An Interview with Jason Peters by Matthew Strauss
This interview was conducted via email between May 7 and June 23, 2008.
Matthew Strauss
The first thing I noticed about your bucket sculptures was their physicality. I remember wondering if there was anything conceptual beyond the formal exercise of your drawing certain shapes out and then very quickly coming to the conclusion that it didn't matter — the work didn't need to be anything more than formal and physical. Is there anything for you in this work that's much beyond that?
Jason Peters
The physical and formal qualities of the work are very much a part of what I'm trying to achieve. In drawing attention to their materiality and their formal state of being I'm trying to directly address our experience of them, to accost the viewer. I'm trying to provoke a primal reaction to the work's occupation of the viewer's sense of space.
Matthew Strauss
Indoors the work has a lot to do with scale and, in that sense, with the confinement of the sculpture in a definite space. It almost seems to be bending around out of necessity. I know this is the first time you've worked with buckets outdoors. How do you think people will react to seeing the work freed of an interior space?
Jason Peters
Most of the people who view the new work won't have seen anything I've done indoors, so they won't have any point of reference. However, it's beyond my control how a viewer responds to the work. I can only set up a situation that invites reflection or reaction. What I want to achieve is a visual happening that causes the viewer to reconsider their surroundings and the work's context.
Matthew Strauss
Indoors you usually support the buckets with unobtrusive steel cables; here you are using scaffolding. How do you think these very obvious means of support will affect the work?
Jason Peters
Initially the scaffolding was just a means to install my work, but I became interested in the relationship between the linear, angular composition of the scaffolding and the curvilinear form of the sculpture itself. In this installation I thought I could highlight that relationship by using the scaffolding as both a material and structural element of the piece. I also liked that the scaffolding as a skeletal, porous structure could visually divide the space as a three-dimensional grid. Hopefully it will create a kind of interior within a very open exterior space.
Matthew Strauss
Are you concerned about not having the same control of ambient light you're used to having indoors?
Jason Peters
Though the bucket pieces take advantage of complete darkness in interior installations, this one will be bright enough to be noticed in uncontrolled outdoor light. At night I think the work will function very much as it would in an interior space.
Matthew Strauss
In March, when we were putting together your installation at White Flag, you were very pragmatic about color: when we couldn't get the brightly colored buckets you wanted, you made do with black and white. I would think that within the limited visual vocabulary to which you restrict yourself color would be one of your primary concerns. Where does color fall in the hierarchy of your considerations as you conceptualize a new work?
Jason Peters
Color is important to me, but I am not necessarily interested in altering the material I am using to achieve a certain idea about what color it should be. This is partly because I don't have the means to make such alterations, but this is more about working with the materials I have.
Matthew Strauss
So how do you identify a material you want to work with?
Jason Peters
Every time I come across a new material, the challenge is in figuring out what it will and will not do. I look for mass quantities of objects with the vision that each individual object can be used as a building block for a larger form. And while I'm always open to various kinds of objects, I look for materials that are inherently better suited to being agglomerated or manipulated into a form I'm interested in. In the past I've used crutches, cots, chairs, easels, railroad ties, light bulbs... any number of things.
Matthew Strauss
Were the bucket sculptures always conceived of as lighted works? You tend to exhibit them in darkness; and in some ways it almost seems like the darkness, the negative space, is as important to the viewer's experience as the sculpture itself (which, now that I think about it, isn't that different from Richard Serra's Joe in the Pulitzer's courtyard).
Jason Peters
Initially the bucket works were not conceived of as lit sculptures. It dawned on me later — through a dream, actually — that I could create a glow the equivalent of what a candle achieves in a dark room. I wanted the experience of the sculpture to be not only spatial but also, in a way, spiritual — to create a kind of seductive visual experience for the viewer.
Spatially I was attracted to the juxtaposition of a large sculpture and a warm, intimate light. By using a very dim light I attempt to emphasize the darkness within which the sculpture exists: the blackness is a kind of unknown boundary that the viewer has to physically explore.
Matthew Strauss
This project is happening in conjunction with the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts' exhibition Dan Flavin: Constructed Light. Had you ever given much thought to Flavin's art before this project was proposed?
Jason Peters
Flavin's work has always been inspiring. I've always appreciated how he was able to recontextualize a single object and its mechanism into a profound, abstract sculptural statement.
Matthew Strauss
Did you try to relate your work for The Light Project with the Flavin exhibition across the street?
Jason Peters
From a formal and conceptual perspective, our works already overlap. I didn't feel there was any need for me to try and respond to Flavin's work beyond that.
Matthew Strauss
As we write back and forth about this right now, your contribution to The Light Project hasn't yet been realized. We're still in a planning phase. What do you think will be the biggest challenge in working with the site?
Jason Peters
I've never worked on a scale this large. The site is 20,000 square feet. Beyond the logistical and physical challenge of constructing what is my largest work to date, it will be a challenge to create a work that can respond to this context and not be overwhelmed by it. This is why the scaffolding will play such an important part in the piece. It creates a kind of mini-context in which my work can reside. It's an anchor, both physically and conceptually.
Matthew Strauss
What is the role of spectacle in this body of work (the work employing buckets)? Are you concerned that it is maybe too immediately attractive to be taken seriously?
Jason Peters
Creating a spectacle or a good-looking work isn't an end goal in itself; it is simply a possible result of what I am trying to achieve. I want people to have an experience with this work. The issue is more does the work have an impact on the viewer — does it influence the way he or she engages with the space.
I take the work I do seriously, but I also like to have fun. I feel you have to have a balance otherwise you run around and don't grow as an artist. I think I ride the fence — sometimes my work is good, sometimes not so much. Everyone sucks from time to time. It's the human condition.
Matthew Strauss
I think one could draw some simplistic comparisons between your work and the kind of thing done by artists like Tara Donovan or Nancy Rubins. What are the biggest distinctions you would make between your approach and theirs?
Jason Peters
Well, Tara's work and my work involve similar processes, but the scale and quantity of objects is vastly different. She almost loses the object in the mass of her pieces; I am more interested in human scale and preserving the identity of my materials. When I began doing installations, Nancy Rubins was mentioned to me, and I can see the comparisons there as well. However, I come to my work from a completely different place from either of them.
Matthew Strauss
The other day I read an interesting line in an interview with Peter Schjeldahl. (Apparently Schjeldahl got it from Dave Hickey, who got it from Ed Ruscha.) It's about how one tells good art from bad: "Bad art is 'Wow! Huh?' and good art is 'Huh? Wow!'" What's your reaction to that idea? Where do you think your art falls on that scale?
Jason Peters
Well, I agree with the idea, but maybe instead of asking, is a work of art good or bad? the better question is, will it be remembered over time? Do people care enough about it to keep it alive in the art world? If it is really good, then the general public will come to recognize that, too. I think ultimately whether or not art stands the test of time is a collective decision. There is a lot of work out there that is being pushed, and very little of it will be considered great over a long enough period of time. I feel art that people like has timeless qualities. It's invested with human ideals.
I try to create an experience for viewers that stays with them. It's a big challenge for an average viewer to remember something they saw yesterday. We are inundated with so much information that I feel the simpler the immediate perception of a work, the better. The complexity of the work can be appreciated somewhere further into the viewer's consideration of it. I can just hope that my work stands the test of time and what I think is interesting is interesting to others.
