And for his next trick...
Stranger Genius Alex Schweder makes performance architecture. He's interested in relationships, in permeability, in the way bodies and buildings affect each other, in the way artists and audiences interact even. But he also knows that "audience participation" can easily turn into an excuse for an artwork to become one-shot entertainment. You get it, then it's over.
So how does he handle performance architecture? In this podcast, he talks about his priorities and his hopes, his fears and his promises. He especially addresses Stability, his latest work, in which he and artist Ward Shelley are living on a teeter-totter trush at Lawrimore Project for a solid week. The artists will knock each other off balance every time they move or receive any supplies (you can take them supplies from their "Needs List" here).
Stability is part of a larger exhibition called Stability and Other Tenuous Positions, running through May 2 at LP.
What else is Schweder up to? Much.
1. He has a show coming up in Berlin in June, at Gallery Magnus Müller, called This Form Follows Your Performance, in which he changes your living space according to how you behave in it. (His description reminded me of Hadley + Maxwell's awesome Decor Project.)
2. A new version of his A Sac of Rooms Three Times A Day, first seen at Suyama Space in 2007, will be part of an exhibition called Sensate at SFMoMA.
3. Simultaneously he'll have a solo show at Jack Hanley Gallery in SF.
4. This one is something he'd like to do, but not something he's actually working on already. You know about the woman who married the Berlin Wall (and consummated it) and the woman who married the Eiffel Tower (profiled in a documentary called The Woman Who Married the Eiffel Tower)? Well, Schweder would like to design spouses for these and other "objectum sexuals," or people who fall in love with inanimate objects.
It's good to see that his genius is being recognized all over the place.
