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Art Articles Phaidon’s Frieze NY interviews – Allyson Vieira
Phaidon’s Frieze NY interviews – Allyson VieiraThe American sculptor uses recycled plastic to create works that bring to mind ancient civilisations
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Art Articles Phaidon’s Frieze NY interviews – Allyson Vieira
Phaidon’s Frieze NY interviews – Allyson VieiraThe American sculptor uses recycled plastic to create works that bring to mind ancient civilisations
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Sculpture Today
Paperback | English
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Like almost all of those showing at Frieze New York, the FriezeProjects participant Allyson Vieira is a contemporary artist. Yetthere’s also something ancient looking about this young American’slarge sculptures, which are fashioned from an intriguing material thatis both new and old. Vieria’s contribution to the fair, an outdoor pieceat Frieze New York’s north entrance, is built from blocks of industrialwaste; materials that, in a canny irony, are often recycled in themanufacture of decorative picture frames. Read on to discover whythese blocks appeal to her, how an interest in disposableconsumerism and the great land artists of the 1970s have informedher work, and what it is about fallen empires that truly appeals to her.
Allyson Vieira, Bearing Walls I, 2014. Concrete block, paint, epoxy, steel, barrier fence.Courtesy of the artist and Laurel Gitlen, New York
What are you doing at Frieze? “On the lawn near the northentrance of the fair, I will present a new outdoor sculpture made ofbaled post-industrial plastics (plastic sheeting and thin foam)compressed into striated, half-ton, cyclopean building blocks. Lyingon their sides in a loose line, the blocks will lean on each other in anatural repose, suggesting a collapsed architecture.”
Why are you doing it? “Compressed bales of plastic have attractedme as a building material for years because they suggest themassive scale and solidity of ancient construction, so I’m excitedfinally to have the opportunity. But, even though they evoke ancientmaterials in reality these blocks are a 21st-century commodity, a newraw material, an American industrial waste product, collected andbaled into blocks for sale by the pound. The blocks I'm using aremost often sold to processing plants in China and shipped there allthe way from New Jersey, over 7,000 miles as the crow flies, but whoknows how long the sea voyage is. Once there, the bales are down-cycled into a lower grade plastic. That plastic is then processed onceagain and made into cheap consumer goods. Those are thenshipped all the way back to the US for sale in big-box stores. Theman I bought my bales from said this grade of plastic is mostly used
The Elements ofSculptureHardback | EnglishUSD$39.95
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MichelangeloPaperback | EnglishUSD$35.00
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Anish KapoorHardback | EnglishUSD$100.00
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Art Articles Phaidon’s Frieze NY interviews – Allyson Vieira
Phaidon’s Frieze NY interviews – Allyson VieiraThe American sculptor uses recycled plastic to create works that bring to mind ancient civilisations
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Sculpture Today
Paperback | English
USD$49.95
Look Inside
Love art? Then take a lookat the best art books in the world See more
RELATED BOOK
HOME PHAIDON STORE NEWS DIGITAL BOOKS APPS EVENTS
• •
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Allyson Vieira photographed by Fran Parente
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Follow Follow @Phaidon@Phaidon
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Phaidon’s Frieze NYinterviews – AkiSasamotoThe Japanese-born NewYork-based artist on whyshe is installing a 3Dpersonality test inside theNYC art fair
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A · A
Like almost all of those showing at Frieze New York, the FriezeProjects participant Allyson Vieira is a contemporary artist. Yetthere’s also something ancient looking about this young American’slarge sculptures, which are fashioned from an intriguing material thatis both new and old. Vieria’s contribution to the fair, an outdoor pieceat Frieze New York’s north entrance, is built from blocks of industrialwaste; materials that, in a canny irony, are often recycled in themanufacture of decorative picture frames. Read on to discover whythese blocks appeal to her, how an interest in disposableconsumerism and the great land artists of the 1970s have informedher work, and what it is about fallen empires that truly appeals to her.
Allyson Vieira, Bearing Walls I, 2014. Concrete block, paint, epoxy, steel, barrier fence.Courtesy of the artist and Laurel Gitlen, New York
What are you doing at Frieze? “On the lawn near the northentrance of the fair, I will present a new outdoor sculpture made ofbaled post-industrial plastics (plastic sheeting and thin foam)compressed into striated, half-ton, cyclopean building blocks. Lyingon their sides in a loose line, the blocks will lean on each other in anatural repose, suggesting a collapsed architecture.”
