, and to remember that art matters deeply.

More information about the Holt/Smithson Foundation and Lisa’s role with the organization can be found here.