Derek Weisberg
Derek Weisberg, was born in 1983. He began sculpting at a very early age starting with the medium of mashed potatoes as soon as he could hold a fork and knife, moving onto action figure assemblage when he could load a hot glue gun, and at age 7 he turned to the medium of ceramics, which was the beginning of his lifelong love and ultimate passion. He unwaveringly pursued ceramics sculpture throughout his childhood and teens, in Benicia, CA, where he was raised. At age 18 he moved to Oakland, CA, to pursue his love for ceramics and art in general and attended California College of Arts and Crafts. At CCAC he received several awards and graduated with high honors in 2005 with a BFA. Since then Weisberg has co-owned his own gallery, Boontling Gallery, as well as curated numerous other shows. He has also worked with highly esteemed artists such as Stephen DeStaebler, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Manuel Neri, and many others. In addition Weisberg has maintained a strong and demanding studio practice, exhibiting nationally, and internationally. Weisberg currently lives and works in NY and is faculty at Greenwich House Pottery.
How fleeting life is. We are all here with a limited time and capacity. We all exist with the knowledge that one day our last breathe will expire. How do we operate and move through life knowing this? With this awareness, how do we strive toward achievements and growth on all levels of our being. Additionally, how do we pursue this as we and our world changes, every moment of every day? How do we move through the mud, as Beckett says, and funk of life, as Dr Cornell West calls it? And, how do we do this as elegantly, beautifully, kind, invested, and responsible as possible? Life can be lonely, hard, complicated, and ugly. How do we wrestle with pain, longing, dysfunction, and vulnerability? How do we find truths in the face of these hardships and realities? How do we cope with human atrocities and extreme injustice, from local and personal relationships to the grandest of scale? Art provides a unique opportunity and experience to communicate powers beyond ourselves; it can traverse time, place, gender, race. It has the ability to touch the core and reach the deepest places of our existence. Through my art I attempt to tackle these questions and to kiss these truths.
-Derek Weisberg
You Can’t Get Here Fast Enough II, porcelain, acrylic, and epoxy, 2018
Up in the Air Now IX, cone 6 ceramic, 2018
You Can’t Get Here Fast Enough I, porcelain and epoxy, 2018
Up in the Air Now X, cone 6 ceramic, 2018
Alarm Bell Cacophonies XI, ceramic, paper, wood, plaster, plastic, metal, canvas, 2019
Alarm Bell Cacophonies IX, ceramic, paper, wood, plaster, plastic, 2019
Ontological Splendor I, mixed media, 2018
Q&A Between Brett Amory and Derek Weisberg
BA: We have been friends for a long time and have had many conversations about life and art. Your work deals with impermanence, the fleeting nature of life and the realization of one's own mortality. Having the conception of living in the knowledge of death can be liberating. Do you think this acceptance of your own mortality helps you live a more authentic life?
DW: Firstly, I am not sure I have accepted my own mortality. Secondly I am not sure what an authentic life looks like? I certainly have experienced deaths of many people I have loved and have been close to. I think with each of those experiences I have learned more about life, or at least hopefully. I would like to think and hope I could honestly say to you now that I have
accepted my own death. But, that is probably a lie; there is still so much I want to do and make, experience and learn. There is also the reality that, though I have these ambitions, if I were told that I am to face an untimely end in the very near future, I would find some kind of resolve and peace in knowing that my entire life I pursued the activities that have given me pleasure, fulfillment and purpose. And yes the ideas you pointed out, which I am interested in underscore all of my work. It is an attempt to navigate and examine life, that thing or experience between birth and death. Perhaps Socrates famous quote, “The unexamined life is not worth living” speaks to these same ideas and to ideas of authenticity?
I think there is a metaphorical aspect to this as well, being an artist making art in which failure is part of the making process, I experience a kind of death almost daily. But there is knowledge gained from the making, the doing, the activity and process and that is life. I make work, that has no clear path or outcome, I move through making a piece as I move through life, only
making decisions by nudging in the direction I hope is the best for me in that situation. But I am constantly met with failures and successes, deaths, and rebirths, in my work and in life in general. Everyday the Egyptian god Ra rises, moves across the sky experiencing life, then dying, setting beyond the horizon moving through the underworld, only to rise again, reborn.
