When a natural environment is confronted with contaminants, it responds with instability and disorder. One of the byproducts of contamination is “outcrossing,” a process that allows recessive traits to migrate across a population, adding diversity and strengthening certain characteristics. Where art-making is concerned, contamination is a good thing—pollutants encourage viral growth, contagions, and freak accidents. In Daniel Wiener’s work, contamination is both physical and conceptual, encouraged by the use of a material with no fixed nature and an evolutionary-style working process. He creates a recombinant genre by confusing the boundaries defining painting, sculpture, and the functional arts. These factors alter the usual environment for making objects by eliminating a definable end point. Wiener’s work consists of an evolving repository of odd and sometimes distasteful mixtures, both impure and guileless…see the entire article in the print version of June’s Sculpture magazine.
