History of Sculpture

I am a Pratt student using this blog for my class homework

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This blog post is about our class trip to the Met, mainly to check out the the Rodin exhibit. This trip was really interesting to me because there were a lot of works that I recognized but did not actually know who the artist was (I am so bad with names). It was also a surprise to see some works of Monet there, I had not known that Rodin and Monet had worked together. I’m a big fan of Monet because if I’m not doing my fluid art, I usually paint with an impressionistic quality. Rodin is intriguing because did I not know that most marble sculptures from the eighteenth/nineteenth century were actually done by the Piccirilli brothers. It really changed my perception of the sculptures I was looking at. The Met was also celebrating the anniversary Rodin’s work because of the centenary of his death.

One sculpture I was particularly interested in was, “The Hand of Rodin Holding a Small Torso.” I think I like this sculpture because it reflects my own work. When drawing in pencil, my subjects are usually hands holding objects. So looking at this was almost like a three dimensional version of one of my art pieces. Studying and drawing hands so much has also made me realize how intricate hands and the details are, and looking at this you can see all the detail and it makes me want to draw this piece (which I probably will). The size dynamic of this piece gives it a surreal feel because of the torso being so small and the hand holding it.

On another note of surrealism, the class had gone to the roof of the Met to check out the exhibit, The Theater of Disappearance by Argentine artist Adrián Villar Rojas. It’s a surrealistic dinner party that you can walk through and look at the different sculptures. I enjoy being able to walk through it because its like this chaotic dinner party was happening and someone just pressed the pause button. My favorite sculpture out of all of them is the figure sitting on top of the table contemplating on what looks like to be a hippo head (mask) with these arms disembodied arms coming down making owl eyes over his face. I looked up some information about this exhibit and Audrey Wachs in the ArchPaper wrote, “Rojas took on the colossal, heroic task of investigating the museum’s collecting processes from a personal, socio-historical viewpoint, laying open his re-interpretation of the collection, which has been liberated from the usual underpinnings of curatorial interpretation,” said Sheena Wagstaff, the museum’s Leonard A. Lauder chairman of modern and contemporary art. “In the process, he holds up a mirror to what we do at the museum, questioning the ideological stance of the museum, and in particular, how we choose to present cultural histories over time.” Rojas went and found more than one hundred objects that were from actual people to re-collage such as work boots, vests, sneakers, and other objects.

Both exhibits to me were breath taking and seriously eye catching. I would like to go back to the Met to see the Roja’s work again

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The Robert Rauschenberg exhibit was definitely a great show to see, even though I was an hour late. I could walk through this show over and over again and not get bored. Many of the works are combines, combining all different mediums from paint, to charcoal, to trash. Anything he could find he used. This exhibit also includes art pieces from some of his friends such as Charles Atlas, John Chamberlain, and Niki de Saint Phalle. The coolest thing in the exhibit was the Mud tub. A swimming pool sized tub that holds eight thousand pounds of mud, the air pumps in the bottom of the vat contains sound sensors. Bubbles and mud move to the sound of the frequency.

While walking through the exhibit, the combine Canyon by Rauschenberg really caught my eye. He created this beautiful piece made from painting, collage, and found works in 1954. Artist Sari Dienes found the stuffed bald eagle in a trash pile at Carnegie Hall and gave it to Rauschenberg as a gift. It’s is interpreted as being based off Greek myth of when Zeus disguises himself as an eagle and abducts a boy name Ganymede. The way he combines painting and sculpture is so beautiful to me because it blends so well and it’s so cohesive. The bag that hangs off the sculpture is said to represent the boy. I also love the color story. Another interesting thing about this piece is that it can not be taken out of the United States. The bald eagle is considered and sacred item, and any works more than one hundred years old cannot be transferred. The piece was given to MoMa by Illeana Sonnabend.

One other work that I gravitated towards was another combine, this time by Niki de Saint Phalle. Her work, Shooting Painting American Embassy, was made in 1961. Using different materials such as wire mesh, plaster, balloons, a metal seat, and other various objects, she filled the balloons with paint and used her sculpture as a performance. She performed the sculpture by popping the balloons with a gun and letting the paint drip down onto the rest of the piece. The paint dripping creates a color story and almost disguises the various objects are the bottom of the piece. Looking at the piece far away, the popped balloons look like mouths, and the paint drippings are thoughts and ideas coming from them and onto the material objects down below. Even though the paint only goes in one direction, my eyes trace back and forth from top to bottom. I enjoy Niki de Saint Phalle’s work because like my own, her work is very intense. A lot of her works stem from her hard childhood.

