{"id":1791,"date":"2025-03-15T19:06:52","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T19:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/15\/observer-arts-interviews-artist-david-altmejd\/"},"modified":"2025-03-15T19:07:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T19:07:04","slug":"observer-arts-interviews-artist-david-altmejd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/15\/observer-arts-interviews-artist-david-altmejd\/","title":{"rendered":"Observer Arts Interviews: Artist David Altmejd"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sculptor David Altmejd in his studio. \u00a9 Tristan Lajarrige<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David Altmejd<\/a> describes himself as a medium\u2014an interpreter and channel for the energies already embedded within the materials with which he works. It took years, but sculpture gradually revealed itself to him as a vehicle for both transcendence and inquiry\u2014moving in and out of science and the physical structure of materials, in and out of human creativity and artistry. Those energies, he maintains, can be shaped into forms that echo existing symbologies and archetypes drawn from a collective unconscious. Observer met with the visionary Canadian artist during a whirlwind Los Angeles Art Week<\/a> and ahead of his major solo exhibition at White Cube New York (his first in the city in over a decade) to discuss the sources behind his work and how his process leans toward alchemy, Jungian excavation of the unconscious and allowing forms and symbologies to surface on their own terms.<\/p>\n

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It all comes down to particles, he says\u2014those elemental units that arrange themselves into remarkably ordered structures, shaping our perception of what we call reality, only to be retranslated into symbolic forms and figures. Creation is about becoming a catalyst or a conduit for the new circulation of matter and energy. \u201cThere is a connection between matter and mother,\u201d the artist says as we discuss the show\u2019s central piece, which is still in his studio, waiting to be completed before following his other works to New York. \u201cMy hand has the potential to give what is invisible a form. I\u2019m just at the intersection between the invisible and physical reality, and all I\u2019m doing is letting those invisible energies work through me. I\u2019m not really the one deciding what form they\u2019re going to have. They<\/em> decide what form they\u2019re going to have. That\u2019s something that I\u2019m becoming more and more aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Altmejd plays with the juxtaposition of nature and the human form, merging realism with crude expressionism to create a startling manifestation of the subconscious mind. \u00a9 Tristan Lajarrige<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the traditional notion of sculpture often centers creation as a deliberate, human-driven act, Altmejd has learned to relinquish that control. \u201cEvery choice that I make comes from me; I\u2019m controlling all my decisions. Then I realized that was probably very difficult. I was battling with something else, and I didn\u2019t even realize it. I thought it was me having a difficult time, forcing order on chaos.\u201d In this exhibition, he is consciously letting both forces\u2014order and chaos\u2014manifest fully, alive and brimming in the creative tension between them. \u201cThen, somehow, by accident, something happens, a form reveals, the original sculpture mutates, and I then really have the feeling like that\u2019s what the work wants to become.\u201d In other words, Altmejd stopped trying to impose his will on materials and began instead to facilitate the movement of matter toward its next form. \u201cI\u2019m sort of trying to seduce it, influence and accompany it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As we converse, I\u2019m not surprised to find our talk drifting into Jungian psychoanalysis\u2014a framework that has long intrigued Altmejd. \u201cI started my career as a sculptor, making sculptures of decapitated wild wolves. Just now, reading Jung and thinking about archetypes, I realized I was just dealing with the shadows.\u201d In many of his works, Altmejd allows the grotesque, uncanny and informal to emerge freely\u2014summoning creatures that exist in states of transition and metamorphosis. Archetypes don\u2019t precede the work; they arise through it as he molds material as part of yielding to its inner forces. \u201cIt\u2019s usually not at the moment of sketching that the idea starts,\u201d he explains. \u201cFor example, I can work on a very masculine piece, I can have an idea of a very masculine piece, and as soon as I manipulate the material, I become aware of feminine energy. Sometimes, it\u2019s because I keep making mistakes, as the material suggests a different type of form. I just have to surrender, listen to it and conduct it to become what it wants to be next.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet, no matter how hybrid or mutational these beings become, Altmejd insists that they are always reaching toward something recognizably human. \u201cI want to relate to them, I want to have a relationship with them. I want to look at them in the eyes,\u201d he says, emphasizing how these uncanny presences serve as confrontational mirrors\u2014for himself and for the viewer\u2014summoning the monsters from our collective subconscious and forcing us to face what lies hidden.<\/p>\n

