50 Over 50: Long Term Relationships Are Precious - Nancy Popp's Under°veloped
- Kristine Schomaker
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
At 54, Nancy Popp is visioning for their long-term project 'under°veloped'. They're thinking more deeply about long term histories, legacies and larger structural fundamentals.
If their work didn't change it wouldn't be authentic to the changes in their self and life. They don't see much change after turning 50 to what they were doing in their late 40s, but there is a difference to what they were doing in their 30s physically.
What's actually hard about being an artist at this point? Time seems to be compressing. It actually feels like you have less time as you grow older, even though your focus narrows and becomes more directed.
Someone just turned 50 and wants to start making art—what do they tell them? Try to combine the freshness of a new commitment with the depth of a more mature view. Be very selective, and see as much work as you can.
Do they try to keep up with what matters in the art world? Focus on combining the freshness of a new commitment with the depth of a more mature view. Be very selective and precise about what you do, and see as much work as you can.
What do artists their age bring to the table that younger artists don't? Maturity, a depth of vision. The experience of seeing a lot of work and knowing a lot of people who've been a part of our communities for a long time. Seeing the cycles of the commercial art world run through a few times and knowing that there are many, many art worlds out there.
What are they working on next? Grant/project applications and production/research for their long-term project 'under°veloped'.
What keeps them going when everything feels impossible? Knowing that the world cycles through horrible and difficult times, and then comes out with new lessons learned on the other side. Nothing stays the same, and everyone has their moment.
What do they wish they'd known when they were younger? It matters less what people think about what you're doing. It's more important how committed you are to what you're doing. Actually, they knew this when they were younger too, but it's amazing how much deeper it has sunk in. Also, that the people you meet, value and work with early on will grow and develop themselves to become amazing beings and cultural producers. Long term relationships are so precious.
With hard work and grace, the longer you make your work the better you get. Everyone gets old but not everyone ripens and matures.
Nancy Popp is a fourth-generation Los Angeles-based artist, educator, and community activist. Their work grounds within performance art, pedagogy, and political organizing. Incorporating time-based media, photography, drawing and installation around a core of body-centered performance, their practice is rooted in traditions of durational, corporeal action and intervention.
Using their own body in performance stems from an exploration of body as material—a shared, shifting site of multiple personal and political identities whose sustaining presence reaches beyond gender or politics. In critiquing and questioning the regulation of social space, Popp challenges hierarchies of access and agency. These risky, playful, endurance-based interventions wrestle with architectural, personal and public space, their political and social boundaries of geography and identity. Collaboration and grassroots education are intrinsic parts of their creative and political process.
They have created independent, institutional and community-based projects in Buenos Aires, Belgrade, Rio de Janeiro, Düsseldorf, Tijuana, Bangalore, Naples, Zagreb, Delhi and London, and performed at MOCA Los Angeles, the Getty Center, the 2011 Istanbul Biennial, the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, the 2014 Dallas Biennial, and the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. Residencies and fellowships include the California Community Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship, the Lucas Artist Fellowship at Montalvo Arts Center, the Despina/Largo das Artes Residency, and the Fulbright Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award for Teaching/Research in India. They write for various publications on art, education, and politics and hold degrees from Art Center College of Design and the San Francisco Art Institute.
At 54, time is compressing. They're thinking more deeply about long term histories, legacies and larger structural fundamentals. They're working on 'under°veloped'. They know that the world cycles through horrible and difficult times, and then comes out with new lessons learned on the other side.
The people you meet, value and work with early on will grow and develop themselves to become amazing beings and cultural producers. Long term relationships are so precious.
With hard work and grace, the longer you make your work the better you get. Everyone gets old but not everyone ripens and matures.
Connect with Nancy: Website: nancypopp.com Instagram: @na_popp
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