Meg Webster

Meg Webster (born 1944) is an American artist from San Francisco working primarily in sculpture and installation art. While her works span multiple media, she is most well-known for her artworks that feature natural elements. She is closely affiliated with Post-Minimalism and the Land Art movement and has been exhibiting her work since the 1980.^[1]

Her work is featured in many permanent collections throughout the world, including The Panza Collection at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Walker Art Center.^[2] She has also created public, site-specific works for the Hudson River Park, Stanford University and other sites around the world.^[3][4]

Early life and education

Meg Webster was born in San Francisco in 1944.^[5] She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.^[6] After shifting her focus from painting to sculpture, Webster pursued a Master of Arts degree at Yale University, completed in the early 1980’s. While attending Yale, Webster was taught by important contemporary artists, such as Vito Acconci, Donald Judd, and Richard Serra.^[7] Webster has lived in the East Village in New York City since 1979, where she continues to produce sculptural works.^[8]

Work

Meg Webster began exhibiting her work in 1980, showing her work in venues throughout the country. She draws inspiration from artists working in the vein of Land Art, such as Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer, her former mentor.^[9] Webster started working as Heizer’s assistant in 1983, facilitating the installation of his exhibitions, including his 1985 solo show at the Whitney Museum.^[10] Meg Webster’s most notable works are sculptures of natural materials, molded to create simple forms. Webster builds these works methodically and delicately, paying close attention to the structure and the weight of each work’s physical presence. She often employs industrial materials in her work juxtaposed with natural elements to create a visually complex space that provokes further thought on the intersection of nature and technology.^[11] Her artworks also often raise issues of global warming and the consequences of human interference with the environment.^[12] Although she is most recognized for her work in sculpture and installation, Webster also creates paintings and works on paper, both of which have been exhibited at Paula Cooper Gallery, her New York gallery representative.^[13] Webster continues to be featured in both group and solo shows in museums and galleries, in addition to her outdoor public commissions and garden designs.

Installation Art

Meg Webster’s immersive installations allow the viewer to fully experience her manufactured atmospheres and to inhibit her creative vision. In Pool, originally built in 1998 and later recreated in 2013, Webster inserted a pool into the exhibition space at MoMA PS1. Although the pool is entirely artificial, Webster decided not to hide the manmade mechanics that made the pool possible.^[14] The infusion of natural elements in an industrial space envelops the viewer and transports them into an entirely new venue where these two worlds coexist. The 2013 installation was a part of the exhibition Expo 1, which served as an artistic commentary on the role of environment in society, a question that Meg Webster often grapples with in her sculptures and installations.^[15]

Exhibited both in and out of doors, many of her works are site specific and are built in accordance with their physical surroundings. Webster directly engages with her environment and invites viewers to do the same. In her most recent solo show at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, Webster created an installation work, Solar Grow Room, in which she built an indoor garden complete with reflective paneling and industrial lamps.^[16]

Sculpture

Maintaining her preference for large scale works, Webster’s sculptures are as dramatic and monumental as her installations. Although her sculptures generally pertain to environmental themes and incorporate natural materials, her pieces are sometimes composed of controlled geometric forms. Webster often turns to a certain roster of forms – cones, gates, hollows, beds, and rings – when creating her sculptures.^[9] Stick Spiral, created for the Panza Collection and later bequeathed to the Guggenheim Museum, consists of a simple spiral shape created solely from branches.^[17] The clean geometry is interrupted by the chaotic arrangement of branches, yet the piece remains contemplative rather than aggressive. In 2008, Meg Webster exhibited a selection of her smaller sculptures at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York. One of the most remarkable pieces was “Melted Weapon Box,” a seemingly unassuming small metal box atop a white column. Next to the open box was a photograph of a life-size M-4 assault rifle, the original material for the box. Webster melted the weapon down to create the small cube; the presentation of the box itself does not seem an atypical choice for her, but the relation to a vehicle of violence is unique to her body of work.^[18]

Other Media

In addition to her work in installation and sculpture, Webster creates and exhibits what can be considered “paintings,” which consist of unconventional materials applied to paper. She chooses materials that are both industrial and natural, including cement, pollen and egg yolk. This combination of natural and manmade remains intrinsic to her work across each of her chosen media.^[18]