Why are you doing it? “Compressed bales of plastic have attractedme as a building material for years because they suggest themassive scale and solidity of ancient construction, so I’m excitedfinally to have the opportunity. But, even though they evoke ancientmaterials in reality these blocks are a 21st-century commodity, a newraw material, an American industrial waste product, collected andbaled into blocks for sale by the pound. The blocks I'm using aremost often sold to processing plants in China and shipped there allthe way from New Jersey, over 7,000 miles as the crow flies, but whoknows how long the sea voyage is. Once there, the bales are down-cycled into a lower grade plastic. That plastic is then processed onceagain and made into cheap consumer goods. Those are thenshipped all the way back to the US for sale in big-box stores. Theman I bought my bales from said this grade of plastic is mostly used
The Elements ofSculptureHardback | EnglishUSD$39.95
Look Inside
MichelangeloPaperback | EnglishUSD$35.00
Look Inside
Anish KapoorHardback | EnglishUSD$100.00
Look Inside
Anthony CaroHardback | EnglishUSD$125.00
Look Inside
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. GET 20% OFF YOUR FIRST ORDERwhen you sign up to the Phaidon newsletter
.
. Be the first to learn about exclusivedownloads, the latest stories and members-
only discounts - starting today!
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to make decorative picture frames. I became fascinated by thisstrange cycle of material transformation that both feeds on and feedsinto disposable consumerism.”
What does it mean? “This is a question that is impossible to answer.I don't know any artists who make work with a single specificmeaning. An artwork should provoke questions not answers. There isno rubric for understanding it. It should exist only in the grey areasbetween positivist poles and should be able to hold multiple'meanings' simultaneously. How could it be interesting if it didn't?One person might see this work as a critique of the present, anotherabout the possibility of the future, another about seeing ourselves inthe past. I'm not intending to make a judgment about these things. Ithink of my work more as a series of conjectures or postulations withno fixed answers.”
Allyson Vieira, Construction (45 Seconds) 11, 12, 2015 photograms. Courtesy of the artistand Laurel Gitlen, New York
How does it fit in with your practice? “I often think about cycles ofmaterials and the persistence of elemental forms and structure inarchitecture and sculpture over time. When considering hugeswathes of time, the quick changes drop away. Big gestures andphysical facts, such as gravity, remain.
"Using generic, contemporary waste as a building material to createa simple architectural form evocative of a ruin can straddle the liminalmoment of the present. For me, the idea of 'now' is like that of 'zero';both are unknowable because they exist only as theoretical pivotpoints between the 'real' negative integers of the past and positiveintegers of the future. So, if the present does not really exist, I canonly observe the past and speculate about the future.
"I often think about the relationships between the building materialsand sculptural materials of the past, of matter and created vastconcentrations of previously non-existent materials. Think of howmuch material makes a city, and how different that material is fromwhat lies around it. We all know that thousands of years from nowour cities will stand as ruins. But in tens of millions of years our citieswill not even be ruins, they will be geological strata, crushed andcompressed under eons of planetary-scale heat and pressure. What
Carol Bove and 'The Intimacy Gradient' | Art | Agenda | Phaidon phaidon.com/agenda/art/art… via @Phaidon
Ian Caldwell @ianthearchitect
Peru: The Cookbook, por Gastón Acurio ow.ly/MpOVG @Phaidon pic.twitter.com/PfmQcK2jxa
Retweeted by Gissèle Falcón
Diario Gastronomía @DGastronomia
Show Photo
In honour of the great Sonia Delaunay show @Tate here's Fauvism: a movement in a moment
Phaidon @Phaidon
35m
9h
20 Apr
Tweets
Compose new Tweet…
to make decorative picture frames. I became fascinated by thisstrange cycle of material transformation that both feeds on and feedsinto disposable consumerism.”
What does it mean? “This is a question that is impossible to answer.I don't know any artists who make work with a single specificmeaning. An artwork should provoke questions not answers. There isno rubric for understanding it. It should exist only in the grey areasbetween positivist poles and should be able to hold multiple'meanings' simultaneously. How could it be interesting if it didn't?One person might see this work as a critique of the present, anotherabout the possibility of the future, another about seeing ourselves inthe past. I'm not intending to make a judgment about these things. Ithink of my work more as a series of conjectures or postulations withno fixed answers.”
Allyson Vieira, Construction (45 Seconds) 11, 12, 2015 photograms. Courtesy of the artistand Laurel Gitlen, New York
How does it fit in with your practice? “I often think about cycles ofmaterials and the persistence of elemental forms and structure inarchitecture and sculpture over time. When considering hugeswathes of time, the quick changes drop away. Big gestures andphysical facts, such as gravity, remain.
"Using generic, contemporary waste as a building material to createa simple architectural form evocative of a ruin can straddle the liminalmoment of the present. For me, the idea of 'now' is like that of 'zero';both are unknowable because they exist only as theoretical pivotpoints between the 'real' negative integers of the past and positiveintegers of the future. So, if the present does not really exist, I canonly observe the past and speculate about the future.
