Alyson Shotz
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Alyson Shotz: Standing Wave Standing Wave Site-specifi c installation for the Wexner Center, 2009 JANUARY 16–APRIL 11, 2010 Dichroic acrylic and tape Courtesy of the artist and Derek Eller Gallery Christopher Bedford: Can you tell me I always felt oppressed by the idea that Alyson Shotz (b. 1964) lives what drew you to the material you used in minimalism beauty and pleasure were and works in Brooklyn, New York. She received her BFA to create Standing Wave? opposed to intellectual rigor. I believe from the Rhode Island School they can exist simultaneously. of Design and her MFA from Alyson Shotz: I’d been making the University of Washington, sculptures that had virtually no color CB: The acrylic material you used to Seattle. Her work has been for a few years. Most were made of create Standing Wave is completely exhibited at numerous clear glass or various types of plastics. aff ectless and colorless in and of itself. galleries and museums, including the Solomon R. They absorbed and refl ected the light Installed, however, it is incredibly Guggenheim Museum, Aldrich and color of the room, but they were responsive, absorbing and refl ecting Museum of Contemporary essentially clear. I was really beginning light to present an array of startling Art, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass to miss using color in my work, but yet colors. Your material, then, makes literal MOCA), Whitney Museum I didn’t want to paint color on. I wanted and exaggerates a very popular idea in of American Art, Hirshhorn it be a physical part of the material in contemporary art: contingency. What if Museum and Sculpture Garden, some way. I’d had a sample of this stuff any is your relationship to this idea? and Cleveland Museum of Art. in my studio for a few years—one of AS: I’m interested in making objects Christopher Bedford is my suppliers had sent it to me to try. Curator of Exhibitions at the that change infi nitely, depending on What made so much sense about it Wexner Center for the Arts and their surroundings. The light at diff erent the curator of this exhibition. was that color was created as a natural times of day, the weather, the number byproduct of its structure—it sort of of viewers looking at the piece, what the subtracts colors from the spectrum. viewers are wearing, all these are just The dichroic fi lm is clear, however, it some of the variables that will make the transmits certain wavelengths of light piece diff erent every time one comes in while refl ecting others. The transmitted contact with it. For me an ideal work of color is diff erent from the refl ected art is one that is ultimately unknowable color, and when the light rays transmit in some way. A work of mine that straight through the acrylic they are less incorporates so many variables beyond aff ected by refraction than when passing my control will ideally always be at an angle, which makes the light travel surprising, even to me. a greater distance through the acrylic. This is what causes the color shift. It’s a CB: In addition to the East/West Coast similar phenomenon to what is seen on divide that still persists in the literature dragonfl y wings or peacock feathers. on the minimalist period—much of which stages an opposition between CB: What you’re saying here really East Coast rigor and West Coast resonates with the work of the light- whimsy—various scholars, including and-space artists like John McCracken, Anna Chave, have explored the way Larry Bell, and Craig Kauff mann, all gender can be encoded in or intimated of whom were (and are) invested in through materials. Her inquiry centered phenomenology and the specifi c physical on expressions of machismo through and visual properties of materials. hulking masses of steel and lead and so AS: Yes, and Robert Irwin of course. All forth, but it is interesting to consider of the artists we’ve mentioned are from such artists as Anne Truitt, Mary Corse, the West Coast, but I fi nd a lot that is and indeed yourself in relation to a All exhibitions at the resonant in the work of minimalists and similar set of questions about materials Wexner Center receive conceptual artists of the 1970s, from and gender. support from the Corporate Annual Fund both the East and West Coasts. I am AS: I want to get as far away as I can of the Wexner Center interested in creating an experience that Foundation and from from that old linkage of feminism Wexner Center members. changes the viewer in some way if that’s and materials. I will use any material possible, that allows them to have a shift depending on what I’m trying to achieve. GENERAL SUPPORT FOR in perception of space, physicality, light… THE WEXNER CENTER Many of the materials I’ve chosen so CB: To that end, your work seems to far, I’ve chosen because they push or me far more playful and generous, less pull space in a way I’d like to push or reticent, than that of the minimalists in pull it. If we are speaking art historically, particular. however, I’m more interested in questions and defi nitions of beauty, AS: I am a proponent of making work rather than materials and gender. that is accessible to everyone on some Richard Serra’s work, Donald Judd’s, level. Ideally I’d like my work to be Dan Flavin’s—they are all beautiful to available in some way right off , and then look at. They share a commitment to a if you choose to dig deeper, there is structure that is intentional, maybe even more there to fi nd. I’m not so interested mathematical in some cases, intellectual in setting up rules to follow. I might have but also beautiful. These are qualities I temporary rules for myself that guide the work to achieve in my own work. Beauty ACCOMMODATIONS work or that seem integral to making has been a bad word in art for too long. the piece successful, but there won’t be Maybe we need to redefi ne beauty and rules that guide every work that I make not be afraid of the word. in my life. WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS | THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY | (614) 292-3535 | WEXARTS.ORG.