breaking paths
Dec. 31st, 2003 12:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
egypturnashSo today my mother and I went to the main local museum. Not into the building proper (which is quite packed due to a 'Treasures of Egypt' kind of exhibit), but into a recently-opened additon, a very pleasant sculpture garden. Gently curving and circling paths, bridges over the lagoon it encompasses (the park where the museum resides is green space, oaks, and lagoons), it's very peaceful.
Most of the pieces are just off the paths. Some are in the middle of simple lawn, making it easy to step off the path and take in the sculpture from all around - as a 2D artist, I'm quite aware that being three-dimensional is one of the primary attributes of sculpture; unless it's a bas-relief, looking at sculpture from just one viewpoint is somewhat betraying the nature of the medium, I think.
It's a little harder to bring yourself to step off the path when the piece is in the middle of a somewhat landscaped-looking ground, low tufts of plants in a clearly-arranged grid about it. But I did. "By putting these so far away, with the plants around them," I said, "the people who designed this park are subtly saying Only look from these angles. Why? Why am I denied the view up the center of this open mesh tower of steel tubes and cables?"
And there was one piece where the artist's message was clearly concealed by this placement. Called "Monkeys", I think, it was stainless steel. Hard to make out from the several feet of distance the path imposed because of its polish - stepping off the path, onto the square of steel it was on, the subject became clear. A bunch of monkeys, rendered in lovingly-polished, silvery gleaming steel, somewhat stylized. But a few limbs were, instead of stylized monkey limbs, scaled-down human limbs, made grey by being rougher-surfaced. And as I slowly walked around the piece, I found another more obvious part of the thing that was completely invisible from the 'proper' viewing position on the path: two of the stainless steel monkeys looking at each amidst the pile had little tortured human faces. You couldn't see this from anywhere near the artist/title plaque. You couldn't see it from where the path looped around behind it, either, it was just too far to make out the detail.
I have to wonder who decided it should be placed this way, and if it was a conscious decision or perhaps an unconscious reaction of disgust to the 'we are monkeys' message contained in the piece.
Regardless of why it was placed like this, though... people I saw near it as I'd come close were sticking to the path. People who saw me breaking the implicit boundary and looking at the whole of the piece, following after, began to do the same, walking off the path and looking at it from all sides... and perhaps did the same to other sculptures in the garden.
It only takes one transgression against the unspoken rules, sometimes, for everyone to realize how silly the rule is. Others... take longer. And, of course, as soon as nobody in sight is breaking this rule, people will reflexively assume it's in place. Real change is hard.
I'm not sure what my underlying message is here.
Most of the pieces are just off the paths. Some are in the middle of simple lawn, making it easy to step off the path and take in the sculpture from all around - as a 2D artist, I'm quite aware that being three-dimensional is one of the primary attributes of sculpture; unless it's a bas-relief, looking at sculpture from just one viewpoint is somewhat betraying the nature of the medium, I think.
It's a little harder to bring yourself to step off the path when the piece is in the middle of a somewhat landscaped-looking ground, low tufts of plants in a clearly-arranged grid about it. But I did. "By putting these so far away, with the plants around them," I said, "the people who designed this park are subtly saying Only look from these angles. Why? Why am I denied the view up the center of this open mesh tower of steel tubes and cables?"
And there was one piece where the artist's message was clearly concealed by this placement. Called "Monkeys", I think, it was stainless steel. Hard to make out from the several feet of distance the path imposed because of its polish - stepping off the path, onto the square of steel it was on, the subject became clear. A bunch of monkeys, rendered in lovingly-polished, silvery gleaming steel, somewhat stylized. But a few limbs were, instead of stylized monkey limbs, scaled-down human limbs, made grey by being rougher-surfaced. And as I slowly walked around the piece, I found another more obvious part of the thing that was completely invisible from the 'proper' viewing position on the path: two of the stainless steel monkeys looking at each amidst the pile had little tortured human faces. You couldn't see this from anywhere near the artist/title plaque. You couldn't see it from where the path looped around behind it, either, it was just too far to make out the detail.
I have to wonder who decided it should be placed this way, and if it was a conscious decision or perhaps an unconscious reaction of disgust to the 'we are monkeys' message contained in the piece.
Regardless of why it was placed like this, though... people I saw near it as I'd come close were sticking to the path. People who saw me breaking the implicit boundary and looking at the whole of the piece, following after, began to do the same, walking off the path and looking at it from all sides... and perhaps did the same to other sculptures in the garden.
It only takes one transgression against the unspoken rules, sometimes, for everyone to realize how silly the rule is. Others... take longer. And, of course, as soon as nobody in sight is breaking this rule, people will reflexively assume it's in place. Real change is hard.
I'm not sure what my underlying message is here.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 03:33 am (UTC)Many times, the sculptures are well off the path, forcing you to step off to find them.
One of the sculptures is so well hidden you dont notice it till you deliberatly look for it. (Especialy in autumn when the fish blend in with the leaves)
Some of the sculptures are built so the 'best' way to view them is by sitting on them.
One of them has hidden aspects that require you to climb up it.
When I think of Sculpture Garden, I think it's a shadow of a Sculpture Forest.
(ps, maybe you should visit, and see the Tate Modern sometime as well)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 08:14 am (UTC)Either that or "I hate grass." =};-3
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 01:19 pm (UTC)I've read that sculpture was once considered inferior because it involved portraying things from not-so-aesthetic angles, whereas painters got to show things from dignified and somehow more proper angles only.
The only sculpture class I've ever had was with a guy called Castagnacci, who was a real good realist sculptor. The way he got into sculpture was that he was kind of a hoodlum growing up in Philadelphia (I think) as a kid; and he and his buddies would regularly sneak over the art museum garden walls. They'd hang out there and smoke cigs and check out all the Rodin, and he got the idea that this was really cool stuff.