Darkness & Lightness

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MA: Maybe if we talk about what these works are made of -- glass, steel, thin wire cables that are sort of like drawing over or behind the glass. What brought you to those materials?

CW: Contradiction. Materials are like the relationships between people. Sometimes when you see two married people together you say to yourself, "How did they get together?" They seem so completely different. But then you realize there's a friction that makes them work, that keeps that relationship alive; and there's also something that balances their darkness and their light. I feel that way about glass and steel.

MA: Do you see the steel as an armature, or a vehicle that carried light?

CW: I try not to see one material as subservient to the other. In some cases that may be so. Some people when they see my work just see the glass. They just want to see the light, pun intended. The problem is they see light just as lightness, a lightness of feeling. The steel gives weight to the light. I'm more interested in how to get darkness into light than light into darkness. ......


MA - Michael Auping, CW - Christopher Wilmarth

<30 Years Interviews and Outtakes> by Michael Auping P.285