Filed under: Fleeting thoughts... | Tags: art, artist, decay, decordova, Exhibit, fragments, Leonardo Drew, museum, sculpture
So, this was the last day that the work of Leonardo Drew is at the DeCordova. I am SO lucky that I went. I seriously loved it. He’s brilliant.
His works are primarily sculpture…and his work is often a gridlike arrangement of decayed fragments. Think: rust, dirt, remnants, remains…gathered with beautiful sensitivity to texture, form, and pattern. I know…how can these things be “beautiful”? Trust me, they were. Jawdropping.
I believe that after a trip to Japan, he began to think about works of paper…but he initially struggled with how to convey his worldview with this pristine, flat medium. His idea became creating intricate paper castings of the debris that was once a part of his work…old shoes, a broken toy truck, a telephone. These were like light, fragile cocoons. I loved the transformation of these previously gritty, broken, discarded items to something so…delicate and ephemeral. Both the heavy/dark/decaying pieces and the pale/delicate/ephemeral pieces still had a similar sensibility, which was kind of amazing to me. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it was almost as if he captures a beauty that exists within death. I know. That makes no sense. But the individual objects all had a previous life…someone wore that shoe, some child played with that toy, and someone else used that phone. Now, this is their second life…where their uniqueness merges into the overall assemblage/texture/form.
I wish that I could post images of his work, but I think that would be wrong in the world of intellectual property/blogging. Am I right? Please follow this link to get to his webpage and see what I’m rambling about. [I also just found someone’s blog post on this exhibit]
I’m so bummed that I cannot demand that my friends and relatives go see this show TOMORROW. It’s gone. Moving on. I’m going to start saving up now to buy one of the teeny weeny pieces of his work. I settled for buying the book, in the meantime.
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slightly wonky 
We recently lent the piece below to Texas. Pieces of rust and cotton falling out all over the place. Conservator’s nightmare. It is several panels that are hung next to one another. The artist was supposed to be on hand to put new pieces of cotton in where they had fallen out, but I don’t think he ended up coming. The way these sculptures decay reminds me of Zuni “Ahayu:da” wooden representations of war gods that are left out to decay. They are supposed to disintegrate as part of the process and if you disturb them… it’s bad.
Comment by Caitlin January 10, 2011 @ 12:03 pmhttp://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/modern_art/number_24_leonardo_drew/objectview_zoom.aspxpage=1&sort=6&sortdir=asc&keyword=leonardo20drew&fp=1&dd1=21&dd2=0&vw=0&collID=21&OID=210010376&vT=1&hi=0&ov=0
I just looked up “Number 24”. Very cool! I can see how it would be kind of a nightmare to move. That actually did cross my mind when I was looking at the piece on the cover of the book above. I mean, really…HOW does it travel? The “Ahayu:da” sounds really interesting…unfortunately, I’m sure that they’ve all been disturbed by now, right?
Comment by slightlywonky January 10, 2011 @ 1:20 pm