I flew to New York City in the midst of a deadline at my job managing Ry Rocklen's studio. I had been making plaster molds of his clothing and tiling a basketball-motif beanbag with small pink marble tiles for several weeks. I traveled during the worst possible time. Besides the deadline at work, I had swollen lymph nodes from partying too much with the cast members of Trajel Harrel's Antigone Sr., recently staged at REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles. Under slept, overworked, and on antibiotics, I boarded a Virgin America flight to maintain and sustain a sense of camaraderie with three individuals. 

Malene Dam, a classmate from CalArts and now dear friend and co-conspirator, was presenting her thesis exhibition at the conclusion of her studies a CCS Bard; a program she started immediately following our master degrees from CalArts in 2012. Her contribution was a collaboration between herself, Ted Kerr, and Bridget de Gersigny entitled "No Narrative Preceded Us" which encompassed a series of events including reading groups, performance, and public conversations.

Orange colored vinyl text ran the contours of the gallery in three horizontal rows, as if signifying three voices. Three plywood boxes, looking like art-world shipping crates, sat at angles evenly spaced on the blue-grey carpeted floor specifically installed for the exhibit. Each box had a set of headphones with spoken audio from one of the collaborators. More vinyl lettering adhered to the box informed details of the audio track one was hearing. The boxes were invitations to sit and listen amidst the hustle and bustle of an opening filled with excitement about new curatorships and new ways of curating. Sat on these boxes was where I began and ended my visit to the Hessel Museum. 

I already knew what the project was about due to many Skype and phone conversations with Malene in the weeks leading to her opening. She even sent a few iPhone images during the installation process. Both Malene's artistic and curatorial practice(s) are deeply invested in practice itself. This means she leans toward conversation rather than object making, asking questions rather than presenting solutions, and examining methodologies while participating inside and outside existing models. This approach, which she boldly sticks to and perhaps feels marginalized and frustrated at times within contexts that privilege studio practices and object-based installations, allows Malene to occupy a very generous position and generative commitment to others. Her ego does not drive her endeavors, rather a sense of urgency that is constantly questioning modes of knowledge production and the hierarchies that shape and control social interactions. Her position is always clearly articulated as one explicitly invested in Feminist and Queer discourses.

Our commitment to and interests in each other's practices has fostered a strong dialogue covering a range of topics from Feminist and Queer politics, gossip about friends, professional development, family issues, performance histories and legacies, life in and out of institutions, life in general... all tended to with devotion, care, respect and honesty. When I was building my first solo exhibition post CalArts, I immediately approached Malene about crafting a text for the exhibition catalogue. The essay produced demystified our relationship by addressing our camaraderie and articulated the nuances of my work and my approach to making work in a way that caused an emotional response upon my initial read. 

This was also the reaction Malene had at the end of her opening. Tears of many reasons flowed down her cheeks as she thanked her friends for coming from multiple states by way of planes, trains, buses and cars. Rather than write a review of her work by attempting to analyze what's happening where, what's working or not, and conclude some hasty whatever... I choose to focus on the inter-personal meaning of that event and our friendship, something that isn't given enough space in art-world speak, and something that Malene holds dear and works very hard to maintain.