Lanky, bespectacled, and soft-spoken, Douglas Weathersby does not especially look like the kind of guy who spends much of his creative time mucking around in the dirt and debris littering our lives, but there you have it. What’s more, he’s just been announced as this year’s winner of the Institute of Contemporary Art’s coveted Artist Prize, which comes with a $2500 honorarium and a solo show at the ICA. Weathersby’s most recent work entails sweeping up dust and detritus in a given space, then shaping it to match shadows cast in that space, following, for example, the silhouette formed by light falling on a pair of office chairs. Although these dust drawings are eminently impermanent, eventually being blown away or swept up themselves, Weathersby himself is fully down to earth, and he presents his work not only as transient installations but in evocative photographs and on very subtle videos. His projects also often include the act of cleaning as a kind of performance art, and its results as sculpture; he spent last January cleaning out the storage area at the Gallery @ Green Street while its owners were away, reassembling its entire contents into attractive piles and structures in the windows of the closed gallery, as well as creating a haunting dust drawing on the gallery floor.
"I’ve always been interested in process and materials," he tells me when we meet up at the ICA, where he has been engaged to perform cleaning services in furtherance of both his livelihood and his art, which in his case are intertwined. He supports and creates his art through his commercial enterprise Environmental Services, which he markets with a full-color brochure advertising services ranging from "one-time heavy cleaning" ($20/hour) to "basic house cleaning" ($80/half day). These services are for the most part performed in a straightforward manner by the artist; however, his contract with prospective employers includes a release form whereby the contracting party agrees to allow the artist to execute conceptual art or temporary installations while completing the agreed-upon cleaning project.
Right now, Weathersby’s tasks at the ICA involve installing "Pulse," a new exhibition about art and healing. By painting pedestals and sweeping floors over the next few months, he’ll begin the process of preparing for his own site-specific installation in September. He mentions German artist Joseph Beuys, whose work is included in "Pulse," as an important influence on his work: "Beuys had the idea that we are all ‘social sculptors,’ because in experiencing the world, we manipulate space." His particular manipulations, whether with broom or Windex or camera, have the effect of isolating everyday experiences and activities in strangely moving ways.
Also of note: a rich exhibition of work by painter Anne Harris opens at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly on June 2. Harris is a meticulous painter; her work includes intensely observed self-portraits of herself nude and pregnant. This exhibition, organized by Alison Ferris of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, features major works produced over the past eight years.
Video work by Douglas Weathersby is now available for rental at the new Video/DVD Rental Library @ Green Street, which is located at the Gallery @ Green Street, 141 Green Street, at the Green Street MBTA Station in Jamaica Plain. Call (617) 522-0000. "Without Likeness: Paintings by Anne Harris" is at the Montserrat College of Art Gallery, 23 Essex Street in Beverly, from June 2 through July 11, with an opening reception on May 30 from 6 to 8 p.m. Harris will conduct master classes at Montserrat May 29 through June 2 and will give a free slide talk May 29 at 7 p.m. at 292 Cabot Street in Beverly. Call (978) 921-4242 extension 1319 for exhibition information and extension 1223 for master-class information.
