Alan Greenberg is a Philadelphia based artist whose practice includes large scale site-specific installations, discrete installations and studio made objects. Greenberg’s site-specific works dialogue with the unique proportions, usage and history of the sites. His multi-disciplinary studio made objects challenge the boundaries between sculpture and painting. The smaller discrete installations combine handmade forms with found or re-purposed objects. He uses balance and tension, both real and implied, as a metaphor for opposing aspects of the human condition
Greenberg is the recipient of multiple grants and awards including the Pollack Krasner Foundation Grant and The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His work is included in numerous collections including The Carnegie Museum of Art, The Delaware Museum of Art and The Indianapolis Museum of Art.
As part of a small group of international artists working under the title of “Contemplations on the Spiritual” Alan Greenberg created site-specific installations in spiritual spaces with strong architectural character in Scotland, Italy, Germany as well as in the USA. He has an extensive exhibition history and has been reviewed in Art in America, Sculpture, and most recently in Two Coats of Paint for his Spring 2026 exhibition at Larry Becker Contemporary Art.
Artist Statement
My art lives in the space between opposing forces, in structures that are grounded yet precarious, objects that are solid but arranged in ephemeral compositions. I grew up in a household where grief and joy occupied the same moment, the same breath. My parents held deep wounds from their pasts and would move from laughter to tears within the span of minutes. I didn’t just witness that duality, I learned to hold it, and it shaped the way I see everything as an artist.
I see more energy in potential than in resolution, more beauty in the tension before the fall than in the fall itself and my work explores these juxtapositions. For over four decades I have worked on several bodies of works simultaneously; large scale site-specific installations, discrete smaller installations, and multimedia studio based objects.
The installations – interior and exterior, large and small – combine fabricated elements, such as wood, fabric, metal and plaster, with repurposed utilitarian objects or found natural materials, such as slate and stone. In every piece found elements that already carry a history, are brought into conversation with fabricated elements that are newly built.
My studio pieces are made from pigmented as well as uncolored plaster over wood and metal armatures. I recently have been using encaustic over the forms as well. The relationship of the pieces, their scale, position on the wall or floor, and how they are in dialogue with each other in space, are all part of the larger vision of my exhibitions.
Whether it’s my large scale site specific installations, smaller discrete installations, or singular objects – I use tension and balance in my work to metaphorically illustrate seemingly opposing ideas. I feel it is possible to find joy inside difficulty, to find beauty inside despair, to respect the weight of something without being crushed by it – that is how I survived my childhood and how I continue to understand a world where there is so much polarity.
