Steven Siegel (born 1953) is an American artist whose work includes
public art
Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...
,
installation art
Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...
, sculpture, collage and film.Phillips, Patricia C. "Wandering Through Time: The Sculpture of Steven Siegel," ''Sculpture'', October 2003, p. 32–7.Grande, John K. "We Are the Landscape: A Conversation with Steven Siegel," ''Sculpture'', March 2010, p. 41–5.Woo, Jae-yeon "Artist Steven Siegel inches toward becoming one with nature," ''Yonhap News Agency'', November 23, 2016. Retrieved August 3, 2021. He is most known for site-specific, outdoor sculptures, public art commissions and installations made from repurposed pre- and postconsumer materials, which have been influenced by concepts and processes derived from geology and
evolutionary biology
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...
.Scrupe, Mara Adamitz. "Environment, Audience, and Public Art in the New World (Order)," ''Sculpture'', March 2000, p. 42–9.Perreault, John "Steven Siegel: The Sculptor from Planet X," ''ArtsJournal'', February 14, 2011. Retrieved August 3, 2021. Writers relate his work in formal terms to
minimalism
In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...
, in its materials and emphasis on hands-on processes to
postminimalism
Postminimalism is an art term coined (as post-minimalism) by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. ...
, and in its unconventional means (natural sites, community involvement, and embrace of ephemerality) to
Land art
Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...
Marlborough Fine Art
Marlborough Fine Art was founded in London in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer. In 1963, a gallery was opened as Marlborough-Gerson in Manhattan, New York, at the Fuller Building on Madison Avenue and 57th Street, which later relocated in ...
,Baker, Allese Thomson "Steven Siegel," ''Artforum'', February 2011. Retrieved August 3, 2021.
Montalvo Arts Center
The Montalvo Arts Center is a non-profit center for the arts in Saratoga, California, United States. Open to the public, Montalvo comprises a cultural and arts center, a park, hiking trails and the historic Villa Montalvo, an Italian Mediterran ...
,
Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The Aldrich has no permanent collection and is the only museum in Connecticut that is dedicated solely to the exhibition of contemporary art. The museum presents the first ...
Drawing Center
The Drawing Center is a Manhattan, New York, museum and a nonprofit exhibition space that focuses on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary.
History
The Drawing Center was founded by former assistant curator of drawings at ...
, among other venues.Brown, Linda. "Steven Siegel," ''RSVP: Six Artists Respond'', Charlotte, NC: Bechtler Gallery, 1992, p. 20–3. He has created commissioned works in cities and universities throughout the U.S. and Europe, in Australia, and Kazakhstan and Korea, and at the
DeCordova Museum
The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a 30-acre sculpture park and contemporary art museum on the shore of Flint's Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 20 miles northwest of Boston. It was established in 1950. It is the largest park of its kind ...
,Richmond, Susan. "Paper, Earth: An Installation with Steven Siegel," ''Wild Apples'', Fall/Winter 2010. Arte Sella Sculpture Park (Italy),Morris, Roderick Conway "An Italian Valley Where Nature Meets Art," ''The New York Times'', August 6, 2010, p. E37. Retrieved August 4, 2021.
Grounds for Sculpture
Grounds For Sculpture (GFS) is a sculpture park and museum located in Hamilton, New Jersey. It is located on the former site of Trenton Speedway. Founded in 1992 by John Seward Johnson II, the venue is dedicated to promoting an understanding of ...
,Bischoff, Dan. "A trio of fall attractions," ''The Star-Ledger'', October 22, 2006. and
Art Omi
Art Omi, formerly Omi International Arts Center, is a non-profit international arts organization located in Columbia County, New York, Columbia County in Ghent, New York. The organization provides Artist-in-residence, residencies for writers, art ...
.Kimmelman, Michael "The Hudson Valley, Inside and Out," ''The New York Times'', July 30, 1999, p. E37. Retrieved August 4, 2021. Siegel lives and works in Tivoli in upstate New York.
