Tag Archives: sculpture

Saturday – 2/21/2015

2:30 am

7 amBreakfast at Tanzy’s. By mistake of wandering attention ended up shopping at Walmart. Bought two new pillows on top of groceries. Will see if they are thin and soft enough.

Meeting of HAL Campaign Committee at house. As usual good vibes. Eileen Halloran, Theresa Parson, Betsy Miller, Betsy Hamilton, Doug Wingo, Marie Rasner. 10:30 – 12:15.

Snow started right on forecast’s schedule, 2:30 pm. Went for a walk up the street. Stopped for hot drinks at Mojo, the new location of Swallow.

A reason to go for a walk during a snow or immediately afterward is auditory:

Stopped at Hudson Opera House on the way home to look at Caprices: The Sculptures of Bruno Pasquier-Desvignes. His website here.

Saturday – 2/14/15

Bob’s Diner, Fairview Ave. Greenport NY

Breakfast and shopping.

Gentrification upper State St.

Later went for a walk around the hospital loop. Snowy sidewalks.

Stopped at the Columbia County Council on the Arts (209 Warren) to look at sculpture show. “On and Off the Wall” – Sculpture – Works can be free-standing, wall-mounted, relief or assemblage. (January 24 – March 21)

The gallery sitter was one of the artists, Stepan Kubicek. SteelPuddle.com. Interesting talk with him that evolved around to the makerspace idea. His work is the free standing sculpture in the photos

4/24/2012 – John Chamberlain at the Guggenheim – a revelation in 3-dimensional color

Last week we went to NYC for a Nyla event at Trinity. Along the way we went to the Guggenheim largely to see the Francesca Woodman show. We had to walk up the ramp quite a way to get to that show and I found myself enthralled by the sculpture of John Chamberlain.

John Chamberlain – untitled 1962

John Chamberain – Miss Remember Ford – 1964

Kiss #12-1979 (30 x 31 x 27 inches) by John Chamberlain-from Guggenheim show catalog

Though he is apparently usually noted for his wide use of car parts in his sculpture, he noted, in an audio clip, how annoying this is to him, “Do you ask a painter what brand of paint do you use?” Any connections to Pop Art or other commentaries passing as art was clearly not his intent or desire. The car parts were just material to him.

As I moved up the ramp it dawned on me that his use of painted/colored metals introduced, for me, color as a major element of sculpture. Although there is obviously color present in every sculpture, for the most part, I have been most focused on the 3-dimensional form not its color or even surface textures. Looking at Chamberlain’s work I started to see the color not as a surface element but in an entirely new dimension.

As I moved around the sculptures, the fields of color shifted into new juxtapositions of color. Because my mind does not process 2-dimensional forms with much interest I have always been left mostly uninterested in abstract expressionism and other non-figurative 2-dimensional art. Chamberlain’s work has given me new access to these forms of abstraction.

As we were leaving the Guggenheim I purchased the catalog. A bit later I opened it to a few of the photos of works that I had liked the most. I was immediately struck by how unsatisfactory these photos turned out to be. Though the photos were of high quality and the reproduction on the pages very good. They lay flat. It was not possible to get any of the experience of moving around the sculpture.

This reminded me that for years I have taken multiple images of sculpture with the intent of providing a weak simulation of this experience. With this in mind I went back to my photo collection and created a little slide show of a work Karen and I saw earlier in the winter on a walk through the field sof Omi International Arts Center in Ghent NY.

10/14/2009 – Storm King – Maya Lin’s Wavefields

Maya Lin at Storm King Art Center

Storm King Wavefield, 2007–08

Earth and grass

240,000 sq. ft. (11-acre site)

Viewed from above, the undulating swells of earth forming Storm King Wavefield appear to naturally rise from and roll along the grassy terrain. Set against a backdrop formed by Schunnemunk Mountain to the west and the Hudson Highlands to the south and east, Maya Lin’s earthwork inspires a broad perspective on the landscape from which it emerges and entices deep exploration of the grassy alleys between the cresting peaks. The seven nearly four-hundred-foot-long waves, ranging in height from ten to fifteen feet high, proceed at the same scale as a series of mid-ocean waves. The resulting effect recalls the experience of being at sea, where sight of adjacent waves and land is lost between the swells.

Storm King Wavefield is the largest and last in a series of three of Lin’s wavefields. (The other two are located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Miami, Florida.) Lin selected the eleven-acre site as an environmental reclamation project, a sustainable reworking of the former gravel pit that supplied material for the New York State Thruway. When Storm King was founded in 1960, a significant portion of its grounds consisted of large stores of gravel in surrounding fields. The ravaged landscape was in turn landscaped and shaped anew by the very same gravel. This compelling, untold story excited Lin. “I’ve tended to create works on the edges and boundaries of places…. I always knew that I wanted to culminate the series with a field that literally, when you were in it, you became lost inside it.” Working with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which sanctioned and supported the reclamation of the site, Lin collaborated with landscape architects to utilize the existing gravel and topsoil at the site. The low-impact grasses and natural drainage system she introduced make Wavefield an organic, living work that continues to evolve.

(borrowed from https://collections.stormking.org/Detail/objects/416)

11/28/2008 – Art Omi – Large Arcs in Disorder by Bernar Venet

Bernar Venet, Arcs in Disorder: 4 Arcs x 5, and 83.5 Degree Diagonal Line

Art Omi – Ghent NY

After over 30 years of practice, Bernar Venet has perfected the challenging technique of using an over-head crane to bend and twist long, heavy, three-dimensional steel poles. Venet was aware of and accepting of the fact that there was a human incapability to defy physics, so chance was a major element in his work. Venet’s physical struggle was also a powerful essence behind his Indeterminate Line and Arc series. His large-scale outdoor sculptures range in size from 14 to 55 feet tall, comprised of many tons of steel.

Bernar Venet was born in Alpes de Haute-Procence in 1941. His work was the subject of a five-year retrospective at the New York Cultural Center in 1971. His work is exhibited world-wide in institutions in Belgium, America, Austria, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, and more. His work is featured in many publications, both online and in print. The artist continues his career and regularly exhibits retrospectives of his past work as well as pieces that he’s made recently. bernarvenet.com

(borrowed from Art Omi website http://artomi.org/exhibitions/bernar-venet-arcs-in-disorder-4-arcs-x-5-and-83-5-degree-diagonal-line)