This article is a part of Hyperallergic’s 2024 Pride Month sequence, that includes interviews with art-world queer and trans elders all through June.
On a scorching midnight in June greater than 20 years in the past, Linda Mussmann and Claudia Bruce tied the knot in a venue mobbed with visitors — considered one of the first same-sex marriages in New York State. But Mussmann’s radical nature didn’t begin, or finish, there. In the 1970s, She staged performances in New York City attended by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. She based the artwork, movie, and efficiency house Time & Space Limited (TSL), which she introduced to Hudson in Upstate New York in the 1990s. There, she ran for mayor, and at the moment sits on the Columbia County Board of Supervisors.
Mussman spoke to Hyperallergic over the cellphone about the artwork world’s reception to queer artists, her skeptical view of Pride Month’s celebratory nature, and the work and life she’s created at the side of Bruce, whom she calls her “life partner, muse, and center of all [her] work.”
Hyperallergic: Has the artwork world felt open to you?
Linda Mussmann: No. As a working-class individual in the artwork world who was raised on a farm in the Midwest, I’ve positively all the time been an outsider.
As far as being queer, there was actually lots of coded data again then. It wasn’t an “out” time. There was not lots of freedom by way of talking out or being who you actually had been, as a result of there have been sure stuff you had to hold to your self and in the closet.
I labored in a non-narrative kind that’s not straightforward to clarify. Feminists didn’t get it; straight individuals didn’t get it; queer individuals usually 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 feel that was a bonus.
In 1990, the National 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 not to signal on to obtain any extra NEA cash. That put us in the place of, “I don’t trust what the state’s ever going to do for me.”
Then how may I carry on creating and being alive? That marked our radical departure from the artwork scene and the artwork world of New York City. We determined to go elsewhere and discover a house — discover a house in order that we had some safety. Then we may generate vitality from a constant base.
That was life-changing and world-changing. It actually modified the trajectory of my profession in New York City, but it surely additionally allowed us to launch TSL in Hudson.
H: Can you inform me extra about your choice to go away the metropolis and transfer upstate to Hudson? Were there different elements, and did you discover what you had been searching for there?
LM: When our era arrived in New York City, it was way more about, “Hey, we have something to say.” We used no matter we may discover: We’d scrape issues collectively out of dumpsters and use them in all types of modern methods to make our work.
When we left New York, nevertheless, there have been lots of belief fund infants coming into the metropolis. There was way more vitality devoted to individuals who had much more wealth than we may have ever imagined. It grew to become a a lot completely different form of scene. More “civilized.” The enjoyable appeared over.
In 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 try to place ourselves in a community that would really be eager to have some cultural action.”
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 need to be right here.
And we’re a part of the cause Hudson grew to become what it’s right now. It’s the identical story, again and again. We knew that story and we tried to keep away from that story — arts used to create enterprise. We had been completely in opposition to getting used to increase actual property costs or generate enterprise for Main Street. As individuals who have some inventive capability, our use is in saying one thing exterior the field.
H: Even as the city has modified, how have you ever cultivated neighborhood?
LM: We got here right here in 1991. We had been out, queer ladies, and after we purchased a big constructing on Columbia Street, individuals mentioned issues like, “Those lesbians or those dykes from New York bought this.” We had a label, whether or not it was mentioned to us immediately or not.
We had been labeled — and we wished to be, we wished 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 amongst the first in the state. We invited everyone. It was midnight of June 24, 2011. It was scorching. It was packed, mobbed with individuals. Everybody was there — homosexual individuals, straight individuals, bisexual individuals, politicians, et cetera. They all got here to rejoice our marriage.
I ran for mayor and bought concerned with politics as a lesbian and as an out individual. I wasn’t operating on a homosexual marketing campaign. It was simply Linda Mussmann operating for mayor, however the dialog was actually about who I used to be in my private life.
It grew to become essential to this neighborhood to have Claudia and Linda get up as homosexual ladies, fearlessly declaring that that they had the identical rights as everyone else. I’m nonetheless in a political place: I’m an elected supervisor of the County of Columbia. Of 23 supervisors, I’m the solely queer one.
When you’re standing there as an exception to what some really feel about queer individuals, it turns into a bit of simpler for others. Then you discover out that considered one of the sheriff’s kids needs to undergo a gender transition, and unexpectedly LGBTQ+ persons are throughout you. It’s been a political, private, and creative journey.
H: How, if in any respect, does your gender id 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 each day since, working collectively round the clock on our performances, theater work, and establishing TSL. My position is director and author and hers is performer and singer.
She is all the time what I’m personally enthusiastic about. And Claudia is the individual translating what I’m pondering by way of her voice, motion, and interpretation. It’s a wedding of two people who find themselves deeply dedicated to each other and in love, performing in a theatrical method.
Her capability to translate the work over this lengthy time frame is nearly completely intuitional: I don’t have to clarify something. It’s virtually like the roles change and she or he takes over and turns into the grand interpreter of the materials.
H: Who had been your mentors, and are there any queer artists which are essential 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 checklist goes on….
John Cage and Merce Cunningham — they had been life-changing. They got here to see our work. And they inspired us to not fear about who was coming: Just 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 searching for performs, and there weren’t any that match, so I began to look to the novel, and I began to use their work in the theater. They lived a very long time in the past, however I look to the previous to be told about the time I’m dwelling in.
I do actually look to Gertrude Stein. People would possibly discover Stein too radical or not perceive her, however no person dismisses her as a critical artist.
On the different hand, I’ve written tons of issues that haven’t been printed 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 initiatives you’ve labored on which are entrance of thoughts lately?
LM: The TSL archive mission is heavy on my thoughts. I’m making an attempt to set up a few of the previous work and introduce it to an viewers that missed it and work out a method to share it.
A number 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 would really like to have extra alternatives to share a few of the concepts I’ve created for the theater, and I’m making an attempt to work out how to do this. It’s difficult. It’s all one huge wall ball of wax.
H: What are you excited to work on subsequent?
LM: I’m engaged on some new initiatives for my very own theater, and I’m partaking much more younger individuals in 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 work out how one can carve sufficient time and house. It’s all the time about time, house, and a bit of bit of cash to determine all of it out.
If I may have X period of time and hours, the subsequent mission 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 lots of time to do anymore. It takes time. I do lots of writing. I do lots of erasing and throwing issues away. I carry issues to the desk. I would really like to have the alternative to design and create a few of these items with a bit of extra freedom.
I feel on this time, this financial system, on this world we dwell in, we’re so quick on time and a focus spans that we’re shedding the alternative and skill to be inventive.
H: What does Pride Month imply to you?
LM: Hudson by no means used to rejoice Pride Month — I bought individuals inquisitive about doing that. I assumed the city had uncared for the homosexual individuals on this neighborhood, so I introduced it up to the County Board of Supervisors, and now they do a delight parade yearly.
But for me, it’s not political sufficient. Women are shedding the proper to abortion in sure states. It’s a key time to be reminding individuals of the indisputable fact that queers could lose lots of the freedoms we gained, and that we’ve got lots of work to do to maintain the line on our accomplishments to date. It’s a extremely tough time to be too joyful.
We want to get again to the grassroots; we can not turn into complacent and lift our households and neglect about the world of politics. I don’t suppose it’s time for the get together — the parade is over.
