Pink and Yellow Foam

This Foam Series has been occupying a lot of my mind and studio time lately. I had been calling the series Rhizomatic Foam, but as a title have decided to bench the term Rhizomatic. A little too obscure to be friendly and I am opting for friendly. I had thought this piece finished but am in new cycle of sending work around and needed to fully resolve some outstanding issues the piece still had before I felt OK about submitting it to a particular show I am interested in.  

So, I pulled the piece out of the box it had been stored in for the past couple of months and first cut a piece of foamboard a few inches smaller than the drawing/sculpture. I have been covering the foam board with patterned fabric that creates an added layer under the structure of the drawing. This layer is actually a kind of pedestal, a way of asserting the piece forward slightly from behind, thrusting it out into space a bit. The fabric is patterned with dots or in this case stripes. The black and white pattern add another dimension of information, texture and zip that I like under the white paper.

The ceramic and paper-clay balls on top further articulates the objectness I am after. Instead of a drawing, the piece has been transformed into an object or a thing through the added layer of balls and the foamboard. A piece of paper, working through the identity of drawing, then painting and finally becoming sculpture brings the whole affair into new territory.

Drawing as sculpture, sculpture as contemplative moment in time and space, playing with notions of human-ness in the form of bubble, foam or balls of ceramic, paper-clay painted and hanging on the piece, engaged with symbols of nature iterate the impression of nature, standing in reserve, set aside yet participating in the totality of the object, drawing as sculpture, beautiful, mysterious, affectionate and entertaining, adding to the general dialogue about being and time. 

Dialectical Revival

This week has been another full week. Since the fall I have been developing a new body of work based on the idea of Rhizomatic Foam. Inspired by the idea of rhizome theory in Deleuze and Guattari's classic, A Thousand Plateaus, the image has fed me with countless lines of possible expression. As a maker, I am driven, almost obsessed with the desire to make. As a contemporary artist, I want to participate in the current dialogue and that is strongly conceptual. But, things evolve and art evolves in an amazing and most complex manner making it a very special place to call home.

Last week I had the privilege to participate in a conversation in Chelsea at the Gasser and Grunert Gallery. Artist Alyce Santoro, whose works are on view there through February 16, held a series of talks, no, actual conversations called a Dialectical Revival. As a matriculating student, bona fide PhD candidate, I have been reading my fair share of Hegel. His ideas still compel us because they are so powerful? Perhaps they really touch on a depth of thought that inclines to higher being.

Anyway, it was an exciting afternoon and inspired my week in the studio. I resolved several issues in the Rhizomatic Foam pieces although I still have a ways to go. I bought a box of 1/2 inch foam core and started cutting it up and covering it with fabric. The drawings can then be affixed to the foam core instead of the wall. Hammering nails into walls was a violent act I used 20 years ago in an early work(s) but today I am much less inclined to advocate the destruction of private property, i.e walls––Gallery walls, museum walls or the walls in a collector's home. I think it changes the pieces dramatically to reflect a friendlier me, a friendlier resolution to the issue of how to hang a semi-sculptural drawing/collage.

On another note, yesterday I got my study ready for the new semester. I need to stay focused for the academic work I am engulfed in or I can get really lost. We are reading Heidegger on technology and Neitzche and Junger on Pain this week. I am also making some headway on this semester's paper which will discuss fluid economies vs. static economies and artists whose work I feel reflect a proclivity toward the former. I'll try and post more about that in coming weeks.

So, my goal for 2013 is post something here weekly. Saying that out loud deepens my challenge so forgive me for engaging in such an obvious ploy, but, I think it will help my thinking all around. I hope you will stay tuned. Thanks for reading. :)

Daniel Weiner

I have been meaning to write about Dan Wiener's work for a while and am finally doing so now. I have know Dan for close to 20 years, having met him at the suggestion of Saul Ostrow, my erstwhile studio spy that often suggested relevant artists for me to meet and talk to. Those suggestions have led to winning friendships and lifelong acquaintances. Dan is one of those happy encounters.

I was drawn to Dan's work in the late 80's because of it's high quirk factor. Always on the lookout for work that resonated with my own, I felt a kinship with Dan's unusual visual language, one seemingly drawn from an Ursula Leguin novel or something. His inventive sense of form and otherworldliness is quite fantastic. I love the way he makes works on paper, then sculpture, not as exact replicas of the paintings, but as sisters and brothers. Friends in a small tight knit community. Dan's work has a playful, humorous quality that invites you into his narrative. I feel transported when I look at one of Dan's watercolors. His sculpture makes me smile and sometimes laugh out loud.

See his current show at Lesley Heller in New York City for one more week.