Land art can be challenging and, judging by Saskia Friedrich’s backyard last week, also all-encompassing.
On Saturday, her “ENCOUNTER/LOVE” installation opened at the Art Barge, but the days leading up to it were full of dry runs, or wet ones, since the piece “LOVE” was designed to be placed in the bay or ocean.
After several false starts trying to find an acceptable location, the Art Barge in Amagansett became its home for a couple of hours on Saturday during the two-hour reception. The installation came out of the water again after it ended, a condition of the town trustees, who control the bottomlands that the fabric would cover.
The other component of the installation, “ENCOUNTER,” will remain in place through Monday. That piece consists of two intersecting planes of fabric, a yellow axis and an orange axis, set in a hoop house. Two doors allow viewers to enter on either side. Since the fabric makes it difficult to traverse from one side to the other, its own encounter with each plane makes any other type of physical encounter challenging to those on either side of it.
During a discussion on Aug. 18 at her house and studio in Sagaponack, Ms. Friedrich said that Andrea Grover, the curator of the Parrish Road Show and a special projects curator at the Parrish Art Museum, approached her about doing a summer offsite show for the museum last fall. Another Parrish Road Show exhibition and performance by Tucker Marder opened on Aug. 15 in Sagaponack.
In her yard, the 72-foot-long multicolored Day-Glo assemblage of neoprene fabric, sewn together to create a very long and narrow (13 feet) quilt like object, was laid out on a very large tarp. She said it was intended to float in the water, interacting with the currents and light. Her dog and cat seemed to understand how to avoid it, even when their toys accidentally ended up in its center.
“The colors are important, they are like a rainbow and childlike,” she said. “I wanted to have it streaming toward the horizon,” along with a pattern that crosses over itself. “I’ve seen artists deal, in this way or another, with the horizon line. It has something to do with formal qualities as well as a giving spiritual and psychological meaning to it.”
“LOVE” was a title that came to her after the piece was conceived. “I was thinking of the ocean, of the open water.” The rising waters here were part of the inspiration. “It just came to me. The open feel of the water was the influence.”
Ms. Friedrich has been on the South Fork off and on since 1998 and has thought a lot about what makes it a special place. Most of her work involves fabric, but it is typically two-dimensional and designed to hang on a wall.
The challenges and possibilities of doing something else allowed her to think of new ways of communicating the experience of being here. She always imagined that “ENCOUNTER” would be seen with “LOVE.” Although her initial concept was slightly different than the final installation to be seen at the Art Barge, she is satisfied that the intention will still be carried out here.
The neoprene fabric will lie in the water. In some trial runs of the piece it has partially submerged or bubbled, but Ms. Friedrich felt confident that she now knew all of the possible ways it would interact with the bay and how to address any glitches such as air bubbles.
She said it has taken five hours to take “LOVE” there, set it out, and bring it back. Since it was important to know how the fabric would float on the water and how to anchor it, it had to be tested. She was not as concerned with “ENCOUNTER” since it involves a structure on land.
Still, she was interested to see how the light there will interact with it. When the sun goes in, the fabric glows. It seems to become brighter in relative darkness.
On Saturday, the installation went pretty well, but took most of the time allotted for it. She supervised a team working in the water, communicating with walkie-talkies while she stood on the top deck of the Art Barge to make sure it looked as she intended it. Except for a slight wrinkle, straightened out with a PVC pipe, the fabric, which was lightly anchored, bobbed and floated on and slightly beneath the current as she had intended.
It was both beautiful and a bit absurd, like a Magritte painting placing looming objects in nature that do not belong there, a pretty flowing scarf for the sea. Although she acknowledged that she reacts “all the time to the environment and nature the way most artists do,” she has not made much work that directly addresses this setting. Her fabric works typically address “the internal environment, my own self.” The “Road Show” was an opportunity for her to rethink her approach in the outdoors.
She has used the X or cross shape often in her recent work, and it seems to resonate with her. The intersection suggests something of human relationships and the need for community, companionship, and love. Parallel lines never intersect and do not interact at all. Crossed lines do, for better or worse, and both appear as themes in “LOVE” and “ENCOUNTER.”
In making these pieces, she wasn’t directly referring to a specific artist, but acknowledged the traditions of James Turrell and Richard Tuttle, among others.
“I grew up with art. It is such a part of me. It’s how I think.” Her parents owned a gallery, and in her formative years she was surrounded by the work of Blinky Palermo, Sigmar Polke, Dan Flavin, Barnett Newman, and many others. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and also studied dance and acting.
Another installation of “LOVE” may occur during the run of the “ENCOUNTER” piece, but was not yet scheduled as of press time.