Previous Statements
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4/2010
Environmental Art involves the creation or manipulation of a large or enclosed space, which effectively surrounds its audience. -Richard SerraEnvironmental Art involves the creation or manipulation of a large or enclosed space, which effectively surrounds its audience. -Richard SerraEnvironmental Art relates to a viewer’s body by occupying the viewer’s sphere. The artist manipulates this interaction in order to appeal, horrify, or confuse the viewer by intruding on personal space to varying degrees and with varying force.I attempt to vitalize cardboard boxes so that they appear as some sort of biological organism spreading across the gallery space. I try to find a balance between the quick, dynamic swoop of the “arms” and the viral creeping of the “feet” and joints. I constructed a system while trying to avoid overly dictated (but still present) paths, framed moments, and “scenic overlooks.” Through the play between micro (boxes) and macro (entity/environment), I hope to juxtapose the human scale and something much bigger.As with most of my work, this piece began miles from where it is today. When I first began, it resembled a frankenstein of two other large-scale cardboard projects, but through placing and editing, I have arrived at something altogether its own. I set two grommets into every box of each “arm,” and joined “feet” with screws. Using grommets to string boxes on wires allows the “arms” a lot of mobility, and just as an entire spider web vibrates when one strand is plucked, much of this integrated network moves when a viewer pushes a box or hits his or her head. Grommeting each box forced me to slow down. This process of “value-adding” to the boxes became important to me: each individual box cost me on average a minute. Adding something to a product born of the same process became an inside joke.I love the skewed geometry boxes so freely create. Each piece is simultaneously a frame, a container, and a brick. Boxes carry merchandise, stock store shelves, and deliver gifts. The thrill of opening a box is universal, but when one considers the contents’ origins or distributor (e.g. Cargill, Con-Agra, and Tyson), the mass-produced quality of the enclosed object(s) is elucidated.Cardboard fascinates me. Each box, its sole purpose to carry something else, has travelled so far to be here. I am interested in this transport history and on the universal form of the boxes. When I first began this piece, I wanted to use found wood and other wood-born objects in juxtaposition with the cardboard. To me, the connection is liner: wood becomes lumber, cardboard, paper, ash, and soil. However, I’m happy to have stuck with one material, and perhaps these other materials will surface in a future project.I would like to thank the following local businesses for helping me with this project:Carol and all the helpful associates at Tiberio’s IGA, Red HookMichael at Red Hook Natural Foods Storeand the staff at Williams Lumber in Rhinebeck.Without their donations, this project would have been impossible.
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3/2010
Environmental Art involves the creation or manipulation of a large or enclosed space, which effectively surrounds its audience.
-© Richard Serra / ARS (New-York) / SODRAC (Montreal)
More so than installation art, I see environmental art as having to do with the viewer’s body. Such work may relate to the feet or the hands, or the knees, forehead, or belly. Instead of a collection of objects, each placed, hung and arranged with intention, Environmental art dictates space: where the piece may wander to, where a viewer is able to stand, and where I must reach from when finishing the construction.
My work is not concerned with minute details, splitting hairs or careful planning. I like to work, and to work quickly. Collapses, though at first disastrous, allow opportunities I may have been too timid to find myself, and lessons I may have learned too late. Such chaos is at the heart of my work, and drives motion I attempt to illustrate, in strings, stacks, and layers of salvaged cardboard boxes.
Though the first cardboard pieces I fabricated were held together with wood screws, I have begun setting grommets in every box and stringing them on cable or wire. This process, which is much more labor-intensive than drilling screws into balanced stacks, fools me into slowing down. Stringing the boxes also produces much sturdier structures than screwing them together, and keeps my structures honest.
Why cardboard? It is an unbelievable material. It is free, malleable, and can be made quite strong. Additionally, I love the skewed geometry boxes so freely create. Each piece is simultaneously a frame, container and brick. Merchandise is shipped in boxes, but so are gifts and on-line purchases. The thrill of opening a box is universal, but when one reads some of the print (Cargil, Con-Agra, Tyson, Nabisco), the reality is sobering.
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2/2010:
Environmental Art involves the creation or manipulation of a large or enclosed space, which effectively surrounds its audience.
-© Richard Serra / ARS (New-York) / SODRAC (Montreal)
The Term “Environmental Art” has been hijacked by artists interested more in sustainable living than creating environments. Environmental Art, from the ’60s on, has consisted of art which combines, and in combining transcends, architecture, sculpture, light, sound, found objects and landscape. This work is meant to be walked through and perceived by more than just sight. While “Installation Art” refers to much the same thing today, I feel “Environmental Art” implies more than some collection of objects curated and installed by an artist. Environmental Art suggests an entire body, meant to be entered, explored and enjoyed.
I am an environmental artist. I strive to pull viewers from standard gallery practice when they interact with my work – forcing them to their knees, upon the tips of their toes and within inches of work they are hesitant, but not unwilling, to touch. I want this audience to lose themselves in the environments I create. My work is not about values or messages, but about experience and sensation. Hikes and backpacking trips allow me to experience natural formations and phenomena without the everyday context of monotony; it is this feeling, this image and this transient state that I wish to show to, translate for, or enjoy with, my audience.