A little Q&A with artist Michael Beitz
A little Q&A
Attica native MICHAEL BEITZ is a working artist and a graduate student at the University at Buffalo. Beitz (pronounced “beats”), 32, has already built up an impressive bank of exhibits and awards. His interests and ideas, melded with his life and work experience, add up to an accessible body of work.
Beitz has two shows going right now. “Housewares,” works in collaboration with Matt Monroe, is at Big Orbit Gallery (30D Essex St., 560-1968, www.bigorbitgallery.org ) through April 25; “general assembly” is up through May 22 at Buffalo Arts Studio, in the Tri-Main Center (2495 Main St., 833-4450, www.buffaloartsstudio.org ). Both are free. Beitz spoke by phone from Rhode Island Street, next to a vacant lot where he had just finished installing part of the Big Orbit show: a folding house.
A folding house? Yes. We made a different version of this in the New Mexico desert. It looked kind of monumental there. Our new version, bumping against other structures in the neighborhood, seems much smaller, like it’s stuck or trying to escape. I’m thinking about it in terms of Buffalo’s population loss.
You’ve written that this project is “a reflection of the anxieties that grow out of the current entanglements of house and home as we begin to question both their value and permanence.”What does that mean?
Matt and I come at it from different ways. I find it interesting to look at the icon of the house as an emotional image, about relationships. I’m trying to relate that idea of “home” with the architectural structure of the thing.
In my life, I constantly feel like I’m rebuilding—not literally, but constant demolishing and reconstruction. This structure is powered by one person; it’s a nice combination to be inside and be able to move a house yourself by pedaling.
The work showing at Buffalo Arts Studio is very different, and on a much more intimate scale.
I can’t really connect to anything unless I’m creating it physically, touching it. I grew up that way: My mom is a huge crafts person, always making these insane crafts projects. I joke that it’s a disease, that I always have to be making something with my hands. So I do large collaborations with other artists, and those are kind of removed, involving construction and engineering. But at the same time, I’m also sewing a sofa, casting heads and making objects.
—Jana Eisenberg, Special to The News
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