Anne Lindberg’s recent work essentially redefines space using thread. Bordering the definintion of architecture and sculpture, Lindberg allows color and light to manipulate the hundreds of millimeter-thick strands to create a web – a three-dimensional volume affixed to the architecture. Each of her pieces is specific to the place in which it is situated, no two identical based on the architecture, its lighting conditions and the space’s use. The pieces are architectural in so far as they are “contextual and integral to the space”, she says. The exhibition of drawn pink (watch the video after the break) ends today at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nevada, while andante green will be on exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art until July 15th.
ArchDaily asked Anne Lindberg a few questions about her work. Read the responses and find out more about her installations after the break.
ArchDaily: How does the building/space influence your work?
Anne Lindberg: For each of the gallery/museum spaces in which I have made these color installations, I carefully studied the space and particulars of the architecture. Nuances of day light and electric light, circulation pathways, nature of the audience, proportions of the architecture, proximity to other exhibitions and materiality are among the conditions that bring forth cues to the configuration. I usually create numerous small ¼ inch scale models to generate variations in composition and color options. For the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art project, I made upwards of 10 tiny models. In the most recent installation at the Nevada Museum of Art, I located the artwork so as to engage daylight. The museum was designed by Will Bruder, and contains a beautiful high two-story shaft of daylight at the far end of the Casazza Gallery, as well as intriguing unconventional geometries. The horizontal path of bright green thread in “andante green” at the Nevada Museum of Art passes in front of and through daylight to build a constantly changing phenomenon of light.
AD: Could you tell us about your creative process?
AL: Working in studio is incredible; it’s a way of living for me. I need to continually touch, question, work at and push myself – day after day. I believe that each moment in the studio builds upon the previous, and oftentimes ideas, concepts, images and materials will bubble and brew for years before they are incorporated. So, it’s most important to pay attention, to take note of details and to be open to change. The creative process is hard, it’s work, yet it’s a life I honor and embrace with all of its challenges, bumps along the way, and questions.
AD: What guides your color choice?
AL: I began this body of work while a resident artist at the Art Omi International Artists Residency in upstate New York in 2009. The initial experiments with taut thread came about from a broad series of graphite drawings that hold a sense of luminosity and light that I put into space. It was quite natural to move toward working with color in the spatial color installations. Luminosity seemed connected. The color comes by a combination or balance of instinct and research. It seems that each project has given me more & more courage to use vivid electric colors, and to shift the spatial dynamics of the work. Color is incredible, it’s rich with symbolic meanings, and that motivates me to push its intensity. Of course the particular shade, value and tone of the color connotes multiple references and combinations of meaning. For me, each space or venue seems to hold a quality color or contain a sense of tone, a sensibility that I chose to greet or perhaps oppose. That choice creates a personality in the work that I think is really interesting.
Each installation is composed of two tangible materials: Egyptian cotton thread and staples. The additions of natural and artificial light, color and luminosity are factors that change and shift throughout the days and weeks of the exhibition making the work dynamic and ephemeral. For more about Anne Lindberg, visit her website here where you can find her bio, writings and other projects she has worked on.
