ARTIST STATEMENT
Generally, my work is not limited by formal, technical, or thematic boundaries. My focus is to articulate through visual and performance art, using these disciplines to express my interests regarding cultural, social, and existential and scientific questions. Exact sciences (mathematics, physics, etc.), politics, philosophy, history, psychology, archeology, etc., all inform and are essential to my work. In gaining as much knowledge as I can, I attempt to translate this learning through the use of my artistic imagination, relating what I know and what I think it means to be a human of conscience on earth – sometimes a beautiful experience; often not.
My work is mostly related to the perpetual human tragedy, and to the pressing, essential questions of social being, human relations, human impact on the planet, and the general problems of our contemporary world. My goal is to artistically discuss these problems, thereby eliciting thought and stimulating some process of consideration in the viewer regarding such subjects that are determining, in varying degrees, all our lives. I am particularly interested in creating real and relative space in which a kind of dialogue can take place with those who may not otherwise have the opportunity to clearly envision, or relate, life’s information, its wisdom and its questions.
Because my work is diverse in content, I tend to use various techniques and materials. My preference, however, is three-dimensional work and sculpting. Actualization of my projects tends to be a long-term process since a single project is typically comprised of several stages.
For example:
• My project The American President, which I have already begun, will be composed out of forty-three bronze sculptures
• In 2000 I completed my project titled: The Phenomenology of Transitoriness, consisting of 365 works, 12 video tapes, 12 sculptures and installations, etc.
Given that the subject is so central to my work, it is quite difficult to define its style, although there are stylistic qualities that are becoming increasingly recognizable, especially if the entire oeuvre is viewed within the context of the times during which it was created.
MANIFESTO OF MY ARTISTIC PRACTICE
I ask for no permission.
I belong to no school.
I belong to no style.
I belong to no market.
Art is not decoration.
Art is not merchandise.
Art is not proof of status.
Art is an act.
I believe in the hand.
I believe in material.
I believe in experience.
An idea without a body is powerless.
A body without an idea is empty.
The craftsman knows how.
The artist asks why.
The shaman knows that the answer is not always rational.
I do not separate art from life.
I do not separate body from spirit.
I do not separate human beings from nature.
Ritual is not the past.
Ritual is concentrated presence.
An object can lose its function and find a new meaning.
Waste can become a sign.
A gesture can become a work of art.
The audience can become a participant.
I reject art that is afraid to get its hands dirty.
I reject art that knows only its own art world.
I reject provocation without consequence, ideas without risk, and form without necessity.
I do not want to produce a style.
I want to produce experience.
Material has memory.
The body has memory.
Space has memory.
The community has memory.
The artist must be capable of touching that memory.
Sometimes through painting.
Sometimes through bronze.
Sometimes through a found object.
Sometimes through fire, earth, sound, or movement.
Sometimes through presence alone.
The medium is not sacred.
Freedom is.
Dada showed me that art can rebel.
Fluxus showed me that art can step down from the pedestal and return to life.
But I do not want to repeat either Dada or Fluxus.
I want to preserve their freedom.
The artist is not a prophet.
Nor is the artist a decorator of reality.
He is the one who sees, creates, connects, and warns.
The shaman opens the space.
The craftsman shapes matter.
The artist takes responsibility.
These are not three professions.
They are three necessities.
To work with one’s hands.
To think with one’s own mind.
To remain open to the unknown.
I do not create in order to belong.
I create in order to establish a relationship.
With myself.
With others.
With nature and the universe.
With the time in which I live.
Shaman. Craftsman. Artist.
One man.
One process.
One act.