Interview: Lala Drona

Between projects and after calamity, Lala agrees to an interview with Kathy Walder, journalist from the LD Times.

K:  So Lala, how is Paris treating you?

LD:  There’s good people, bad people.  Just like everywhere, really.

K:  Any specific exhibitions going on right now in Paris that you’d like to comment on?

LD:  Sometimes I feel like the entire contemporary art scene is a total mess, but I’m sure that’s what many contemporaries thought of their time.  Besides that, I’m looking forward to going to an exhibition at the Maison Rouge that is displaying only artists “under the influence.”  I think it sounds pretty tubular.  The Dinosaur exhibition at the History Museum—not good.  It was three floors of stuffed exotic animals and I couldn’t actually tell if the animals were taxidermies or not.  I was in some bizarre zoo graveyard, looking at specimens.  Your kids might cry.  Don’t go.

K:  What about the “setbacks” you’ve recently been experiencing?

LD:   Oh you mean breaking my face…or being an art school reject?  Or maybe that I’m in the middle of a cultural mecca where it seems like the only option for studying art is if it’s applied.  Design.  It’s fine and all, it’s just my objective is a bit different from the applied arts.  I already have a job, a way to eat.  That’s not what I’m searching for.

K:   And are you okay after the accident?  I mean, everything looks good.

LD:  (laughs) Yeah, I’m fantastic.  I mean, the way I see it, every artist has an ego.  Maybe mine needed to be kicked down a notch (mumbles) my art school rejection letter helped with that.  Through this whole experience, I’ve realized that I find freedom in the loss of vanity.  Accidents are blessings.  I felt like I was finally wearing who I am, on my face, for the very first time.

K:   And what now?  No art school, and you’ve missed deadlines for admissions, not to mention your visa is running out.  Any plans to accept defeat and move on to another country?

LD: This place doesn’t want me, fine. I like a challenge.  I’m staying until I’m done here.

Based on a fact by Kathy Walder, LD Times