Noah Wiegand
Noah Wiegand is an Astérides Resident in 2008. The archives of Triangle-Astérides do not allow for the determination of the exact dates or the duration of this residency in 2008.
Not bound to a specific medium, Noah Wiegand moves effortlessly between painting, video, performance, and installation. These varied forms serve a broader purpose—one animated by a keen sense of irony, even a contagious sense of derision.
His works are repeatedly marked by a challenge to seriousness. One inevitably thinks of Buster Keaton’s sketches, or the quirky role of self-portraits throughout the history of painting.
Wiegand wields a whole arsenal of humor, pathos, and tragicomedy to make us feel the ecstasy of simply being in the world. Cartesian notions of truth are shaken, and value systems are turned on their heads, putting us at a distance.
He willingly stages himself and becomes a recurring figure in his practice—whether jumping off a bridge with balloons (Blue Balloons), filming his own botched suicide through clumsiness (The Unbearable Lightness of Being Unusual), or climbing a tree (No Reason Why Not, Monkeys Do It!). As the saying goes, “there is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous.”
His works are driven by a quest—deconstructing an exaggerated romanticism, he can only be searching for lost happiness.
Text by Martin Migalot
Translation: Triangle-Astérides
“Man entered the world through a fall; gravity is the most tangible evidence of our earthly condition. The upright position of the human being has always had to be earned. In this evolution, our position in space pushes us to perpetually seek balance. Movement, as a sign of imbalance, becomes a form of failure in stability—a sudden return to earth. To fall, to accept the fall, to willingly experience contact with the ground, is, on one hand, to situate oneself in relation to height; and on the other, it becomes an inverted sign—a paradoxical form of surrender that emerges from a voluntary act.” – Noah Wiegand