"I often think about the relationships between the building materialsand sculptural materials of the past, of matter and created vastconcentrations of previously non-existent materials. Think of howmuch material makes a city, and how different that material is fromwhat lies around it. We all know that thousands of years from nowour cities will stand as ruins. But in tens of millions of years our citieswill not even be ruins, they will be geological strata, crushed andcompressed under eons of planetary-scale heat and pressure. What
Carol Bove and 'The Intimacy Gradient' | Art | Agenda | Phaidon phaidon.com/agenda/art/art… via @Phaidon
Ian Caldwell @ianthearchitect
Peru: The Cookbook, por Gastón Acurio ow.ly/MpOVG @Phaidon pic.twitter.com/PfmQcK2jxa
Retweeted by Gissèle Falcón
Diario Gastronomía @DGastronomia
Show Photo
In honour of the great Sonia Delaunay show @Tate here's Fauvism: a movement in a moment
Phaidon @Phaidon
35m
9h
20 Apr
Tweets
Compose new Tweet…
new stone, created from the metamorphosed remains of humancivilization, will form the building blocks for the next ascendantspecies—if it is one that is inclined to build?”
Installation view, Allyson Vieira, Time and Materials (and Overhead), The Breeder, Athens(2014). Courtesy of the artist and Laurel Gitlen, New York
Who are the artists who have inspired you or whose work youadmire? “I often find myself drawing a blank when I get asked thisquestion. I might come up with a few artists I've been thinking aboutthat day but forget the ones who have influenced me for years, orvice versa. Hubert Robert, the late 18th, early 19th- century Frenchpainter of ruins has always fascinated me with his uncanny ability tonegotiate the past, present, and future within his paintings. Of courseI think about land artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer.But mostly I spend a lot of time looking at cities, old and new.Buildings under construction in New York rise like mushrooms after arainstorm; the continuous real estate boom creates a constantlyshifting geography. But my favorite thing is walking through the ruinsof empires from millennia past; those should keep everyone's hubrisin check.”
For more on contemporary sculpture take a look at our great bookSculpture Today. For more on this year's Frieze New York, read ourinterviews with Frieze Projects artists, Aki Sasamoto, SamaraGolden and Pia Camil.
new stone, created from the metamorphosed remains of humancivilization, will form the building blocks for the next ascendantspecies—if it is one that is inclined to build?”
Installation view, Allyson Vieira, Time and Materials (and Overhead), The Breeder, Athens(2014). Courtesy of the artist and Laurel Gitlen, New York
Who are the artists who have inspired you or whose work youadmire? “I often find myself drawing a blank when I get asked thisquestion. I might come up with a few artists I've been thinking aboutthat day but forget the ones who have influenced me for years, orvice versa. Hubert Robert, the late 18th, early 19th- century Frenchpainter of ruins has always fascinated me with his uncanny ability tonegotiate the past, present, and future within his paintings. Of courseI think about land artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer.But mostly I spend a lot of time looking at cities, old and new.Buildings under construction in New York rise like mushrooms after arainstorm; the continuous real estate boom creates a constantlyshifting geography. But my favorite thing is walking through the ruinsof empires from millennia past; those should keep everyone's hubrisin check.”
For more on contemporary sculpture take a look at our great bookSculpture Today. For more on this year's Frieze New York, read ourinterviews with Frieze Projects artists, Aki Sasamoto, SamaraGolden and Pia Camil.
new stone, created from the metamorphosed remains of humancivilization, will form the building blocks for the next ascendantspecies—if it is one that is inclined to build?”
Installation view, Allyson Vieira, Time and Materials (and Overhead), The Breeder, Athens(2014). Courtesy of the artist and Laurel Gitlen, New York
Who are the artists who have inspired you or whose work youadmire? “I often find myself drawing a blank when I get asked thisquestion. I might come up with a few artists I've been thinking aboutthat day but forget the ones who have influenced me for years, orvice versa. Hubert Robert, the late 18th, early 19th- century Frenchpainter of ruins has always fascinated me with his uncanny ability tonegotiate the past, present, and future within his paintings. Of courseI think about land artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer.But mostly I spend a lot of time looking at cities, old and new.Buildings under construction in New York rise like mushrooms after arainstorm; the continuous real estate boom creates a constantlyshifting geography. But my favorite thing is walking through the ruinsof empires from millennia past; those should keep everyone's hubrisin check.”