Education and early career
Siegel was born in
White Plains, New York
(Always Faithful)
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, seal_link =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country
, subdivision_name =
, subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State
, su ...
in 1953. He graduated from
Hampshire College
Hampshire College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges ...
in
Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst () is a New England town, town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,263, making it the highest populated municipality in Hampshire County (althoug ...
in 1976 with a BA degree and earned an MFA from
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...
in 1978.Sharnoff, Elena. "Large Accumulations of Small Things," ''Non Satis Scire'', Hampshire College, 2001, p. 19–22. After graduating, he lived in New York City's
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
district and worked as a carpenter, while producing abstract sculpture and drawings, often focused on interactions between man-made structures and landscape.Bolender, Karin. "Into the Holocene: The Art of Steven Siegel," ''Dutchess Magazine'', February 2000, p. 25–7.Raynor, Vivian "Diverse Sensibilities ," ''The New York Times'', February 1, 1981, Sect. 11, p. 6. Retrieved August 4, 2021.Mahoney, Brian K "It's About Time," ''American Craft Magazine'', April/May 2015. Retrieved August 9, 2021. In the mid-1980s he became increasingly interested in geologic phenomena and concepts––most prominently
John McPhee
John Angus McPhee (born March 8, 1931) is an American writer. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the fourth ...
's notion of
deep time
Deep time is a term introduced and applied by John McPhee to the concept of geologic time in his book ''Basin and Range'' (1981), parts of which originally appeared in the ''New Yorker'' magazine.
The philosophical concept of geological time w ...
—and began utilizing natural processes, such as sedimentation, stratification and compression, in his art.Gragg, Randy. "North Park Blocks sculpture," ''The Oregonian'', August 5, 1993.
A commission for the Snug Harbor Sculpture Festival in 1990 shifted his work's direction. The festival was located on
Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...
, New York—then home to
Fresh Kills
Fresh Kills (from the Middle Dutch word '' kille'', meaning "riverbed" or "water channel") is a stream and freshwater estuary in the western portion of the New York City borough of Staten Island. It is the site of the Fresh Kills Landfill, forme ...
, the world's largest landfill—which caused him to reflect on consumer waste as a future, human-generated "geology." In response, he created ''New Geology #1'' (1990), a 15-foot-tall, ten-foot-wide cylinder made of recycled newspapers layered like shales and crowned with earth, grasses and flowers, which ''New York Times'' critic Michael Brenson wrote, "sprout dfrom the ground like an ancient circular tomb."Brenson, Michael "The State of the City as Sculptors See It," ''The New York Times'', July 27, 1990, p. C1. Retrieved August 4, 2021.Raynor, Vivian ''The New York Times'', September 16, 1990, p. NJ12. Retrieved August 4, 2021.
Over the next decade, Siegel gained wide recognition for related site-specific installations using pre- and
post-consumer waste
Post-consumer waste is a waste type produced by the end consumer of a material stream; that is, where the waste-producing use did not involve the production of another product.
The terms of pre-consumer and post-consumer recycled materials are ...
. These were generally commissioned for U.S. universities,Mah, Linda S. "Artist builds outdoor sculpture from wood and paper," ''Kalamazoo Gazette '', September 22, 1997.Clarke, Jessica. "Eye-Catching Sculpture at JMU Features 30,000 Newspapers," ''Daily News-Record'', April 3, 2001.Dupont, David. "Pop art," ''Sentinel-Tribune'', Bowling Green, September 13, 2002, p. 1, 5. public parks and spaces,Zimmer, William "A Smaller, More Accessible Biennial," ''The New York Times'', June 24, 2001, p. WC14. Retrieved August 4, 2021. international exhibitions in Germany and Denmark, and venues such as the
John Michael Kohler Arts Center
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is an independent, not-for-profit contemporary art museum and performing arts complex located in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, United States. Art Omi, and Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art.Johnson, Ken "A Landfill in the Eyes of Artists Who Beheld It," ''The New York Times'', February 1, 2002, p. E38. Retrieved August 4, 2021. He often designed the outdoor works to have an evolving, symbiotic relationship with their environments, including weathering and decomposition over long exhibition periods.Cassai, Mary. "Hudson Gallery features earth-centered sculptures," ''Kingston Daily Freeman'', June 8, 2001, p. 8.
