Stephen Talasnik has always been exploring the intersection of drawing and building. His ongoing investigation explores the near seamless connection of drawing, sculpture, ephemeral site specific stage set, architecture, engineering and product design. In addition to major installations at the Storm King Art Center, he executed site specific installations at the Denver Botanic Gardens and Manitoga, the Russel Wright House in Garrison (NY). In addition to a permanent all timber frame structure at the Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana, he has built indoor sets for performance at Tippet Rise, Architektur Galerie Berlin. His drawings are in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY). The Alebertina (Vienna), the Pompidou (Paris), National Gallery of Art (Washington DC), and the Kupferstichkabinett (Berlin) to name a few.
Sigrid Adriaenssens (SA): You are an accomplished artist who has always been creative and innovative at the intersection of drawing, sculpture, stage set, architecture, engineering and product design. You have described your own work as “Fictional Engineering”. Can you clarify what you mean by that term and how your work compares and differs from engineering?
Stephen Talasnik (ST): “Fictional” in this context refers to “mathless” or intuitive design. Everything that I build relies on two basic elements; the use of triangulation in creating an infrastructure and the use of intuition in building design, void of a preconceived notion of what the final product might look like. There is no finite ending which is a requirement of structural engineering. I have little or no idea of an absolute structure, therefore no preliminary sketch or need for “exactitude”. I use no measurement in creating the work, therefore it is without calculation. My work has little obligation to the fundamental responsibility of the engineer; I am instead consumed with a linear, gestural language of engineering without the implied requirements of function. Completeness of a structure is felt rather than measured. When possible, every construct must be visibly built by hand, relying only on the eye for a sense of aesthetic compliance. Fictional Engineering is a process in which the unfinished can be complete; therefore, I am a sculptor whose religion is the aesthetics of improvisational structuralism.
Graphite, ink, and collage on prepared panel, 38 x 72″
Painted basswood with metallic pigment
16 x 46 x 24″ (h x w x d)
SA: Your newest show “A climate of risk/ the fictional archeology of Stephen Talasnik” just opened at the Museum of Wood in Art in Philadelphia. What concepts, ideas or emotions do you intend to convey through the large bamboo sculpture and the Glacial Mapping print in the exhibition?
ST: Glacier, the structural centerpiece of the exhibition, relies on two components; the creation of a system of wooden pine stick space frames, and the weaving of a flat bamboo reed skin that conforms to the physical dictates of the infrastructure. In its purest sense it is “skin and bones”. The objective is to build something strong, yet light and transparent. Like a three dimensional drawing, the piece is designed to seduce the viewer into the act of the “making” and in that sense, the viewer becomes part creator – challenged to visually deconstruct the structure. It is not intended to imitate a glacier but instead to represent the spirit of the natural form.
Pine stick infrastructure with bamboo flat reed
12 ft tall with a footprint of 500 sq ft (approx.)
FLOE: A Climate of Risk, The Fictional Archaeology of Stephen Talasnik
Museum for Art in Wood, Philadelphia, PA
https://museumforartinwood.org/
Glacial Mapping – also a work of fiction – provides the viewer with believable clues to a cryptic geological maze that engages the imagination. It is intended to be a blueprint, even though it serves as an unsolvable puzzle. Like any drawing — consistent with sculpture — it provides the viewer with an opportunity to assist in creating a personalized narrative. It is familiar and thrives as an artifice. Regardless of size, it is emotionally tied to the human scale, thus implying that the monolithic does not have to be intimidating or overwhelming; we are in a position to harness the majestic through the intimacy of hand generated construction. The final result must be a tactile labyrinth of line, whether hand held or room filling.
In collaboration with Liam Talasnik
Digitally printed vinyl wall print, 10′ x 14′ (h x w)
FLOE: A Climate of Risk, The Fictional Archaeology of Stephen Talasnik
Museum for Art in Wood, Philadelphia, PA
https://museumforartinwood.org/
SA: What has been or is inspirational for your work?
ST: There are multiple arenas that inform the work; Architecture and Engineering, Archeology, Time Travel, Cinematography, and Biomimicry. I have a passion for variable repetition in organic growth and music like a sequence of seed pods or the musical note played over and over, both slightly altered by continuous progression. I am interested in the aesthetics of “diagrammatics” or pictorial symbols. The hand-made still seduces as it connects art to the maker. For several years I lived in the FarEast amongst people that survived creating functional structures using natural materials employing basic hand tools and homespun measurement. These constructs were essential for survival whether it was a house, bridge, tower, or boat. They served as inspiration for my formal studio explorations of drawing and building as linear constructs are the manifestation of three dimensional lines.
Graphite and ink on paper, 30 x 22.5”
SA: What does your creative process entail?
ST: Striping away preconceived notions of the correct or finite. Thinking subjectively, not objectively; multiple solutions rather than the perfect solution. Infinite possibilities, I enlist the mantra of a disciplined “leap of faith” and don’t know where the journey takes me. I keep building with my hands until execution becomes automatic, like breathing. My goal is for infrastructure to be visible; not an unheralded part of the formula, hidden by the external skin of the structure. I want to get the two separate components – bones and skin – working in visual harmony.
Unbuildable Concert Hall
Wood and synthetic membrane
30 x 30 x 30″
SA: What can engineers learn from your work?
ST: Risk taking, persistence of vision, and the constructive harnessing of failure. Never rely on technology for the creative impulse. Trust instinct. Always draw ideas and if it’s easy, it’s not worth doing. I am not an engineer, I am a sculptor; therefore my advice relies on a set of givens that are void of the need to be functional. Look towards the endless possibilities furnished by nature, but don’t use it for illustration. Pull ideas through your own personal encyclopedia of life experience to find a new nature that can be more natural than nature itself. Seeking perfection is a curse and imitating yourself leads to your creative death. \ Hone those skills that serve memory and draw every day.
Wooden Dowels, 20 x 10 x 96″(h)
SA: What question do you never get asked and would like to be asked? What
would be the answer?
ST:
“Why don’t you use measuring devices that are readily available like
computer software in finding mathematical solutions in structure?”
I am not anti-technology. Without technology I could not have made the permanent structure,” Satellite #5” at the Tippet Rise Art Center in Fishtail Montana. In the case of that monolithic permanent structure, I needed to insure that it would withstand the elements, like wind shear and load. That sculpture existed first as a small wooden model in which I relied solely on my intuitive approach to building. I was pleased to find out from the lead engineer at Arup that the model I had made needed adjustments of only 3.5% to be realized in the scale of the finished product. That conclusion was the result of three dimensional \ digital scanning but my intuition was capable of making something that was almost structurally sound. Permanence requires responsibility of materials and design to withstand the elements of nature, which is probably why I prefer the arena of the ephemeral. A short term life that lives for only a moment in time and then disappears only to exist in spirit and documentation. The avoidance of digital technologies is not an act of engineering bravura. It is instead, a recognition of the capacity of the human senses to build through instinctual acumen.
You can find more about Stephen Talasnik’s work here www.stephentalasnik.com
Yellow Cedar and Corten Steel
50 x 45 x 35′(h)
Tippet Rise Art Center, Montana
www.tippetrise.org
Form Finding Lab 