Martin Puryear
Biography
Born in 1941, Puryear stated to study crafts and built guitars and furniture and canoes through the school he atteneded when he was young, He attended a Catholic University in Washington D.C., where he revieced his BA. After graduating he joined the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, afterwords he attended the Swedish Royal Academy of Art, and then went on to get his MFA in sculpture from Yale. Martin Puryear recieved the Grand Prize for his exhibition when he represented the United States at the São Paolo Bienal in 1989. The MOMA showed a 30-year survey of Puryears work in 2007.
Other awards include
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award
- Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant
- The Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture
Aesthectic style
Puryear mainly does instalations and sculptures. For his instalations he uses wood, stone tar, wire and various metals. In his most most famous piece, "Ladder for Booker T. Washington," Puryear used joint ash wood to build a 35 feet tall spindly ladder that narrows towards the top. A form that is a favorite of Puryear is a thick looking stone buldge, which is actually hollow. Puryear likes how this gives this rock like object a new qualities of emptiness and loss.
Conceptual Concern
Puryear likes to us his work teach about moral lessons ( such as we are superior to some small things, and inferior to others (god)) and teaches about struggles and lose of the African American race( ex. Booker T. Washington)."Mr. Puryear’s work is humorous but not ironic. It has a complex worldview devoid of trendy critique. It offers more integrity than innovation and proves repeatedly that accessible doesn’t rule out subtle. Like Elizabeth Murray, who was also the subject of a recent MoMA retrospective, Mr. Puryear has pursued what might be called an old-fashioned approach to the new. But really, both have done nothing more, or less, than ground formalism in the rich world of their own experience and identity. And that is new enough." (2)
"Vessel"
1997-2002
"The most precise work is generally done by hand, with hand tools. Some people rely on machines for their precision, and my way of working is backwards. I rely on the machines for doing the gross stock removal and then, when it comes to the final refinements and fitting of joints and things, making things work together, I rely more on sharp-edged tools that I push by hand."... Martin Puryear
"Plenty's Boast"
1994-1995
"I work with a lot of things besides wood, but wood remains my primary material when I want to shape or construct things. That’s the natural way that I can easily get a result. It’s very flexible, very versatile, and doesn’t require tremendous technological backup. If you’ve got the right tools, you can do it all using your own physical body power. I do have machines in the studio, but they’re used appropriately. They’re not used for every single operation. And I don’t use them for the most precise work.... Martin Puryear
" Booker T. Washington"
1996
"I didn’t set out to make a work about Booker T. Washington. The work was really about using a sapling...and making a work that had a kind of forced perspective, which made it appear to recede into space faster than it does. It’s an idea I’ve been fascinated with for a long time. It requires a certain length- it’s a piece that couldn’t have been done small. As it was, it was thirty-six feet long. It’s the ideas of diminution in space and the manipulation of that perception that interest me."
"...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..."
Link to the Art 21 Interview
Link to this Page
- Research: Artists of the African Diaspora last edited on 15 October 2008 at 12:54 pm by 148.61.242.193