In this episode of Speaking of … College of Charleston, CofC’s official podcast, Katie Hirsch, director and chief curator at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, speaks with Stolle, whose exhibition Only You Can Prevent a Forest, is on view at the Halsey through Dec. 10, 2022.
Kirsten Stolle is a visual artist working in collage, text-based images and installation. Her research-based practice is grounded in the investigation of agribusiness propaganda, food politics and biotechnology. Stolle was born in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1967, lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area for 19 years. She currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the San José Museum of Art, Crocker Art Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
In this episode of Speaking of … College of Charleston, CofC’s official podcast, Katie Hirsch, director and chief curator at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, speaks with Stolle, whose exhibition Only You Can Prevent a Forest, is on view at the Halsey through Dec. 10, 2022.
Kirsten Stolle is a visual artist working in collage, text-based images and installation. Her research-based practice is grounded in the investigation of agribusiness propaganda, food politics and biotechnology. Stolle was born in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1967, lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area for 19 years. She currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the San José Museum of Art, Crocker Art Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Speaker 1
Kirsten, I'm so excited to talk about your exhibition only you can prevent a forest at the Halsey. And I first want to kind of ground viewers in your practice and the umbrella of interest that your work revolves under. So your work encourages viewers to reconsider historical narratives that have been presented by both agrichemical companies and the US government. A lot of times in cahoots. Yes. How did this interest first manifest for you? How did you even learn about this?
00:34
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thanks for this conversation, Katie. It first manifested back in the 1990s. I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, and my mom was living in Santa Cruz. And she was a big activist in the anti GMO movement at the time. And at that time, I didn't really know what GMOs were. But she invited me to be part of this puppet theater parade protest. That's a lot of words. I know. Have I mentioned she was an anarchist? And so I drove down from San Francisco, and I'm kind of an introvert, so I didn't want to participate. But I wanted to watch and it was awesome. She dressed up as the strawberry with fish gills because at the time, Monsanto Chemical Company was trying to genetically engineer a strawberry to withstand the cold temperatures, they were going to insert a flounder gene. And so people were up in arms. Yeah, it just so you know, it didn't work. So that was sort of my introduction into GMOs.
And then in 2009, I had become a vegetarian, and for years, I was eating a lot of soy product products, and the soy was giving me health problems. And I couldn't understand why. And it turns out that a lot of the soy was genetically engineered. And I didn't really remember I was like, I don't really get why this is happening, like so I sort of investigated what genetic engineering was, and why a company like Monsanto, which was a chemical company would want to genetically engineer a plant. Through my research, it turns out, they wanted to genetically engineer a plant so that they could dump all their chemicals leftover from World War Two in Vietnam. So I found that very fascinating. And so that kind of started me down kind of the research angle of looking into the greenwashing the chemical companies were doing, what's not being said, where the money's coming from? The kind of like cloak and dagger stuff that was happening behind the scenes.
02:39
Speaker 1
You really, I mean, you're a historian and an artist or an archaeologist.
02:45
Speaker 2
art, yeah, oh, yeah, it feels that way. I really get jazzed by like doing research, as they say, I'm not like a scientist, but sort of, you know, looking at articles going down government websites, going into some articles that are like, kind of above my paygrade. But I can get the gist of the abstract of the thing, you know, and kind of consolidating all that information and having an idea about something and then kind of formally putting it into some type of artwork. Usually, the idea comes first, and then the research. And then ultimately, the piece of art happens after that.
