Martin Puryear: "Big Bling" | ART21 "Exclusive"

[Martin Puryear: "Big Bling"]

--[PURYEAR] There's a story in the making
of objects.

--There's a narrative in the fabrication of things

which, to me, is fascinating.

I think, working incrementally,

there is a built-in story.

I think it isn't just for the artist.

I get from people's reactions

that they do find something interesting

in the way the pieces are made--

not simply in the form that results

but actually in the way that they're made.

--[CRAIG VAN COTT] We're making big pieces
of wood

out of little pieces of wood

[Craig Van Cott, President, Unalam]

with the help of glue and clamps

and high-frequency microwaves

to make it all stick together.

The intricacy of what Martin was looking for

was something that we had to actually

buy some new machinery for.

We had to make very tight radiuses on the arches--

the ribs that are holding the plywood together.

And there were a lot of tight angles.

This is giving us exposure that we don't usually get--

Our product is holding up a roof

and what's under the roof is what gets all
the exposure.

[PURYEAR] I've had to open myself up--

both to working with assistants,

but also to working with people outside the studio

who I have to engage to do the larger pieces

because I don't have the facilities to make

a thirty- or forty- or fifty-foot-high work
in my studio

nor do I have the technical facilities

to work with certain materials.

It's putting yourself in the hands of other people

and trusting their skill

and their willingness to do what you want.

--[JOHN LASH] This was to be a very
industrialized piece.

The outside was to look like it was a salvaged piece.

We did look into running recycled wood for
the project.

[Madison Square Park, New York City]

We had a problem with the fact that

it is in a public place

and you would have to engineer every piece of wood

to make sure that it was structurally sound.

[John Lash, President, Digital Atelier]

So, we were able to meet and find standards

that made it look like an industrial product.

We were going to put a cloth wire or chain link

around the whole piece.

[PURYEAR] One of the most important elements

when you're coming up with the work

is the scale--

how big it needs to be.

And, for me,

that's always been, in some ways,

the most difficult

but also the most crucial part of a project.

I prefer to have work that doesn't have

to relate to a building.

So this relates more to the people, hopefully,

who are going to be circulating around it.

The wire mesh, I've used repeatedly

because I'm interested in the way that it both

is a way of creating and defining a volume--

a surface--

that's very clear in space

and yet, the same time,

it has a kind of transparency

because of the holes in the mesh--

the openings in the mesh.

From a distance,

it tends to look very, very massive and heavy.

And what I like is the dichotomy

between that heaviness and massiveness

and the actual sense of it as, really, a veil.

It's just a thin skin

that's very permeable--

very open.

As you approach it, you realize

that you're actually looking through it--

you see light through it.

And as you walk around it

and as you get closer,

you realize that it's really just a thin crust of mesh.

It looks very boulder-like and massive.

I like the dichotomy between those two experiences.

My work has a potential for evolution--

for change and open-endedness--

which, to me, feels resonant with what it
is to live a life.