Disparate Inspirations: Alfred Rosenbluth Talks About His Wildly Detailed Creative Process

Sun & Moon, 13 x 23 x 2 inches, hydrocal, 2022
  

By NOAH BECKER April 30, 2025

NOAH BECKER: Your sculptures reflect a dialogue between sculptural environments and their inhabitants—how do you conceptualize the relationship between space and figure in your work?

ALFRED ROSENBLUTH: The relationship between space and figure is pretty interdependent in my work. I regard my environments as a type of being that should convey and embody the presence of a standing figure. My approach to developing environments that house discreet figures is informed by Artaud’s model of the theater as a total coherent language wherein every element serves a role. I regard the environments as a type of staging whose design and construction must be in dynamic response to the figures which they frame. The result should convey the feeling of a total spectacle. 

NB: You’ve spoken about minimizing the artist’s presence through repetitive, unembellished gestures. What draws you to that kind of restraint in your practice?

AR: Yes, that operates on the intertwining material and conceptual levels of my practice.

On the conceptual level, my process of sculpting into the negative of the relief mold relinquishes me of absolute control over the piece’s final resolution as a plaster bas relief casting. When beginning any relief, I only have a basic design concept in mind and allow for unanticipated formal problems to arise as I see the mold to completion. These obstructions almost always resolve into formal solutions that are more exciting and generative than I could come up with on my own. Artists whose works I find compelling and successful similarly operate in dynamic response to their works’ unfolding reality. Until the moment that the plaster positive is extracted - destroying the clay mold in the process - I will have only ever perceived  the mold’s negative space. Leading up to this reveal of the final cast, such a working process replicates conditions similar to the paradox of never really being able to see your own face.

Interior Pose, 7.75 x 5 inches, pencil on paper, 2022

On the material level, in my drawing and sculpting practices, I intentionally limit myself to simple materials such as clay, cheap plaster, and bic pencils on sketch paper. Simple analog tools and materials generate sufficient enough friction by which my vision must resolve itself by virtue of technical competence. I figure that if I can’t say it with basic materials, if I can’t push my message through simple parameters, there isn’t a point in trying to say it with more extravagant finishes or material. 

Sunland(ing), 16 x 23 x 3 inches, hydrocal, 2023

NB: Your influences span Japanese dance theater to cosmic perspectives—how do these seemingly disparate inspirations come together in your sculptures?

AR: I draw inspiration from anywhere I can find it. I think through modern art forms and movements such as Butoh and theater of the absurd, outsider art, phenomenologies of perception, western esotericism, I find my way back to something that feels personally essential and meaningful. My values and influences aren’t always explicitly addressed or apparent, but I try to make work that has resonance with the art forms and philosophies that are inspiring to me.

NB: In what ways do your drawings inform or diverge from your sculptural process, especially considering their roots in representational traditions?

AR: The two certainly diverge. If we were to take it from the perspective of my drawing practice, it was my sculptural practice which veered away from my roots in figurative art. However much my current sculptural work appears to eschew the human figure as a subject, it carries forward the values which I developed through my training in the formal representation of the human figure and is still rooted in the sense of my own body.

My drawing practice tends to function as a means by which I can preserve both my technical acuity and embodied sense of intuition which I developed through observational drawing and sculpting. I do my best to marry the two, but they feel like two different disciplines. At this point in my sculpture practice, I have to frequently make deliberate calculations while developing the negative relief which necessitates frequent pausing and reflection. The corresponding execution in my drawing practice fundamentally differs on a qualitative level as I can stay in flow with the entirety of drawing’s unfolding from start to finish. 

  Allure, 7.75 x 5 inches, pencil on paper, 2021
 

NB: You’ve studied Slavic cultures extensively—do aspects of that academic background seep into the visual or conceptual language of your work?

AR: I can’t say my knowledge of Russian language, history, and culture explicitly informs my conceptual or visual language more so than any other source. I do not consciously draw imagery from my knowledge of Russian folktales, nor am I responding to Russian and Soviet movements such as Suprematism and Constructivism. At this moment, my academic background more or less exists in an unrelated realm. 

My general interest in learning languages and gaining fluency in Russian have always been an outlet for my curiosity about other humans. Figurative art has acted as a similar outlet and I have always been keen to interpret systems through the lens of language. I’m drawn to the affect of meaningfulness and how images, glyphs, and symbols contain and convey meaning and significance. In my work, I am attempting to develop a lexicon that operates through the confines of a type of devised grammar and try to be as well-researched and intellectually thorough as possible.

NB: The title Heaven Above, The Lake Below feels poetic and symbolic—how does it speak to the themes or atmosphere of the exhibition?

AR: The title itself is derived from the IChing* Hexagram 10: Lü/Treading in response to the question that I posed: “what should the show title be”. 

Resorting to this aleatoric method felt like an appropriate extension of my studio practice which is designed around controlled chance and surprise variations. What’s more, my wall pieces and any of the 64 possible hexagrams of the IChing index share a similar logic of construction. As each hexagram is constructed of two trigrams - each consisting of 8 possible variations of broken or solid horizontally-stacked lines arranged one atop the other - I recognize a similar digital binary in the construction of my pieces. 
 

Sunwaters, 16 x 18 x 3 inches, hydrocal, 2024
 

The Sunland(ing) diptych, The Sun, and Sunwaters share the constituent elements of the owl head and snake body - both of which I print by means of separate rudimentary implements. Like any hexagram, these elements have a mechanically determined consistency of form that nullify any meaningful formal variations that register in the clay negative. Additionally there is an upper and lower stacking of these two owl and snake motifs, with each respectively indicating a horizontal and vertical axis.

The binary constituents of the IChing likewise echo the conceptual binary sets that I explore in my own work - material/immaterial, visible/invisible, negative/positive, light/shadow, image/form. Further, the titles and texts of the IChing hexagrams marshal elemental imagery and motifs such as water, earth, the heavens, the luminaries, etc. through a lyrical austerity that I similarly emulate in my works’ titles and themes. Lastly, beyond the image, “Heaven Above, The Lake Below”, Hexagram 10 presented a judgement and reading that felt personally felicitous and appropriate to our collective moment.

Hexagram 10. Lü/Treading (Conduct)

Upper trigram: Ch'ien The Creative, Heaven

Lower trigram: Tui The Joyous, Lake

The Judgement

Treading. Treading upon the tail of the tiger.

It does not bite the (person). Success.

The Image

Heaven above, the lake below:

The image of Treading.

Thus the superior (person) discriminates between high and low,

And thereby fortifies the thinking of the people.

The Image

Heaven and the lake show a difference of elevation that inheres in the natures of the two, hence no envy arises. Among (humankind) also there are necessarily differences of elevation; it is impossible to bring about universal equality. But it is important that differences in social rank should not be arbitrary and unjust, for if this occurs, envy and class struggle are the inevitable consequences. If, on the other hand, external differences in rank correspond with differences in inner worth, and if inner worth forms the criterion of external rank, people acquiesce and order reigns in society.

*Baynes, Cary F. The I Ching or Book of Changes. Princeton University Press, 2011. 

Heaven Above, The Lake Below, Alfred Rosenbluth runs from March 21 - May 3, 2025 at Pentimenti, Philadelphia, PA