Riege to conclude Hammer Projects show with performance
photo by Jeff McLane for the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
As Eric-Paul Riege concludes his Hammer Museum solo presentation, Hólǫ́llUllUHIbI [duet], the Diné artist will perform alongside his artworks on the show’s penultimate day. “To view Riege’s art is not so much to observe it as to navigate it,” writes Eileen Townsend in an Artnet News profile. “The artist said he hopes his work can ‘exist as a kind of forest, the objects acting like trees that are swaying.’”
But this interaction, for the artist, at least, can take a toll. The February 18 performance will reprise a November event that was cut short: part-way through the five-hour durational performance, Riege fell and broke his ankle.
Writes Townsend:
The experience left Riege, a fiber artist whose work bridges sculpture and performance, more curious than upset: “When you think about weaving and fiber and it is in its amorphous stage, it is so delicate and soft. But then when you weave it together, it becomes so strong, which is, in a lot of ways, similar to how our bodies work—to the weave of our skin and bone and muscle.”
On February 18, Riege will perform again at the Hammer Museum, this time with a renewed perspective on the demands of his practice. Said Riege: “The relationship between my work and the effects it has on my body is profound—when you perform for so long, it starts to leave marks.”
photo by Rapheal Begay, courtesy of artist
Hammer Projects: Eric-Paul Riege closes on February 19.