Phoebe Washburn Explained

Phoebe Washburn
Nationality:American
Education:School of Visual Arts, New York; Tulane University
Birth Place:Poughkeepsie, New York

Phoebe Washburn (born 1973) is an American installation artist who lives and works in New York City. Washburn is best known for producing large-scale installations: assemblages of garbage, detritus, cardboard, scrap wood, and, more recently, organic matter such as sod or plants. Her early, site-specific installations transform gallery spaces into captivating architectural experiences.[1]

Career

She holds a BFA from Tulane University and an MFA from School of Visual Arts. Her work has been exhibited around the world at Institute of Contemporary Art 2007, Deutsche Guggenheim 2007 and Whitney Biennial 2008. She is represented by Zach Feuer Gallery in New York.

Washburn is a process-based artist. She creates installations with help of assistants, due to the colossal size and labor-intensive methods she requires. Processes are architectural in nature including stacking, blinding, nailing, etc. The pieces tend to look organic, mirroring the processes, but also have that haphazard, precarious appeal as they are often stacked up with chairs or other props. The overall resulting work is reliant on the gallery space. Washburn dubs this 'spontaneous architecture' and continues by adding:

"My sculptures depend a lot on the spaces where they are shown because they often are anchored into the wall but chance is definitely more of a factor in the final product than is any predetermined design. I just let the structures evolve by repeating the same action again and again. The process has a slightly neurotic element in that it involves adding little behavior habits. As silly as it sounds, I often feel as if my assistants and I are beavers building a dam. The shapes are less about form than they are about the activity involved in amassing and assembling the forms."

A sample installation, Vacational Trappings and Wildlife Worries (exhibited during the summer of 2007 at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art) involved the creation of a "barrel-vaulted walkway made from hundreds of scrap-wood pieces" featuring several niches containing water, shrimp, snails, aquatic plants, and small objects, yielding what Washburn called a 'poor man's aquarium'.[2]

An earlier work, Heavy Has Debt, (exhibited in 2003 in Grinnell, Iowa), was a "massive, shingled wall of debris," produced largely from mounted cardboard.[3]

She chooses to give her works titles after they have been installed.[4]

Exhibitions

Solo

Group

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Phoebe Washburn - 20 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy. www.artsy.net. en. 2019-03-08.
  2. http://www.icaphila.org/exhibitions/washburn.php/ ICA: Ramp Project, 2007
  3. Web site: Frieze Magazine Archive Phoebe Washburn . www.frieze.com . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080424085815/http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/phoebe_washburn/ . 2008-04-24.
  4. WASHBURN, PHOEBE, and Abby Goldstein. "PHOEBE WASHBURN." BOMB, no. 117 (2011): 78-79. .
  5. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: Pressure Drop for Richard Stands (A History of One Thing to Another in Lemon-Aidedness) Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  6. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: Nudes, Housed Within Their Own Clothes and Aware of Their Individual Thirst, Descending a Staircase Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  7. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: My Rubies and My Diamonds Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  8. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: Nunderwater Nort Lab Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  9. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: Temperatures in a Lab of Superior Specialness Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  10. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: COMPESHITSTEM: the new deal Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  11. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: Tickle the Shitstem Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  12. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: Regulated Fool's Milk Meadow Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  13. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: Vacational Trappings and Wildlife Worries Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  14. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: 2 BLTs (Bought and Lovely Towns) Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  15. Web site: Hammer Projects: Phoebe Washburn - Hammer Museum. The Hammer Museum. en. 2019-03-08.
  16. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: It Makes For My Billionaire Status Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  17. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: Nothing's Cutie Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  18. Web site: Phoebe Washburn Weatherspoon Art Museum. weatherspoon.uncg.edu. 2019-03-08.
  19. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: Heavy Has Debt Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  20. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: True, False and Slightly Better Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  21. Web site: Phoebe Washburn True, False, and Slightly Better. Rice Gallery. en-US. 2019-03-08.
  22. Web site: Phoebe Washburn: Between Sweet and Low Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.
  23. Web site: There is no such thing as a good decision - Exhibitions - Josee Bienvenu Gallery. www.joseebienvenugallery.com. 2019-03-08.
  24. Web site: Flights From Wonder. Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara. en-US. 2019-03-08.
  25. Web site: Phoebe Washburn Zach Feuer. www.zachfeuer.com. 2019-03-08.

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