Words Kate Orne Photographs Matt Jones

Originally published in No 11

It’s a hot summer afternoon, as I step out of the car, Artist Dan Colen waves from a distance, we look at each other and nod in mutual agreement that it is time to put on our masks. It is June, a few months into the Covid-19 pandemic, so it’s been a while since I’ve gone for a studio visit and this one will be of a very different kind. We are going for a walk across his farm.   

Colen has always been drawn to experience and exploration both in life and through his art practice. He came out of the skateboard and graffiti culture in early aughts New York City, along with a close-knit group of friends and collaborators like Dash Snow, Ryan McGinley, Terrence Koh and Nate Lowman, among others, artists known for their talent and their antics. Perhaps his most well-known collaboration was with Snow. Nest (2007) was an installation at Deitch Projects that recreated their infamous “hamster nests,” where they got hotel rooms, tore up phone books, “and did drugs until they felt like hamsters.” Colen and Snow never thought of Nest as art. “It was really about a spontaneous intimate experience,” he says now, “about spending time with friends.” 

Colen spent his teenage years close to Washington Heights, a neighborhood that had much less access to things he took for granted, like fresh food. This lack, and its proximity, left an impression. “The lesson is, if you step five blocks away, you're going to walk by somebody who doesn't have enough food. Unless of course you live in a more insulated and protected area.” 

As the years passed and Colen became successful and established as an artist, he lost touch with communities that were important to him. The art world — “which is not a community, but an industry,” he clarifies — seemed to have gotten smaller, and yet less intimate. At the end of 2010, when he was newly sober and financially secure, he purchased forty acres of land two hours north of New York City. “I went from making no money to, all at once, making a little more than enough. I was looking, I was searching for a natural experience, an immersion in nature and a kind of disconnect from the city and from the industry. That's what I had in my head. But when I got here, I very quickly had the opposite experience where I felt like the place that I had come to was wasteful, abandoned and forgotten. Since my instinct as an artist is to participate and experience, I asked myself in which way could I be of service and not let these fields go to waste.” It was suggested to Colen that he grow food and give it all away.

“I think there's a lot of myths about food insecurity being an urban thing. There's so much of it up here. It’s right next to you, no matter where you are. When you have been up here for a while you start to realize there's just as many underserved communities here. There are all of these forgotten people that aren't even on the map. 

It became clear to Colen that the people he would like to create art for don’t really need art — they need food and shelter. With the onslaught of Covid-19 and staggering unemployment rates, the true magnitude of food insecurity has been exposed not only amongst the poor who live in “food deserts,” where fresh produce is not available, but also among the white middleclass in cities and rural areas. “I think a lot of people who come from the city are completely unaware of the poverty level up here,” Colen says. 

Cows moo in the soft summer breeze and the hand-fed baby goat, Oliver, hearing the sound of our voices, calls out for Colen while a litter of piglets escape through the sty fence but quickly find the big world scary and hurry back to the safety of their mother. We pass fields planted with carrots, cauliflower, beets, string beans and more, which will end up in food banks. Sky High Farm, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, has donated close to 43.5 tons of fresh, organic fruit and veggies, as well as 25 tons of pasture-raised protein. 

As we walk, Colen talks about his passion for sharing the farm experience with kids from the local juvenile detention center and collaborating with the Bard Prison Initiative for the farm’s internship program. It’s been 10 years now, and his new community is taking root. “The initial inspiration for all this had nothing to do with farming or feeding, it had to do with social justice and learning that there's these places that don't have access to what I take for granted, what I think is just a basic right.”

Colen mentions FOOD, a restaurant on the corner of Prince and Wooster streets in SoHo, founded and operated by artists Gordon Matta-Clark, Tina Girouard and Carol Goodden, in the ‘70s. They viewed their project as both a business and an artistic ‘intervention,’ a place that encouraged community, and blended creative practice with entrepreneurship, at a time when SoHo was a no man’s land. Artists like Donald Judd, Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage created meals at FOOD, and it was one of the first restaurants in NYC to serve vegetarian meals.

Colen, too, sees the farm as part of his creative process. “When I started, I knew nothing about farming and nothing about feeding people. I mean, literally zero. This exploration of the unfamiliar reflects his art practice. “I don’t call myself a farmer or activist. Those things are part of my life, they're a big part of my life, but Sam Rose, my farm manager, is the farmer and he and my friend Josh Bardfield created many of the farm’s relationships with the food banks and the public health industry.” But Colen is involved because a project like this demands a huge commitment. Sky High Farms isn’t a piece of art you’ll see hanging on a wall, a commodity bought and sold, but it is one that people depend on: a concrete creative action. 

Get amazing merch! 100% of profits go toward Sky High Farms to further support their mission to address food insecurities in underserved communities.

Learn more at Skyhighfarm.org & @skyhighfarmhudsonvalley

Dan Colen is represented by Gagosian Gallery.

Kate Orne is the founder of Upstate Diary @upstate_diary 

Matt Jones @theonlymattjones is a regular contributor to UD. He is represented by wschupfer.com