Artist Statement / bio
Clement
Greenberg identified modernism in art as a self-critical
tendency. A practice is 'self-critical', in this sense, if its goal is understanding
and refining the conventions constitutive of activities that define it.
Greenberg argued that the conventions indicative of a type of activity are
determined by its medium. Much has been written in the intervening years
concerning socio-cultural influences on aesthetic practices. But one might
argue that, although socio-cultural forces define activities constitutive of
art, e.g. the goals, intentions, and conceptual framework of art at a time, the
medium of its instantiation constrains, and so determines, the methodology of
its practice. A carpenter works with wood. A fabricator works with aluminum,
steel, brass, and etc. The conventions of their practice are in large part
determined by constraints set by their material medium.
Art
is no longer bound to static mediums, nor for that matter static categories
like painting, sculpture, or performance. In the contemporary context the
medium of any artwork transcends the medium of its particular instantiation. In
this regard all art becomes conceptual. The formal considerations guiding the
construction of a work are, as a result, no longer constrained solely by a
physical medium. Nonetheless, Greenberg's model still stands. Once the medium
becomes, at least in part, conceptual, the practice of art adopts the
conventions and constraints of the particular conceptual framework within which
each particular work is placed. For instance, if one undertakes to construct a
Minimalist work, whether genuinely or as critical commentary, the deliberate
choices made in constructing the work are shaped by conceptual conventions that
serve as constraints on its construction. These constraints function as
touchstones which ground the content of the work and communicate its meaning.
The
conceptual framework within which I work is loosely formalist, drawn from the
Futurists' concern for dynamics, the lightness of Calder's mobiles, the machine
aesthetic of Modernism - economy of function as a design principle - and the
organic forms and minimalist structure of Eccentric Abstraction. But, while
rooted in the vernacular of 20th Century formalism and abstraction, the
constructions at the same time convey a sense of play, a whimsy which is itself
a critical commentary on the putative weight and gravity of formalist concerns.
My
early work was roughly figurative. The goal was to abstract from the gesture of
traditional poses in order to capture the dynamics of the human form. But I
found the work heavy, leaden, too rooted to the earth. I began to open up the
forms in an attempt to sculpt the gesture alone. This led me to conceptualize
the open forms themselves as vectors of
motion. I was now able to abandon the figurative vocabulary, no longer
needing it as a touchstone for the dynamics of the work.
My
current work is a self-critical examination of dynamics and form. The starting
point is a vector of motion conceived as a gesture. Many of the works are
cantilevered mobiles constructed of delicate lines that connect sculptural
elements. These vectors flex under the work's own mass, like space curving in
reaction to gravitational force. The cantilever severs the connection of mass
to earth, producing lightness. Lightness and mass together generate dynamics.
I
use the phrase "dynamics as self-sufficient narrative" to define the
"organic content" of a work. This term is intended schematically and
abstractly. 'Organic' refers to the form, or life of the work as a
self-sufficient entity (i.e. not to its visual design alone). In this regard,
Eccentric Abstraction functions as my precursor. Eccentric Abstraction differs
from cold, machined aesthetic of Minimalism. The forms are not presented for
their structural properties (symmetry, proportion, etc.). Rather their
structural properties generate a narrative which is suggested by the finished
work itself. I use the word narrative non-literally here, in opposition to
"imagistic" or "representational." It refers to the being
of the work. In this sesne an artwork is not about something. It is not a mere
symbol of something else. It is itself. Its narrative is its own identity.
My
work in progress extends the exploration of lightness, mass, and dynamics in a
series of more abstract exercises. The works are suspended from the ceiling,
hang on the wall, or lie discarded on the floor. The narrative is the object's
readiness-to-hand as a tool. By a tool I do not mean an implement to be picked
up and used. Rather I mean an object whose dynamics are transparent. We can see
how it would be used, or what its activity would be if we were to set the forms
in motion. In this sense, my works do not have punctate narratives. They are
not puzzles to be figured out. Rather each piece is a formal algorithm whose
dynamics are open-ended expressions of the activity explicit in their
construction. The works generate a narrative from their readiness-to-hand as
tools, not as implements tied to a task, but as objects whose dynamics are
transparent and open-ended, as gestural vectors whose content springs forth as
a functional relation to a viewer acting as their interlocutor.
Bill Seeley
wseeley at bates dot edu