03:22
Speaker 1
What I love about your work is the nature of visual art. In any case, it's very accessible for a lot of people and especially for themes or histories that might feel intimidating or might feel overwhelming. And your work really kind of lays bare for viewers, these complicated histories, corporations, buying, you know, buying each other hiding their names, making partnerships with the US government dumping chemicals on people on places and your work. Acts as a catalyst for thought. I mean, and this is going to be for many people, the first exposure that they’ve had to this history of, maybe they've picked up a bottle of Bayer pain medication that morning to help their ankle and they had no idea right about the level of involvement that bears had in our world for decades,
04:25
Speaker 2
for decades. I'm learning all the time. The pharmaceutical company, Bayer bought the chemical company, Monsanto in 2018. And many listeners may know that Monsanto has kind of a dubious history of lots of protests against them, either because of GMOs or because of chemical dumping back in the 40s in the 50s. Not a great track record with farmworkers. And when Bayer was working on buying them, Bayer’s own shareholders basically said, don't buy this company. And they went through with it anyway. And now that we're dealing with hundreds of 1000s of lawsuits from people that have gotten cancer from using Roundup, which is the brand name, you'll probably see it in Home Depot and Lowe's people use it on their lawns, I would encourage you not to, it's very deadly to animals and plants. It's really good weed killer. But Bayer wanted to disappear the Monsanto name. So when I first started researching them back in the 2000s, there’s a Monsanto website that doesn’t exist anymore. In fact, when I went to look for it the last time there's like this weird thing on there, it says, I'm sorry, you've reached a website that no longer is here or something like that. And I printed out the screenshot, you know, it never happened, like it never happened. And if you get on the Bayer website, it's you know, we're feeding families, we're feeding farmers, we're sustainable, we're environmental. Again, I'm fascinated by that kind of corporate spin. And in my art, I try to actually use their own tools, their own messaging, their own marketing, and create works, that use their methods and use their strategy but create work that speaks more true to what's happening. Right, what's on the ground, no pun intended.
06:15
Speaker 1
I find that so fascinating about your work. I mean, a lot of the imagery is very recognizable to people, like you say if they've been to Lowe's, immediately, they'll recognize a lot of the products that you feature in your work or the language but they've never seen it pulled out in this way. And I find that so fascinating that your medium is provided by these people that you are kind of interrogating, is that a process that you've always used in your work?
06:42
Speaker 2
It hasn't, I mean, prior to even after I went to the puppet theater, I continue to do artwork that was very much about mark making, very much about color. I had been a printmaker, for years doing etchings and monotypes, and my politics were sort of really separate from the art making. And I guess I have to thank the health issues really, to kind of propel me to really dig deep into a company where they're doing it, and I feel thankful that that's where my brain has now gone. And I really like finding original source material. And I really like I mean, visually, it's exciting. Even, even if I didn't know anything about these chemical companies, the way that they position themselves is kind of spectacular. You know it's beautiful. Some of the materials, their websites, it's very enticing. It's very seductive, you know? And then you go, Well, wait a minute?
I guess part of my my work is also about having people have a critical eye and it doesn't just have to be with the chemical companies. It could be anybody pharmaceutical companies, pick a topic, right? To not always believe what is presented to you. And not always not believe what's presented to you, but have a critical eye and really follow who's saying what, where did they come from. You and I Katie had talked about, there's this term called the revolving door, which in my case, with the chemical companies, you'll have someone that worked for corporate Monsanto, like a corporate lawyer, who will then leave industry and then go work for the US government, for the department that is supposed to regulate pesticides, I find that problematic. And I think people should know now what they do with that information. You know, I don't know. But I can only create aesthetically interesting, exciting, compelling work that kind of brings that up. Because that's the kind of work I want to see. Like I want to go if I don't know something about a topic, and it makes me think then maybe I'll go home and look into it or have a conversation with someone who knows more about it than I do, excuse me than I do.
08:51
Speaker 1
I think asking people to reposition their own knowledge or question where they gained that knowledge is something that is so valuable and why it's so exciting for me and other lovers of contemporary art because you artists are perfectly positioned to ask us to encourage us to challenge us to do that for ourselves. While I'm talking about using the material, sometimes you use very literal materials, not just the images of Roundup bottles, or the words that Dow uses in their advertisements, but actual physical materials provided by these companies or about these companies. And one work I know listeners can't see it, but maybe you've you been to the Halsey this year or you'll go to the Halsey and see it in person. But there's one work called “Faith, Hope and $5,000.” You told me you literally sat with this book that’s a corporate history of the Monsanto chemical company from 1977. And that you sat with this book for four years and you found it very fascinating and you didn't know what to do with it. And for listeners, what did result is a 16 piece of graded work that it's presented as one work. But there's 16 individual pieces working together that showcase a page from the appendix of this book that is accompanied by a black sheet of paper. And well, maybe I should actually let you integrate. Describe your own work. But she has cut and the lighted and I'll let her explain exactly how you've done that. But basically, to say it roughly cut out words and put them place them on the other side, and really visually interesting ways. But in your statement on this work, you reference poetry, you reference the Black Mountain poets, there's a lot going on, besides just you cut out these words, and you put them on the black paper. So I'm wondering if you could talk through that the making of that work?
