Since the early 1970s, Duff Schweninger’s work has included performance, transmission art, sculpture, video art, graphics and installation. Schweninger’s sculptural work often employs the interplay of material, space, and action over time. The work exists in a multi-dimensional sense and takes on a life of its own. It functions or is activated by natural forces in its immediate environment, such as light, water, air movement or human interaction. In the 1990s and 2000s, his work has involved themes of ecology, conservation and the transformation of energy.
In 1975 Schweninger moved to New York City to join a group of artists brought together by Willoughby Sharp. This union lead to the founding of the Franklin Street Arts Center (FSAC). For the next three years, as the FSAC’s Vice President he administered the Arts Center and founded the Live Injection Point (LIP) with Willoughby Sharp. The LIP/FSAC produced events and cable television programs with artists from many disciplines in its live video theater and television studio in the basement of the FSAC with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Schweninger as a member of an interdisciplinary team, developed new approaches to arts education working in public schools, libraries, prisons, homes for the aged and community centers. He conducted workshops involving collaborative activities designed to increase the participants’ sensory and creative potential through the manipulation of materials within various environments. He taught Foundation Design at the Art Institute of Boston and at Parsons in New York City.
Starting in 2000, Mr. Schweninger began producing television programs about artists with various collaborators.