CONVERSATION OPENED
Artist Emil Alzamora and Jonathan Goodman
September 13, 2024
Emil Alzamora is now in his late forties and has been living in Beacon. He is part of a rising population there, attracted to the combination of making art and living in a more open landscape than the asphalt confines of New York. His work captures the figure by taking it apart; many of his works occur in pieces, roughly outlining a sense of the enormous sculpture the pieces suggest. Beacon, home of the Dia Foundation, has attracted a large community of artists and artisans. The following questions indicate how Alzamora makes his art, internalizing the influences surrounding him.
Jonathan Goodman: You were born in Peru but now live in Beacon, roughly an hour north of New York City. Have your two backgrounds resulted in a dual outlook, or does your approach to sculpture merge different traditions?
Emil Alzamora: My upbringing has had a considerable influence on the work I make. Travel was always prioritized over anything that could be considered materially luxurious or comfortable (forgoing air conditioning), for example, in Florida). My mother, whose father was Peruvian, was raised in Peru, and my grandmother from Michigan (both artists) emphasized visits to museums and ancient ruins, monuments, etc. I would characterize my background as American, South American, and European, especially, the Mediterranean region. I am a British Citizen, but relate equally if not more so to Spain, where I spent almost as much time as Florida. Despite the mixed bag, I feel North American, having lived in New York since 1998. Peru is an ancestral and mythological place that I have visited a handful of times and that has worked its way into me mostly by way of my mother, whom I have been very close to throughout my life. How that background has manifested itself in my work is up for debate. Still, on the surface I would say it's one part Marvel Comics, one part Tin Tin, and two parts Greek and Roman sculpture, with a good pinch of Impressionism, Abstraction and Minimalism, along with a few other isms and a dash of Incan and Egyptian megalithism.
JG: Is it fair to say that your orientation is figurative? Is it possible to make good figurative art now? What is it about figurative art that you find valuable and attractive?
EA: I would agree with that. The human form has been a constant in my work since I could hold a pencil. The power of the body and its quiet language, especially when captured in exceptional or unexpected material, can be layered with meaning, emotions, and stories. Fine art has explored so many paths; applying all of that collective knowledge to making today's human figure is fascinating. It is the best time to be sculpting the figure. We have so much more esthetic wisdom to bring to it. The key is to do it effortlessly, which requires a lot of practice and even more letting go (to avoid running the risk of making purely academic reproductions or static, boring figures). Sculpting the human figure is the best way to look at ourselves again. We disappeared into minimalist and purely conceptual oblivion, then “popped” back out of it (enough said on that) and are now in need of a good reflection on what it means to be and to thrive as human beings. I feel like seeing ourselves in art again is a natural evolution of artistic expression, mainly because of all we have been through existentially. What will we see now?
JG: Sometimes you incorporate individual works of art into environments or installations. Do such arrangements reflect culture generally, or are they a particular sub-division of sculpture? Why would you make such art?
EA: This is a great observation. I have often felt the need to bring some of the energy and magic that happens in a cacophonous studio into the purity of the exhibition space. The relations between the sculpted figures, objects, and fragments can be as powerful if not more powerful than the thing alone when more formally isolated in a white cube. This approach has allowed for more spontaneous explorations (often less figurative) to have a place in the formal gallery setting. I think installation art is brilliant for this reason. It has broken the narrative that artworks exist in isolation. They certainly can, but they can also be amplified by the way they are presented in what is near them. I am a massive fan of the object, art or otherwise. I fall in love regularly with rocks, sticks, metal fragments, etc. Sculpture is a variation of that. I am finding it by more active means (making it) but including these objects that I have found or helped in part to make (casting a bird’s nest in ceramic) is a way to recreate the environment that brought the more formally finished works into being. Take ”Irrational Experiments,” the show at the KuBe for example; the setting is a former science classroom with counters, sinks, and cabinets. This was the perfect setting to explore some of my objectophilia and how it relates to the more finished or formal sculptures.
JG: Please talk briefly about your methods for working with different materials. Do the materials themselves influence the forms that result from your art?
