An Interview with Maya Man

News of Maya Man’s new space HEART reached me piecemeal, at first mostly through Instagram, then through stories from friends who had been there the night before and continued to go with increased frequency. It felt, from afar, like something was going on there every week: Mindy Seu performing a lecture on the sexual history of the internet, Cory Arcangel playing Majerus, Maya Ben David on Super Saiyan Feminism. The programming was clearly resonating with people interested in software art and internet culture in New York; the place was always packed.

I went to HEART for the first time in mid-December, when we held a launch party for the Are.na Annual there. A couple of weeks before that I got on a call with Maya to get the full picture of what she was doing with the project space. I’m a fan of Maya’s work, the way she uses the language, aesthetics, and structures of the internet to examine the ways we form a sense of self online. Maya is a fan of many other artists working in a similar realm, and wanted to provide a place for those artists to coalesce. I think it might be this ethos of networked fandom that has made HEART’s programming feel so fun and thoughtful and inviting.

Maya makes running a space look effortless, but running a space is not like that — it’s more like endlessly completing a thousand small tasks in order to tenuously (and generously) maintain an infrastructure for things to happen inside of. So I wanted to ask her about that, too.

Meg Miller: How long have you had the idea for running a DIY artist space?

Maya Man: It’s all been very serendipitous. I had started to think about it while I was in Los Angeles for grad school, but it got more serious once I moved back to New York. I wanted to start a project that was more curatorial because I spend so much time looking at art online and going down rabbit holes of the artists I love. I wanted to put together screenings or shows or events that brought together artists who are, to me, clearly in conversation. I was frustrated that there weren’t many group shows that I felt were almost obvious given the cohort of artists I was seeing, especially artists who work with the internet or with software. There aren’t very many galleries or institutions putting on shows with artists who are working with that medium, and a lot of the institutional shows that I did see were looking backwards to the history of computer art or net art. That’s understandable, but I also feel excited about what artists are making right now. So I wanted to start a more curatorial project that focuses on showing that work.

I gravitated to the name HEART after writing an essay for my MFA thesis about how the heart as a symbol has a fascinating relationship with the internet and technology. When you think about the emoji set, for example, there are so many different heart icons. We use it as the “like” button on all of these social media platforms. You think about how all of these platforms are being run by a bunch of men in Silicon Valley, but the heart is this very feminine, emotional symbol to me, and it’s something that we engage with all the time on Instagram, TikTok, or wherever. 

Meg: So you started doing this curatorial work after you found the space on Broadway?

Maya: I did one event before I started the space, and that was in Los Angeles at Heavy Manners Library, which is run by my friend Matthew James-Wilson. It was a screening of 12 video and software-based artworks called Girl Crush. I recently hosted an updated version of this screening at HEART in Soho to celebrate Valentine’s Day one year later. Initially, my intention with this project was to do these kinds of ad hoc, pop-up screenings or exhibitions without necessarily being tied to a space, because I didn't have one. After I got this space, I decided to align it with everything I had been thinking about and wishing for before.

Meg: You were describing the cohort or scene that you feel is missing from more institutional spaces. How would you describe your curatorial eye, or the contemporary artists that you're most interested in?

Maya: My curatorial vision is very selfish [laughs]. I’m really excited about what I personally like, which is maybe true for all curators. Right now, I describe HEART as supporting artists who are engaged with the internet, software, and pop culture. That trifecta really describes the type of work that I gravitate toward. There’s a lot of artists, especially young artists in the post-pandemic years, who are making work that comments on contemporary culture in a really exciting, intelligent way. The way that the art world moves is so slow, especially in terms of recognizing art that isn’t easy to categorize and is hyper contemporary.

There are these very clear categories that come about retrospectively: computer art in the ’60s or ’70s, net art in the ’90s, post-internet art in the early 2000s and 2010s. I don’t have a clear word to encapsulate what it is that I’m drawn to, but the artists who have an interest in culture right now are the ones I’m feeling really excited about. 