10:49
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think there's a clear description. So yes, it's it's corporate history, written by a Monsanto, PR person. And so I read it from front to back, because I kind of wanted to see what they were saying. And it was written in the 70s. So it tracks the history of Monsanto from 1901, when they were incorporated up until the 1970s. And what was interesting to me is in the back of this book, there's an appendix 16 Page appendix, which lists from 1901 to 1978. I think all the chemicals Monsanto has created. And the way they listed it out in the appendix is they have the date 1900, and then under it listed is 1234567890 horizontally, and depending on when the chemical was produced, it lines up underneath that number. And so Visually, it looks kind of like a poem to me, I thought it was very exciting, right? It's like structured, there's no meaning to it. I'm really into visual poetry, which I can talk about a little more. So I cut out all the appendix and I sat with it for four years, because I didn't know what to do with it. And then I had an idea. So my idea was to use this process called selective concordance, where I'll give you an example if you're in a Word document, and you want to find the word Renaissance everywhere you've written and you type in Renaissance and it clicks it and it finds it within your document, I did it the analog way, in that appendix, within every chemical name, wherever there was a verb present, I cut it out with an exacto knife. So I take the one page, I've cut out all the verbs, I then pile up the verbs on the side, hang out with them for a while, the piece that's been cut out underneath is has pink paint underneath it. So that shows through where I cut out the piece. And I use pink because it's like kind of like the sickly kind of color. Next to the excised book page, I have put a piece of black paper and there are various rectangle shapes. And if you go to the Halsey, you'll see they're kind of dynamic looking. And then I take those cutout words, and I placed them on the black page and referencing the Black Mountain thing, I did a sort of like chanson random process where I would take them in my hand, I'd pile them up and let them drop, sometimes I would just keep them where they are, sometimes I would move them. And then I would glue them which was actually quite difficult to keep them down and glue them at the same time. And the reason I wanted that chance element was to have a kind of like a disparate connection to the very structured look of the kind of you know, quote, unquote, poem on the left with the excise words to the right. So I think it works really well. And it was always meant to be a 16 page kind of one look kind of thing. And it's interesting when people come to it, because from far away, it reads as something and then when you get close to it. There's this idea of, I think I'm supposed to be able to have meaning, but I can't find the meaning. And that's kind of the point of like visual poetry and concrete poetry and things that there's not a correlation between what you're seeing and a meeting necessarily, it's more of the importance of the image, and the words have sort of same space, right together.
14:10
Speaker 1
And that work is in the smaller gallery in the Halsey, that it's accompanied by a lot of kind of word heavy text based work. And we talked about that space, having a very different feel from our larger gallery and you worked with the Halsey staff for many years to talk about the kind of atmosphere the separation of experience. I don't know if people know how much work goes into deciding what goes where how high does it go? Does it go one inch to the left or one inch to the right, but that you know it we're thinking very carefully about how people experience individual works and how they experience the entire exhibition altogether. And that this this layout is really essential part of that. And so we talked about the large The gallery is kind of a spectacle, it's bombastic. It's colorful, it's interactive. And then that the smaller gallery is more contemplative. It's for closer looking. And I wonder if you can talk to us a little bit about that experience you envisioned for people walking in, especially for listeners, and sure, they can't see it. And they haven't been yet. But that you had a whole experience in your mind when you thought about what to show and where to show it. And I wonder if you can, we can give a sneak peek about what that thought process was?
