Alex Clausen

Seeking Shelter was a series of temporary shelters that were built using items at hand in businesses. The normal flow of business was disrupted long enough to allow for construction and habitation of the ad hoc homes. The Gym and The Salon were created in San Jose, CA and Cupertino, CA respectively.

Many thanks to Touchstone and Diane Ortega at The Studio climbing gym in San Jose, and Gustavo Villarreal, owner of Gustavo's Hair by Design in Cupertino, for allowing generous use of their space. Additional thanks to Beth and Henry for their installation assistance.

Dear Reader,

I would like to use a room in your home. I would like to go in, move some items (most likely furniture) and bind them up. All the items will be treated with the utmost care and respect, and everything will be returned to their original place. Ideally, you won’t be able to tell I was even there.

Dear Reader,

I would like to use a room in your home. I would like to go in, move some items (most likely furniture) and bind them up. All the items will be treated with the utmost care and respect, and everything will be returned to their original places. Ideally, you won’t be able to tell I was even there.

Built with... is a series of temporary sculptures built in homes with the assistance of the resident.

Project Description: For this collaboration with Invisible Venue (IV), Alex Clausen chose to investigate the idea of how outside forces influence the space. In its current iteration as an alternative project space housed in a domestic setting in West Oakland, an urban area with a complicated history and economic challenges, IV is constrained by a number of parameters, such as safety and economics. Focusing on sunlight as a metaphor for these types of uncontrollable outside forces, the artist tracked the daytime movement and patterning of natural light in the project space. These calculations, recorded with string and tape, became the volumetric outlines for a site-specific sculptural form. Furthering the metaphor of this work as the physical manifestation of outside influences, the sculpture dominates the space in a way that challenges the viewer's ability to navigate the room or to view the work in its entirety.

Quoted from Christian Frock, Invisible Venue, Oakland, CA.

For more information, please go to: www.invisiblevenue.com

Flood was a site specific artwork for a solo exhibition at Ampersand International Arts in San Francisco in 2011. The framework for the installation was based on the daily path of sunlight moving through the exhibtion space. 

www.earthboundmoon.com

Earthbound Moon (EbM) is a nonprofit community arts organization based in the state of Oregon. Founded in 2009, Its staff curates sites and artists from around the world; and interfaces with community organizations and volunteers in every location. By creating new ties and strengthening existing relationships between disparate groups the goal is to develop links between community arts organizations, artists and municipalities worldwide. EbM provides opportunities for artists in different countries and across socio-economic boundaries to work as part of a global arts community. 

Earthbound Moon creates publicly accessible contemporary sculpture by international artists in communities around the world. The artworks create a web of gathering places, sites of curiosity, engagement and wonder on a local and global scale. They function as a reminder and a statement that when we build communities, alongside their commercial and financial needs, we must also nurture their creative, spiritual, artistic, leisure and romantic needs. 

Elsewhere is an audio and visual installation that broadcasts a collection of interviews where participants describe what their escape looks and feels like.  

Click HERE to listen to the Elsewhere audio.

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Elsewhere was first installed at Ne'a House of Beauty as part of Sisyphus Office, an exhibition in Houston, Texas.  In August 2009, Sisyphus Office moved into the Comtemporary Art Musuem in Houston as part of the No Zoning exhibition.

Elsewhere (San Francisco) was installed at Gensler the in San Francisco. The installation was part of the exhibition, Chimera: Fabrications of the Mind.