In the days leading up to the opening of Juices, Canadian sculptor David Altmejd's new show at Andrea Rosen Gallery in Chelsea, the artist and his team of over ten assistants had fallen behind on the installation process. When I arrived to interview Altmejd last week, I was greeted by a sort of quiet chaos: piles of Plexiglas, shattered mirror, and an assortment of other hand-cast and found objects that would soon become integrated into the show’s over 20-feet-high main sculpture lay strewn across the floor and piled high on carts. Despite the fact that it was mere hours before the show was set to open to the press, there was virtually no sense of urgency in the air. And what exactly is the secret to Altmejd’s ability to maintain composure in such an overwhelming environment? He doesn’t plan.
In the same way Altmejd professes that it is impossible to ever truly understand another person, he attempts to make the concepts that underlie his work, “Like a slippery fish” that cannot be fully grasped by the viewer. In order to ensure that his sculptures remain ambiguous, Altmejd forsakes detailed schematics or drawings. Instead, he allows the elements within the work to interact with each other and begin a dialogue that contributes to the growth of a complex and energetic ecosystem.
Altmejd is aware that this conscious effort to subvert meaning and explore dualities might cause confusion. But it is this tension that imbues his creations with an intangible emotion and life that is evident to anyone who has the opportunity to be in their presence. Here, we discuss everything from exquisite corpses, to whether his work is ever finished, to his opinions on fashion.
Photos Courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery
Clarke Rudick: What did you want to be when you were younger?
David Altmejd: I never imagined that [making art] could be something that one could spend their life doing. I’ve wanted to be a geologist and then an architect and then a biologist. [Laughs] I went to university in biology, and then I quit and went to art school.
When did you realize that you wanted to be a practicing artist?
I’m not a very strategic person. I don’t try to predict the future. It wasn’t an effort to decide to change to art school. I didn’t say, “Oh, but how am I going to make a living?” I just went to art school because I loved art and I loved making art. I didn’t overthink the whole thing. When I made an object for the first time, it was just completely clear that that was the natural thing for me to do: making objects that exist in the same space as you, that breathe the same air. I just saw that there was a power in that aspect of sculpture.
Your work is incredibly complex. Tell us about your process. Do you start with a drawing and then move to a model and then build it?
It starts with a very abstract idea and then I make one drawing—a sketch. The way [the sculpture] ends up has nothing to do with my drawing. It’s only the first step. It’s my way of letting myself go into reality.
[For the show’s main sculpture, The Flux and The Puddle] I started out… with very simple concepts: I wanted to build a frame or a gigantic box that would be large enough to incorporate all my studio activities. In a certain way… it sort of became the studio. I think that the level of complexity of the structure would be imposs
In the same way Altmejd professes that it is impossible to ever truly understand another person, he attempts to make the concepts that underlie his work, “Like a slippery fish” that cannot be fully grasped by the viewer. In order to ensure that his sculptures remain ambiguous, Altmejd forsakes detailed schematics or drawings. Instead, he allows the elements within the work to interact with each other and begin a dialogue that contributes to the growth of a complex and energetic ecosystem.
Altmejd is aware that this conscious effort to subvert meaning and explore dualities might cause confusion. But it is this tension that imbues his creations with an intangible emotion and life that is evident to anyone who has the opportunity to be in their presence. Here, we discuss everything from exquisite corpses, to whether his work is ever finished, to his opinions on fashion.
Photos Courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery
Clarke Rudick: What did you want to be when you were younger?
When did you realize that you wanted to be a practicing artist?
I’m not a very strategic person. I don’t try to predict the future. It wasn’t an effort to decide to change to art school. I didn’t say, “Oh, but how am I going to make a living?” I just went to art school because I loved art and I loved making art. I didn’t overthink the whole thing. When I made an object for the first time, it was just completely clear that that was the natural thing for me to do: making objects that exist in the same space as you, that breathe the same air. I just saw that there was a power in that aspect of sculpture.
Your work is incredibly complex. Tell us about your process. Do you start with a drawing and then move to a model and then build it?
It starts with a very abstract idea and then I make one drawing—a sketch. The way [the sculpture] ends up has nothing to do with my drawing. It’s only the first step. It’s my way of letting myself go into reality.
[For the show’s main sculpture, The Flux and The Puddle] I started out… with very simple concepts: I wanted to build a frame or a gigantic box that would be large enough to incorporate all my studio activities. In a certain way… it sort of became the studio. I think that the level of complexity of the structure would be imposs