From www.albertpaley.com:/nAlbert Paley, an active artist for over 40 years at his studio in Rochester, New York, is the first metal sculptor to receive the coveted Institute Honors awarded by the American Institute of Architects, the AIA’s highest award to a non-architect … Commissioned by both public institutions and private corporations, Paley has completed more than 50 site-specific works … Pieces by Albert Paley can be found in the permanent collections of many major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Transcript
>> Yeah. My name's Albert Paley. I'm a sculptor from Rochester, New York. I was primarily steel, but also other materials, and by and large, large scale, site specific work. I've done over sixty public sculptures for religious institutions or governmental or corporate, and also design furniture and various other things, and I have 15 assistants that work with me. And by and large, majority of the work is in the continental United States. I have some things in South America and Asia and Europe, but primarily United States. If it's a commissioned work, there's usually some kind of consensus of what is needed, what's required. I mean, when I say what, you know, a sculpture, a fountain, a relief, a fresco, whatever that might be, and then based on my experience, I meet with the committee and develop a proposal or a feasibility study. What the costs might be. What the, you know, what it might look like. If it's something that they wanted to go along with, and I get involved in a design and feasibility study, and then hopefully an approval phase, and then we go into contractual obligations and then finally the fabrication of the artwork. With large-scale work, it's probably two to five year process. With the actual fabrication, maybe 6 to 18 months at best. The actual fabrication is the shortest part. That's the consensus building and the approval stages and all of that. Probably with the scale of the work that I do with the structural engineering and all of that is more akin to maybe a perception you might have with architecture, and the relationship to the client, the relationship, the co-requirements and all that, but, nevertheless, it's a, your personal, you know, voice and your perception on what that might be. If you do what's expected, there's nothing new. So the whole idea is to originate new forms and new perceptions and, hopefully, therefore, new experiences for the viewer. And, ultimately, it adds to kind of cultural enrichment and most of the work are in city environments. So it adds that cultural dimension to the city. So most of my work is non-literal. So what I'm trying to tap into is the emotional dialogue that one has with oneself, meaning the pedestrian or the viewer, and, hopefully, the work helps articulate that. The best way to explain it is in reference to music or classical music. Basically, it's a non-literal vocabulary, but you can experience a whole breath of emotions, and so the music allows you or creates that context or that environment for you as the viewer to experience something unique and specific to your own sensibilities. So hopefully the art, any artwork affords that accessibility.
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