This text is a part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Delight Month sequence, that includes interviews with art-world queer and trans elders all through June.
On a sizzling midnight in June greater than 20 years in the past, Linda Mussmann and Claudia Bruce tied the knot in a venue mobbed with company — one of many first same-sex marriages in New York State. However Mussmann’s radical nature didn’t begin, or finish, there. Within the Nineteen Seventies, She staged performances in New York Metropolis attended by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. She based the artwork, movie, and efficiency house Time & House Restricted (TSL), which she dropped at Hudson in Upstate New York within the Nineties. There, she ran for mayor, and at the moment sits on the Columbia County Board of Supervisors.
Mussman spoke to Hyperallergic over the telephone concerning the artwork world’s reception to queer artists, her skeptical view of Delight Month’s celebratory nature, and the work and life she’s created together with Bruce, whom she calls her “life associate, muse, and middle of all [her] work.”
Hyperallergic: Has the artwork world felt open to you?
Linda Mussmann: No. As a working-class particular person within the artwork world who was raised on a farm within the Midwest, I’ve positively at all times been an outsider.
So far as being queer, there was definitely a variety of coded data again then. It wasn’t an “out” time. There was not a variety of freedom when it comes to talking out or being who you actually had been, as a result of there have been sure belongings you needed to maintain to your self and within the closet.
I labored in a non-narrative kind that’s not straightforward to elucidate. Feminists didn’t get it; straight individuals didn’t get it; queer individuals typically didn’t get it. It was actually my very own assertion about how I noticed the world, so I fortunately by no means bought labeled. I believe that was a bonus.
In 1990, the Nationwide Endowments for the Arts (NEA) was concerned in a censorship difficulty with Robert Mapplethorpe, and that grew to become a part of the historical past of our theater firm. We determined to not signal on to obtain any extra NEA cash. That put us within the place of, “I don’t belief what the state’s ever going to do for me.”
Then how might I carry on creating and being alive? That marked our radical departure from the artwork scene and the artwork world of New York Metropolis. We determined to go someplace else and discover a residence — discover a house in order that we had some safety. Then we might generate vitality from a constant base.
That was life-changing and world-changing. It definitely modified the trajectory of my profession in New York Metropolis, nevertheless it additionally allowed us to launch TSL in Hudson.
H: Are you able to inform me extra about your resolution to go away the town and transfer upstate to Hudson? Have been there different elements, and did you discover what you had been on the lookout for there?
LM: When our era arrived in New York Metropolis, it was rather more about, “Hey, now we have one thing to say.” We used no matter we might discover: We’d scrape issues collectively out of dumpsters and use them in all types of modern methods to make our work.
Once we left New York, nevertheless, there have been a variety of belief fund infants coming into the town. There was rather more vitality dedicated to individuals who had much more wealth than we might have ever imagined. It grew to become a a lot completely different form of scene. Extra “civilized.” The enjoyable appeared over.
Within the early ’90s, Hudson was an deserted industrial city, and there wasn’t a lot organized arts and tradition right here. Claudia and I assumed, “Let’s attempt to place ourselves in a neighborhood that may actually be desperate to have some cultural motion.”
Frankly, I really feel the identical method about Hudson proper now that I did about New York then. The enjoyable’s form of over. The Porsches have arrived. It’s cool. It’s costly. Lots of people can’t be right here who actually wish to be right here.
And we’re a part of the rationale Hudson grew to become what it’s in the present day. It’s the identical story, time and again. We knew that story and we tried to keep away from that story — arts used to create enterprise. We had been completely towards getting used to lift actual property costs or generate enterprise for Most important Road. As individuals who have some inventive capacity, our use is in saying one thing exterior the field.
H: Even because the city has modified, how have you ever cultivated neighborhood?
LM: We got here right here in 1991. We had been out, queer girls, and after we purchased a big constructing on Columbia Road, individuals stated issues like, “These lesbians or these dykes from New York purchased this.” We had a label, whether or not it was stated to us instantly or not.
We had been labeled — and we needed to be, we needed to be out. That made an enormous distinction to individuals on this neighborhood who could not have been used to people who find themselves out of the closet.
Claudia and I had been married right here when same-sex marriage was legalized. We had been among the many first within the state. We invited all people. It was midnight of June 24, 2011. It was sizzling. It was packed, mobbed with individuals. Everyone was there — homosexual individuals, straight individuals, bisexual individuals, politicians, et cetera. All of them got here to have a good time our marriage.
I ran for mayor and bought concerned with politics as a lesbian and as an out particular person. I wasn’t operating on a homosexual marketing campaign. It was simply Linda Mussmann operating for mayor, however the dialog was definitely about who I used to be in my private life.