Meg: I feel like the way you’re describing HEART as a DIY space is also setting up a way of responding to what’s happening in the moment. It’s a little quicker and less precious, it’s not an institution, you don’t need to wait for things to be definable or renowned. It seems like the right kind of space to be a gathering point for a scene that’s still unfolding.

Maya: Definitely. And part of the situation with the space and me using it is that I don’t know how long I have it for. That kind of temporary, precarious nature of the space was a good forcing function for me to not allow my fears to stop me from programming events. I think that’s part of why the programming has felt fast paced, because I don't know how long I can do it for, so I want to exhaust all my desires with it in the time that I do have it. 

Meg: I’m also curious about the role collaboration plays in what you're doing. How are you mostly conceptualizing these exhibitions and event series? Do you come up with them by yourself, or are you reaching out to people you’re interested in working with and coming up with what it is together?

Maya: Historically, I’ve found collaborating in my own arts practice challenging because I’m very controlling with my own work [laughs]. But I’m also always worried about being a “nice girl,” you know? And so sometimes I find collaboration difficult because if I really want something to be a particular way, I can't always communicate that. 

In my own arts practice, and this is true for a lot of artists, I spent a lot of time alone. Being an artist is so self-oriented. It’s all about you and what you’re making. I love being an artist more than anything in the world, but it's also really exhausting to have so much self focus all the time.

Organizing HEART, I’m constantly engaging with other artists and their work. I believe part of being a good artist is being a fan. My hope with the space is that, curatorially, I want everything to be really strong. For me, that means working with artists who I think are the best and are really good at what they do. If I invite someone to do something, I’m familiar with their practice or research, and I have full trust in whatever they want to do. I feel pretty hands off about it. I like to give artists the freedom to present what they might want to present. 

I’m so enthusiastic about all these different categories of people who are working at “the intersection of art and technology” [laughs] especially in New York. There are so many different silos in what I view as the art and technology scene in New York. It’s strange to me that there’s not a lot of cross-pollination between these different groups that I think have a lot of shared interests and would benefit from exchanging with each other. I was hoping the space would bring a bunch of people into blend mode. To meet and create a bit more of a network effect with the culture and what’s happening.

Meg: I’ve noticed that you’re bringing in both artists who have been working for a while and artists who are a bit younger or newer to the scene. It does feel like you’re creating this continuum across slightly different periods, or just giving space for artists interested in the same things to come together. You came strong out the gate with the Sacred Screenshots exhibition — so many heavy-hitters.

Maya: Look, I'm wearing my shirt.

Meg: Oh my god! [laughs] You survived. I’m so glad.

Maya: I Survived the Sacred Screenshots Opening. Oh my god it was so hot in here. Temperature-wise.

I had this idea for a long time and I wanted it to be the first event. I knew I wanted to bring together a lot of different artists. I also wanted the artists to contribute something that was uniform while also being representative of themselves and their practice in some way, but wasn't necessarily their work. So I put together a list of artists whose work I love. I wanted them to be specifically New York-based because I wanted to be thinking about people who could come to the space and who had a kind of presence in the city. Everyone contributed one screenshot from their phone, and they were uncropped and unedited, so they had a similar aspect ratio. The artist Jason Isolini helped me print them on UltraBoard, so they were really, really large, much larger than a phone screen.

The opening was on August 1st. It was right in the thick of the summer heat. I don’t have air conditioning here, so yeah, it was just notoriously so, so hot. In the photos from that night there’s a bunch of people packed into the space, and they all look like they just jumped in the pool. Everyone’s drenched in sweat.

Mindy Seu did a reading, and for every artist in the show, she scrolled back and read their first Instagram post ever. Mackenzie Thomas and Annie Rauwerda, who runs Depths of Wikipedia, both shared some screenshots as well. It set the tone for what I wanted HEART to feel like, and seeing everyone’s enthusiasm for these artists and this way of analyzing and thinking about culture and technology was so exciting to me. It felt like everyone there was a kind of node of a network that I’d only connected in my own head, but hadn’t ever seen in the same room before.

