Frieze Masters ‘Studio’: Arlene Shechet
The sculptor talks about her studio in Kingston, Hudson Valley, USA, and her fascination with the unknowable history of familiar objects
The sculptor talks about her studio in Kingston, Hudson Valley, USA, and her fascination with the unknowable history of familiar objects
Arlene Shechet: The studio is everywhere. The physical space is only one corner of that idea. When I leave the studio and separate myself from the stuff I’m making, I’m in a place of non- attachment, which is a much bigger creative space. Being in this liminal place allows me to live more dangerously, to make work that is less in line with the thing I made before. It’s a way of courting change and transformation. It’s why I’m a sculptor and not a painter. Sculpture embraces complexity and has a quality of resistance. Facing resistance, perversely, is interesting to me. Some of the awful places I’ve had to work could have buried me, but in my mind, I was able to go anywhere.
When I lived in Tribeca, there was a free space in the basement of my building. I cleared it out and built a studio, which allowed me to continue making work while having a family. It was a dream come true, and a very privileged situation for New York City. The basement was somewhat above ground, with just a few small windows facing a brick wall. After twenty years, I found myself desperate for some light. A year and a half ago I moved to my dream studio – a large brick building in the Hudson Valley. I tore down one of the levels to make 20-foot ceilings and turned the old parking lot into an enclosed courtyard. It’s the kind of studio that I used to see male artists having, where they would take their shirt off and get photographed sitting doing nothing. Now that I have this super-glamorous setting, the pressure is on.
I think the studio functions as a tool – it creates limitations and gives permissions. Now I have a lot of permission. When I built the studio off my house in Woodstock, Ursula von Rydingsvard and Judy Pfaff came to visit and asked why I didn’t put a garage door in. The answer was that I was intimidated and questioned what right I had to the studio. I didn’t want to make anything that I couldn’t carry with just one other person. Of course, now I have three garage doors. At least I’m not questioning.
Some of the awful places I’ve had to work could have buried me, but in my mind, I was able to go anywhere.
Many objects have accompanied me from studio to studio. One is a handblown glass breast pump. It’s interesting to me on many levels because it alludes to so many forms and ideas. It’s a small sculpture. It’s figurative in that it actually looks like a pregnant person. It enacts itself. It has a function. I love it as a socio-political object. This pump was clearly not about feeding the milk to your kids – the wet nurse was feeding them. It was about the mother relieving pressure on her breast. It’s probably more than a hundred years old. My work has a lot to do with parts coming together. In this object, I like the opacity of the rubber and the transparency of the glass.
Another item is a small double-hexagonal object that really is an abstraction. Kiki Smith gave it to me a number of years ago. I have come to see that it’s everything for me. It’s a three-dimensional colour wheel. It’s also a building, a stupa and a charm. I understand the history of the breast pump, but this object has a deep history that we’ll never know. It’s so small and unassuming. I feel a kind of potency in something that I don’t understand yet. It appeared on somebody’s table at a flea market and Kiki picked it up. It’s a little bit worn; it’s been places. I’ve looked at it and thought about it so many times and am touched that another artist can know me well enough to gift me such a potent, personal object.
As told to Livia Russell.
Further Information
Frieze Masters and Frieze London take place concurrently from 11-15 October 2023 in The Regent’s Park, London. Studio is on view at Frieze Masters for the duration of the fair.
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