Work and critical reception
Writers distinguish Siegel's work by its combination of traditional sculptural aesthetics (abstraction, centrality of form and composition, craftsmanship) and unconventional means, such as repurposed indigenous materials, scientific concepts and evolving processes derived from nature, and strategies involving organic development, change and risk, and collaboration.Moses, Monica "The Nature of Risk," ''American Craft Magazine'', April/May 2015. Retrieved August 9, 2021. His work raises contradictory notions of natural versus artificial, found versus constructed, growth and decay, and time as something ephemeral and enduring, intelligible and incomprehensible. ''Sculpture'' critic Patricia C. Phillips wrote, "There is a puzzling experience of dissonant beauty in these ungainly objects made of disposable, if not unsightly materials." Siegel fabricates his pieces through painstaking processes of accumulation that build to common forms such as boulders, vessels, geological formations, immense artifacts or topographical maps. Although not overtly political or message-oriented, they raise questions about consumption, waste and landscape, as well as sculptural practice itself in an eco-conscious world.
Public works (1990– )
Siegel's site-specific public works fall into three broad categories: time-bound, outdoor newspaper structures; organic, linear works primarily made with shredded rubber; and large cubes or spheres of bound waste materials, often crushed plastic or aluminum containers.
Siegel's newspaper works generally take monolithic, concentrated forms, such as cylinders, hives, walls or towers. They reference time through their layers of dated newsprint, methodical reiterative construction process, and gradual disintegration. Siegel's first fully realized such work was ''New Geology #2'' (1992), a newspaper, stone and flora installation in the woods near his home in Milan, New York. It was undertaken as an experiment in change, decay and rebirth, and by 2000, had largely disappeared into a landscape of overgrown vegetation. ''Hood'' (Portland, 1993) was a thirteen-foot, cone-shaped sculpture topped by colorful flora, whose distinct layers were created by alternating placement of newspaper folds in or out. Siegel constructed ''Squeeze II'' (1998, Appalachian State University) from old school newspapers and sod, wedging an undulating structure between a grove of hemlocks, the organic curves creating a dialogue with the site's rolling hills.''Sculpture'', "Commissions, Steven Siegel," March 1999, p. 14. For ''Very Slow'' (1999, Art Omi), he constructed two newspaper towers in a stand of maple trees.
Later newspaper works include "Scale" (2002,
Abington Art Center
Abington Art Center is an art center built in 1939, and located in Abington Township, a northern suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The center resides within Alverthorpe Manor and the surrounding 27-acre grounds that were formerly the residenc ...
), ''Stories of Katrina'' (2005, Montalvo Arts Center), ''Bridge 2'' (2009, Arte Sella, Italy), ''Suncheon Weave'' (2016, Korea), and ''Hill and Valley'' (2015, Sculpture in the Wild, Lincoln, MT), his largest newspaper piece.Leonard, Mary. "Tying Knots of Wow and Wonder: Sculptor Steven Siegel," ''About Town'', Winter 2003. Writers have noted the cyclical "lifespan" of such works, from material origins in paper produced from trees, to art returned to the landscape, through biodegradation by fungi, mushrooms and molds into soil from which new trees grow.
While the integration of Siegel's newspaper works blur boundaries between natural and constructed forms, his linear installations using rubber suggest organic, sometimes menacing intrusions into architectural settings.Day, Sherri "A Marketplace of Bulls and Bears Faces a New Bottom Line: Snakes," ''The New York Times'', October 1, 2000, Sect. 14, p. 6.Van Gelder, Lawrence. "Footlights," ''The New York Times'', May 22, 2001, p. E1. The indoor work ''Repose'' (1997, Atlanta) consisted of a dark mound of shredded tires atop a shale-like stack of juice cartons that twisted through a large exhibition space.Cullum, Jerry. "Recyclers create a whole new life from secondhand," ''The Atlanta Journal Constitution'', April 11, 1997.Byrd, Cathy. "All Natural," ''Creative Loafing'', April 12, 1997. For ''Carbon String'' (2001,
Neuberger Museum of Art
Neuberger Museum of Art is located in Purchase, New York, United States. It is affiliated with Purchase College, part of the State University of New York system. It is the nation's tenth-largest university museum. The museum is one of 14 sites on ...
