James Grashow: Corrugated Fountain

Artist James Grashow creates works in a variety of media that address the themes of man, nature and mortality.  The scale of his work ranges from large environmental installations, through which the viewer traverses, to the delicate and contained world of his houseplants, where tiny fabricated homes and buildings replace flowers and buds in intricately constructed bouquets.  For the past three years, Grashow has been working on his most ambitious work to date:  a Corrugated Fountain – an epic work reminiscent of Bernini’s fountain in Rome, complete with Poseidon, nymphs, rocks, waves, and an assortment of sea creatures.  The work is currently on view at the Taubman Museum of Art.

The following is an excerpt from an interview with Grashow prior to the installation of his work at the museum.

What elements hold true in most of your work?

JG:   I have always loved the line between fantasy and reality, metaphor and truth.  It seems to me that in that space between the two, people are the most open and willing to see and learn.  There is a reason that a cliché or a cartoon works.  It’s the outer ring of a galaxy of emotions and beliefs.  It’s the wrapping paper on a present that calls to us to open it, come inside and explore.  I love the simple idea.  The one that is universal and compelling, irresistible like a black hole that draws you in.  That is the trick – to bring you in, to get you to enter.  But it is inside where the magic happens.  To me, that is where the true artist is revealed.  It’s there that the question is asked, why, for what reason, and it is there that the answer begins to form.

You have always strayed from the more durable, time-honored art materials like bronze and steel.  Why is that?  What is it about the less permanent materials that you find attractive?

JG:  They say you know an artist more by the materials that he uses than the things he chooses to make.  The artist that works in stone or steel is a different person than the one that woks in cardboard and paper.  Materials speak to your true identity, your core belief. Mortality, fragility, and the transient nature of man are what I believe in.  I wish and try to be more positive, but my work always betrays me.  Corrugated board is a material that understands its mortality.  It knows that it is destined for the trash bin or recycle pile.  It is bonded to the human experience.  They say that 85% of everything on the planet has spent part of its life in a cardboard box.  Corrugated board and all of us have a shared destiny, it is in our DNA.  Rescued from trash, corrugated board is so grateful to be something; to have another change, it becomes a perfect partner in play.  An artist always talks about his or her process, the creation of a work from the beginning to the finish.  Stone or steel, the Afghan Buddhas or the World Trade Center, part of being human is dealing with the totality of process.  If the question is how we face the finite nature of our being, I choose paper.

What inspired the Corrugated Fountain?

JG:  I was asked to design a project for a class in Florence, Italy in 1998 and came up with the idea of a corrugated fountain.  The class fell through, and I put the idea on a back burner.  Sometime later, when I saw some of my sculptures decomposing on a collector’s lawn, something clicked.  A piece of my puzzle fell into place.  I had worked with themes of man and mortality all of my career, but now understood in a much deeper way the true meaning of my work.  The Corrugated Fountain now seemed to be the perfect vehicle to express my new awareness.  Water and cardboard cannot exist together.  The idea of a Corrugated Fountain is impossible, an oxymoron that speaks to the human dilemma.  I wanted to make something heroic in its concept and execution with a full awareness of its poetic absurdity.  I wanted to try to make something eternal out of cardboard.  Mortality, the complete process of creation, and the courage to work in the face of knowledge are the ideas that made the work an irresistible project for me.

What’s in store for the Corrugated Fountain after it has been viewed?

JG:  The Corrugated Fountain was conceived at its core to speak about process and mortality.  After showing at several venues, I will find a place outside to install it and let the weather take it back:  ashes to ashes, mush to mush.  The longer and harder I work on this piece, the more difficult this decision becomes.  It’s been a three-year journey but its life will not end soon.  The noted filmmaker Olympia Stone is making a documentary on the piece, chronicling the entire process from conception to end.  [Note: Film footage will include Grashow’s work at the Taubman Museum of Art.]

For more, please visit the Taubman Museum of Art, where copies of the full interview with James Grashow are available.