“That’s what art really tries to do. Just strip away all the pretense and it’s trying to entertain and excite.” A Two-Part Interview with Wayne White

See Part One

Part Two:

III. Wayne White Cannot Lie

THE BELIEVER: Thinking about all of the different puppets that you have made, is there a form of puppet that you still want to try?

WAYNE WHITE: Well, not really. I think I’ve done a little bit of all the styles: marionettes, hand puppets, costumes, masks, even stop motion stuff. I like the narrow range of those, I think there’s ton of possibilities there. I think that the most exotic puppet we ever tried was the underwater puppet, the Fish on Pee-wee’s Playhouse. That was a real challenge and I was a mere collaborator on that.

BLVR: What was new about trying to operate a puppet underwater?

WW: Well where the rod would go into the tank, it was tricky to get the rod to go in through the glass without it leaking. I had other guys help me on that. No, I’m pleased with the narrow range of techniques that I know of. [Pause] I would like to try to do some shadow puppets, that’s one thing I’ve never really done that much of. Gary Panter’s really into that, he’s done a lot of shadow puppetry, and I would like to try that.

BLVR: Puppets are part of the installations that you’ve done recently at Rice Gallery and the Taubman Museum. I’ve seen the giant George Jones head that you made at Rice referred to as a giant puppet. Do you see it as a puppet? Or is it a kinetic sculpture, or something else?

WW: I see it as both. First of all I think of puppets as sculpture. They are sculpture that moves. You could label it any way you want, but for me it always starts in my mind as a sculpture. As I think of it as pure form then ideas for performance come out of that. It’s always the form and the visuals and that’s why I like to make puppets in a gallery or museum. They’re not often in those contexts. So it’s like, what it is? Is it a sculpture or a puppet? It works as both. The George Jones piece was definitely like that; a puppet, yet it was also a giant sculptural object. I like to blend the two together. I like hybrids. I like things that move. I like shiny things. [Laughs]

BLVR: I think that artists are used to thinking in both/and situations instead of either/or situations. It sounds that with this hybrid form you’re making, it’s not trying to be one thing, it’s trying to be many things.

WW: Exactly. I think that’s what art...