Katy Diamond Hamer: Can you talk about your experiences as an artist and collector? Where do you see an overlap, if any?
Kenny Schachter: I make no distinction between WriteMaking, teaching and collecting art – which is essentially a form of curating that I have been doing for nearly 35 years. It means putting your artistic life in the context of your peers, or, if you collect more established work, living among your inspirations and heroes. For me, art is like a verb, a concept of action.
The artworks I collect are not static things to be worshipped. Rather, I engage with the art in my collection on a daily basis, touching it, handling it, and literally moving it around like chess pieces every day. Additionally, I can’t play chess and generally avoid games, aside from the contact sports of the art world. I also regularly rub my nose on the works and look at them as closely as possible without physically consuming them.
KDH: Can you have a favorite in an art collection and if so, what is yours?
KS: Of course it is, but less so if you have a favorite child. Paul Thek is an artist who has moved me since I first saw his work decades ago. His sculpture consisting of 23 Bronze I desire mice (part of Thek’s sculpture series “The Personal Effects of the Pied Piper”, created in Rome in 1975) even more.
KDH: I love how your artwork is funny, poignant and politically charged all at the same time. Can you talk about what motivates you to create a new piece?
