Forgive Me
The Salton Sea is My Walden Pond
The Salton Sea is My Walden Pond detailI work in a persona. Or at least when I look at my work I cannot identify with the effects. The effects suggest someone other than myself. It is someone like me, Sometimes it’s a version of me, more alienated or delusional, who imagines that these works are a solution to something, physical or mathematical.
As far as what I intended to do, some of these effects might have been predicted. I set out to use paint more extensively than I had before. The burden of the past reaches its extreme in New York painting. It is so easy to be naïve or just stupid. My solution was to closely limit the application of paint. I poured red paint from a quart can and painted color bars using nail polish. Almost immediately contemplating paint led into contemplating flesh and I focused on a narrow range of white, off white, light brown and pink.
I also decided to assemble the work in a more immediate manner than I had before. I decided not to try to make the finish of each piece resemble a manufactured object.
Artist’s Statement 2009I work with the problem of subjectivity. I make mixed media collage and assemblage that illustrates how thoroughly and directly our interior state determines the significance of any information. I modify straightforward, declarative objects and texts to show how they might be understood if only a little pathology is involved. For “Our Forgotten Sky,” I cut a page from a Navy electronics manual, which was intended to illustrate a local battery telephone and typed a short poem about communication onto it. Using a technique I think I invented, the text reads both left to right and is mirrored right to left, to echo the symmetry of the illustration. The mood and the text of my poem refer to somber accidents in the Navy diagram. Some of my work I see as collaboration with the illustrators of out of print textbooks. In other works, I address how meaning accretes on things because of the history of actions around them. Objects become symbolic, even the meaning of words is privatized over time. Consequently, we are isolated from each other. Life becomesan ongoing act of interpretation, where we argue for what things mean to us.
Artist’s Statement 2008I have been working with the creative model of a psychological bureaucracy. In some cases I think of my work as letters (epistles) in others I address the experience of reading and interpreting texts. An imaginary bureau processes aesthetic questions and problems that emerge in the studio. I use pages from textbooks, technical manuals and literature in digest form as the support for small paintings drawings, writings and collages. The found pages are chosen for their potential interpretations and their pagination. I collaborate with the original intention of the page, which usually seems no less complicated than my own. I think of myself as a bureaucrat of the type in Kafka's " The Trial". Reports are submitted and processed. Their contents are scrutinized and annotated. I hope the works render the idea of a psychologically inert text, a purely declarative sentence fallacious and formally recognize the strata of significance in any cultural document. Even the writers of example sentences in English textbooks have desires.
Daniel John Weiner (1965-)
Born in Oak Park, Illinois, raised in Los Angeles and educated on the West Coast, Weiner's aesthetic is crafted from a degree in English and a master's in printmaking, painting and photography with influences from the California assemblage artists, work as a scenic carpenter and the reader of romantic literature. Exhibits with Pirogue, Brooklyn, James Graham and Sons in New York. Recent solo exhibitions with the Farm (2003) and Sushi Visual and Performance Art Space (2001) in San Diego, 4018 Gallery (2004) in Los Angeles and 440 Gallery in Brooklyn (2008). Many of his works are maintained in private Collections. BA ULCA. MFA San Diego State.
Resume
Solo Exhibitions | ||
| 2011 | One Jupiter Mass, | 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2009 | No Parking Funeral Today, | 4016 Gallery, Los Angeles CA |
| 2008 | Department of the Interior, | 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2004 | Dear Miss Guggenheim, | 4016 Gallery, Los Angeles CA |
| 2003 | Monologue, | The Farm, San Diego CA |
Group Exhibitions | ||
| 2008 | Ballot Show, | Font Room Gallery, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2008 | Color Climax, | James Graham and Sons, New York NY |
| 2007 | The Back Room, | 440 Gallery, Brooklyn NY |
| 2007 | Postcards from the Edge Benefit Show, | James Cohan Gallery, New York NY |
| 2006 | Flat Files, | Pierogi 2000, Brooklyn NY |
| 2006 | Postcards from the Edge Benefit Show, | Sikkema, Jenkins and Co, New York NY |
| 2006 | Art 212 Art Fair, | JG Contemporary, 26th Street Armory, New York NY |
| 2005 | Postcards from the Edge Benefit Show, | Robert Miller Gallery, New York NY |
| 2005 | AAF Contemporory Art Fair, | JG Contemporary. New York NY |
| 2004 | Postcards from the Edge Benefit Show, | Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York NY |
| 2004 | Wood Work, James Graham and Sons, | New York NY |
| 2003 | Postcards from the Edge Benefit Show, | Gallerie Lelong, New York NY |
| 2002 | The Devil Made Me Do It, | The Farm, San Diego CA |
| 2002 | SDSU Faculty Show, | University Gallery, San Diego CA |
| 2002 | Show and Tell, | Sushi Visual/Perfonnance Art Space, San Diego CA |
| 2001 | Pledge and Pathology-shared show, | Sushi Visual/Performance Art Space, San Diego CA |
| 2000 | El Blash Bendfit Show, | El Cortez, San Diego CA |
Juried Exhibitions | ||
| 2008 | Small Works Show, | 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2003 | Juried Biennial, | Cann Art Gallery,Carlsbad CA |
| 2003 | Smalll Images, | Gallery 21, San Diego CA |
| 2002 | Postcards from the Edge Benefit Show, | Gallery 21, San Diego CA |
| 2001 | Postcards from the Edge Benefit Show, | Gallery 21, San Diego CA |
| 2000 | Postcards from the Edge Benefit Show, | Gallery 21, San Diego CA |
Awards | ||
| 2003 | Purchase Award, Small Images, | San Diego CA |
| 2002 | Cash Award, Small Images, | Diego CA |
Education | ||
| 1996 | MFA Painting, Printmaking, Photography San Diego State University | |
| 1990 | BA English UCLA | |
Commissions | ||
| Kitty Darling | ||
| Nancy Lohse | ||
Selected Private Collections | ||
| Judy Butler | ||
| Jim Cavolt | ||
| Ellen Chuse | ||
| Peter J. Cohen | ||
| Eric Cohler | ||
| Walter Cotton | ||
| Jay Grimm | ||
| JoAnne Hayakawa | ||
| Matthew Houlihan | ||
| Walter Jamieson | ||
| Grace Kim | ||
| Gail Robens | ||
| Reeve Schley | ||
| Mitra Sedehi | ||
| Nathaniel A. Siegel | ||
| Richard Steele | ||
| Christopher Willits | ||
| Vicki Wolfe | ||