EA: Yes! Part of what I find so compelling about sculpture is the breadth of materials that are available, both traditional and nontraditional. Technology and industry have opened some truly fascinating doors to how sculpture can be made. Big budgets aside (cnc milling, large scale additive manufacturing, bronze casting) a simple trip to the hardware store can offer an enormous range of materials to explore. Add to that digital or virtual sculpting and desktop 3d printing, which are both affordable and mesmerizing. Each material offers its own seduction or pushback. I often see the process as part of what defines the result. The main reason I don't employ assistants is because I like to be present when determining how something is made. That way, I can catch a moment that could help define what a sclupture looks like or even what the sculpture is about. The material and the idea are often in a negotiation throughout the creative process. I look for ways to throw myself off balance so that something unexpected might happen. What materials I choose to sculpt with is a good way to do this. In the end, for me, making something is a type of celebration. The end result is a combination of doing and paying attention both to what is being said and what you might want to say. I currently have a show up at Moca Jax in Jacksonville titled ”Starship Abundance.” It is a good cross-section of this approach to material use and exploration ranging from mirror polished cast stainless steel to hand- built, fired ceramic made from clay I harv-ested and prepped from my own yard.
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JG: Beacon is the home of Dia, the well-known center for minimalist art and other works of that era. Artists have been attracted to the town because of the Dia. How has this cultural center influenced your work and life?
EA: I first heard about Dia in 1999 when a landlord mentioned his realtor was in a helicopter and said their client saw a building that they were going to make into a major museum. Note to self. It didn't open for another 4 years but it was major news leading up to it and it did end up shaping much of the artistic culture in both Beacon and Newburgh. NYC was already doing that but having Dia in Beacon fast tracked everything. Now with the pandemic it is moving even faster here and much further north as well. I came to the Hudson Valley in 1998, a few months after graduating from Florida State which had a great sculpture program. Polich Art Works, a global leader if not the leading art foundry of its day, became the creative hub of a self-styled MFA program where I worked as an enlarger, mold maker and metal finisher full time, then had access to the facilities to make a body of work in the early mornings and evenings. This and NYC was my draw to the area, Dia was an added bonus. Having said that, Dia:Beacon has given me more appreciation for that genre of work and occasionally I embrace it indirectly in my sculpture. Ultimately, I’m happy that minimalism and conceptual art has its own institution and can no longer be seen as radical or cutting edge.
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JG: You recently had a solo show at The KuBe, a former public school owned by Ethan Cohen, your gallerist. How did The KuBe affect your installation? Did the size of the space expand the way you thought about setting up the exhibition?
EA: The central part of the exhibit is in the science room, filled with old furniture, sinks, etc. I’ve often described my art practice as “irrational experiments in physics.” That setting allowed me to double down on this notion. I incorporated more of the material experiments and curiosity- based meanderings into the overall exhibit as it worked well with the spirit of the room with its cabinetry, sinks, and fixtures. The end result is a slightly more tidy version of what might be found in my studio (or laboratory). The size of the room is not that far off from my studio and translated nicely into the final iteration of the “Irrational Experiments” show. The exhibit extends into the hallways with several large scale sculptures, as well as a greenhouse that is
nestled on an adjacent rooftop. The overall feeling is spontaneous, a little sci-fi, and nostalgic.
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JG: A good number of your artworks consist of fragments. Why is a partial element vital to you? Does it have an innate lyricism that interests you?
EA: That’s a great way of framing it. I brought up objectophilia earlier. I like the word because it can convey the strong psychic pull an object can have on the observer. Some of these fragments are things I made in previous years (a cut off arm from a discarded sculpture), others are entirely found (a small dehydrated tree), and others are hybrids (the partially cast negative space of a microscope package). Most objects in nature are fragments. It is rare to find something that is intact unless it is alive and in that case you can't really do what you want with it without ethical and moral considerations. An unbroken shell, bone, or fossil is a rare find. Whether something is man made or made by nature, fragments tell a story of both creation and destruction. In the studio, there are many artifacts and fragments charged with my own associations and memories. To include them in a work of art is to transfer that power to the sculpture or installation. If life is a byproduct of an entropic swirl, it’s often the fragments that tell its story.
JG: Does your work reference historical precedents? Are you thinking about a particular time or artist? How important is the past for an artist working figuratively now?
