Lunchtime Art Breaks:
Friday, June 15
Artist Project Space +
Atrium Art Installations
by Jessica Curtis, Communications Intern
Lunchtime Art Breaks are a series of gallery talks and
presentations hosted by the Asheville Art Museum, typically twice per month on
Fridays from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Our most recent Lunchtime Art Break featured
Asheville residents and artists Hoss Haley and Gabriel Shaffer. Both artists
engaged in dialogue and answered questions with participants about their work.
Haley has two featured works in the Museum: the lighting
installations in the Museum’s newly renovated Atrium and a large-scale
sculpture titled Cycle. Haley’s light installation design takes what
the artist calls a “structural approach” that is more reductive than minimalistic.
Haley spoke of how his biggest challenge with the light fixtures was balancing
the ideas of the lighting installation as both a functional light fixture and a
work of art. His large enameled steel sculpture, Cycle, was chosen as the inaugural site-specific art installation
for the Museum’s new East Wing Artworks
Project Space, or artist project space. The sculpture will remain on view
through the end of the calendar year before becoming part of the Museum’s
Permanent Collection.
Gabriel Shaffer, the artist behind a large-scale graffiti art
mural in the Museum’s Atrium titled The
Writing on the Pharaoh’s Wall, referred to his graffiti work as having raw
characteristics, as an art form commonly thought of as being completed without
commission or permission. But in contrast, Shaffer’s mural was especially
commissioned by the Museum for the public restrooms in the new Atrium. The
Museum recognized a prime opportunity to showcase the talent of a local artist
in the space, and to highlight the evolution of graffiti as an art form
increasingly utilized in the professional art world.
Shaffer spoke of the local elements reflected in his work,
noting the challenge of depicting the community using only a few images. The
artist combined images inspired by local music, literary references (Thomas
Wolfe), break dancing and street culture, ultimately tying the scenes together
with the common thread of what Shaffer described as “the town’s relationship
with art deco”.
In his artist statement Shaffer writes,
“The mural is inspired by multiple
elements, the predominant influence being the quilts of Gees Bend Alabama. In
addition to the quilts being extremely forward thinking and beautiful, they
have also become somewhat of a national treasure. Because of my extensive
experience with folk and outsider art, I have had the pleasure of viewing these
quilts, and have found their arrangements, use of color and recycled fabric to
be reminiscent of abstract hieroglyphics.”
Shaffer spoke of the collaborative nature of his mural, which
reflects the diverse talent of several fellow graffiti artists from the
community who worked closely with Shaffer to complete the installation,
demonstrating a collaborative, quilt-like process. He spoke of several artists
on the forefront of Asheville’s street art scene, mentioning Ruiner, Sinker,
Mom’s Crew, Graffiti Masons, and the B Team, to name a few.
Shaffer’s intent was to create an open narrative with the
mural, allowing viewers to interpret the work for themselves. He felt that this
characteristic would allow an additional stream of consciousness to emerge in his
work.
Commenting on the unusual balance of showing graffiti art
within a traditional museum setting, Gabriel described the delicate issues
surrounding the production of graffiti and street art, often perceived as being
produced illegally. When visitors questioned the artist about the purity of the
mural as true graffiti, he described the mural as a “borderline” example,
commenting that graffiti may be less offensive to the viewer in this case
specifically because it was a legally commissioned work of art.
Always striving to bring new, enlightening and inspiring
experiences with American art to the surrounding community, the Museum warmly
welcomed the opportunity to showcase such cutting edge work in a safe, public
forum that allows for greater dialogue around the changing role of both art and
producer in the realm of graffiti art.
For the second part of the Art Break, artist Hoss Haley spoke
with guests about his large-scale sculpture adorning the Museum’s new Artworks Project Space. Having worked in
sculpture on an increasingly large scale for more than three decades, the
artist’s main resource for the site-specific sculpture installation was
enameled steel from area scrap yards.
Haley spoke of how his relationship with the scrap yard over
the years has acted as an indicator of economics, witnessing over time a
correlation between the current state of the economy and the changing type and
quantity of materials coming in and out of scrap yards.
Haley also defined his recycling as being “green before being
green was cool.” This habit of wanting to recycle, in addition to his habit of
coiling things up—such as wadded paper thrown into a trash bin—has emerged in
his art as well. Haley particularly brought attention to the symbolism of
“wadding”. Wadding has become a natural human action to express an object’s
transition from a resource to waste. However, in practical circumstances,
disposing of a material in such a way only takes up more space and density.
This idea of wadding could be seen as an ultimate act of declaring something as
waste.
Through Cycle,
Haley observed the subconscious symbolism of recycling and waste. The artist
built special machinery to create large-scale recycled enameled metal pieces
representing the appearance of paper “wadded in [his] hand”. Haley spoke of his
adventure into the scrap yard as a form of “post-apocalyptic hunting”, using
the term “field dressing” when referring to himself and his team of assistants,
describing the process of seeking our discarded washing machines and “ripping
[them] open and throwing the guts out”, taking only the “skins” or outer shell
of the machines.
Expanding on the symbolism of material waste and
economic concerns brought to the viewer’s attention through Cycle Haley also spoke of the relatively
short life span of today’s washing machines—only two years on average. Being
either too expensive to service or simply out of date, it has become common
practice to discard machines and purchase new ones at an increasing rate. Such
fast turnover has made it nearly impossible for metal recycling plants, such as
those in Spartanburg, to keep pace. This was a revelation to Haley in his
creative process.
In his artist statement Haley writes,
“For decades the scrap yard has been a
major source of both raw material and inspiration. As the consumer demand for
cheaper products increases, the quality of the products decreases, as does the
life span of the goods…Cycle became a way to exaggerate the idea of
‘tossing away’ and to demonstrate the precariousness of this act. In the end
there was a satisfying moment in the process when the castoffs became
commentary.”
Lunchtime Art Breaks are often not only
educational and insightful, but also brimming with humorous undertones and
fascinating commentary from the very artists whose works are displayed in the
Museum, offering visitors a unique view into the thought process and ideas
behind a work of art. During this tour, Haley demonstrated the playful nature
of his work, picking up one of the remarkably lightweight balls making up Cycle, and acting as if to climb the
sculpture (both of which are not permissible for visitors to the Museum).
In addition to these humorous actions, Haley also
commented on the earlier iterations of Cycle,
such as his idea to combine three of the balled-up washing machines. He
ultimately moved beyond the idea realizing that, “they just ended up looking
like snowmen.” Haley concluded his discussion of Cycle by mentioning his more current twist of the Cycle series. Now, he is making the
recycled enameled steel balls out of car and truck hoods from the late 1970s and
earlier. The new series in progress has more color than this installation of Cycle and is designed to hang on the
walls versus being structured in sculpture form.
For more information about Hoss Haley, please
visit www.hosshaley.com. For information
on Gabriel Shaffer, visit www.gabrielshaffer.com.
To learn more about the artists’ current work in the Asheville Art Museum,
visit www.ashevilleart.org or call
828.253.3227.
