Brian Goggin creates artworks that explore how we perceive and interact with our everyday environment. His works are influenced by site, material relevance, vernacular architecture, philosophy, and literature. Goggin’s works often feature familiar objects in unexpected settings inviting the viewer to an experience of re-enchantment. Using a research-based approach, intuitive visioning, and a wide range of materials, he re-imagines historic narratives blurring past, present, and fictional contexts, offering new links within public spaces that seek to awaken existential dimensions.
"The literary genre of magic realism has informed many of my works in which familiar objects are placed in unexpected settings to invite an experience of re-enchantment."
Goggin writes, "I am a local, San Francisco-based artist actively creating award-winning artworks for museums, large-scale public and private commissions, and gallery installations for over 25 years.
My work explores how we perceive and interact with our everyday environment. I look to site, material relevance, architecture, philosophy and literature as conceptual influences. The literary genre of magic realism has informed many of my works in which familiar objects are placed in unexpected settings to invite an experience of re-enchantment. Using a research-based approach, intuitive visioning and a wide range of materials, I re-imagine historic narratives blurring past, present and fictional contexts, offering new links within public spaces that seek to awaken existential dimensions.
I create large-scale works that are active at day and night, inviting interaction with the existing physical features of the site such as architecture and natural elements, and perhaps the activity of producing and the distribution of energy at the co-generation facility. My goal is to create multi-layered experiences offering several ways to engage the viewer with the work, and ultimately elicit the experience of re-enchantment, of the unexpected, in an otherwise familiar setting.
I have a strong track record of engaging local communities and project stakeholders to ensure that concerns and priorities are taken into consideration as I develop a concept. An example of using community engagement with my ideation process is Language of the Birds (2008), a site-specific commission for a new plaza in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. Collaboration and input from community members, local arts organizations, community organizations and merchants associations via well-attended public meetings brought forth unexpected considerations and contributions. For instance, members of the Chinese community informed me about how to balance the Feng Shui of the plaza and Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti provided the roof of his City Lights Bookstore for the solar system that powers the sculpture’s lights. The artwork is a collection of translucent books opened and suspended above the plaza suggesting a flock of birds in flight. Words taken from books relevant to the site’s rich literary tradition are scattered and embedded in the plaza as if they have fallen from the pages. Language of the Birds was the first solar-powered public artwork in the U.S. and was recognized as one of the best public artworks in the country by Americans for the Arts."
The Red Defenestration Chair was created by artist Brian Goggin in 2010 to include on the Defenestration sculptural installation on 6th and Howard streets in San Francisco.
Description of the artwork from Atlas Bobsura: Standing on Howard Street in front of a wall of graffiti, look up and try not to flinch. A grandfather clock appears to be falling out of the window of the abandoned tenement building. Upon a second look, you see that the grandfather clock is bent, twisted, and, luckily for the pedestrians on the busy street below, not falling at all. Beds, clocks, bureaus, floor lamps, and other furniture hang on the outside of the building creating a surreal experience for the viewer. The furniture is secured with earthquake-proof brackets that are rumored to be stronger than the building itself.
The artist, Brian Goggin, who, according to his artist statement, looks for inspiration in “unexpected locations or methods of presenting the work,” created this site-specific installation on the abandoned and graffitied Hotel Hugo building at the edge of one of San Francisco roughest neighborhoods. In 1997, with the help of over 100 volunteers and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Goggin built Defenestration using cast-off, abandoned, or found-on-the-street furniture to reflect “the harsh experience of many members of the community.”
The installation was only supposed to last one year. Fifteen years and one restoration later, in 2012, it is still delighting visitors and passers-by. The first level of the building has also been transformed into a gallery for rotating exhibits by street muralists and artists.
Alas, as of 2014, Defenestration has been dismantled.
To see more of Brian Goggin’s work please visit his website and follow him on Instagram.