Jesse Stecklow

Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Artist statement

I use objects, images, text, and sound to create site-responsive installations. I make works that exist in unfixed space; gaining and losing components as they adapt to new architectures and to each other. I think of the exhibition environment as a relational site for collection and accretion where works actively sample from and model themselves after their surroundings. I often re-exhibit sculptures numerous times, making adjustments to their positioning and components as they enter new contexts. Exhibited on an ongoing basis, they pull from their surroundings to inform the creation of new pieces. This has manifested as sculptures that sample materials found in their airspace or kinetic sound works that model themselves after the perimeter of the room in which they are installed. By altering and continually re-exhibiting works, I embrace the passage of time and discard notions of where one artwork begins and ends. Similarly, I use the boundaryless qualities of light and sound to prioritize immediacy and further erase divisions between singular works, their support structures, and the larger environment. Beyond objects, I’m interested in the flexible nature of language. I employ logics of free association, linguistic play and repetition to explore how meaning is generated and altered.

Artwork