Meg: One thing that keeps standing out to me about your programming and the ethos of HEART is that it feels fun and joyful and there’s just a lack of pretense. It’s also very smart and thoughtful, but there’s a levity and a feeling of accessibility that I also find in the work that you make, and I think that has a lot to do with why people have been drawn to the space. You can also find that in all your communication around the space, like the Instagram and the newsletter…

Maya: When I started the project, I felt there were so many directions I could go in terms of the tone of voice and aesthetic presentation around the space. Eventually, because I needed to start and I couldn’t just sit around and ponder how I wanted it to be forever, I decided that my strategy for communications was that I would tell myself when I post: “No thoughts.” So if I’m like, should I post this? Is this aligned? No thoughts. Just post and trust.

In my own arts practice, I'm very drawn to commercial aesthetics and the aesthetics of popular culture, which I think are also reflected in the way that HEART is presented. I have such a love for casual communication through the internet, which is something that almost feels like a reference to kind of bygone era because, you know, we're living in the time of the LinkedIniffication of Instagram where everything feels very professional in the way that it's presented and people are posting in a much less casual way.

I have this constant tension in my own arts practice of wanting to be validated by respectable art institutions, but at the same time I make work that doesn't always neatly fit into the structures that are set up for artists to succeed in those spaces. At the beginning of HEART, I thought, oh, well, I want people to take it seriously, so maybe I should mimic this kind of white cube visual aesthetic. But I decided that desire was misplaced. So instead I think the way that everything comes out is very instinctual, and there’s definitely a fluidness in the way that I think about the communication around HEART and the way that I think about my own arts practice.

Meg: You move a lot between these two spaces that you’re describing, and I appreciate the way that, if you have a piece up at the Whitney, for example, you just bring that style and aesthetic presentation into that institutional space. It would have been a shame not to just fully embrace that in a space of your own.

Maya: Yeah I want people to feel welcome in this space. Cory Arcangel came and spoke this past fall on his project Let's Play Majerus. You know, Cory has Arcangel Surfware, which is kind of a play on commercial aesthetics. It’s been really nice to look to artists who expand their individual practice through a space or external entity of some kind. Some of my favorites besides Cory’s are Laura Owens with 365 Mission, Jared Madere with Yeche Lange, and David Reinfurt with O-R-G and his basement space on Ludlow. Or even further back, I think about Andy Warhol with The Factory and Tracy Emin and Sarah Lucas with The Shop. My friend Matthew runs Heavy Manners Library in Los Angeles, like I mentioned, and I did their website design a few years ago, so I've kind of seen him start that from the beginning. Seeing spaces like that and what they provide for artists when they’re kind of leaning on a DIY sensibility, I think is really important.

Meg: I wanted to ask you about what you’ve learned so far running a DIY space — infrastructurally, financially, socially. Anything that might be helpful to someone interested in doing the same, now that you have some experience.

Maya: I’ve learned so much [laughs]. You know when you get into your first real relationship ever and afterwards realize you’ve learned so many new things about yourself? You kind of couldn’t have learned it in any other way besides being in a relationship at that time in your life. That’s how I feel about running the space. I tried to anticipate what it would be like or what I would be like within it, but I simply could not know certain details about myself or the experience without doing it. It's been a lot of learning on the fly.

It's very physical. Like, I had to order 75 chairs so I could host events and then, you know, unpack them all. And I’m constantly upkeeping the bathroom or finding someone to work the door. I also worked with friends at PROPS SUPPLY to design and build my dream custom furniture for my studio at the front of the space. There are so many little details that you need to be thinking about. It's a high contrast to me sitting on my computer all day, I'm constantly moving around, running errands, thinking about space and communication. One thing I’ve found really challenging is knowing how to ask people for help. People have been really generous, but I find it hard to figure out how to rely on other people to help out with the space in a way that feels comfortable to me.

I’ve found that the financial model I’m most comfortable with is charging $10-$20 for a ticket to an event. I’m not really interested in being in the business of art dealing. So rather than longer-term gallery shows, I’ve found that one night events where tickets are at an accessible price point work well. That feels exciting to me, because people come to the space and they immediately are spending time actively engaging with and learning about an artist's work. I love looking at art on the internet, but I believe it is important for it to be experienced with others off of the internet too.