For more on contemporary sculpture take a look at our great bookSculpture Today. For more on this year's Frieze New York, read ourinterviews with Frieze Projects artists, Aki Sasamoto, SamaraGolden and Pia Camil.
new stone, created from the metamorphosed remains of humancivilization, will form the building blocks for the next ascendantspecies—if it is one that is inclined to build?”
Installation view, Allyson Vieira, Time and Materials (and Overhead), The Breeder, Athens(2014). Courtesy of the artist and Laurel Gitlen, New York
Who are the artists who have inspired you or whose work youadmire? “I often find myself drawing a blank when I get asked thisquestion. I might come up with a few artists I've been thinking aboutthat day but forget the ones who have influenced me for years, orvice versa. Hubert Robert, the late 18th, early 19th- century Frenchpainter of ruins has always fascinated me with his uncanny ability tonegotiate the past, present, and future within his paintings. Of courseI think about land artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer.But mostly I spend a lot of time looking at cities, old and new.Buildings under construction in New York rise like mushrooms after arainstorm; the continuous real estate boom creates a constantlyshifting geography. But my favorite thing is walking through the ruinsof empires from millennia past; those should keep everyone's hubrisin check.”
For more on contemporary sculpture take a look at our great bookSculpture Today. For more on this year's Frieze New York, read ourinterviews with Frieze Projects artists, Aki Sasamoto, SamaraGolden and Pia Camil.
June 2013
OCTOBER 2011
Time Out New York, “Critics’ Picks,” July 21–August 3, 2011
MARCH 2011
JANUARY 2011
SEPTEM BER 2010
SEPTEM BER 2010
Installation view, Knight’s Move, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, New York, curated by Fionn Mead, May 3–July 26, 2010
left: Allyson Vieira, Old (Not Without Variation) III, 2010 right: Allyson Vieira, New (Not Completely Novel) III, 2010
IDIOM Allyson Vieira at Laurel Gitlen by PETER J. RUSSO on MAY 7, 2010
Allyson Vieira, If I was a…but then again, no (1-18), 2010. Installation view via Laurel Gitlen
Allyson Vieira, Ozymandias Laurel Gitlen, 261 Broome Street, New York, On view through this
Sunday
The British Museum and the Louvre were newly minted, public institutions when a colossal hunk of
granite portraying Ramesses II, one of the Egyptian Empire’s last great Pharaohs, arrived in London
in 1816. During the early 19th century, museums and museology embodied the most ruthless
characteristics of global expansion: insatiable greed and rampant consumption, unencumbered by
taste or distinction. British and French militaries were deployed as art-handlers under the direction of
archeologists and historians who themselves played curator, arranging countless acquisitions-by-
murder in Egypt, Greece, and elsewhere. With new visibility, treasures such as the Elgin Marbles,
stripped from the Parthenon, led to an explosion in art production. It is on these grounds that
Ozymandias, Allyson Vieira’s first solo exhibition at Laurel Gitlen, finds its weight.
The centerpiece of Ozymandias—the ancient Greek name for Ramesses II—is If I was a…but then
again, a six-ton, set of eighteen white slabs, each humanly scaled and evenly distributed throughout
the main gallery. Vieira’s work invites quick assumptions about its rough-hewn construction. Passing
through this formerly unified mass allows the viewer a closer inspection of each monolith’s variously
poured, sawed, and incised surfaces, a record of their own making. Here, a mixture of concrete,
plaster, and drywall, marked with drill holes and oxide stains, seems not too distant from striated
marble, or an urban-Earthwork built from the scrap of a downtown construction site. The beginnings
of a new form or the remnants of one fallen? By tracking in dirt from countless, well-rehearsed eras, If
I was a… side-steps any neat categorization: freed from Ramesses’s idealized features as well as
those of modernism, and, more specifically, the oppressive history of Minimalism. Vieira’s work is
equally at home with the crumbling mud-figures of Thomas Houseago and Huma Bhaba, as well as
the hard-edged, plaster dancers by Jennifer Cohen. Like these contemporaries, Vieira puts muscle
into excavating previously conquered cultural terrain, combining rich materiality, figuration and
hardware-store craft to prove the existence of unexplored art-historical territory. In the rear gallery,
twin bas-reliefs pose questions of originality and technique in half-time with their grand counterpart
out front. Between them, a live octopus, entitled Destroyer of Empire reminds us that mythology is the
close cousin of any well-researched antiquity—art, or otherwise. The unique accomplishment of
Vieira’s exhibition is the privileged point of access it offers the viewer: one that ricochets between
centuries, from the fall of one empire to another and another; historical anomalies to suggest an
incomplete oeuvre.
Time Out New York, “Critics’ Picks,” April 15–21, 2010
Time Out New York, “Critics’ Picks,” January 21–27, 2010
