I’m not doing anything wrong, I’m not obstructing anyone’s access. When I have a crowd I make sure that the crowd makes room for people. I’m an artist who cares about the cultural fabric of New York City. I care about New York as a harbor for street culture - and I care about street culture as a base-level populist diffusion of ideas. And I believe in making those ideas accessible to everyone.
Kalan SherrardNot being categorized is like keeping your mouth shut. Categorization is linguistic, people trying to understand each other. Words are misty, language is a fog. I want to be in as many boxes as possible, describe myself as thickly as possible.
Kalan SherrardPuppets and dolls are the gateways between human beings and objects. There are tons of cliches to spout about puppetry and animism, the primacy of the object, attacking anthropocentric worldviews, etc, and while there were always puppets around, I started working with them to deal with the times I knew I wouldn't be able to collaborate with other humans, to have a team.
Kalan SherrardI'm extremely critical. I don't consider myself a performance artist. I balk at the term performance art.
Kalan SherrardI also eschew the identity of "puppeteer" it is a concept that blurs the boundaries of discrete objects and persons. I do think Anarchist Nihilist Puppet Show is my day job.
Kalan SherrardFrom my earliest youth I've been riddled with angst about the homogeneity of the world and have tried to do things to break it: attacking abercrombie & fitch in the mall with a plunger, posting strange statues made of garbage around my town, different kinds of interventions, parades and experiments. I've always cared a lot about difference.
Kalan Sherrard[Do you know] how it feels to be a clownish character? It's always complicated to imagine conveying yourself outside of your body. Inside myself I feel like this rich, complicated thing, and then I see representations of myself, especially in the media - and I think this is why it's troubling for me, because I feel so caricatured and flattened.
Kalan Sherrard