ArteEast is pleased to present an interview with artist Rhea Karam as part of our Artist Spotlight.

Rhea Karam (b.1982 in Lebanon, lives and works in New York) grew up between France and the United States. Her work focuses on deconstructing the urban landscape with an emphasis on public walls and the role they play in our daily lives. The enriching dialogue created around and upon walls allow her to explore various themes such as history, displacement, identity, communication, censorship, architecture and the environment. Although mainly photographic, her practice also includes paint, silkscreen, wheat pasting and various mixed media inspired from street art. Her work has been exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions internationally and is part of permanent collections such as Yale Library, the Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Center for Book Arts.

X, Archival pigment print, silkscreen and pencil, 2018

XXI, Archival pigment print, silkscreen and pencil, 2018

All Roads Lead to You. Artist book, screen printed and handbound, 2018

Double page spread from All Roads Lead to You, Artist book

Street Installation #31, Archival Pigment Print, 2020

Mural on Eldridge street, 2018

Detail of the mural on Houston with passerby writing on board, June 2020

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ArteEast: What has your practice/career focused on during the past five years?

Rhea Karam: My practice over the past fifteen years has remained relatively focused on making work about and upon public walls. In the past five years, however, I have enjoyed working in a wider range of media including silkscreen, spray paint, wheat pasting, and limited edition artist books. 

AE: How have you evolved or changed your work with the challenges and/ or opportunities of the past few years in the contemporary global art world?

RK: I am quite an introvert, so as much as I enjoy visiting exhibitions and looking at work, I am not so drawn to openings and large art fairs that have proliferated over the past couple years. I guess in that sense, I have become more drawn to public space where one can work relatively anonymously and free from any system.

AE: What are you currently working on, or considering?

RK: I always enjoy making books, I am currently working on a small series of sculptural portfolio boxes to house a series of prints from my street interventions entitled Come Together. 

AE: You were recently included in Modern Artifacts a publication by Esopus Books about rarely seen gems from the MoMA archives. Can you speak to us about your contribution to this book?

RK: I was invited by Tod Lippy (Executive Director of The Esopus Foundation Ltd.) and Michelle Elligott (Chief of Archives, Library, and Research Collections at The Museum of Modern Art, New York) alongside five other artists, to create a project related to a particular aspect of the MoMA archives. We were each given six pages to work with and a relatively open slate. I came across Robert Janz’s line drawings and street installations from 1976 while researching Street Works, a series of exhibitions through which artists were assisted in presenting their work outside of a gallery or museum facility. Janz’s work resonated with questions I was addressing in my practice related to geometry within the urban environment. Through research I was able to locate him, and realized that we were neighbors and our work had unknowingly overlapped in the streets over the past few years, as he was active well into his 80’s.  I decided to get in touch, and this led to the collaboration in Modern Artifacts entitled Invisible. We met regularly over the course of a few months and walked around sharing thoughts while putting work up in the streets. The encounter organically progressed into a project reflecting our appreciation of the ephemeral. Janz’s latest work was water drawings of words on the street which would evaporate soon after.

AE: Would you discuss the series in which you document your own interventions placing multi-colored triangles on building corners throughout NYC? What role do interventions play in your photography?

RK: My photographic practice led me to the street interventions I am currently interested in. I have always enjoyed documenting walls as a means of archiving a certain period of time, but have felt the desire to shift from the role of observer to participant. I am interested in the intersections that define the city: the line where a crosswalk meets a sidewalk, the corner that separates two buildings… The dichotomy between a line representing both a divisive border as well as a geographic location where two elements come together.  I began highlighting these intersections by wheatpasting painted geometric shapes in vivid colors upon them. There is something very satisfying to me about engaging with architecture in a tactile manner, creating a more intimate relationship with the city. I always feel and analyze the texture, color, and context of the wall I am about to work on. It is a similar process to how I approach a wall I am about to photograph, except the photograph results in a single capture permanently sealed and protected, whereas the wheatpaste remains vulnerable. Some don’t make it overnight, they are painted over, ripped off, or damaged by the weather over time, while some last for years. I like leaving room for unknown elements of chance to interfere with the work, which is what first drew me to photography when I used to shoot a roll of film and develop it in the darkroom. Photographing my street interventions allow both practices to overlap and complete each other. 

AE: Your work has engaged with public walls as spaces to document political climates. As one of the U.S. epicenters of Covid-19 infections, New York faced the closures of restaurants and businesses across the city. The city also opened up, as the stage for extensive Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests. Have you reacted to these changes to New York City’s urban landscape by creating new work? If so, could you elaborate?

RK: During the peak of Covid in the city, I was overwhelmed by the news, the numbers and the eerie emptiness of the city. The uncertainty of it all had me under the impression that the virus was everywhere: in the air, in the stairwell, on the walls… and I was not able to get myself to work outside as I usually would when the warmer weather starts in April/May. Then in June, the first BLM protests took place in the city, and there was a certain shift. Crowds gathered, people came outside and the city came back to life; although profoundly changed. I live in the Village on the cusp of Soho and witnessed the transformation of the urban landscape where all storefronts and glass buildings were boarded up. For a brief period, the architecture was covered in plywood and people were masked, it felt as if the city was muted from its vibrancy, trying to find its voice again. It was a surreal, yet inspiring moment. Shortly after, artists started painting the boards. I found a boarded martial arts studio on the corner of Houston that gave me permission to put up a mural. I painted large geometric shapes with a solid color on each paneI, inviting people to write in one word what each hue evoked to them as a means to question our preconceptions on color. The mural didn’t last long and got tagged over, but documenting it over the course of time was an interesting social experiment and study on the relationship between color and emotions. While galleries and museums were shut, the street became the only place to see art and the walls took on an important role. I felt encouraged to get back out and start pasting again.

RHEA KARAM ONLINE:

Website: www.rheakaram.com

Instagram: @rheak