Interview with artist Ira Joel Haber
09/01/2014
09/01/2014
Preview of cover art for Issue 1: "Girl with a Bouquet" by Ira Joel Haber
Describe the process of creation: what are the mediums you used to create “Girl with a Bouquet”?
I've been doing drawings and collages in notebooks for 45 years, my new series goes back a few years, where I have been incorporating 3-D elements with the flat surfaces of the page. I use the lines of the pages sometimes hiding them. Using figures in my work is a recent development. I like cutting out images and adding stuff to them.
What are the main sources of inspiration for your art? What are you trying to communicate with it?
Ever since I was a little boy I have made things, including drawings. The earliest piece of existing sculpture that I did dates from 1958. I was very young. The piece is made of white interlocking plastic building blocks that always play with. For me it was more than just play. The piece has some similarities to my present concerns. It looks like a building or a structure or a ruin. I glued the individual blocks together. Even at this early stage I was concerned with making a permanent work of art.
In 1968 I started to fill small black sketchbooks with collages. I thought of them as intimate objects to be looked at by one person at a time. I never ripped out pages. I did these books for about a year when I decided I had accomplished at that time what I wanted to do with collage. In early 1969 I wanted to expand my ideas of collage, to break through the paper and get to the other side. It was at this point that I started my work involving small scale sculpture, miniature environments and landscapes.
Growing up in New York gave me easy access to all the museums and at an early age I started to go to The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum Of Natural History, The MOMA and The Whitney. I was particularly attracted to the large dioramas at the natural history museum, not for the history they told ,but for how they told that history. I was fascinated by the artificial landscapes and how they were made. At the same time I was also seeing the great works of modern art. The one work that stands out as having an impact on me as a child was Ernst's "Two Children Are Threatened By A Nightingale" which left a lasting impression on me because of Ernst's use of strange perspective, bright almost acidy coloration and the three-dimensional miniaturization of a gate and house. Some other influences were amusement parks, notably Steeplechase Park, movies, Times Square and the artists Joseph Cornell and Louise Nevelson. Knowing their work from an early age was an education. Seeing what they (and others) had done with assemblage was inspiring and made me realize that although their accomplishments were magnificent, there was still room for an original new voice to be heard.
The first box I did was in 1969 and was made of cardboard which was completely covered with a photographic reproduction of a landscape. Inside the box I placed a cardboard backed cut-out photograph of the artist Toulouse-Lautrec as a child surrounded by his family. Unfortunately part of this box was destroyed. This box was not complicated enough for me and my feelings for the figure was not very strong. The first landscape boxes I did were also done in 1969 and were a series of "New York boxes.” They were small with diorama backgrounds of the city skyline in the 1900's along with loose material usually gravel or sawdust dyed to represent earth. At the same time I started my pieces involving architecture both in boxes and pieces placed on the floor.
My boxes from 1969-1971 usually had neutral landscape photographs as backgrounds. Using these backgrounds allowed me to confuse the perspectives of my landscapes and employ contradictory scale systems both in my boxes and floor pieces. It was also during this period that I actually burned many of the miniature buildings I was using. The interpretations and connotations of this element of my work was usually psychological and secondary to what I was actually doing. Simply put, I was altering, changing and manipulating my found materials as modern artists have done since Cubism. The action was just as important to me as the outcome of the work and the reactions the work would invoke. I think nature has a tendency to reproduce itself in miniature. A twig, a small stone or a puddle of water when separated from its natural environment and isolated can resemble a tree, a boulder or a lake.
I want my art to go through slow constant changes, but at the same time I want vast abrupt changes. Nature does the same. Since 1969 I have been making small scale sculptures and miniature environments that have been boxed, floored and walled. Within these small spaces a wide range of images have been constant & consistent. Houses, mountains, trees, bodies of water and land masses. My work over the years has changed, as I'm always experimenting with my language.
What advice would you give to aspiring artists trying to refine their craft?
I never give this kind of advice to young artists.
