Amy Granat: Hi Jackson! So good to see you! I’m so glad we are doing this show with Josh and Keith/Gene’s and a truckload of art. And well, I’m going to jump right in and start at the beginning – March 2024, when you and I first met. How did you find me? What was going on with you at the time? How did it all come about?
Jackson Hescock: Well, I had just received my BFA. I was working a desk job, and I would scroll through Contemporary Art Library in my downtime; I was especially curious what was/had been going on in St. Louis. I stumbled upon White Flag Projects, and through that, I came across you and your gallery, Parapet Real Humans. At that time, there was a two-person show of Joshua Abelow and Katya Kirilloff up at Parapet. I had some free time, so I set up an appointment to go see the show and meet you. Funny enough, I just rediscovered the press release I took home with me that day.
AG: Oh, how great! Well, you know, there are all of these connections here with Blue Hyperlink, and sometimes things come full circle. Back in 2010, Josh started his own blog called ART BLOG ART BLOG. It functioned in a similar way to Contemporary Art Daily, in that it featured a lot of modern and contemporary art being made and exhibited at the time. For five years, ART BLOG ART BLOG was extremely influential. I think it is great for people to be able to situate themselves wherever they happen to be and click in/on and see what's going on there or anywhere else in the world.
JH: Right around the time we met, I was just starting Rumpus Room. The first show (Bridget Hamel) opened a week or so after that. And I remember thinking, “There are only so many people in St. Louis who are going to see this, so I should really focus on the archival nature of the program.” I wanted to take the space seriously, and it became a goal to get the program onto Contemporary Art Library so the shows could have an afterlife, something for the artists to point to down the line. Actually, the first kind of serious person who seemed to notice Rumpus Room was Josh, who also had his own gallery, Freddy. It’s funny that the person whose show was up when I met you was also the first person who kind of patted me on the back in a way. It was the first time I felt as if the art world was noticing; it felt very empowering.
AG: Oh, nice! I love that. And did you know the work of Josh or Katya before you saw their show at Parapet Real Humans?
JH: I was not familiar with Katya’s work. But I had seen Josh’s work around online. He's just so prolific, and there are so many combinations and permutations of shows that could just come from 10 of his paintings and drawings. I’ve really appreciated that about him and his practice, and it seems that others have and do, because I’ve continued to see shows of his everywhere. I was very excited to see the work in person.
AG: That was such an excellent show that he and Katya put together. It was a project very specific to St. Louis and specific to artist-run spaces. It is kind of perfect how we all found each other, and how everything has fallen into place so naturally.
JH: It’s so clarifying to realize how friend-to-friend artist-run spaces can be. Especially since I was primarily interested in showing non-local artists I didn’t know, I really wondered in those early days, “How am I going to put all of these shows together?” I just didn't know. But then you quickly realize that one show leads to the next because this person will know that person, and if they know you well enough, then they'll know that your sentiments will line up and connect you. These projects become very personal. It's a very friend-to-friend, peer-to-peer, word-of-mouth operation, in a way that makes it rather easy to pull things off with sincerity.
AG: That's true. I think that sincerity comes from a place full of respect and trust and doing projects we all care about. This kind of work is especially important for artists – because sometimes we might have to engage in or with work or people that doesn’t or don’t have the same motives. But back to friendship: yes, Blue Hyperlink did come out of a conversation between friends. I was in Santa Fe, working on a show with Katya at Josh and Keith’s gallery, Gene & Fred, and Josh was telling me what he and Keith were doing with Truckload of Art, and it just became obvious – St. Louis had to host a stop.
JH: And then Keith, on behalf of Gene’s Dispensary, asked you about this gallery in St. Louis called Rumpus Room. And again, with the small-world nature of artist-run spaces, Keith was an MFA student of one of the artists that I had shown and is good friends with three others. How funny that this person I had never even met knew about what I was doing, largely through the Contemporary Art Library and the internet and the friendships that he had? All four of us were put in contact, and it’s been fairly easy to pull this off, despite the fact that I had recently lost my gallery space. We’ve had to make some adjustments and mount the show in my old studio, but it’s all come together so nicely.
AG: Wow, yes…all so true, and so many connections
JH: This may be a good time to talk about the title for the show: Blue Hyperlink is the clickable button that you press on a website that will take you somewhere else – blue in color because it is unclicked. I think you can look at all of these shows that have happened at Parapet, Rumpus Room, Gene’s, and Freddy as hyperlinks to other artists, to other spaces, and to other times. It’s really never been easier to access all of the whatever and whenever, and this show is testament to that.
AG: So true, and that potential in the unclicked, and that which is still left to get to know…maybe it’s also like a truck you pass on the highway…driving across the country, full of artworks – still “unclicked” – and you need to “click” one to get you to the other thing.
*Edited by Keith J. Varadi
