A few days before his death on June 12, artist and retired academic Joe Seipel attended an event at VCUarts’ Murry N. DePillars Building. At the event, the building’s gallery was named after Seipel, in memory of his 42 years of service to Virginia Commonwealth University. During that time, including Seipel’s 17 years as head of the sculpture department, the school gained national recognition for the quality of its courses and the caliber of its graduates.
Chase Westfall, interim director of the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU and an artist himself, delivered the opening remarks. When Westfall faltered slightly during the emotional moment, the ailing sculptor quipped, “Chase, don’t start crying and ruin my party.” The raunchy jibes provided much-needed laughter and a kind of validation. And in that, he was Joe Seipel at his best.
An exhibition of his work, titled “Yours & Mine,” will be held August 20-September 28 at VCU’s Anderson Gallery and off-site at Seipel’s former studio at 1609 W. Main St. A public reception will be held on August 22 from 5:30-8 p.m. Visitors will be transported between the two locations via shuttles during the installation.
“I was fortunate to be able to work closely with Joe in selecting the works for the exhibition,” says Westfall. “He was literally the co-curator of this exhibition. Joe was always interested in what was happening outside the studio. His creative process also extended to his work as an organizer and administrator, and his role in shaping this project is a wonderful continuation of that.”
Seipel was a multifaceted figure in Richmond’s cultural life. In 1978, he co-founded the artist-run 1708 Gallery and helped found the Texas-Wisconsin Border Cafe (1982-99), where Richmond’s arts community met and where he met his wife, Suzanne.
Seipel began building things as a child, growing up in poverty in Spring Valley, Wisconsin. He used building blocks and Lincoln Logs to create structures throughout the house. When he was 11, his family was left nearly impoverished by the accidental death of his father. Years later, he paid tribute to his father with a small installation at the 1708 Gallery, “18,621 Days,” which was recreated for the exhibition “Yours & Mine.”
During his five years as dean of VCUarts, the ICA materialized from dreams of blue skies and the drawing boards of Steven Holl Architects into steel and glass at the corner of Belvidere and Broad Street. Seipel believed in possibilities. One thing that tormented him, he said, was getting others to understand the importance of creativity.
The reinstallation of his immersive work “Classical Opera” (which he worked on from 1995 until its exhibition at Reynolds Gallery in 2022) in his former Main Street studio is a surreal experience, with visitors walking between visual projections, sculptural figures, and Seipel’s sonorous voice telling stories.
Seipel’s sociability and sense of humor are expressed in his work, but also serious and profound reflections on the existential situation in which we all find ourselves – that is, life. He has fully understood the peculiar character of nuances.
“I describe studio life as hanging on to the tail end of a big dog and seeing where it goes,” Seipel told Richmond Magazine in a 2012 article when he received the Theresa Pollak Prize for Excellence in the Arts. “Sometimes you’re trying to take it here or there, and sometimes it goes that way and sometimes it doesn’t. And you have to remain pretty fearless about the next step.”
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