"I came from a generation where the work was itself
the information and so there remains this belief that the
work itself can have an identity that can hopefully speak."
"...I'm making a case for my own vision. It's like
breathing. It's not always the same. And it can change.
It can actually move in a direction that has got some representational
tendencies."
"The work was really about using the sapling, using
the tree. And making a work that had a kind of artificial
perspective, a forced perspective..."
"...The idea of Booker T. Washington, the resonance
with his life, and his struggle...the whole notion that
his idea of progress for the race was a long slow progression..."
Your work is often talked about
as coming out of the history of abstraction.
Can you talk about your connection to that history?
PURYEAR:
I think the way I work is probably
out of step with what a lot of artists are doing in 2003,
which is telling stories or conveying specific kinds of information,
be it sociological information, psychological information,
sexual information. Work that is really a vehicle for conveying
kinds of information. I came from a generation where the work
was itself the information and so there remains this belief
that the work itself can have an identity that can hopefully
speak. Whether it's through beauty or through ugliness or
whatever quality you put into the work. That is what the work
can be about.
The work doesn't have to be a transparent vehicle for you
to say things about life today or what you see people doing
to each other or things like that. Not that that's not in
the work ever, because I think the work can contain a lot
of things, but my vehicle typically is to make work that is
about the presentation of the work itself and what went into
the making of the work as an object. And there's a story in
the making of objects. There's a narrative
in the fabrication of things, which to me is fascinating.
Not as fascinating perhaps as the final form or the final
object itself, but I think by working incrementally there's
a built in story in the making of things which I think can
be interesting.
ART:21:
Do you think abstraction, or
the kind of work you are describing, will continue on?
PURYEAR:
I think it probably will. Who
can tell the future? But I remember a show that must have
been in the late ’50s or early ’60s about realism
at the Museum of Modern Art. And there was an awful lot written
about the end of realism. The fact that realism as a way of
making art was on its way out. And realism is alive and well
today. It has come back and completely transmogrified to do
very different kind of things for the artist than it did in
1960 or 1970—very different kind of things. But, as a
practice, it's still very much with us. The camera didn't
wipe it out. Abstraction didn't wipe it out. And I think there
are abstract tendencies in art that certainly predate the
20th century. So I think that isn't going to go away.
ART:21:
Do you think it's important to
make abstract works today? Is it important to make a case
for abstraction in art?
PURYEAR:
I think there are different degrees
of stridency with each artist, depending upon who they are.
And I think in my case, I'm making a case for my own vision.
It's like breathing. It's not always the same. And it can
change. It can actually move in a direction that has got some
representational
tendencies. Or at least some allusive tendencies. Or some
kind of tendencies that are very suggestive. I mean, my work
is not Minimalist.
The kind of abstraction I practice is probably an earlier
kind of abstraction where I'm not committed to simply presenting
a form that has to be addressed only on the terms that I say
if it can be addressed at—which is I think what minimalists
are. They really were interested in shutting down any other
alternative ways of looking at the work other than to take
the work on the terms that they set. It's a very idealized
way to look at work, with very, very, very narrow parameters.
And I think in my work it feels like it's got a lot more potential
for evolution and change and open-endedness. Which I think
feels more resonant with what it is to live a life.
ART:21:
What's the genesis for the ladder
piece, "Ladder for Booker T. Washington"? That work
is perhaps the most representational piece of yours from the
past decade.
PURYEAR:
The title came after the work
was finished, first of all. I didn't set out to make a work
about Booker T. Washington. The title was very much a second
stage in the whole evolution of the work. The work was really
about using the sapling, using the tree. And making a work
that had a kind of artificial perspective, a forced perspective,
an exaggerated perspective that made it appear to recede into
space faster than in fact it does. That really was what the
work was about for me, this kind of artificial perspective.
It's an idea I've been wanting to do for a long time. And
it requires a certain actual length. It's a piece that couldn't
have been done small. As it was, it was thirty-six feet long.
I actually had a version of a piece like this that I had conceived
to go into a public space in Tokyo, which would have been
close to two hundred and fifty feet long. This was extremely
exciting to me, because then the work would have been long
enough where you could actually wonder whether the perspective
that you were looking at was in fact manipulated or whether
it was real. And that prospect to me was extremely interesting.
To be able to make the piece to such an extent, make it long
enough, that you would have a confusion as to whether this
is the artist's manipulation of reality or whether this is
in fact what is really going on here. It didn’t happen.
But anyway, this piece was realized to work with that same
idea—the idea of a forced perspective.
ART:21:
Does it still have some sense
of that forced perspective?
PURYEAR:
Oh yes. Anyone looking at it
knows that the tip of it is not as far away as the artist
is telling you it could be. This is not a new device. It was
used in the Renaissance a lot. You see it in garden design
and you see it in trellis design and other artificially diminishing
forms in space. But then there was the whole relationship,
literally, to ladders. I mean, it is a ladder. It's made like
a ladder. It's made like country ladders you see in places.
People would cut a tree trunk in half and put rungs between
the two halves. And that’s a ladder.
ART:21:
Is there something about this
piece that amuses you?
PURYEAR:
Well, I enjoyed doing it. And
I certainly enjoy the way it looks at The Modern in Fort Worth.
It's interesting to me—and this is new for me—but
the work does contain a history lesson because people who
see it want to know what it's about. It's a curiosity when
they see a title as specific as that. It's been written about
a couple of times. In fact, there's a wall label in the museum
that talks about Booker T. Washington more than it talks about
the work, which I find interesting. I think there's a lot
going on in the work as a sculpture. But I think the urgency
of the historical information about Booker T. Washington is
in terms of what the museum thinks the public would want to
know, or should know about it. And I think, in this case,
eclipses what's going on within the object. I found that kind
of interesting.
ART:21:
As a sculptural form it's very
unusual?
PURYEAR:
For me it is. I'm not the first
person to use a ladder, I'm sure, in sculpture. But I don't
know if it's unusual or not. This is the first time I've ever
seen a person make a work like this. It's the idea of a diminution
in space and the manipulation of that perception which is
interesting to me. Certainly as a woodworker it was an interesting
project to work on. It was a challenge to split a tree, a
thirty-six foot long tree. That's part of my pleasure in the
making of it, which isn't what's left for the viewer to look
at. That's just my end of it. My end of the making of it.
ART:21:
So what do you think is the connection
between what's going on in the work and the title of the piece?
PURYEAR:
I mentioned about the perspective
being really what the work is about. And the idea of Booker
T. Washington, the resonance with his life, and his struggle...the
whole notion that his idea of progress for the race was a
long slow progression of, as he said, "Putting your buckets
down where you are and working with what you've got."
And the antithesis was W.B. DuBois who was a much more radical
thinker and who had a much more pro-active way of thinking
about racial struggle for equality. And Booker T. Washington
was someone who made enormous contacts with people in power
and had enormous influence, but he was what you would call
a gradualist. And so, it really is a question of the view
from where you start and the end—the goal. This is something
I don't really want to elaborate on too much because I think
it's in the work. The whole notion of where you start and
where you want to get to and how far away it really is. And
if it's possible to get there given the circumstances that
you're operating within.
The joining of that idea of Booker T. Washington and his notion
of progress and the form of that piece—that came after
the fact. But when I thought about a title for it, it just
seemed absolutely fitting.
