#124 Puppies Puppies, Still Alice
25 March - 17 April
Puppies Puppies was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They currently live and work in Roswell, New Mexico.
A conversation between Oliver Roger Williams and Puppies Puppies.
Oliver Roger Williams: As is generally uncommon for OUTPOST, the show and install were conceived without your physical presence. I wonder if this is a relevant or commonly occurring strategy in your wider practice and if it, and Puppies Puppies, might come out of ideas of post-identity and/or gender fluidity?
Puppies Puppies: Puppies has adopted never being at openings of Puppies own work unless Puppies is in full costume but even then the person inside the costume isn’t always Puppies it could be anyone Puppies loves to operate from afar in hiding Puppies feels its safer that way.
ORW: You have said the show is an homage to your late grandmother Maria Olivo. I wonder at what point you first saw ‘Still Alice’ and whether the show might contribute to conversations around the readymade by perhaps suggesting that emotions can be readymades too, as stand-ins or even replacements for our own feelings?
PP: Puppies was on a plane and Puppies read something about ones brain chemistry on a plane makes you prone to crying or something like that regardless of Puppies being on a plane Puppies would have cried profusely in any context Puppies would have experienced this film Puppies feels we leave emotions out of many equations because Puppies believes that they are too messy or too embarrassing Puppies loves embarrassing messes When one watches a film in some way or another we connect the film to ourselves or in some way to our own lives and sometimes that connection is strong and sometimes that connection is weak depending on ones collection of previous experiences turned into memories/ levels of empathy conjured when experiencing any given movie Puppies feels very connected to this film emotionally and in that case the subject matter seems to be ubiquitous enough that it could possible ring true or feel significant to at least one other human being (a viewer).
ORW: On first impression the show seems to be a departure from much of your other work, at least in tone anyway. Whilst your green series continues with the donation boxes, there’s no protesting Spongebob, sleeping Voldemort or pee-filled bottle here. Despite this, re-presenting ‘Still Alice’ in this context will inevitably bring into view histories of appropriation and tactics of irony, resulting in what could be considered as a somewhat glib gesture. On the other hand, I wonder if sincerity might be recouped through irony here, that re-staging the film under Puppies Puppies recasts the possibility of ‘trashy’ Hollywood film as a productive commons from which we might glean something new from our own realities. Perhaps you could expand on the suggestion by Daniel Sperry of What Pipeline, Detroit, that you are ‘playing the long game.’
PP: Puppies thinks the long game is dancing with death. Puppies thinks we dance with death being alive. Puppies has been Spongebob, Voldemort, and known to pee on things occasionally. Puppies looks at the world but can only truly see it from Puppies perspective Puppies buys Colgate to brush Puppies teeth to try and postpone them rotting and falling out Puppies uses Kleenexes for spills but also when snot is dripping down Puppies nose or tears pouring down Puppies face Puppies does whatever to keep surviving Puppies keeps going to keep going Puppies thinks theres already so much information out in the world why not rearrange it to say something Puppies can be quite cynical but deep down Puppies is Puppies and this is only Act 1.