), he created a slender, playful 200-foot organic form that incongruously snaked its way through the otherwise austere architectural plaza of
SUNY Purchase
The State University of New York at Purchase (commonly Purchase College or SUNY Purchase) is a Public college, public Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Purchase, New York. It is one of 13 comprehensive colleges ...
. The rubber tentacle or tree-root-like forms of ''Carbon'' (2013, Canberra, Australia)—Siegel's largest permanent public work—ooze from a soffit and across the façade of a multi-use building once home to Australia's Department of Climate Change.Goukassian, Elena. "Steven Siegel, Carbon," ''Sculpture'', January 2014.
In other installations, Siegel created works in contrast to landscaped and idyllic sites that suggested both minimalist sculpture and functional objects such as collections of material ''en route'' to being recycled.Rugg, Judith ''Exploring Site-Specific Art: Issues of Space and Internationalism'' London I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd, 2010. Retrieved August 4, 2021. For example, ''Bale'' (2001, University of Virginia) was a ten-foot, minimalist cube of crushed plastic bottles strapped together with rubber hose. Similar installations included ''Can Can'' (Bowling Green State University, 2002), a warped sphere of bound aluminum can discards; ''E-virus'' (2006, Stanford University), a cylinder formed from electronic waste; cubes of ''Grass Paper Glass'' (2006,
Grounds For Sculpture
Grounds For Sculpture (GFS) is a sculpture park and museum located in Hamilton, New Jersey. It is located on the former site of Trenton Speedway. Founded in 1992 by John Seward Johnson II, the venue is dedicated to promoting an understanding of ...
In the 2000s, Siegel shifted his emphasis to studio work, producing abstract work inspired by evolutionary processes that ranged from intimate sculpture to ambitious multimedia installations. This work relates to his large-scale outdoor work in its continued use of postconsumer materials and evolving processes of incremental accumulation and craft that build to larger wholes. In 2001, he exhibited small wall and tabletop pieces compressing stone, discarded paper, shredded rubber, and tree bark and branches into forms suggesting nests, flora and rock formations.
This work developed into “Wonderful Life” (2002–8), a chronological series of 52 wall pieces made with a limited range of materials that were partly inspired by and titled after
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould sp ...
's
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
of the same name, which reassessed evolutionary theory. The series replicates the detail and diversity of natural life, progressing from simple to more elaborate and sophisticated forms.Walker, Gary. "A Biologist's Perspective, ''Wonderful Life: Works by Steven Siegel'' Boone, NC: Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, 2009. Retrieved August 5, 2021. However, rather than imitate results in nature, Siegel appropriated its methodology, exploring simple, cumulative changes in "evolution" (i.e., the refinement of technique) that generate form from generation to generation (work to work). Critic
John Perreault
John Lucas Perreault ( New York, New York, August 26, 1937 – September 6, 2015, New York, New York) was a poet, art curator, art critic and artist.
Early life
Perreault was born in Manhattan and raised in Belmar and other towns in New Jersey. ...
noted a key difference from Siegel's nearly monochromatic newspaper works, describing the series' "garish, contrasting, almost pop colors" as "not necessarily joyous utboth exuberant and menacing."