Webster has also experimented with video art in her various gallery shows. On multiple occasions, Webster has exhibited video projections of bears in their natural habitat, implying the consequences of malignant human intervention in the environment. Through these videos, Webster places environmental protection into dialogue with the commercial gallery space, asking the viewer to empathize with nature in an unexpected setting.^[18]

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

• 2016
  • Meg Webster, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, New York^[19]
• 2013
  • Meg Webster, Anne Mosseri-Marlio Galerie, Basel, Switzerland^[20]
  • Meg Webster: Pool, Expo 1: New York at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York^[21]
  • Meg Webster, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, New York^[22]
• 2010
  • New Drawings, Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, Texas^[23]
  • Drawings, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, New York^[24]
  • Hudson River Park, New York, New York^[3]
• 2009
  • Meg Webster, Drawing and Objects Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas
• 2008
  • Meg Webster, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, New York^[25]
• 2000
  • New Work, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, New York^[26]
• 1998
  • Pool, P.S. 1 Contemporary Arts Center, Long Island City, New York^[14]
  • Photographs, Thomas Healy Gallery, New York, New York
• 1997
  • Blue Sky, Morris-Healy Gallery, New York, New York^[27]
• 1996
  • Drawings, Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, Texas^[28]
  • Drawings, Morris-Healy Gallery, New York, New York
• 1993
  • Recent Sculptures, Grand Salon, New York, New York^[29]
• 1992
  • Kitchen Garden, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas^[30]
  • Running, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York; Weatherspoon Arts Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina^[7]
• 1991
  • Stream, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania^[31]
• 1990
  • Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin^[7]
  • Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, New York^[32]
  • Meg Webster, Stuart Regen, Los Angeles, California^[33]
  • Drawing/Object, Scott Hanson Gallery, New York, New York^[29]
• 1988
  • Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, New York^[7]
• 1987
  • Meg Webster: Part II - Additions, Subtractions, Reformations, Forecast Gallery, Peekskill, New York, New York^[5]
• 1986
  • Excerpts from Circuit, Art Galaxy, New York, New York^[5]
  • Meg Webster, Forecast Gallery, Peekskill, New York^[5]
• 1983
  • Two Walls, Donald Judd’s Exhibition Space, New York, New York^[5]
• 1980
  • Leavenworth Street, San Francisco, California^[5]

