Infatuation

Artist: Albert LaVergne

Medium: Fabricated steel

Year: 1995

Directions to this Sculpture

Infatuation

“With Infatuation I explored a number of ideas I eventually discarded. I tried to force a number of forms I created to fit in a satisfactory way, but over time it became clear that they didn’t work well, didn’t say enough. They had to go…” ~Albert LaVergne

Michigan-based artist Albert LaVergne proved that experimentation is a lifelong pursuit. As a sculptor with a multi-decade career, LaVergne preferred improvisation to planning, metal to bronze. His artistic choices were based on that which allowed the greatest freedom in the making.

“I want a piece to be defined as I do it, as opposed to the working out of some preconceived and fixed idea. It’s like jazz, where you start with a musical idea and see what you can make of it. The decisions you make will be judged by the problems that you create for yourself. Solutions come when find a way to leap beyond the problems you’ve created to get back into the general flow of the piece itself.”

Read the full interview in LaVergne – Issues in Steel

“LaVergne found his inspiration in African American contemporaries rather than the Western art historical canon; many of them were his teachers and mentors, such as Jean Paul Hubbard and John T. Scott.”

Albert LaVergne’s influences were grounded in the current moment. Even his connection to his African roots he pursued in the present, traveling to Nigeria in 2012 and 2016 with Fulbright Awards to develop public art there.

LaVergne’s early career focused primarily on figurative work. In addition to the impacts of his teachers and mentors, the artist fondly recounted a shift in his career after working with artist Chakaia Booker. Booker presented a lecture of her work at Western Michigan University in 2005 while LaVergne was teaching there. Notably, despite the influences of his contemporaries, LaVergne did not stray from his own technique, medium, and voice.

QUOTE BY KIRSTEN CAMPBELL, LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART, FROM 2021 EXHIBITION “MODERNIST FURNITURE DESIGN AND SCULPTURE AT LSU MOA.”