If you could live with just one work of art, what would it be?
Not just living with, but living in, Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden in Tuscany would be incredible. This is a treasure of land art, an incredible park designed and built by the artist over a decade. Niki herself did inhabit it for some time, in the sphinx structure, which has a mosaic mirror completely covering the interior, including the kitchen appliances. In preparation for her first survey show in the US, which I organised at MoMA PS1 in 2021, I was lucky enough to visit the garden and spend some magical moments with it, but it would require years to take in every detail.
Which cultural experience changed the way you see the world?
Going to concerts in my teens was a critical exposure to independent culture, music, art, community and DIY sensibilities. I didn’t always appreciate it at the time, but as the years pass, I see how instructive those experiences were.
Which writer or poet do you return to the most?
I am obsessed by Izumi Suzuki’s short stories. Written from the 1970s until her untimely death in 1986, her stories and prose still feel like they are from the future. She used science-fiction to speak about gender relations and human and non-human dynamics, but in the most sparse, mesmerising and melancholic ways.
What music or other audio are you listening to?
Always a lot of music, but right now I am rotating Theo Parrish and P.J. Harvey a lot. They couldn’t be more different: Theo Parrish is a legendary house DJ in Detroit and P.J. Harvey is a British singer songwriter who became popular in the alt scenes of the 1990s. However, they are both close to the same age and are still extremely cool, true to their art, and producing some of their best work while remaining authentic.
What is art for?
While it can be frustrating, I continue to be motivated by art. Because despite its limits, it can still point outside of them, reaching for possibility. Art offers space for complexity, for imagination, and for ways of thinking and being that are increasingly at risk. Even though the systems of art can certainly be part of the problem, art itself still resists through its excesses, its modesties, its refusals, its absurdities, its poetics, its aesthetics, and its unknowable and unsayable qualities. Art is for creating meaning through mystery.
• Pacita Abad, 4 April-2 September; Yto Barrada: Le Grand Soir, from 25 April, MoMA PS1, New York
