In Conversation with Alexandre Stipanovich: Midnight Fruits

Photography & words Clément Delépine
Curator Alexandre Stipanovich
Artists Sylvie Fleury / Genevieve Goffman / Jonny Negron / Shayne Oliver for Anonymous Club
Spencer Sweeney / Rafael de Càrdenas x OJAS / Louise Chen / Simonez Wolf
Galery Lily Robert

Dear Alexandre, as the curator of Midnight Fruits, could you please explain to us the
different ideas this exhibition is trying to grasp and who you chose to involve?

My dear late friend Jim Walrod once told me “You should write a book about gay nightclubs.” I’m not an expert in gay nightlife really, but his enthusiasm was so contagious. I knew that whatever idea he threw at me there was something new and fascinating to discover. So I started thinking about this topic. I then heard Studio 54’s Ian Shrager on a podcast. When asked, “what do you need to start a nightclub?” he replied “You need three things: a good sound system, a good dance floor, and a sweaty gay couple dancing. There. You have it.” So I started thinking about what my dream nightclub could be.

I spoke with Rafael de Cárdenas, whose interest in interior design was triggered by going to The Saint nightclub when he was 17 and the conversation kept going. We organized an event together around Nightlife Architecture, called “The Night that Changed Your Life.” And when the pandemic hit, all these venues closed. I realize how I missed partying of course, but also random conversations with total strangers, drama and warmth, daring moves, roving after hours, landing in unexpected places, etc. Olivier Robert, who owns Lilly Robert gallery in Paris, reminded me of that exhibition around nostalgia we did 10 years ago (“Désirs Archaïques”) and invited me to come up with a new idea. We discussed the art of partying and the art associated with it. We all missed the abandonment, the irresponsibility, the people watching, the spontaneous conversations, and the improbable situations. So I started thinking of art forms that activate nightlife within music, painting, sculpture, interior design, fashion... and contacted different artists whose inspiration stems from nightlife. For the exhibition, Rafael de Cárdenas studio designed a DJ booth (“Power Top, 2021”) in collaboration with the speakers house OJAS, and a modular sofa (“Happy Valley, 2021”).

The modularity of the sofa was interesting because it led us to think how people interact in a nightclub: impromptu conversations and expanding gatherings need modular blocks to sit on. Spencer Sweeney has also been deeply involved in NYC nightlife, that’s how he met most of his friends and collaborators. He founded Santos Party House, the downtown club for which he produced his Party Paintings that are featured in the show. These paintings were hung during the parties that they promoted, so they were exposed to the ambiance. Maybe you can smell sweat and excitement out of them! Genevieve Goffman built a metaphorical bar, where sculpted bottles tell stories of parties from around the globe—from London's East End to Los Angeles' Chateau Marmont (“Liquor Bottles, 2021”). Sylvie Fleury contributed a new neon (“Mirage, 2021”), which adds to the ambiance as well as the meaning of the space, playing on both the frivolity and the life-changing potential of partying. Then, I wanted to incarnate the exhibition. So Jonny Negron contributed his nocturnal creatures painted on canvas (“Little Pill, 2021” and “Careless Whisper, 2021”). Shayne Oliver, who founded cult label Hood By Air, has remained a long-time fixture of the New York underground scene. I really wanted to involve him in some capacity. We came up with the idea of silver ceramic HBA boots, as the main dancer activating the dance floor (“Untitled, 2021”). So the exhibition isn’t the recreation of a nightclub really, but rather an environment that unfolds all the creative juices that the party spirit springs from.

I love the title, which are these fruits that ripen at night?

The title is a metaphor for the late night encounters that eventually nurture us, punctually or permanently. Sometimes these encounters end up shaping our lives, whether they stem from friendship, love, collaboration, or just fun. These connections are possible because of the mood we were in at that moment, and maybe a little of chemistry. Nighttime is an interesting time because it is the period where we switch to a non-productive mode, where chance has a bigger role to play. We leave our routines and agenda, things get more unexpected as we open to improvisation. We reinvent our place. My friend Simonez Wolf, who worked the door of the Beatrice Inn in New York, told me he once turned down the CEO of Google once because he didn’t have a good energy. At night we rely on what we feel instead of what we have or what we know. It’s an emotional realm, an irrational territory. Maybe it’s a different part of our brain that is at work: the part involved in social and emotional interaction (limbic system), rather than computational mode (cortical system).

As I visited the exhibition, I thought of Baudrillard’s idea that the human experience is a simulation of reality. Do you agree that a nightclub and an art gallery share a sense of
simulacra?

They are simulacra, for sure, although the nightclub is often more a simulacrum than the gallery I believe. The gallery often sticks to the white cube model; it stays neutral in that way. On the other hand, some clubs provide an alternative reality; an hyper-reality, like the clubs Berghain or Area for instance. But both the nightclub and the gallery aim to enhance our reality, lift or astonish our senses, and expand our appreciation of life, to eventually have us consume its products. But isn’t life about finding the simulacrum that excites us? When I invited Simonez Wolf to host the opening on June 20th, and Louise Chen to play her vinyls, I wanted them to bring the energy that would blur the lines between these simulacra: is it a gallery? Is it a club? Is it both, or none, or something else? For the last weeks in September 2021 we’ll turn the gallery into a nightclub from 10 PM to midnight. Hopefully some magic will happen.

Nightlife always was highly influential in the production of art. Blurring the lines between
a club and a gallery, can one consider partying as an exhibition form?

Definitely. Look at what Kanye West is doing now: he’s living inside the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. His release party has become this designed 24/7 gladiator show – and he is ready to die in the arena. We are talking about this special moment where improvisation has the opportunity to become permanent, engraved in culture. Deitch Projects NY at the beginning was about creating a festive performative space, culminating in my opinion with Dash Snow and Dan Colen’s Nest in 2008, an insane party whose remnants were the art exhibition. Cooking and hosting are also a form of partying: Gordon Matta Clark created the FOOD restaurant in 1971 and it was about that performative collective fun. Andy Warhol and Richard Avedon showed that social representation could be an art form, suggesting that personality and looks are the secret
to stardom, and to a successful party, instead of artistic skills. Studio 54 and Area used costumes and set designs to elevate and enrich the party spirit. Naked dancers of the Monte Verità in Tessin in the early 20th century were more performing than being themselves I believe. Beyond all this, all music concerts and dramas play on this notion of simultaneously rehearsed, improvised and recorded material – this paradox of control and abandon, climax and deliquescence. For certain brands today, how a launch party looks on social media is what really matters. Is the 21st century the century of the party simulacrum? Does self-awareness kill the fun? I don’t think so. The chaos of the party spirit will prevail.