Click the links below to view Ira Joel Haber's art in Issue 1:
Cover art: Girl with Bouquet
Seashells
Colored Grove
I've been doing drawings and collages in notebooks for 45 years, my new series goes back a few years, where I have been incorporating 3-D elements with the flat surfaces of the page. I use the lines of the pages sometimes hiding them. Using figures in my work is a recent development. I like cutting out images and adding stuff to them.
What are the main sources of inspiration for your art? What are you trying to communicate with it?
Ever since I was a little boy I have made things, including drawings. The earliest piece of existing sculpture that I did dates from 1958. I was very young. The piece is made of white interlocking plastic building blocks that always play with. For me it was more than just play. The piece has some similarities to my present concerns. It looks like a building or a structure or a ruin. I glued the individual blocks together. Even at this early stage I was concerned with making a permanent work of art.
In 1968 I started to fill small black sketchbooks with collages. I thought of them as intimate objects to be looked at by one person at a time. I never ripped out pages. I did these books for about a year when I decided I had accomplished at that time what I wanted to do with collage. In early 1969 I wanted to expand my ideas of collage, to break through the paper and get to the other side. It was at this point that I started my work involving small scale sculpture, miniature environments and landscapes.
Growing up in New York gave me easy access to all the museums and at an early age I started to go to The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum Of Natural History, The MOMA and The Whitney. I was particularly attracted to the large dioramas at the natural history museum, not for the history they told ,but for how they told that history. I was fascinated by the artificial landscapes and how they were made. At the same time I was also seeing the great works of modern art. The one work that stands out as having an impact on me as a child was Ernst's "Two Children Are Threatened By A Nightingale" which left a lasting impression on me because of Ernst's use of strange perspective, bright almost acidy coloration and the three-dimensional miniaturization of a gate and house. Some other influences were amusement parks, notably Steeplechase Park, movies, Times Square and the artists Joseph Cornell and Louise Nevelson. Knowing their work from an early age was an education. Seeing what they (and others) had done with assemblage was inspiring and made me realize that although their accomplishments were magnificent, there was still room for an original new voice to be heard.
The first box I did was in 1969 and was made of cardboard which was completely covered with a photographic reproduction of a landscape. Inside the box I placed a cardboard backed cut-out photograph of the artist Toulouse-Lautrec as a child surrounded by his family. Unfortunately part of this box was destroyed. This box was not complicated enough for me and my feelings for the figure was not very strong. The first landscape boxes I did were also done in 1969 and were a series of "New York boxes.” They were small with diorama backgrounds of the city skyline in the 1900's along with loose material usually gravel or sawdust dyed to represent earth. At the same time I started my pieces involving architecture both in boxes and pieces placed on the floor.
My boxes from 1969-1971 usually had neutral landscape photographs as backgrounds. Using these backgrounds allowed me to confuse the perspectives of my landscapes and employ contradictory scale systems both in my boxes and floor pieces. It was also during this period that I actually burned many of the miniature buildings I was using. The interpretations and connotations of this element of my work was usually psychological and secondary to what I was actually doing. Simply put, I was altering, changing and manipulating my found materials as modern artists have done since Cubism. The action was just as important to me as the outcome of the work and the reactions the work would invoke. I think nature has a tendency to reproduce itself in miniature. A twig, a small stone or a puddle of water when separated from its natural environment and isolated can resemble a tree, a boulder or a lake.
I want my art to go through slow constant changes, but at the same time I want vast abrupt changes. Nature does the same. Since 1969 I have been making small scale sculptures and miniature environments that have been boxed, floored and walled. Within these small spaces a wide range of images have been constant & consistent. Houses, mountains, trees, bodies of water and land masses. My work over the years has changed, as I'm always experimenting with my language.
What advice would you give to aspiring artists trying to refine their craft?
I never give this kind of advice to young artists.
Click the links below to view Ira Joel Haber's art in Issue 1:
Cover art: Girl with Bouquet
Seashells
Colored Grove