15:34
Speaker 2
Yeah, the gallery you can tell me how many square feet is it? 4000, 3000 square feet? So I'm very thankful for this opportunity. It's my largest show to date. It's very exciting. Some of the work is existing. But because of COVID, I had additional time to make more work. And as you walk into the space, I have my first neon piece, which was very exciting. The title of the show was “Only You Can Prevent a Forest” and the title of the Neon is also it's a text based neon piece. And we center that on the wall and a black wall. So it's vibrating green. And it's this nice connecting work between the smaller gallery which has more of the visual poetry, the concrete poetry, more of the focus and attention and sort of quietness has a nice connection to the other side. And the larger gallery space which is really seductive, really bright. you're bombarded on the left of the wall with 10 Giant images, they're 44 inches by 44 inches of pesticide pop, which are oversized pesticide bottles from Bayer and Monsanto and Dow Chemical on these giant fields of glitter and also bright colors, right? It's a nod to series and advertising and, you know, the pop culture. And it was important to have a way to walk through the gallery and Katie, you and I talked about that I have a sculpture in the in the middle of the gallery which has a nice connection to the pesticide pop, which is a mirrored platform with 500 Gold Glitter covered pesticide bottles kind of careening and towering and falling all over the floor and off this mirrored platform. And the idea was that is to basically talk about the absurdity of putting these chemicals on this like pestered pedestal of admiration. You know, the pesticide companies have touted these for centuries, literally, as the best thing since sliced bread, you know, they're going to do these wonder chemicals I used to call them you can actually find that terminology and some of the advertising. And I want to say, Well, maybe not, you know, and also, isn't it absurd to cover these pesticide bottles in glitter and gold? And what is that all about? And it'll be interesting to see how people respond to it. Yeah. It also has this kind of like swirling feel where it looks like a whirlwind and a landfill coming apart.
17:58
Speaker 1
We've talked about it looking like so many different things over the course of the week. Yeah, that it's a landfill. And it's we've also talked to like almost a religious element where the gill read within makes its money as well, green gold. And I think something I wanted to tell you about that I've just thinking I was thinking about actually this morning was I was listening to a podcast that was talking about humor and how the, the physical response is laughing laughter and that it's often like that you're recognizing a truth and maybe it's uncomfortable, and that laughing is a response to that. And so I'm kind of I'm very curious, in that context, to think about how people react to plant protection, this gold glittery sculpture, because they might have these bottles in their home. And here, they're being asked to think about it and it is it's kind of funny, right? Or a funny is not the right word we use absurd or it's curious. And I think where I'm where I'm going with that is that it is maybe an uncomfortable truth that we've lived with these things, and we haven't thought about what it is and where it came from and what it's doing. And that that work kind of very literally makes you stop and rethink it. Because something that's when visual art is really exciting to me.
19:23
Speaker 2
I agree. Yeah, absolutely. And, and yeah, there is something, aesthetically, I want people to be drawn into the work because it's interesting, compelling, doesn't have to be beautiful, necessarily, but I want you to feel something and then I want you to get close to it and then have whatever reaction you're going to have, you know, maybe it's being uncomfortable, maybe it's head scratching, like I don't really understand what's going on, you know, maybe it's an aha moment. You know, I like that when I visit museums and galleries and I have that oh my gosh, look at what I didn't think this was when I walked in what it is, you know? And that's why I like actually have an artist talk because then I can talk to people that are there and just kind of get their perspective and see what they're feeling, what kind of reaction they're having, and conversations with other humans, as it were.
20:11
Speaker 1
that's what I love to tell people that there's not a right reaction. Like, if you're having a reaction, that's the point, it can be, I love this, this is the best thing I've ever seen, or it can be I don't understand this, that's also a totally valid reaction. The point is to just come and now you've grown your kind of visual literacy that much more just by looking at this piece, despite your feelings about it.
20:37
Speaker 2
Yeah, and, and it's having that critical eye, you know, I mean, I feel it's lacking, you know, in life, sort of, like 21st century. So I'm just one person doing some art, you know, and if I could, you know, not even make a difference, but have people think, you know, and have people, you know, maybe get a different perspective, have a different experience, maybe consider something they never considered before.
21:06
Speaker 1
I'm curiously talking about reaction. So we've talked about reactions to the visuals, or I'm curious if you've ever had a reaction from people that are pro pesticide or pro agrichemical. Companies, we've talked about your desire to wish that you could talk to employees of those corporations. I wonder, have you what is the range of reaction to the subject matter of your work?
