site specific and my very specific understanding of installation

I have a personal belief, backed up by things I have experienced, corroborated by work I have consumed, and confirmed by articles and books i read. This belief is that for an "installation" or work of site-art to be successful and fulfilling for the viewer it must be impossible for the work to exist anywhere else. That is not to say that work that is fabricated and exhibited for a specific location and then reassembled or reconfigured for another site isn't successful. I think of roxy paine's stainless steel trees as one example. While the trees themselves present as discreet sculptures, a tremendous amount of onsite fabrication and work goes into the realization of each piece. In a similar fashion Richard serra's current body of sculpture often times has to be placed on a site and a building is then built around the work. Unlike his first couple of stabs at site-specific work that seemed to be the same piece no matter where they were placed, despite his beliefs to the contrary. In an August article in the ny times, roberta smith talked about some new developments in public art and artists attitudes towards it. I bring all this up because i am trying to finish and articulate in my mind and in writing a proposal for two inter related temporary site specific works I would like to undertake in the spring. The indoor piece I believe will be easy to propose since I have a handful of successfully executed and removed temporary works, it is the outdoor proposal I am struggling with. For better or for worse I am really enamored with the idea of, whenever it is feasible, creating and showing new works when i exhibit. A practical solution to this desire has been to create work on site that is literally woven into the architecture of the space. This insures that the scale and relationship of the piece always seems appropriate to the space they are in. Since I create the work in place I am seeing the piece for the first time along with the audience. This guarantees that they experience the work in a similar way to me when i step back from it. Enter the need to propose an outdoor piece. While the area to work in and display the outdoor piece is devoid of architectural features to build off of, picture a large grass pad about 40'x20' completely flat, the overall layout of the park in which the pad exists is quite striking.

This area of the park is so precisely arranged and landscaped as to create a perfectly framed view of the harbor and ocean as seen through a giant pineapple fountain. This whole area of the park, and the city gallery bordering it seems to exist solely to service the view of the ocean as seen through the pineapple fountain. This is where the challenge arises for me. I have no vested interest in disrupting this order,as previous works on this site have, but rather i want to create a temporary work that enhances this view, and responds to the grass pad and pineapple fountain.
these are a couple rough ideas of what I want to create, although if all the material used is gathered from the scrapyard the way I want, the final form and look could vary a bit, but the general idea of having the work frame the view and the park will remain.


My idea is to acquire as much scrap steel as I can and create a series of bifurcating line sculptures, which will be painted white for increased visibility. I hope to build them off of the four corners of the pad in a similar method to some of my bifurcating rust drawings.

When viewed from different angles and levels the piece would appear as a visual mesh over the surrounding area, when viewed from the vantage point of the back porch of the city gallery the piece would frame perfectly the view of the pineapple fountain looking towards the ocean.

i haven't yet turned in my proposal and I am being realistic and running on the assumption that either budget or logistics might inhibit this project, but none the less thinking about it and solidifying my ideas has been a satisfying process. As an added bonus of this project i envision the destruction and crushing of this piece, as with my steel yarn ball in 2006, to also become an integral part of the work.
here i am using some scrap steel i found on the side of the road at a signmakers. I have cut the pieces into relatively uniform sections and am now welding them into the bifurcating line pattern. although not a direct copy, i am a bit indebted to john bruneu's infinitree animation i saw about 4 years ago and am still fascinated with.

although john's draws a line and splits, lately when i draw and make my line i draw in two directions at a time.
below are some shots of the woven coat hanger sculpture. I found these coat hangers awhile ago behind a strip mall in west ashley and they had been kicking around the studio until recently when i decided to "clean up" and i realized that if i organized and wove them together they would work structurally and visually as a sculptural object. I will probably paint them white at some point, as I have really become obsessed with the idea of all white objects(i had resisted this temptation for a bit and was even spray painting metal things different colors. although one of the rules i gave myself at one time was to never alter a material from its original color, i am finding the white to be an interesting rule as well, since in many environments white becomes even more unnatural and discordant with it's surroundings than the original materials or another matching color. )
detail of the coat hanger weaving. it is difficult to see the pattern, but when i am truly finished with this i will set it against a neutral background and photograph it.

once in a lifetime...okay maybe twice in a lifetime so far.

i remember the first time i gave david bryne a serious listen. I was cruising the used cd aisle at manifest, the old one in the honey baked ham shopping center, and i came across the talking heads album naked on disc.