It grew to become crucial to this neighborhood to have Claudia and Linda arise as homosexual girls, fearlessly declaring that they’d the identical rights as all people else. I’m nonetheless in a political place: I’m an elected supervisor of the County of Columbia. Of 23 supervisors, I’m the one queer one.
Once you’re standing there as an exception to what some really feel about queer individuals, it turns into a bit simpler for others. Then you definitely discover out that one of many sheriff’s kids desires to undergo a gender transition, and rapidly LGBTQ+ persons are throughout you. It’s been a political, private, and inventive journey.
H: How, if in any respect, does your gender identification issue into your artwork, writing, and different work?
LM: By the very nature of who I’m, Claudia is my central determine. She and I met in 1976. We’ve been collectively on daily basis since, working collectively across the clock on our performances, theater work, and developing TSL. My position is director and author and hers is performer and singer.
She is at all times what I’m personally excited about. And Claudia is the particular person translating what I’m pondering by means of her voice, motion, and interpretation. It’s a wedding of two people who find themselves deeply dedicated to 1 one other and in love, performing in a theatrical method.
Her capacity to translate the work over this lengthy time period is nearly completely intuitional: I don’t have to elucidate something. It’s nearly just like the roles change and she or he takes over and turns into the grand interpreter of the fabric.
H: Who had been your mentors, and are there any queer artists which are vital to you?
LM: Bertolt Brecht, Hannah Arendt, William Gass, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Virginia Woolf, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Harold Pinter, Arnold Schoenberg, Timothy Snyder, Agnes Martin, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Georg Buchner, the listing goes on….
John Cage and Merce Cunningham — they had been life-changing. They got here to see our work. And so they inspired us to not fear about who was coming: Simply give attention to the work. The dance was one factor, the visible was one factor, and the sound was one factor. That labored for me. It was a reduction.
Earlier, my pondering was influenced by Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust. As a younger theater director, I used to be on the lookout for performs, and there weren’t any that match, so I began to look to the novel, and I began to make use of their work within the theater. They lived a very long time in the past, however I look to the previous to be told concerning the time I’m residing in.
I do actually look to Gertrude Stein. Folks may discover Stein too radical or not perceive her, however no person dismisses her as a critical artist.
Alternatively, I’ve written tons of issues that haven’t been revealed as a result of individuals thought I wasn’t homosexual sufficient, wasn’t radical sufficient, wasn’t feminist sufficient, wasn’t ever sufficient sufficient. So, what does that say?
H: Are there any tasks you’ve labored on which are entrance of thoughts nowadays?
LM: The TSL archive venture is heavy on my thoughts. I’m making an attempt to arrange a few of the previous work and introduce it to an viewers that missed it and work out a method to share it.
Plenty of this work is from ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s New York that was proven for a restricted timeframe. I’m making an attempt to give attention to preserving a few of these issues. I want to have extra alternatives to share a few of the concepts I’ve created for the theater, and I’m making an attempt to determine how to do this. It’s sophisticated. It’s all one large wall ball of wax.
H: What are you excited to work on subsequent?
LM: I’m engaged on some new tasks for my very own theater, and I’m participating much more younger individuals within the work and making an attempt to share extra of the theater. It’s an ongoing technique of pondering and dealing and making an attempt to determine how one can carve sufficient time and house. It’s at all times about time, house, and a bit bit of cash to determine all of it out.
If I might have X period of time and hours, the subsequent venture would merely be to do one other piece with Claudia: a twin efficiency that features motion pictures and music and sound and motion.
That’s what I don’t actually have a variety of time to do anymore. It takes time. I do a variety of writing. I do a variety of erasing and throwing issues away. I carry issues to the desk. I want to have the chance to design and create a few of these items with a bit extra freedom.
I believe on this time, this economic system, on this world we reside in, we’re so brief on time and a spotlight spans that we’re dropping the chance and skill to be inventive.
H: What does Delight Month imply to you?
LM: Hudson by no means used to have a good time Delight Month — I bought individuals fascinated with doing that. I assumed the city had uncared for the homosexual individuals on this neighborhood, so I introduced it as much as the County Board of Supervisors, and now they do a pleasure parade yearly.
However for me, it’s not political sufficient. Girls are dropping the appropriate to abortion in sure states. It’s a key time to be reminding individuals of the truth that queers could lose most of the freedoms we gained, and that now we have a variety of work to do to carry the road on our accomplishments thus far. It’s a extremely tough time to be too joyful.
We have to get again to the grassroots; we can not turn into complacent and lift our households and overlook concerning the world of politics. I don’t assume it’s time for the get together — the parade is over.