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May 22, 2019
Dual Duel Derek Weisberg x Shaun Roberts
Derek Weisberg x Shaun Roberts (US)
Conversatin 5.
mixed media on archival pigment print, 36" x 24" each panel
$3500./each panel
Inspiration for their Dual Duel:
"In 1976, painter Arnulf Rainer created a series of works which were responses to Franz Xavier Messerschmidt’s sculptures. Rainer called them “Conversations” with Messerschmidt. Conversatin’ V is the fifth iteration of an ongoing series of collaborations and is an homage to Rainer and Messerschmidt.
"Several years ago Brett Amory, Shaun Roberts and myself worked on the first iteration of the Conversatin’ series. It was a way for the three of us, all ready close friends, to combine our talents and modes of working and to put a lot of our conversations about art and making into practice. With that work our shared ideas and passions could be put into a realized form. So this is the continuation of that series. Collaboration is something both myself and Shaun have been interested in for a long time, and frequently practice. We both feel it is one of the special aspects of art making; the sharing of ideas with people who are having similar conversations in their work is a beautiful thing.
"Collaborations can be an incredibly scary but also an extremely rewarding way to work. One has to give up control, be willing to compromise, have trust, be willing to share and can’t be offended if their work is changed or altered. But if you have trust and believe in the work of the artist you are collaborating with, beautiful unexpected decisions and results can be achieved. In part that is why it’s called Conversatin’; conversations take 2 people, it can’t just be one voice talking. Each artist has to contribute, share their ideas and have their voice heard for the piece to really work.
"This is a particularly special collaboration because it includes Shaun’s photography, he is one of the best photographers out there, his vision, his compositions, the ambiance he achieves, his ability to capture deep humanity in his images, are all special. Secondly, I am mostly a sculptor, so my approach to drawings, painting and 2D space will be different. Also this will be one of the few times I have offered any 2D work to the public." ~Derek Weisberg
"For myself, I was excited for the opportunity to change up our collaborative dynamic. It was thrilling but also somewhat intimidating transitioning from my usual role as Documenter / Observer / Witness, to being an active participant directly making the work alongside Derek. We were at the point of our friendship and working relationship where I had grown accustomed / comfortable with how we made work: Derek would invite me over to his studio to see his latest creations, we'd discuss his ideas and how they've evolved since the last time we met and I would point my lens at his studio, his life, his work, and weave a story via the images I captured. The terminus of that process—like the majority of my photography & video work—ends up digitally: as a blog post, a studio visit slideshow, on Instagram, on a gallery website. The images, merely a representation of a fleeting moment in time and space, have no lasting medium to affix it to the physical world. Knowing that my images, delivered as pixels, as photons emitted from a screen, constantly burning out of existence at 60 cycles per second, at a scale no larger than the palm of my hand was sometimes frustrating. Certainly there was the occasional image that would make it to print—maybe a magazine, or a limited edition run—but that somehow never satisfied the desire produce work that wasn't part of an edition, wasn't a multiple of thousands, or didn't evaporate out of existence once the plug was pulled.
"For Dual Duel, Derek suggested a new type of collaboration—a new type of 'conversation'—that challenged us to engage in a much more direct fashion. This process encouraged us to translate the mediums with which we worked into another in hopes of discovering a new, unfamiliar visual language for us both. Derek's porcelain sculpture was formed, fired, and translated into a one-of-a-kind large scale photo-diptych that became the foundation for an intensive call-and-response mark-making process between us. Using pastels, oil markers, and graphite directly on to a medium that buckled, warped, pushed back—on a scale beyond portable—helped me materialize the ephemeral nature of photography into a more concrete, emotionally engaging end result.
'Celebrated photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson was known to say, "To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart." Derek inviting me to Dual Duel presented an incredibly refreshing opportunity to invite the hand into Cartier-Bresson's sacred equation of image-making, helping me transform a formerly rote process into something liberating." ~Shaun Roberts
About the Artists:
Derek Weisberg
Derek Weisberg, was born in 1983. He began sculpting at a very early age starting with the medium of mashed potatoes as soon as he could hold a fork and knife, moving onto action figure assemblage when he could load a hot glue gun, and at age 7 he turned to the medium of ceramics, which was the beginning of his lifelong love and ultimate passion. He unwaveringly pursued ceramics sculpture throughout his childhood and teens, in Benicia, CA, where he was raised. At age 18 he moved to Oakland, CA, to pursue his love for ceramics and art in general and attended California College of Arts and Crafts. At CCAC he received several awards and graduated with high honors in 2005 with a BFA. Since then Weisberg has co-owned his own gallery, Boontling Gallery, as well as curated numerous other shows. He has also worked with highly esteemed artists such as Stephen De Staebler, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Manuel Neri, and many others. In addition Weisberg has maintained a strong and demanding studio practice, exhibiting nationally, and internationally. Weisberg currently lives and works in NY and is faculty at Greenwich House Pottery.
Shaun Roberts
Shaun Roberts, b.1979, Bangkok, Thailand.
Born to an American father and Thai mother, Shaun was raised in the urban chaos of Bangkok with a foot in the East & the West. His insatiable curiosity as a child for myriad subjects—ranging from building his own computers to spending countless hours painting in the high-school art room—eventually shaped him into a visual arts polymath. At age 18 he moved to San Francisco, CA to continue studying digital arts at the Academy of Art University where he pursued his passion in graphic design, typography, printmaking, interaction design, motion graphics, photography, and filmmaking. During his time at AAU he was awarded the Adobe Design Achievement Award at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC for his project “Bay Area Exports”. He graduated Valedictorian of his undergraduate class in 2003 with a BFA in New Media.
It was not until after graduating that Shaun discovered his artistic voice. Deeply affected by the passing of his grandfathers (both photographers), Shaun began to explore still photography with renewed fervor. Roberts turned his attention towards
documenting the lives and working spaces of artists. Shaun believes the act of seeing can be an act of compassion, able to ultimately tease out fragments of truth, and elucidating glimpses of the moments of beauty, mystery and dignity of the human experience.
The multidisciplinary nature of Shaun’s art has lead him to working with leading publications, galleries and art institutions.
Posted by Anno Domini