What I loved about manifest back then was that you could look inside the cd case at the liner notes to the albums before you made a purchase, so as usual i flipped through the notes to look at the list of credits and instruments. Being an impatient kid I flipped to the back and saw the instrument listings. There were so many drummers and percussionists listed, mixed in with things like toy pianos and tin whistles that i had to have the album. At the time I was moderately familier with some talking heads cassettes, mostly remain in light, and '77, but this one was unlike either of those. From the opening blasts of mr jones , to nothing but flowers to mommy daddy you and i, this was an eye opening mind bending album. The mixture of world beat percussion would predict a slew of world beat concept albums to follow including paul simon's rythm of the saints, and even to a lesser extent sepultura's roots and other subsequent drum-centric albums. What I did not know at the time is that naked was really david byrne's first solo album, the album he composed and created almost entirely without the other heads. The sounds and ideas on that album have re-occured throughout byrne's solo career. I continue to be moved, inspired and amazed at byrne's ability to meld world rythms, with his artist sensibility. I am a big fan of byrne's artwork as well, especially his photography and artists books, and recently when i was in new york i got to see his bike racks first hand. So that brings me to last night. Last night I had the occasion to see byrne perform for the second time in my life and god willing it wont be the last. The first time i saw byrne perform was in seattle, it was following his glass, concrete and stone album. For that tour, like every tour he does, he created a theme and a staging idea. On that 2004 tour, he had the tosca string section, and his rock band with him. He had all the band decked out in matching luaka bop mechanics outfits, and he strode on stage in striped overalls. The 2004 show was amazing as he had all the keyboard and horn parts of his music transposed to strings.The 2004 show focused on some of his most complex and layered compositions which made the show both technically and musically insane. Well in 2008, like an artist with a 30 plus year career to draw on, Byrne put together a set list and stage arrangement that was something of a mini-retrospective. jettisoned from the setlist are most of his signature songs, replaced with new ones from his most recent record, and peppered in with talking heads favorites from the 70's and 80's. But rather than rely on his name power and reputation alone, Byrne brought his ideas forward. This time the band and byrne, were dressed in all white from head to toe. This striking visual was itself enough, but byrne has added another element to this years tour...modern dance. Along with his four piece band and three back up singers, were three modern dancers, who had choreographed movements for the songs, based partly on byrnes signature hurky jerky dance moves and partly on interpretations of the songs content. The effect is mesmerizing and slightly off putting. It is clear throughout this show that rather than a rockstar phoneing in a perfromance, byrne is an artist doing his best to imagine what a rock concert would be like if he were in charge. Througout the show I found myself continually rediscovering things I like about byrnes music, and although I would love to have heard some more of his sardonic tracks like, nothing but flowers and like humans do, I was content to have dancing dave which was a good counter point to all the doom and gloom in the world. to see a great performance with quality musicians and interesting dancers almost creates enough positive energy to counteract my current condition. I couldn't help but think though, if the dancers were doing the same performance, but to pre-recorded music would the effect be the same? Oh well one things for sure the crowd could not get enough. at one point the applause and cheers were so loud I saw some of the background singers remove their in ear monitors because the audience's din had bled into their monitors. Needless to say the 8 bucks i spent on the used taking heads naked album have more than paid for themselves over the years. like humans do indeed dave.

bridge to nowhere

So here is what would have been the bridge install pieces, back in the studio. notice the new recessed lighting in the portable installation piece. don't mind the water stains on the wall, they are from a flood a while back. anyways the work never actually went to the bridge, but I will happily send it to anyone who wants it, make me a reasonable offer+ $300 for shipping and the portable goldsoworthy of the coffee shop installation can be yours(the framed works are extra, but if you want them too just ask, no reasonable offers refused, a year end closeout of sorts). BUt seriously in the meantime i am going to continue to retro- fit my old crates with portable installations and see where that leads me.




here for bonus is a small series of a triptych of diptychs , of ink and guaoche drawings i have been working on. I am still really obsessed with splitting drawings across two sheets of paper to create the line across the middle of everything.