Amazing artist!
Statement: Issues of place, transformation, escape, collapse and nomadic existence have been predominant in my recent work. The materials employed are specific to the sculptural situation, but tend to come out of both societies and my own debris. I rarely use the materials in their original form but rather prefer to transform them into semi-functional building blocks that depend on the historical and symbolic reference inherent in the material. Wood from specific trees cut down on or around construction sites, boat parts from ship graveyards, inner tubes and tires, collected newspapers, plastic water bottles, steel barrels, and old chairs, are some of the materials that have been incorporated into my work. These materials are altered to form architectural spaces, rustic carts, cranes, canals, etc. that potentially could have a use and/or movement but instead are refused the possibility of that utility (in an economically productive sense) in favor of an allegorical narrative within a personal and shared cultural vocabulary.
In September of 2003 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, English-speaking U.S. artists Deidre Hoguet and Peter Walsh created a series of street actions that focused on the relationship between languages and power. The project featured 13 separate performances, with each artist interacting directly with hundreds of people, a gallery exhibition at P74, artist lectures and two public discussions (one at the 16 Beaver Group in Manhattan and a second in Ljubljana). The English word “tongue” and the Slovenian word “jezik” can both – with slightly different connotations – mean either language or the actual tongue in your mouth.
With the collective help of the citizens of Ljubljana, Peter Walsh attempted the impossible: learning to speak and write Slovene in just three weeks (photo gallery).
(Picture: A private performance in the woods of upstate NY.) Drawing material from various realms of the visual—pop-culture, ritual, street-spectacle—I use art as a laboratory to catalogue and critique our socio-visual landscape. Combining performance, sculpture, painting, and video, my installations investigate and playfully re-imagine the representational systems that hierarchically shape our lives. My art is an experimental ground where I create alternative bodies, environments, and consciousnesses.
spurse is an open-ended group of individuals and organizations that work together as a type of experimental consultation service towards the development of new forms of engagement, practices and knowledges.
We believe that there is a necessity today of working collectively to rethink all of the givens of our modes of being in the world so to develop new forms of practices and knowledges. We are creatures who are not alone — and we, as creatures, are a type of collective — a complex entanglement of many other creatures (bacteria, fungi, protocistae etc.), systems, habits, matters of concern and forces at varying scales. This world, is a world that we are not simply “in” but we are, rather, an intra-actively co-emerging part of this dynamic world. It is a world of irreducible messiness, complexity and open-ended multiplicity.
While in Richmond I got to speak with an amazing artist and professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, Hope Ginsburg. In a beautiful home in downtown Richmond, Hope invited me for coffee in her studio/living space. Her home was absolutely beautiful, reminiscent of a house you’d see in the glossy pages of Southern Home Magazine or something to that tune. Filled with hospitality and a brilliant sense of energy we finally got down to business after a good cup of coffee and some pita with marmalade – discussing among many things, the role of art in building community and bringing together disciplines.
An amazing focal point became one of Ms. Ginsburg’s ongoing projects titled Sponge. From Hope’s website, a brief description:
Sponge is an experience in total immersion. During each of the four “absorb-a-thon” days one theme will be investigated in depth. The workshop will string together reef ecology, Mongolian craft, art & industry, and the notion of utopia. You will see four films (maybe 5), go on two field trips (one to an aquarium and one to a museum), make a pair of wool- felt shoes, and read at least one manifesto. In keeping with the model of sponge reproduction, you will leave the workshop prepared to lead a Sponge of your own.
What I loved most about our conversation was a discussion about the intersection of experience, pedagogy and aesthetics – something we both agree has not been given enough attention. Ms. Ginsburg’s work represents a voice in that vein however, providing for participants and observers alike – a platform for engaging college students, citizens and communities in collaborative, interdisciplinary and investigative practices that ensure artistic context is well represented outside the space of the museum and gallery setting. Please check out Hope’s collection of projects! I am putting together a loose transcript of our conversation so we can all indulge in some amazing strings of communicae that occurred. (Photo by Terry Brown)
Amazing artist!
In September of 2003 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, English-speaking U.S. artists Deidre Hoguet and Peter Walsh created a series of street actions that focused on the relationship between languages and power. The project featured 13 separate performances, with each artist interacting directly with hundreds of people, a gallery exhibition at P74, artist lectures and two public discussions (one at the 16 Beaver Group in Manhattan and a second in Ljubljana). The English word “tongue” and the Slovenian word “jezik” can both – with slightly different connotations – mean either language or the actual tongue in your mouth.
