David Altmejd describes himself as a medium—an interpreter and channel that has been embedded in the material he works on. It took years, but the sculpture gradually showed him tools to transcend and inquire—into the physical structure of science and materials in human creativity and artistry. He insists that these energies can be molded into forms that echo the existing symbols and prototypes of the collective unconscious. Observers meet with visionary Canadian artists during Tornado Los Angeles Art Week and hold a discussion of the source behind his work, and how his work comes from and how his process leans towards alchemy, at his large exhibition of White Cubes in New York (his first in the city in more than a decade).
It all depends on particles, he said – these elemental units arrange themselves into a very ordered structure that shapes our perception of what we call reality and can only be transferred into symbolic forms and numbers. Creation is about becoming a catalyst or pipeline for a new cycle of matter and energy. When we discuss the central work of the show, the artist said, “There is a connection between matter and mother,” which is still in his studio, waiting to be completed before following his other works to New York. “It is possible that my hands give invisible forms. I’m just at the intersection between the invisible reality and the physical reality, and all I have to do is let those invisible energy work through me. I’m not a person who decides the form they want to have. them Determine the form they will have. This is something I’m becoming more and more aware of. ”
While traditional sculptural concepts are often centered on human-driven behavior, Altmejd learned to abandon this control. “Every choice I made comes from me; I’m controlling all my decisions. Then I realize it can be very difficult. I’m fighting other things, not even realizing it. I thought it was me who had a tough time, forced chaos.” In this exhibition, he consciously filled both forces (order and chaos) with power, energy, vitality and fullness. “And then, to some extent, something happened by chance, a form revealing the original sculpture mutation, and then I really felt that this was what the work wanted to be.” In other words, Altmejd no longer tried to impose his will on the material, but instead began to promote the movement of the material to the next form. “I kind of want to seduce it, influence it and accompany it.”
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When we were having conversations, I was not surprised to find that our speeches continued to evolve into Jungian psychoanalysis, a framework that has long attracted Altmejd. “My career started as a sculptor, making a beheaded wild wolf sculpture. Just read Jung and thinking about the prototype, I realized that I was just dealing with the shadows.” In many of his works, Altmejd allows for the emergence of weird, incredible and informal informality, which are misty creatures that exist in transitional and perverted states. The prototypes are not before the work; they appear through it when he shapes the materials as part of surrendering to internal forces. “It’s not usually started at the moment of sketching,” he explained. “For example, I could work on a very masculine work, I could learn about a very masculine work, and once I manipulate the material, I realize the energy of the female. Sometimes it’s because I keep making mistakes because the material implies another form. I just have to surrender, listen to it and do what it’s going to be next.”
However, no matter how mixed or mutated these creatures are, Altmejd insists that they always move towards recognizable humans. “I want to connect with them, I want to build relationships with them. I want to look at them in my eyes,” he said, emphasizing how these incredible talents are used as mirrors of confrontation (for himself and the audience), thus masking monsters in our collective subconscious and forcing us to face the hidden things.
At the same time, there are some clear alchemy in the process of Altmejd. As he explained, crystals can surface from gypsum and concrete, as the atomic configuration of the particles changes slightly (just enough to readjust the carbon) to convert the darkest substance into something completely clear. He said that when life burned to its elemental state, it turned into pure carbon – completely black, absorbing all the light. “Its atomic structure is very chaotic. Because all the carbon atoms are misaligned and confused, that’s what makes it black. But if compressed enough, all the carbon atoms will be perfectly aligned and transparent.”
This duality-the energy of light and darkness between order and chaos is divided by his conceived sculpture. A, like most of his past work, shows endless deformations of form and energy. “I just felt that energy inside the material and gave them sockets. I’m connecting with it through the material.”
The resulting image is a huge serpentine. Fragments of the head and face are transferred between people and other things, accumulating into the things inside the giant snake. However, even in its formal structure, sculpture rejects linearity. It passes through brisk, unexpected curves and sharp breakthroughs, from generation to decay, from death to rebirth – in the eternal flow of primitive power: Love God and Tanatos, creation and destruction, collapse and collapse. “It is both terrifying and completely tempting. Altmejd reflects, describes how this terrifying figure evolved into symbolic, existence and deep spirituality…a ancestral god composed of the visions of many ancestors, the snake holds multiple brains, each with multiple minds, each with a moment in the cycle – representing a powerful mass of representation, a powerful death, a rule with it and a proximity with it and a proximity with it and a continual production and accidental production and gradually falling.
This ominous, shape-shifting existence dominates the gallery’s space and juxtaposes more harmoniously with the sculpture: a snake charming, sitting on a plate, playing with a pipe or an ancient flute. In the chaotic snake spiral, the final sculpture evokes a highly ordered pattern of atomic or molecular structure through precise form multiplication (calculated and numerical precision).
While orders and chaos are shown in the gallery’s ground floor, Altmejd performs a smoother stage upstairs: the vibrant, spiraling dance of particles and atoms that maintains continuous transformations of the universe. Here, his iconic bronze sculpture takes the form of an elegant, curved nymph—a metaphor for the power of female energy generation. They move like they are in the wind, their rhythms under the guidance of male characters playing the hybrid flute, all set within the swan-filled space.
Altmejd once again painted on Jungian analysis and prototype images, sharing his obsession with Swan – a creature that resonates spiritually, sliding on the water with ethereal grace. “I’m really interested in swans, which is a symbol of this spiritual order. It just spends most of its time on the lake, so it’s very closely connected to the unconscious: Sometimes it’s immersed in water to feed itself and into the abyss of the psychology. In that sense, I feel that this is very close to what I’m as a sculptor. I want to be somewhere between these dimensions, too.”
Compared to any previous exhibition, Altmejd’s White Cube exhibition fully embraces his profound, inevitable connection to his role as a sculptor and the invisible power that shapes the material world. This work navigates the interaction of the invisible universe and psychological energy, making the universe animated between growth and decay, order and chaos, harmony and chaos. “Recently, I’ve started thinking about the connection between chaos and order,” he concluded. “I’ve always thought that my work as an artist is imposing commands on chaos. This is a very traditional concept of art that I have come up with. But I now realize that chaos has its own wisdom, will and desires, and I can’t control it. Instead, it’s the root of creation. Everything that comes up in the world comes from chaos. All I can do is play with it.”
“David Altmejd: The Serpent” opened on March 14 in White Cube New York and lasts until April 19, 2025.
