Artist Story: Chris Sullivan

Gretchen is a young sculpture student, under her arm is a tattered sketchbook that announces her scatter brained yet intriguing personae. She is going to a lecture with Thad, a lanky iPod assisted young painter, and videographer, who makes sure that there is always visible paint on his clothes and body.

They sit down; amongst them are fellow classmates, Old Cronies of the Chicago Art world, faculty and unknowns. Dissembling from a conversation and towards the podium is Brian Thumpster, a tall man dressed in black, with a folder under his arm. Also to the podium, strides James Pintsteria an academic bigwig of the school.

"Well we better get going," says James. " Hello every one, I am James Pintsteria chair of the department of Social Knowledge Media, Urban Studies and Integrated Materials, and I would like to welcome you to our Wednesday artists presentations. First of all I would like to waste your time by telling you five minutes worth of upcoming lectures, that I could have handed to you on a piece of paper, then I shall galvanise my ownership and intimacy with our speaker, by telling youthful memoirs of our relationship which will end by me saying something in French that five academics in the audience will lustfully laugh at."

And he does this. Brian Thumpster being one of the five, laughs his way to the podium.

Hello there, in a slurred whispering voice, Brian denounces the use of microphones, and freeing himself of this constraint, and sets forth being only heard by half the audience, he first says.

"Thank you James, I love you."

Gretchen flinches, and opens up her book, to a sketched page, writes in corner "James I love you"

Brian begins to Lecture: Slides one through ten, incredible magical images of artists works that have influenced him - Thad and Gretchen do not realise that these works will be the best work they will see for the next hour, and Brian's actual work will appear thin and juvenile in comparison.

"In 1998, I got a grant to do something about the urban landscape, from The NEA and after a year of doing nothing (same five people laugh), I had to scrape together a piece for my "grande debouche" at the Cheesboro Gallery." Brian creates ironic quotation marks with his fingers, and sighs, rather spent by the whole sentence. Gretchen last week was crying in her apartment on the phone to her mother, because she received a rejection letter from the Cheesboro Gallery, saying that they would like to see more work in a few years, when these small beginnings had matured, and she must pick up her slides before the end of the fiscal year or they will be incinerated.

"This is a slide of the opening, with the piece running, you can't really get a sense of the piece without the video, but that is what the blue light is, the video is a series of vignettes I directed in historical corners of the City."

Susan Fletcher, first Year Grad student, in the department of Post Modern Medium, and Hip-Hop Rhetorical Studies, is in the projection booth, searching for the tape, she cannot find it, and realises, that it is not on her list. They move on.

Thad imagines the video scenarios, they are ones he would make, He wonders if his would be better than Brian's. All of his would be better. But there is one, that is, in fact, the best thing that Brian Thumpster has ever done. This is a secret.

Brian continues presenting his work, things are going well, but in a series of his installation pieces, Brian has a tripod of Guns, a picture of George Bush with an Osama bin Laden beard, and a picture of Osama bin Laden throwing out a first pitch at a baseball game. It is a sort of funny piece. But the slides stop. Because we are about to find out just how much Brian knows about oil companies, Florida, racism, the military industrial complex, anorexia, and the fashion industry. During this tirade Brian himself gets lost, and James stands in front of him, giving the five-ten minute sign of two splayed hands. Count the fingers.

"Ok I guess I am almost done, thank god, I am not very good at this". Brian says. The twenty people in the audience, who had not considered that Brian is not very good at this, now suddenly realise it. A landslide defeat in the last seconds.

"Are there any questions?" Brian conjectures.

Before a hand can go up one of the five laughers speaks. Brian says in a flirtatious familiar tone, "Yes Tabitha"

"Hi Brian, I was just wondering if I might ask a long winded meandering question that has three parts, and that I must reword three times, and then before you actually answer it, predict or suggest three possible answers to the question so no one in the audience might suspect that I myself do not have a concrete correct position on the subject that the three part question infers." And Tabitha does.

Brian retorts, "Not only can you ask that question, but my answer will bring in references of Delueze and Freud that are highly suspect, yet draw religious nods from my colleagues. And instead of answering in a way that let's you know that I worry about these things, I will in fact let you know that my work is airtight, and perfect.

James Pintsteria speaks. "Well that's all the time we have, Thanks Brian, for coming here on your busy schedule, because one thousand dollars an hour, is hardly worthy of you actually constructing a lecture, and I think your seat of the pants style was very much in the spirit of our information culture." Thad's hand is up in the air. As the people in the auditorium rise, he and Gretchen walk up to the podium to talk with Brian Thumper. His Friends from the Whitney program, who are now teachers at the school, are completely monopolising him, so they cannot break the circle of need. Their tuition dollars at work.

Gretchen wonders about her work, and whether she should really work that hard on it. She thinks that maybe it is her appearance that is the most important element. She plans to wear black henceforth, and be a bad wrestler that wins, as opposed to a good wrestler who loses.

Thad is listening to his iPod. He has learned nothing about Brian Thumpster or his work, Thad is thinking of not coming back next year. If Brian had shown his tape that was part of the installation, Thad would have realised that he has a brother in arms, and he would be so moved by that one perfect vignette, that he would make his best work this spring. Neither Thad nor Gretchen feels like they can enter the circle.
Maybe next Wednesday.


Chris Sullivan is an animator, filmmaker and performance artist. He has been creating experimental film and theatre for over 20 years. He has shown his work in festivals, theatres and museums all over the Country and in Europe. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship. Recently, he has been programming experimental films and animations in community settings such as libraries, elementary schools, and educational conferences, and puppet festivals. He lives in Chicago with his wife Susan Abelson, and their daughters Carmen and Silvia, and teaches Animation and Film at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.