artist statement
Labor-intensive structure and precision seem to be key elements within the methodical hoops that Speiser eagerly jumps through with amazing grace and clarity.  He is not afraid of taking on any process no matter how tedious or remarkably laborious to fulfill his vision.  Especially breathtaking are early examples of his needlepoint ingenuity.  In August (1978) the artist massed together a Noah’s Ark lineup of silhouetted creatures, poetically spaced together, generating a captivating whirlwind of sophisticated design.

Speiser can jump from one subject to a completely disparate one  with an entirely different stylistic approach, incorporating the same dignity and extraordinary invention that has become a permanent “ism” for those who follow his career.  There are simply no bounds for Speiser, except perhaps performance-oriented expression that does not fit comfortably within his oeuvre.  Give this guy a box full of zippers and he’ll produce a conjunctive dangly sculpture that has an inherent and mysterious beauty on a par with early works by Eva Hesse and Donald Judd.  Throw him a bag of golf balls and he’ll drive back a birdie that recreates itself into an ingenious pattern (see Balls to the Wall).  In this lively show, Speiser cooked up breathtakingly beautiful “paintings” with raw materials not known for their aesthetic qualities, such as garden hoses or hacksaw blades.

In the end, it is Speiser’s absolute fascination with and ability to alter common objects that are sometimes overlooked, which is his true genius.  A prime example, Hook, Hanger and Flap, the career equivalent to Picasso’s infamously simple Bull’s Head (1943, made from a bicycle’s handlebars and seat) takes an ordinary trucker’s mud flap and turns it (and us) on end. We discover an apparition of a woman’s dress form on a hanger that seems to celebrate realism — but that can only be described as a unique example of a Speiserism.