During this time, Siegel also produced large-scale indoor installations. He created ''Collection'' (2001) for an exhibition of work responding to the Fresh Kills Landfill; ''The New York Times'' described its mountain of household rubbish—catalogued by descriptive lists provided by people who donated the items tacked on an opposite wall—as both poetry and an "impressive simulation" of a dumpsite. For ''Did God Make a Worm?'' (2005,
Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt (, Austro-Bavarian: ) is an independent city on the Danube in Upper Bavaria with 139,553 inhabitants (as of June 30, 2022). Around half a million people live in the metropolitan area. Ingolstadt is the second largest city in Upper Bav ...
, Germany), Siegel used 9,000 pounds of donated aluminum Audi body-part rejects to create a giant, slug-like form that jutted from a wall and sprawled across and around a gallery space and its columns.
''Biography'' (2008–13) draws on elements of Siegel's intimate pieces and large installations, combining dense, intricately woven detail, diverse postconsumer materials, and an epic, undulating horizontal sweep.Phillips, Patricia C. "All the Time in the World," ''An Evolutionary Moment'', University of Florida Galleries, 2018. At 156 feet long, the mixed-media wall piece has only been viewed in large sections (of up to 100 feet) exhibited at Marlborough (2011, 2013) and the Albany Airport (2018– ) or digitally, via composite photographs.Boettger, Suzaan. "Of Our Time, ''Steven Siegel, Biography'' New York: Marlborough Chelsea, 2011. Functioning as both a geologic and personal timeline, it was constructed organically from right to left without a fixed endpoint, using Siegel's characteristic strategies of accumulation, compression and transformation. Writers have compared it in scale and density to the
Abstract expressionist
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
paintings of
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
Nancy Rubins
Nancy Rubins (born 1952) is an American sculptor and installation artist. Her sculptural works are primarily composed of blooming arrangements of large rigid objects such as televisions, small appliances, camping and construction trailers, ...
, and visually, to shifting landscape tectonics, a vast topographical map, or DNA. ''Artforums Allese Thomson Baker wrote, "Siegel commands the detritus of our culture into a frantic rhythm, nailing contemporary anxieties about the environment to the wall. emay image our world out of rubbish, but the result is ravishing, glittering, and glistening in all its synthetic, inorganic wonder."
Since 2013, Siegel has produced large collages and films combining photography, object-making and digital manipulation as an alternative format for his large studio work. These works employ both close-up and wide perspectives and multiple, grid-like screens. ''A Puzzle for Alice'' (2016) consists of 169 gridded wall panels, a master photograph and an eight-minute movie narrated by his wife, Alice, to whom it is dedicated.''Film Freeway'' '' A Puzzle for Alice'' Retrieved August 9, 2021. Subsequent films include ''35 Pieces'' (2017) and ''An Art Video'' (2018).Steven Siegel website Retrieved August 9, 2021.
Recognition
Siegel has received awards and grants from the
Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation
The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is one of six not-for-profit regional arts organizations funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Founded in 1979, MAAF works to "promote and support multi ...
(2006),
New York Foundation for the Arts
The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...
(2001, 1981), Gunk Foundation (2000), ArtsLink Collaborative Projects (1999),
The American-Scandinavian Foundation
The American-Scandinavian Foundation (ASF) is an American non-profit foundation dedicated to promoting international understanding through educational and cultural exchange between the United States and Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway
...
(1996),
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
(1980), and
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...
(1977), among others.Gunk Foundation ''A Fox Lives Here Too'', Steven Siegel Grants. Retrieved August 3, 2021.Ryumina, Elena. "Garbage-Man Puts Up the Trash," ''Moscow Times'', May 19, 2000. He has been awarded artist residencies from Grounds for Sculpture,
Three Rivers Arts Festival
Three Rivers Arts Festival is an outdoor music and arts festival held each June in the Downtown district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The festival features live music and performance art, as well as visual art and vendors who sell their wares. The ...
, Abington Art Center, Art OmI, Grizedale Society (United Kingdom), and Tranekaer International Center for Art and Nature (Denmark), among others.Schneider, Carrie. "The Art of Recycling," ''Pittsburgh City Paper'', June 2, 2004.Grizedale Sculpture Steven Siegel, ''One, Two, Three of 'em'' Retrieved August 9, 2021.