The Art of the Intercourse
As much as any space is informed by the people who inhabit it, people are also necessarily influenced by whatever space they are in. The Intercourse is one of those places that changes you, that makes you feel both like it’s not exactly real, but that by being there and working there, you can make a new reality. Walking around the building with The Intercourse’s Director of Operations Gabriel Florenz, he tells me, “When I’m here all alone, it’s like I’m in a museum, like it’s someplace I’m not supposed to be.” Which is exactly right. That’s exactly what this space does—it inspires a certain amount of awe and a sense of the surreal. But then, if you are not alone, if you are there when the different artists in residence are walking around, talking to each other, laughing, you understand better the utopian possibilities for both the building and the people involved.
Yellin tells me, “It’s very much community-building, a serendipitous thing. We don’t push relationships, we just kind of let them happen. One of our artists was talking to the scientist, and they decided to come up with an algorithm for printmaking. It’s a great way for these things to happen naturally. I just want to help bring all these people together and inform the vision and help sustain the vision and add to that—add fuel to the fire of the vision. It’s a delicate balance, and I look at this very much as a social sculpture. We have an incredible group of people involved to help make this a reality.”