I recommend this exhibit to anyone because it has a little bit of everything. It has painting, sculpture, combines, mud, etc. All of these works have an expiration date as well, which also gives this exhibit a little bit of excitement. It’s almost like a time capsule.

**None of these pictures belong to me

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Most sculpture, no matter what time it was created, is still valid. Even though a lot of earlier works have been in the light of negative situations lately, I think that is the cause people today reflecting their issues on something that gives them a crutch or any kind of leeway to be an asshole. Going over Rodin and learning about Camille Claudel really intrigued me. I have never been the one to remember names or sculpture names too much, but I think Camille is an important role model for woman, like myself, and female artists. While scrolling through the internet trying to find the correct sculpture to talk about, I saw “Wave” and immediately remembered who the artist was.

I’m going to talk about Claudel’s “Wave” made in 1900 at Musee Rodin, Paris. This small piece is casted in bronze and set before olive and green onyx with yellow and reds. This piece by her is particularly interesting to me because of the mixed media and the fact that she made almost all of her own pieces. Camille and her work are the beginning of women artists in the late eighteenth/nineteenth century, which I heavily feel is relevant to this day because we still live in a society that people think women are not good workers or do not know how to use power tools. Claudel being overshadowed by her teacher Rodin, she made an effort to do more to her work and found new ways to mix mediums her work.

I love this piece because of its organic nature, contrast between light and dark- color wise and texture wise, but also with the meaning behind it. The children are very light and playful in this piece while the dance around and hold hands. Yet the wave that is about to come down on them is very powerful. The wave has such a beautiful curve that creates movement. The ocean is so gentle, like a child, but has this intensity to it. It’s colored like real water with green and blues that contrast the stark black/brown of the children underneath it. The meaning of the vast force of nature can also be relevant to climate change and specifically all of the hurricanes happening right now (Harvey, Irma, etc.)

With sculptures from the past, we always have to remember where and when they come from. Depending on how old it is, it's values that were held in the past are most likely do not hold up now. How we talked about in class, I want to reiterate what I said in class that I think it’s a good idea to put all of the sculptures that are relevant to each other (i.e. Confederate sculptures) in a sculpture graveyard or Confederate museum. It’s amazing to see past sculptures and work because it’s so different from contemporary art, as we have access to so much more than they did before which I believe is also good reason to admire earlier works.

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http://www.helmicksculpture.com/arbor.html

So I just discovered this new artist I’ve fallen in love with all of his work. I saw his first sculpture “Impulse” in the Philly airport.

This sculpture is called “Arbor” by Ralph Helmick. I chose this sculpture because Ralph Helmick is one of my favorite artists. His installations are well thought out and he likes to take big concepts and show the small details that make them up. For example, I chose Arbor- this sculpture is made up of six hundred-ninety two time pieces that are set up above a computer hub at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. These time pieces include clocks that range in size, color, and age (some vintage) that are hung in a precise spot. When you look at it up front it's interesting and you don’t quite get the concept fully until you take a few steps back and see that the clocks form a bigger picture of the balance scales of justice or a “perceptual phenomenon known as an anamorphosis.”

I really appreciate this piece and Helmick's work because it’s very technical but also creative and new. In my work, I think more technically than creatively, and I have actively been working on how to connect my technical skills with my creativity and how to expand more of my concepts. This installation to me is kind of whimsical in a way. I think this installation is important because of its technical work behind the concept. For someone to have to measure the precise location of where each clock should be hung to create the judicial balance scales out of them, it's astonishing. Also to find all six hundred and some clocks that are the correct size to create the shape. I appreciate how long this piece must have taken to collect all of the timepieces in it, measure the locations, and hang all of them.

The concept of this piece sticks with me because time is a man-made concept that can be seen as constant and elastic.“Arbor is an expression of the interplay between temporal and the judicial, grounded in an individual’s experience of time and space.” This installation is in a location (John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan) that accurately depicts its concept and beauty. The balance scales of justice correlate with the curriculum taught at the college.

This piece and all other works by Ralph Helmick are beautiful and intricate, with well thought out concepts that are executed perfectly.