Christy Rupp, Journal Entry

My name is Christy Rupp. I was born in 1949 and raised in Buffalo – a city where covered by neoclassical and artistic architectures. The one influenced my childhood the most is the Albright-Knox Museum where the Pop Art collection together with Lee Bontecou, Jean Tinguely, Lucas Samaras and Anne Arnold provided my early art education.[1] In 1972 I received a B.A. from Colgate University and two years later I got an M.T.A at Rhode Island School of Design.[2] However, what introduced me to my own world of art happened in the Summer of 1975, in N.Y.C where I assisted on the construction of outdoor projects by Charles Simonds, Dennis Oppenheim, Alan Sonfist, and Jim Roche.[3] During my art-pursuing journey, I found my love towards sculpture making is the strongest, so in 1977 I achieved an M.F.A at Rinehart School of Sculpture, Maryland Institute College of Art.[4]

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As I live in New York, my interest in animal behavior was raised, and it slowly bonded with my skill of sculpture making. In the year 1979, which is a very important year for my life as an artist, the New York Garbage Strike went on for 3 weeks. The pile of garbage located everywhere on the street becomes rats’ habitats. I started to post life-size rat posters at ankle level around the areas in which rats were defending territories. My “artwork” seems to dissolve into the environment, and it was that time I realized that we were creating a habitat for rats, and nature will always find its balance by naturally occupy the new habitat with rats and other animals.[5] “Rats are not terrorist,” I told Jerry Tallmer of the New York Post, “(They) are not inherently evil. They’re just animals like any other animals. They don’t come into the world meaning to harm man. I see them as part of the history of ecology, in the whole chain of things. It’s just that they’re out of control in the cities.”[6] Those remarks gave me my first fifteen minutes of fame.  This period of a hard time for New York ironically became the inspiration of my future artworks.

In the following year, as I am more and more interested in the balance of city ecosystem, I started to work on projects that related to environmental issues. The series of projects named “Cardboard fish” humorously and ironically illustrate how human behavior had affected wild aquarium lives. For example, some fish is genetically engineered to have a carbon dioxide tank in order to live inside the polluted environment. I made sculptures using recycled materials, some plastic pipes can help me to indicate the birth defect of some fishes which their intestine is transparent and visible as a result of pollution.[7] Those type of animal sculptures continues to thrive. I still make pieces with similar concepts in recent years. Some featured works are “Half-life” (2014) and “Oily Turtles”(2012).[8]

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Besides environmental related work, I am also interested in making artworks that unveil social problems. I believe just like how ecosystem work, our society also need to find its balance to work healthily. One of my most successful work named “Social progress” is displayed at Madison Square in 1984. This is an artwork about patient and struggle and was inspired by the popular revolution in Nicaragua in 1979.[9]

I am spending my whole life on finding the balance between human and nature, between chaos and order, and between different socialhierarchy. I want to use my iconic, simple but meaningful hand-made sculptures to influence, to make a difference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] “1992, Natural Selection: The Work of Christy Rupp.” Christy Rupp. Accessed January 29, 2019.

[2] “About Resume.” Christy Rupp. Accessed January 29, 2019.

[3] “1992, Natural Selection: The Work of Christy Rupp.” Christy Rupp. Accessed January 29, 2019.

[4] “About Resume.” Christy Rupp. Accessed January 29, 2019.

[5] “Rat Posters and Sculpture, 1970s.” Christy Rupp. Accessed January 29, 2019.

[6] “1992, Natural Selection: The Work of Christy Rupp.” Christy Rupp. Accessed January 29, 2019.

[7] “1992, Natural Selection: The Work of Christy Rupp.” Christy Rupp. Accessed January 29, 2019.

[8] “Sculpture.” Christy Rupp. Accessed January 29, 2019.

[9] “1980s Social Progress.” Christy Rupp. Accessed January 29, 2019.

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