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C105
WHY
NY? HISTORY
OF A SHOW
Corban
Walker describes his winding road to getting a show in
New York.
Since 1997
I used to visit New York regularly and seek meetings with
gallery directors with a view to getting my work shown
there. I had a long list. My favourites were Paula Cooper,
Sean Kelly and Mathew Marks along with a bunch of others.
Paula Cooper, Tanya Bonakdar were keen but didn't know
how they were going to fit me in with their stable. Then
a busy little place called Ac Projects, run by the artists
Paul Bloodgood and Anne Chu, loved my stuff, promising
a slot in a group show. I thought I was made. Before that
Susan Dunne from PaceWildenstein saw a show of mine in
Dublin and liked the work but I didn't think anything
of it. Two years later Marc Glimcher, also from Pace,
was in Dublin and came to my studio. He was interested
in the installation I had made in Poitier. He took some
slides of the installation and showed them to Robert Irwin.
Irwin is one of my heroes, particularly after seeing his
work at Dia. Irwin apparently said to Glimcher, "This
kid is good, you should show him." So, Marc was back in
town in March 2000. I picked him up from his hotel in
my little red box and brought him to the Fire Station
Studios. He had to spell it out for me. He offered me
a show with Cornelia Parker, for the following June, to
launch their programme of exhibiting new artists. I was
in the middle of installing my first public-art project
in the new wing of the Crawford Art Gallery and had a
show coming up with Green on Red a few weeks later. I
told him I'd love to do it.
Corban
Walker: Mapping 4, 2000, installation with
glass, perspex, two-way mirror and wall, at PaceWildenstein
Gallery; photo Ellen Page Wilson; courtesy the
artist/PaceWildenstein/Green on Red Gallery
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Things changed.
For Cornelia Parker now read PaceWildenstein. I went to
New York at the beginning of May with a few sketches of
the bones of a glass installation. The meeting with Marc
and PaceWildenstein boss, Arnie Glimcher, was short. I
left the building feeling very strange, not knowing whether
I had blown the biggest opportunity of my life or whether
they liked my work. That afternoon I got a call from Marc
asking me would I mind if they hold the show, Arnie wanted
to save it and open the next season in September with
my installation.
Pace put
up a very handsome budget. I ordered forty-eight and an
extra four glass fins from a glass manufacturer in Brooklyn.
I had to tell them I was using the glass for shelving
in a designer boutique, because if I mentioned an art
gallery the price would double. I hired my brother to
come over and help install the work. The fins were 12
mm annealed glass sheets, each 100 x 4270 mm. We spent
ten days doing tests on the glass, allowing the sheets
to bow as much as possible. They were located by a clear
acrylic stop coming out of the wall at an angle at one
end and balancing on the floor on one corner. I want the
lattice of glass fins to be tangled in one corner of the
gallery and randomly strewn around the rest of the space
off the walls. I had to make a full-size maquette in plywood
and hope it would work in the same way. After mapping
the final maquette with Polaroids, three of us started
to install the work in glass from the back to front on
Labour Day. After several hours of severe stress and excitement
we finished and went and got some Vietnamese soup in a
state of awe and silence.
It got
a nice little mention in The New Yorker and a good
review by Robert Morgan...
Corban
Walker is an artist based in Dublin.
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