#grayson cox

“WE’VE GOT THE OCEAN, GOT THE BABES, GOT THE SUN, WE’VE GOT THE WAVES…”

GRAYSON COX

Age: Thirty Gender/Pronouns: Male, He/Him Occupation: Carpenter & Construction Neighborhood: Greenwood Time Spent in Eastcliff: Twelve Years FC: Liam Hemsworth

PERSONALITY

+ : Industrious, Warm, Trusting   - : Headstrong, Sullen, Self-Righteous  

OOC

Name: Admin Angie Age: 24 Pronouns: She/Her Timezone: CST

We had a chance to interview sculptor Grayson Cox this morning about his work "Half Story Mountain" which is currently in Brooklyn Bridge Park. 

Half Story Mountain

Sculptor: Grayson Cox

Year Created: 2013

Location: Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY (best seen from Brooklyn Bridge Park or Manhattan Bridge bike path)

Materials: Fiberglass and enamel

What was the major inspiration behind this work?

I had an idea to make a nine story mountain in an Indiana cornfield, because I’m from Indiana. I spent two years in Japan and I studied woodblock printing and I became really interested in Mount Fuji as a sacred place that everyone inhabit in their minds. There are lots of woodblock prints of Mount Fuji, like “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” and I started thinking about Indiana, which is totally flat. I didn’t see mountains really my whole life until I was maybe 20, and so I thought it would be this abrupt, amazing thing that was man-made and also reminded us about the role of modernism and how it affects the environment and it would also create a sense of place in the middle of vast plains. 

So fast-forward, I get a residency in Poland and they ask me to do a public project in front of the Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw. After seeing a giant Jesus statue in Poland that was really badly built; sort of like the one in Brazil, but badly built with stucco, and they say it will only last five years or so… it was a beautiful thing. Totally out of proportion - it was amazing. I just loved it. It made me start thinking about about this abrupt thing in nature, and I thought about how I can’t do that, because I don’t have the budget, and it seemed a little bit, kind of too macho or something to build it. So I started thinking, what about the understated version of the nine-story mountain. Something that attempts to undercut the imposition of modernism while using its language. What about the half story mountain? Because we’re talking about how nature relates to us versus how we relate to nature, and so I thought it would be funny to make something that’s half of a building story height, so I went for about 1.5 meters tall. I built it with just scraps of wood; a very vectorized, digital-style mountain, by hand. 

I did that, and it was a lot of fun, but I didn’t like the outcome. I was really happy with the feeling and the idea, but the aesthetics weren’t there. And so when I was approached about this piece I thought, finally I have the chance to make it more aesthetically what I was thinking. Closer to the edge of what technology can do for us.

Basically the inspiration is thinking through the conversation of how we relate to nature and how nature is responding to us, facilitating us, making us comfortable, rather than us bending the other way. So, this is a Le Corbusier chaise longue, built into this half story mountain that is meant to resemble La Pietà in reverse. Sort of. So I just reversed the orientation of the figure from Michaelangelo's sculpture making the now reclining figure's head on the other side. This way, it makes a better photo with the manhattan skyline. #halfstorymountain

Have you always wanted to be a sculptor?

No. Well, I mean, I didn’t think of it as sculpture. I studied print-making in undergrad and was really interested in etching and loved aquatint. Like when you’re a kid and you draw with crayons, but it leaves lines. I just want to fill in space completely, and so printmaking was a way to fill space completely. But yeah, I built tree-houses, and I built lots of sculptures for other people. I’ve worked for lots of artists and done storefront windows, the Christmas windows for Macy’s and Saks. Building things all the time. Carpentry was a way for me to make money in New York City when I moved here and basically knew no one. So building things was always interesting, and then when I went to grad school I was painting and printmaking and making images of sculptures… and I realized, why am I making images of sculptures? Why not just make the thing? So I started to do that, and now, this is a part of this new reckoning: basically I realized I can’t make sculpture because I can’t afford it. Because it costs a lot of money to store. For me, selling isn’t quite as important as just not owning a piece anymore, and not throwing it away. The first “Half Story Mountain” (in Poland) was thrown away after being up for a year. For me the problem is always having the stuff in storage. I’m always trying to wheel-and-deal to find storage and ask people to facilitate all my sculptures. It’s funny, because I make things like prints, and those find a way out, through sales or gifts, but sculptures? I’ve never sold a sculpture. 

So yeah, sculpture for me? It’s what I really want to do. And without people like Lisa Kim and all the people at the amazing Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Rauschenberg Foundation, sculpture wouldn't have been possible at all for me in the past couple of years. It really takes a village to make these projects happen.

Why is outdoor sculpture important?

Outdoor sculpture is important for me, because it has a more interesting audience. Franz West is my favorite public sculptor. The problem with public sculpture is that everyone always hates it. It’s always in the way, or you think about Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc” and it was blocking people’s way to work, they had to walk around it. It was annoying, it broke up the social space for lunchtime, and so people just generally didn’t like it. Unless they did. But even when they like [public sculpture], I don’t think it’s like, “oh, thank God that tilted arc is here,” you know? It made them think about something, and it was abrupt, but it’s still like a problem in your life that takes your mind to new places. I think that’s why I like Franz West so much. Because he makes things that everyone would hate, for sure. Like a giant turd that he paints Pepto-Bismol-pink. He’s got good energy, I think, with his sculptures. You can sit on them, and they just repaint them. They’re kind of lightweight, because they’re aluminum, but they’re really strong. They’re kind of hollow, and have a sort of emptiness about them, and they’re also very tall sometimes…

In the Studio with Grayson Cox, Summer 2013

Brooklyn based artist Grayson Cox is constantly merging thought and process. A self-described Digital-Architect-Sculptor, Cox enjoys exploring the balance between conceptual projects and constructing material things.  “The ‘in-between’ has always theme in my work…it is definitely the glue for everything I have ever made. The realm of the ‘in-between’ is innately awkward and I like exploring that.”–Grayson Cox

Opens Tonight, Mar 23, 6-8p: "The Water’s Fine"  Grayson Cox Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert Gallery, 524 W19th St., NYC the artist overhauls the entire gallery into a physically and psychologically challenging sculptural environment that questions ideas of spatial control, communal versus private space, our relationship with the natural world, and how architecture motivates, controls, manipulates and facilitates.