Allison Wiese

I am a sculptor. I create poetry out of common things, repurposing and repositioning materials to make new meanings. I use firewood, fruit, standard highway signage, basic construction techniques, a commercial awning, or a whistled song. I'm just as likely to drag ideas through time. I'm fascinated by the way we look at our surroundings through invisible cultural and political lenses, and my work attempts to subvert inert objects and signs by remixing them, often employing shards of common language (both literal texts like slogans, lyrics, or exhortations and symbolic language such as flags or "fight" songs). Beyond the immediate symbolic culture I draw on and alter, some of the essential questions of my work are: can we have community? Share language? Or is our communication so contingent that we’re alone? My projects often locate themselves outside the walls of traditional art venues, and confront broad publics with these questions.

A gradual accretion of stolen wooden doorstops is a concrete and compulsive “trophy” collection gathered from institutions.

Allison Wiese is an interdisciplinary artist who makes sculptures, installations, sound works, performances and architectural interventions. Her work is often created for public spaces at the boundaries, or outside of, institutions, and has been exhibited throughout the United States, among other venues at Machine Project in L.A., the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and Socrates Sculpture Park in New York. She's the recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and has received grants from Art Matters, Creative Capital and the Cultural Arts Council of Houston. Wiese is a fellow of the MacDowell Colony, an alumna of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and was a Core Fellow of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She learned to walk and talk in Brooklyn, drive in Southern California and everything else important in Texas. Wiese currently lives in San Diego, where she teaches sculpture and associated topics at the University of San Diego.