Group Exhibitions

• 2016
  • Landmark, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, New York^[34]
• 2015
  • Entropie: L’Ordre caché, saison 2, FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France
  • The Mannequin of History: Art After Fabrication of Critique and Culture, EXPO Modena 2015, Modena, Italy
  • Natura Naturans Roxy Paine e Meg Webster, Villa e Collezione Panza, Varese, Italy^[7]
  • Belle Haleine. The Scent of Art, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland
• 2014
  • Art of Its Own Making, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, MO^[35]
• 2013
  • Dojima River Biennale, Osaka, Japan^[36]
• 2010
  • A Shot in the Dark, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota^[37]
• 2009
  • Commentary, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, New York^[38]
• 2008
  • Reflections, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
  • Freedom, The Hague Sculpture Center, The Hague, Netherlands
• 2006
  • Two Friends and So On, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, New York
• 2005
  • Down the Garden Path: The Artist’s Garden After Modernism, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, New York^[39]
• 2003
  • Sweet Tooth, COPIA (The American Center for Wine Food & The Arts), Napa, California
• 2001
  • To Eat or not to Eat, Centro de Arte de Salamanca, Spain
• 2000
  • Systems Order Nature, Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, Texas^[40]
  • Drawings & Photographs, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, NY
• 1999
  • Powder, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado
  • Drip, Blow, Burn, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York
  • Hiriya Project Proposals Exhibition, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel^[41]
• 1998
  • Now and Then, Yale Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
  • Substance, Tricia Collins Grand Salon, New York, New York
• 1997
  • Dream Collection: Gifts and Just a Few Hidden Desires…Part Two, Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida
  • Around, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts^[42]
• 1996
  • Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina
  • Size Matters, Special K Galley, West Hollywood, California
  • From Figure to Object, Frith Street Gallery, London, England
  • On / In / Through, Morris-Healy Gallery, New York, New York^[43]
  • Water, James Graham & Sons, New York, New York
  • White, Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, Texas
  • On Paper II, Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, Missouri
• 1995
  • The Material Imagination, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York^[7]
  • Spirit of the Matter, Grand Salon, New York, New York
• 1994
  • Landscape as Metaphor, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio
  • Urban Paradise: Gardens in the City, Public Art Fund, PaineWebber Gallery, New York, New York^[44]
  • Visceral Responses, Holly Solomon Gallery, New York, New York
• 1993
  • Dialogues with Nature, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.^[45]
• 1992
  • Recent Acquisitions, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York
  • Theoretically Yours, Chiesa di San Lorenzo, Acosta, Italy^[29]
  • Panza di Biumo: The Eighties and the Nineties from the Collection, Museo Cantonala D’Arts, Lugano, Switzerland
  • The Nature of Science, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, New York
• 1991
  • El Jardin Salvaje, Fundacion Caja de Pensiones, Madrid, Spain
  • Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, New York
  • Stuart Regen Gallery, Los Angeles, California
• 1990
  • Savoir-Vivre, Savoir-Faire, Savoir-Etre, Centre Internationel d’Art Contemporain de Montreal, Montreal, Canada; The House of Cyprus, Athens, Greece
  • The Last Decade: American Artists of the 1980’s, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York^[29]
  • Stendhal Syndrome: The Cure, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
  • Terra Incognita: New Approaches to Contemporary Landscape, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island
  • Liz Larner, Rosemarie Trockel, Meg Webster, Stuart Regen Gallery, Los Angeles, California^[46]
  • Botanica: The Secret Life of Plants, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, New York^[6]
  • This Land is Our Land, Zoe Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
• 1989
  • Les Graces de la Nature, Sixième Ateliers Internationaux des Pays de la Loire, Lemot, France
  • 1989 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York^[47]
  • The Experience of Landscape: Three Decades of Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art, Downtown at Federal Reserve Plaza, New York, New York^[48]
  • Clegg & Guttmann, Andreas Gursky, Meg Webster, 303 Gallery, New York, New York^[49]
  • Pre-Pop Post-Appropriation, Stux Gallery, New York, New York^[29]
  • Towards Form, Greenberg Wilson Gallery, New York, New York
• 1988
  • American Art of the Late 80's: The Binational, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; Stadische Kunsthalle, Kunstsammlung Nordrheim-Westfalen, Germany; Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfall, Düsseldorf, Germany
  • Aperto 88, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy^[7]
  • Sculpture Inside Outside, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas^[50]
  • Art at the End of the Social, Rooseum, Malmö, Sweden^[29]
  • Utopia Post Utopia, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts^[51]
  • A Deer Manger, A Dress Pattern, Farthest Sea Water, and a Signature, 303 Gallery, New York, New York^[29]
  • Media Post Media, Scott Hanson Gallery, New York, New York^[29]
• 1987
  • Changing Group Exhibition, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, New York^[52]
  • The New Poverty, John Gibson Gallery, New York, New York^[29]
  • Kindred Spirits, Hillwood Art Gallery, Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus, Brookville, New York, New York^[5]
• 1986
  • Robert Gober, Nancy Shaver, Alan Turner, Meg Webster, Cable Gallery, New York, New York^[5]
  • Sculpture in Place, Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York, New York^[5]
• 1984
  • Tom Bills/Hank de Ricco/Meg Webster: Outdoor Installations, Nassau County Museum of Fine Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York^[5]
• 1980
  • From the Land: An Exhibition of Earth-Related Works by Northeastern Artists, Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, Vermont^[5]