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The artist\u2019s latest exhibition at White Cube New York marks his first major solo show in the city in over a decade. \u00a9 Tristan Lajarrige<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the same time, there is something unmistakably alchemic in Altmejd\u2019s process. As he explains, crystals can emerge from plaster and concrete because a slight shift in the atomic configuration of particles\u2014just enough to realign carbon\u2014can transform the blackest matter into something perfectly clear. When life burns down to its elemental state, he says, it becomes pure carbon\u2014completely black, absorbing all the light. \u201cIts atomic structure is extremely chaotic. Because all the carbon atoms are are misaligned and placed chaotically, that\u2019s what gives it its black aspect. But if it\u2019s compressed enough, all the carbon atoms become perfectly aligned and transparent to the light.\u201d<\/p>\n

This duality\u2014between light and dark energies, between order and chaos\u2014cycles through a sculpture he has conceived; one that, like much of his past work, suggests an endless metamorphosis of form and energy. \u201cI\u2019m just feeling those energies inside the material and giving them an outlet. I\u2019m connecting with it through the material.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resulting figure is vast and serpentine. Fragments of heads and faces, shifting between human and something else entirely, accumulate into something that resolves into the body of a giant snake. Yet even in its formal structure, the sculpture refuses linearity. It moves through brisk, unexpected curves and sharp breaks, leaping from generation to decay, from death to rebirth\u2014in an eternal flow of primordial forces: eros and thanatos, creation and destruction, collapse and becoming. \u201cIt is both terrifying and completely seductive. That\u2019s what also life is,\u201d Altmejd reflects, describing how this monstrous figure evolves into something symbolic, existential and deeply spiritual\u2026 a kind of ancestral deity composed of many ancestral visions, the serpent holds multiple heads, each one representing a moment in the cycle\u2014a powerful totemic presence reminding us of the ongoing rhythm of fall and rise, birth and death, and the vital transformations in between.<\/p>\n

This ominous, shape-shifting presence dominates the gallery space, juxtaposed with a sculpture far more harmonious in tone: a snake charmer, seated cross-legged, playing a pipe or ancient flute. Where the serpent spirals with chaos, the final sculpture advances through a precise multiplication of forms\u2014calculated and numerically exact\u2014evoking the highly ordered patterns of atomic or molecular structures.<\/p>\n

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With each sculpture, Altmejd attempts to seduce the material rather than control it, allowing form to emerge through surrender. \u00a9 Tristan Lajarrige<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While order and chaos manifest on the gallery\u2019s ground floor, Altmejd stages something far more fluid upstairs: the vibrant, swirling dance of particles and atoms that sustain the universe\u2019s continuous transformation. Here, his iconic bronze sculpture takes the form of elegant, sinuous nymphs\u2014figures the artist sees as metaphors for the generative force of feminine energy. They move as if caught in wind, their rhythm guided by male figures playing hybrid flutes, all set within a space populated by swans.<\/p>\n

Drawing once again on Jungian analysis and archetypal imagery, Altmejd shares his fascination with the swan\u2014a creature he views as spiritually resonant, gliding with ethereal grace across the water<\/keyword>\u2019s surface. \u201cI was really interested in the swan as a sort of symbol of this sort of spiritual order. It just spends most of its time on the surface of a lake, so it\u2019s very connected to the unconscious: sometimes, it dips into the water<\/keyword> to feed itself and into the psyche\u2019s abysses. In that sense, I feel it is very close to my condition as a sculptor. I also want to be in between those dimensions.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Altmejd\u2019s sculptures often depict hybrid, grotesque creatures in states of transition, confronting viewers with the symbolic monsters of the collective subconscious. \u00a9 Tristan Lajarrige<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than in any previous exhibition, Altmejd\u2019s White Cube show fully embraces his awareness of the deep, inescapable connection between his role as a sculptor and the unseen forces that shape the material world. The work navigates the interplay of invisible cosmic and psychic energies, forces that animate a universe in perpetual flux: between growth and decay, order and disorder, harmony and chaos. \u201cRecently, I\u2019ve started to think about the connection between chaos and order,\u201d he concludes. \u201cI always thought my job as an artist was imposing order on chaos. This is the very traditional notion of art I was raised with. But I realize now that chaos has its own intelligence, will and desires, and I cannot control it. It is, instead, the very source of creation. Everything that comes out in the world comes from chaos. All I can do is play with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid Altmejd: The Serpent<\/a>\u201d opens at White Cube New York on March 14 and runs through April 19, 2025.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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