Amy Sillman’s New York studio is a place of action—all kinds. “I’m a big studio rat; I go all the time and I stay for a long time,” says the 69-year-old artist, who moved to the city in 1975. The action in question begins with the usual “normcore” stuff—caffeinating, tidying, reading emails—and escalates to a creative fever pitch that involves “cutting, collaging, transferring, hauling things back and forth, turning things up and down, painting over, erasing, stripping, napping, talking on the phone, reading, getting more emails, walking my dog, [and] making more coffee.” It’s an entire life’s worth of tasks crammed into the confines of a day.
At the time of our interview, Sillman isn’t in her studio—she’s out at her place on Long Island’s North Fork, not far from where she’ll open “Alternate Side (Permutations #1–32),” a show of new works at Dia Bridgehampton, on June 28. She’s in the middle of a lengthy back-and forth with her handyman, who is there to paint the halls.