References

1. Van Wagner, Judy Collischan. "Kindred Spirits." Brookville: Hillwood Art Gallery, 1987. 37-54. Print.
2. "Meg Webster Biography – Meg Webster on artnet". www.artnet.com. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
3. "Chelsea | Hudson River Park". Hudson River Park. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
4. "California Native Garden | Buildings & Grounds Maintenance". bgm.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
5. Van Wagner, Judy Collischan. "Kindred Spirits." Brookville: Hillwood Art Gallery, 1987. 55. Print.
6. "Botanica: The Secret Life of Plants: About the Artists". www.lehman.edu. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
7. Italiano, FAI - Fondo Ambiente. "Natura naturans a Villa Panza di Varese | Meg Webster". www.naturanaturansvillapanza.it. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
8. Sisson, Patrick (2016-06-02). "The Simple, Stunning Organic Sculptures of Artist Meg Webster". Curbed. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
9. Van Wagner, Judy Collischan. "Kindred Spirits." Brookville: Hillwood Art Gallery, 1987. 40. Print.
10. "Full text of "Dragged mass geometric."". archive.org. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
11. Van Wagner, Judy Collischan. "Kindred Spirits." Brookville: Hillwood Art Gallery, 1987. 37. Print.
12. Canning, Susan. "Meg Webster's Nature/Technology." Sculpture 27, no. 9 (November 2008): 46-47. Art Source, EBSCOhost (accessed October 18, 2016)
13. "Exhibitions | Paula Cooper Gallery". www.paulacoopergallery.com. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
14. "Meg Webster: Pool | EXPO 1: New York". www.momaps1.org. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
15. "Major New Multifaceted Exhibition Focuses on Ecology and Environmental Issues". Hyperallergic. 2013-05-16. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
16. "Exhibitions - Meg Webster - Art in America". www.artinamericamagazine.com. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
17. "Stick Spiral". Guggenheim. 1986-01-01. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
18. The New York Times (2008-03-14). "Art in Review". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
19. "Meg Webster – | Paula Cooper Gallery". www.paulacoopergallery.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
20. "Works | MEG WEBSTER | Anne Mosseri-Marlio Galerie AG". Anne Mosseri-Marlio Galerie AG. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
21. "Meg Webster: Pool | EXPO 1: New York". www.momaps1.org. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
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24. "Meg Webster – | Paula Cooper Gallery". www.paulacoopergallery.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
25. "Meg Webster – | Paula Cooper Gallery". www.paulacoopergallery.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
26. "Meg Webster – New Work | Paula Cooper Gallery". www.paulacoopergallery.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
27. Smith, Roberta (1997-05-30). "Art in Review". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
28. "Exhibitions | Hiram Butler Gallery". hirambutler.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
29. "Curated". Richard Milazzo. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
30. "Kitchen Garden". www.greenmuseum.org. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
31. "Meg Webster, July-Sept 1991 « 2013 Carnegie International | BLOG". ci13blog.cmoa.org. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
32. "Calendar". The Burlington Magazine. 132 (1045): 297–302. 1990-01-01.
33. "Meg Webster - Exhibitions - Regen Projects". www.regenprojects.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
34. "Socrates Sculpture Park". socratessculpturepark.org. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
35. "Art of Its Own Making | Pulitzer Arts Foundation". pulitzerarts.org. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
36. "Charwei Tsai | Dojima River Biennale, 2013". charwei.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
37. "A Shot in the Dark — Calendar — Walker Art Center". www.walkerart.org. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
38. "Jonathan Borofsky, Sam Durant, Wayne Gonzales, Hans Haacke, Glenn Ligon, Walid Raad, Kelley Walker, Meg Webster, Carey Young – Commentary | Paula Cooper Gallery". www.paulacoopergallery.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
39. "Queens Museum". www.queensmuseum.org. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
40. "- System Order Nature | Hiram Butler Gallery". hirambutler.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
41. Engler, Mira. "Hiriya in the museum: Tel Aviv Museum of Art." Public Art Review 11, no. 2 (Summer2000 2000): 31-34. Art Source, EBSCOhost (accessed October 18, 2016)
42. "Around". www.barbarakrakowgallery.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
43. "Front Matter". BOMB (56). 1996-01-01.
44. www.tendercreative.com, TENDER -. "Public Art Fund : Urban Paradise: Gardens in the City". www.publicartfund.org. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
45. A Dialogue with Nature: Nine Contemporary Sculptors - Finding Aid. Phillips Collection, PDF
46. "Liz Larner, Rosemarie Trockel, Meg Webster - Exhibitions - Regen Projects". www.regenprojects.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
47. Smith, Roberta (1989-04-28). "Review/Art; More Women and Unknowns in the Whitney Biennial". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
48. The Experience of Landscape : Three Decades of Sculpture. Whitney Museum of American Art. 1989. p. 2 – via archive.org.
49. "Clegg & Guttmann, Andreas Gursky, Meg Webster - GALLERY EXHIBITIONS - 303 Gallery". www.303gallery.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
50. "Works in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden". Design Quarterly (141): 59–59. 1988-01-01.
51. "Review of Utopia Post Utopia: Configurations of Nature and Culture in Recent Sculpture and Photography". The Print Collector's Newsletter. 19 (4): 154–154. 1988-01-01.
52. "Meg Webster, Joel Shapiro, Jackie Winsor, Carl Andre, Donald Judd – Changing Group Exhibition | Paula Cooper Gallery". www.paulacoopergallery.com. Retrieved 2016-11-16.