Steel is relentless, with little to no malleability. The American artist Frank Plant has learned to deal with the material’s chemical DNA amazingly well, and now forms formidable figures with it. Mr. Plant, who was recently part of a grand exhibition at the alternative Berlin art house Tacheles, is now living in Spain, incessantly teaching young students at the Metafora, an International School of Contemporary Art and Art Therapy in Barcelona, while creating striking art pieces built to last forever…as long as they’re not stolen first.
Where are you from originally? Born in Baltimore, Maryland but moved shortly after to Washington, D.C.
Why did you choose to live in Barcelona, Spain instead of the States? Previous to living in Barcelona, I lived in Amsterdam for 6 years. After about five years there I was seriously thinking about other destinations. Weather was a factor as was a personal relationship I was involved in. As a kid I was always fascinated by the idea of visiting other cultures, so as a youngster I started to do that and it morphed into longer and longer stays. I appreciate living outside of my own culture; it keeps you on your toes and forces you to deal with a different way of life.
Why do you use steel as your material? I was always attracted to steel’s possibilities as a material and began investigating it when I was about 19 or so, and it stuck. The more time you spend with a material, the more profound an understanding you have of it’s possibilities and expressive qualities. I also like steel's permanence and durability.
Can you describe the process of how one steel art piece comes to be? It starts as a few neurons buzzing around in my head, like an itch or a hunch or maybe even like a bad smell that you can't trace to its source. You nourish the idea a bit and see how it forms in your head. Sometimes I think of things and immediately realize they will function in my particular language while others take longer. The pivotal moment is when you take the step to begin fabricating something. Obviously it's better if you reach that stage with a bit of enthusiasm. Once you get there, there's no turning back. There are very few pieces that I have left unresolved, for better or worse.
What is the aim of your artwork? Various things, but the primary one is to provide a pleasurable, engaging, sometimes provocative viewing experience through the communication of certain values. Sometimes I just like to observe objects and sometimes I like to observe social dynamics. Both of those I do to provide the viewer with an opportunity to see things in a different manner that will hopefully furnish some sort of moment of reflection or insight.
What inspires you? If I'm in the right mindset, anything and everything and that's how it should be. When I find that space, nothing is safe. Recently a lecture I saw online by Sir Ken Robinson on education and creativity blew my mind. I am also am deeply interested in the expressive possibilities of math and music, unfortunately I know very little of both. Other than that, I'll settle for looking for the poetry in everyday life; authentic moments that often times go unperceived.
If you are working on one piece and something else comes to mind, do you finish what you started or work on something new right away? With me the relationship you have with the realization of a piece is like a parabola: you start off with enthusiasm and a desire to see the piece finished. I find that it's better not to interrupt that. In certain instances like the piece "Stay on Message" (see below), a beast that took a hell of a long time to finish, I took breaks because I needed to breathe the fresh air of another idea. Normally I'm focused on one piece at a time.
How long does it usually take to finish a piece? That really depends on size, but even more importantly complexity, and how clearly I see the piece in my mind's eye before I begin. If I only have a loose idea of the piece in general and still have issues of composition to resolve, it can take some time. Some simpler things I can finish quite rapidly because after years of practice my fabrication skills are quite efficient.
You have been teaching at the “Metafora Tallers de Art Comtemporani” in Barcelona since 2009. What do you teach your students? How often do you teach? I'm normally at Metafora 3-4 days a week in the mornings. Sometimes I teach groups and other times I deal individually with the students. My idea of teaching creativity is giving students a very practical and unromantic awareness about what's in store for them. Not to scare them -- it's just some students arrive with a very cliché idea of what it is to be an artist, that's it's all about passion and inspiration, when in my experience it's more about patience and perseverance, hard work and discipline (not very desirable notions to the 19-26-year-old set). Basically all the things I never paid attention to as a student.
I have seen a couple of your pieces are on the streets. They make an almost graffiti-like impression. Aren´t you scared that they will be stolen? When you put something on the street it's almost like an offering and you know that some day it will go away. Two of those pieces were gone in 48 hours, the third is still there after almost 8 months but she is very much off the beaten path. The street is perhaps the cleanest and most egalitarian space for artists to communicate today, free of all the binding politics and market influences of the gallery system.
Can people buy your art? People not only can buy my work but should buy my work.
What are you currently working on? Another installation of the relief series of pieces of individuals reading the newspaper the day that Obama won the election last year. To realize the pieces, I asked people to send me images of themselves reading the newspapers in their home countries. I’m also working on a commission for a client in Barcelona which involves spending time on the beach.
Into the Wild: MAY + SASA Technology
The brand-spanking new fashion label MAY + SASA Technology was created by two fine art graduates, May Georgia and Lar...
Sam Worthington - Aussie True Blue
It was in early 2009, during the first buzz around Terminator Salvation and Avatar, when Australian actor Sam Worthin...
Pieter Hugo - Nollywood
The Johannesburg-based photographer Pieter Hugo sent waves through the photography world with The Hyena Men, his seri...
Tags for this article:
More about: Feature
More about: Lifestyle
latest articles from
- Jan Banning debuts “Bureaucratics” series
In his photo study ‘Bureaucratics’, Dutch photographer Jan Banning documents public administrati...
- TODAY WE LIKE: Cress mini garden
Do you enjoy a nice green view in the morning? Then grow your own whimsical mini garden! The soi...
- Design Vending Machine launched at Berlin Hauptbahnhof
On February 17, Berlinomat’s Design Vending Machine was inaugurated by Mayor Klaus Wowereit at B...
- TODAY WE LIKE: Fuck you very much
As we know, in the real world it is mostly about the ‘I’ and hardly ever about the ‘we’. So, it’...
- TODAY WE LIKE: DJ Ellie D
A three year old girl rocking the turntables like a pro - DJ Ellie D is in the house! We haven’t...
- Ji Lee debuts upside down art installations
Korean artist Ji Lee recently published a new series of artworks titled “parallel worlds” on his...
RSS FEEDS
EB NEWSLETTER
AUSTRIA
CZECH REPUBLIC
GERMANY
write a comment