EA: I think the human story is phenomenal! History, be it art, natural or otherwise, is one of my favorite subjects to learn about. It offers the opportunity to orient oneself in the ocean of existence and the mountains of humanity that came before us. The work I make, I measure against that magnitude. I want it to be as much in conversation with the small stone carvings of prehistoric times as with what I saw at yesterday’s art fair while considering how it
may be seen in the future. Fine art is a very direct and literal way humans have expressed themselves for thousands of years. It is only in recent centuries that it carries the weight of individual expression (as opposed to a broader ideological or functional expression). Nonetheless, it is a conversation that has been happening for centuries and should we not fold it into the present, we would miss out on the base notes that can give the work more depth and lasting resonance. As to how that relates to working figuratively, the one constant throughout our vast history is the form we take. It is completely natural to want to make an effigy of ourselves to understand and appreciate what that can mean. It is the visual and esthetic tree with the deepest roots and the most challenging object to honor (and, for me, most satisfying).
JG: What are the themes you describe in your work? Does your art refer to actual events, or is most everything imagined?
EA: I have a very intuitive and feeling-based approach to my work. Drawing is very much a part of it. A drawing can chart a course for a sculpture I want to make, or I can make a sculpture the way I draw, which is from memory and stream of consciousness, the drawing usually not taking more than a few minutes or seconds to create. In that case the themes tend to be mysterious and culled from the subconscious. I have faith in the murky pool of experience, driven by feeeling and learning. If I draw or make something that feels powerful to me, even if I don't understand it, I will trust that it holds something that wants to be expressed. As I mature in my art practice, I have learned to trust this more and more. Art is about questions and exploration, not about solutions and dominion. Suppose I describe a few themes in my work. In that case, they revolve around being stuck and overcoming the situation, and self- reflection and consideration, transformation and evolution, restraint and exaltation, to name a few.
JG: Are you working in isolation, or is there an arts community in Beacon you participate in? How does this arts community support you?
EA: I primarily work in isolation. My wife, Annie, runs the bulk of the administrative and technical aspects of making art your business. For that I am incredibly thankful and lucky. She will regularly help make molds or sand things in the studio, but I am mostly alone and happily sinking into the workflow to see what comes of it. Again, the process is a part of the work. Outside the studio, Beacon and Newburgh have an active arts community that is varied and dynamic. I have several artist friends with whom I share ideas and commiserate about the latest challenges in making artwork. Ethan Cohen has brought a fantastic powerhouse of creativity to Beacon with the KuBe Art Center. His programs are reaching the community more and more every year and bringing together people who may only meet each other with it. It also further connects Beacon to the New York City art community, which is so important. I work alone, but connecting to the art community here and beyond is absolutely vital to the metabolism of making art.
JG: Please name a couple of sculptors working today and explain why they are essential to you.
EA: There are so many. I was at the Armory Fair yesterday and had the luck to meet and share a little about sculpture making with a very kind Kiki Smith. She is easily in my top ten, maybe top five. I love her range of expression and her constant push to expand her ideas and visual language for her work. Much of it is figurative but not in a dogmatic way. That’s how I see my approach to using the figure. It could easily not be, but it appears as though I enjoy it so much that it ends up being figurative. I see her work in a similar light. She meanders to and fro in and out of what might be seen as “her thing” but will always surprise you. I find that vital. The unexpected is core and artists who embrace that despite the pressures of success and the market expectations are on my radar. Other artists I admire in whole or in part are David Altmejd, Nicola Samori, Roxy Paine,Tony Cragg, Antony Gormley, Rona Pondick, Berlinde de Bruyckere, the occasional Ugo Rondinoni and Julian Schanbel. This list has some of the elements I look for as it relates to exploration, material reverie and overall curiosity.
JG: You live within commuting distance of New York City. How do you make use of the city? Does it influence the way you make art?
EA: I love being near New York City. It was one of the main reasons for my coming to the Hudson Valley. Although I didn't want to immerse myself in the city proper, I knew I needed to be close to absorb what I could, when I could, and as often as possible. I know that positioning myself here instead of Florida, for example, has had an enormous impact on my art practice, knowledge, and actualization. It is hard to quantify how valuable that has been over the years. New York City, much more than Los Angeles, for example, is at the heart of the exchange between the Americas and Europe. I feel very much at home here.
