Pine-Sol, Mr. Clean, Fabuloso—these are the materials that color Reno-born sculptor Nick van Woert's landscapes. Rooted in the history of landscape painting of the American West, as well taking references from classical architecture, van Woert's works use everyday and found materials to put into focus a world that doesn’t exist anymore.
Yet this creative is prolific. Along with four assistants, van Woert works in the studio every day. At the end of 2014, the artist will have had 11 international solo shows since 2010––having just exhibited a solo show in June at the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna. Before another solo show begins in Amsterdam in October, I managed to catch up with him in his studio. With Bo Diddley playing in the background and ten motorcycles welcoming me into the entrance of a giant warehouse in Greenpoint, I already started to feel a part of van Woert's world.
CECILIA SALAMA: You recently came back from Italy. Can you tell me about that experience?
NICK VAN WOERT: I was in Bologna for a museum show at MAMbo (Museo D'Arte Moderna di Bologna). It was a crazy experience-–super stressful leading up to it. It was such a large space, and shipping is expensive, and I don't make small or light things, but it all worked out. It's nice to see my works in a museum setting. In a museum you can have a whole group of similar works.
You have another museum show coming up, right?
There's a big group show at the museum in Reno, which is pretty cool because it's a landscape show, focused around Lake Tahoe and Donner Lake. There'll be at least one Bierstadt painting. Bierstadt painted romantic, vibrant landscapes of the American West. The landscape doesn’t look like that anymore. The first landscape works I made were plexi boxes stacked on top of each other filled with materials that I see and touch every day, materials that make my everyday landscape.
They almost look like geological strata.
Pine-Sol, cat litter, Fabuloso, pulverized Play-Doh—they have a color and material relationship to the materials I see in Bierstadt's landscape paintings. When you put the purple of Fabuloso, and yellow of Mr. Clean, and cat litter next to each other, they start to seem like the sunset in Donner Lake.
Why cat litter?
It's a substitute for dirt. You want to pee outside, you pee in the dirt. If you want to pee inside, you can pee in cat litter.
What are you working on at the moment?
I've started to focus on walls. We used to live in caves out of rock. Then in classical architecture, we used marble. Now we use all artificial material—Sheetrock, styrofoam, aluminum studs. I am making these large pieces using the same techniques to make stucco walls—plywood, tar paper, metal mesh, but I'm also mixing cat litter with resin and "spackling" it on with a large spackling knife.
Do you imagine hanging these wall panels in a white-wall gallery setting, like you have here in your studio? They almost look like paintings to me.
Yeah, I like them this way. But I've always hated painting.
Really?
Well, I like looking at paintings, but I've always hated painters. It just feels like painting is constantly being recycled over and over again. For me, art is a material language and I feel like we live in a time where you should be aware of what materials you're using.
Have you ever made formal paintings before?
Yet this creative is prolific. Along with four assistants, van Woert works in the studio every day. At the end of 2014, the artist will have had 11 international solo shows since 2010––having just exhibited a solo show in June at the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna. Before another solo show begins in Amsterdam in October, I managed to catch up with him in his studio. With Bo Diddley playing in the background and ten motorcycles welcoming me into the entrance of a giant warehouse in Greenpoint, I already started to feel a part of van Woert's world.
CECILIA SALAMA: You recently came back from Italy. Can you tell me about that experience?
NICK VAN WOERT: I was in Bologna for a museum show at MAMbo (Museo D'Arte Moderna di Bologna). It was a crazy experience-–super stressful leading up to it. It was such a large space, and shipping is expensive, and I don't make small or light things, but it all worked out. It's nice to see my works in a museum setting. In a museum you can have a whole group of similar works.
You have another museum show coming up, right?
There's a big group show at the museum in Reno, which is pretty cool because it's a landscape show, focused around Lake Tahoe and Donner Lake. There'll be at least one Bierstadt painting. Bierstadt painted romantic, vibrant landscapes of the American West. The landscape doesn’t look like that anymore. The first landscape works I made were plexi boxes stacked on top of each other filled with materials that I see and touch every day, materials that make my everyday landscape.
They almost look like geological strata.
Pine-Sol, cat litter, Fabuloso, pulverized Play-Doh—they have a color and material relationship to the materials I see in Bierstadt's landscape paintings. When you put the purple of Fabuloso, and yellow of Mr. Clean, and cat litter next to each other, they start to seem like the sunset in Donner Lake.
Why cat litter?
It's a substitute for dirt. You want to pee outside, you pee in the dirt. If you want to pee inside, you can pee in cat litter.
What are you working on at the moment?
I've started to focus on walls. We used to live in caves out of rock. Then in classical architecture, we used marble. Now we use all artificial material—Sheetrock, styrofoam, aluminum studs. I am making these large pieces using the same techniques to make stucco walls—plywood, tar paper, metal mesh, but I'm also mixing cat litter with resin and "spackling" it on with a large spackling knife.
Do you imagine hanging these wall panels in a white-wall gallery setting, like you have here in your studio? They almost look like paintings to me.
Yeah, I like them this way. But I've always hated painting.
Really?
Well, I like looking at paintings, but I've always hated painters. It just feels like painting is constantly being recycled over and over again. For me, art is a material language and I feel like we live in a time where you should be aware of what materials you're using.
Have you ever made formal paintings before?