BA: Your work has a heaviness. I'm often attracted to work that impacts the viewer on atranscendental level. Would you say your practice is inspired by everyday experience or are you pulling from a place of intuition? Maybe both?
DW: I am happy you used the word transcendental. I know it is an incredibly lofty goal, very romantic and possibly outdated but I don’t care; if my work can provide some kind of transcendental or transformative experience I feel I have reached my ultimate goal, and the work has attained the pinnacle of success. The heaviness and darkness is a starting point from which
light emerges. It is the moment of recognition, that the object they are looking at and experiencing is eliciting some kind of “heaviness” from within themselves or their world. It is from that point of recognition that they can begin to take the actual steps in bringing about a change to better themselves and the situation. I think in order for this to happen some sort of awareness needs to be awoken. And this awareness is both a recognition of self in the world and their external surroundings and context, as well as the intuitive internal qualities, so those things are inseparable. As the maker, I try to do the same; acting as an open channel allowing my intuition, play and chance combined with my everyday surroundings and information to move through me unfiltered and expressed through the material. I am functioning best and feel my best work comes from these states.
BA: 2020 has been a hell of a year and I find myself experiencing more dread than usual. I'm always thinking about how people cope in such times. I personally feel extremely fortunate to have art as a coping mechanism. Existential angst seems to be a recurring theme in your work so I'm curious to hear how 2020 has affected your practice?
DW: I am not sure how 2020 has affected my practice. For me the 2 main disruptors and issues for 2020 have become COVID, Social Justice and I guess a third being the election. Pre-COVID I had moved my studio to my house with the intention of shifting my work to an almost completely 2D practice. So when COVID hit I was already in position to continue on with that. When the killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor hit, I really kind of put art making on the back burner. And lately I have been trying to spend a lot of time doing election/get out the vote type work. But I think many of the issues I deal with in my work and have dealt with for almost 20 years speaks to what people are feeling right now: existentialist ideas, longing, loss, dysfunction, the breaking down of systems, etc. So I kinda just take it as the world catching up to me, hahaha, just kidding. But maybe there is a new kind of resonance people will have when they view my art. Although a lot of feedback I have gotten on recent work is that it hits too close to home and people are overwhelmed right now, they want flowers and kittens, light hearted shit
they don’t have to think about. Possibly some of the art historical influences have shifted? I have been thinking a lot about Munch’s The Scream. Probably one of the paintings in the western canon of art which speaks most to the anxieties of contemporary life.
BA: Being an artist, I am used to being by myself for long periods of time. With the Coronavirus outbreak changing the way everyone in the world is working and living, being in isolation has become the new norm. How has your life changed since COVID 19?
DW: It has forced me, as I think with many, to slow down, to not feel so pressured and rushed. This microscopic life forced the entire planet to shut down and stop. There is incredible power and poignancy in that, all though a challenge, I would be a fool not to try and comply. There is also the realization probably all of us have had and or been told which is that the virus is not separate from the economic model that the USA has embraced and pumped full of steroids. An example we can see is how COVID has affected low income and communities of mostly POC most. The capitalist model has told me that taking a nap, or taking an hour out of my day to read is being lazy, its not productive, it doesn't add to accomplishing my goals. It was an unhealthy pace and
mindset for me and the world to be in. I too spend a lot of time alone, when working in the studio I am isolated and solitary. I tend to work in the studio a lot. However, I have become much more social living in NY, which is a very social place. Pre-COVID I would go to art openings or dinners probably 6 or 7 nights a week. I almost always had plans doing or seeing something. Much of my social life revolved around seeing friends and acquaintances at openings and such. So COVID ended all of that, until recently, when galleries reopened. Also everyone moved work to zoom which is a pivot we
all know well. So many of the changes since COVID revolve around the social aspect.