21:33
Speaker 2
Generally, people are relatively on the same page, I would say it's sort of like, mentally, you know, mentally, emotionally. But I have like, I have talked at like a bio engineering, biotech folk people. And that was really interesting. They were doing stuff around genetically engineering mosquitoes
21:58
Speaker 1
well, that's very appropriate for a low country. Right.
22:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I, I don't know enough to be dangerous, but I don't know enough to speak eloquently about it. And I have concerns but I haven't done a project on it yet. But I was talking to a professor who was dealing specifically with data around that. And so he was very open. I was very open. It was very, it was interesting to me. I didn't I didn't come in with a like, Oh, my God, this is bad kind of attitude. And he didn't either. So it was interesting. Now, I've never been approached, at least not that I know if they hadn't identified themselves as someone who worked for one of the chemical companies. I mean, it could be it could be interesting.
22:46
Speaker 1
Well, what's next for you? What are you currently uncovering for us?
22:50
Speaker 2
So right now, so part of the so the title, I'll refer back to the title piece, “Only You Can Prevent a Forest,” and maybe I should explain where that that wording comes from. So another thrust of my show at the Halsey is making the connection between the chemical companies and their military past, primarily their military past with the Vietnam War. So when the government or US government went into Vietnam, they dumped a bunch of herbicides on to the Vietnamese to destroy the forest, made, obviously killed lot of Vietnamese also killed a lot of American soldiers. Who did they hire for the chemicals, the chemical companies, and so they don't want you to know that they want to sort of forget, you know, so So I want to bring it to the fore.
The operation was called Operation Ranch Hand and one of the service members, there's this photo, you can find it online where he took the Smokey the Bear. Smokey the Bear was a advertising campaign actually started in the 40s to prevent us forest fires to sort of get people like you and I to you know, not litter and call out forest fires and stuff like that. So it was very successful program. The service person took the Smokey the Bear poster and where it says only you can prevent forest fires, he scratched out fires and put an A so it's only you can prevent a forest because they were dumping a bunch of herbicides on the jungle in Vietnam. I found that so fascinating and disturbing and head scratching and bizarre and so strange.
24:30
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think you know, I remember in school, you know, we learned when we learned about the Vietnam War, and we learned about Agent Orange Yes, but in your work you highlight there's many different agents, the Agent Pink agent, white, Agent blue, and had no idea and neither did I know that these were supplied by brand name companies that I've bought, right, you know, aspirin from or whatever. So that's, that's wild. I think that's gonna be wild for people. Well to make that connection,
25:02
Speaker 2
yeah. And it was fascinating to me, I just I just went to this deep dive to learn about the Vietnam War because I learned it, but I didn't really learn it, I sort of forgot. And so I was reading all these like fairly dense, oh my god, articles and things about the amount of pesticides that they dropped and you know all the stuff. And then they had this lovely term called Rainbow herbicides and I thought, What the heck is that? It's called Rainbow herbicides. And so in addition, like you said to Agent Orange, there are five other colors and the colors referred to the band that was around the 50 gallon drum where they would store these herbicides. And each color was a different chemical composition of various chemicals. Agent Orange, there's actually more than one agent orange, there's like two or three, like agent one, two and three. It was the most sprayed, and it's the one that most of our service people to this day are having problems with. And obviously the folks in Vietnam as well. And yeah, I think it's important to not tamp down that history, like really put it out there. And then and then you can decide, you know, like, well, do I do I still want to buy glyphosate? You know, I can't answer that. But it's for me, it's important to put that out there.
26:19
Speaker 1
Well, you're artistically definitely asking the question. And we're so excited that that you are and it's been amazing for me to learn all of these histories as I've learned about your work working with you. So I'm really excited for the College of Charleston community and our greater community here in Charleston to be able to ask these questions through your work. So thank you so much.
26:42
Speaker 2
Thank you. I'm thrilled to have the show here. I mean, you and I have talked about this, but my conversation started in 2013 with the Halsey so this is how long these things can kind of take, you know, visa vie COVID happening and you know, programming of the College has and my own programming and to have the support that you have all provided and just the great conversations I've had so far being here in Charleston with people. It's been it's been wonderful. And so I look forward to talking to you more about it. For sure. Thanks.