Going Strong for 7 Years: Adam Ekberg

Did you know the OPP blog turns seven-years-old at the end of August? In honor of our upcoming birthday and the artists we feature, we'll be sharing some blasts from the past. In this post and over the next few weeks, we'll share new work from Featured Artists interviewed in the first year of the blog. First up: Adam Ekberg!

Lawn Chair Catapult, 2017. Archival pigment print.

What's new in your practice, Adam Ekberg?

My new studio is in an old barn in New Jersey I restored over the last few years. In the barn is a small room with a chair and table near a window that looks out over a wooded area. This is where I go and make drawings of actions that I want to see occur in the world. After I make the sketches, I write notes about how to make a particular action exist at least long enough for me to photograph it. The studio walls are pinned with sketches, which only come down once the final photograph is made- the replacement of the sketch with a small print always feels like a small victory.

Beer Bottles, Banana, Cocktail Umbrellas, Disco Ball and Bic Lighter, 2017. Archival pigment print.

While my working process involves a lot of experimentation, I have become increasingly uncompromising in any deviation between the initial sketch and the final photograph. It is like a completely ridiculous game I have concocted with very specific parameters--you wouldn't believe what is entailed to catapult a lawn chair on the plains of the Midwest!

Roller Skates and Aerosol Containers, 2017. Archival pigment print.

Coming up this fall, I will have images on view in the Maine Center for Contemporary Art Biennial and in the upcoming exhibition Groundings at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. I am also at work on images for a large upcoming solo-exhibition so I am a bit of an art-monk at the moment. Recent solo-exhibitions include those at ClampArt, New York, De Soto Gallery, Los Angeles, Platform Gallery, Seattle and Capsule Gallery, Houston. My work is featured in the upcoming publication The Focal Press Companion to the Constructed Image in Contemporary Photography, and my monograph, The Life of Small Things, was published in late 2015.

Candles, Mirrors and Laser, 2014. Archival pigment print.

Read Adam's 2010 interview.