Filed under: Fleeting thoughts..., sculpture | Tags: art, decordova, Jaume Plensa, Lincoln Massachusetts, Parks and Gardens, sculpture, Sol LeWitt, Tony Feher, turkeys, Visual Arts
This week, I took my five year old son to the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA. I LOVE this museum. In spite of the fact that I had to keep saying, “AAAAAAA…DON’T CLIMB ON THAT,” I think he had a great time. He met some other kids and they spent a good amount of time climbing on some logs cut up from a fallen tree. I was wishing that I’d somehow brought a latte and a lawn chair, but no luck. They should rent those. (I mean the chairs, not the lattes…)
Okay Mountain, 4-Wheeler Rollover
This was the sculpture that I wanted my son to see. Hilarious, right? So awesome. The tire ruts in the ground are in a swirly/loopy path that noodles around until you reach the tipped over ATV. It just makes me laugh, for some reason. (I hope that doesn’t offend the artists…) It’s great to have this kind of thing in a place that’s rather highbrow…not that this art is lowbrow…(or Loenbrau…) but you know what I mean.
Tony Feher, The Nothing Before Something
Tony Feher currently has a solo exhibition at the DeCordova. I wrote about the show here. This is very striking…a brightly painted telephone pole. It’s like the Z axis…or a big stake in the ground…It makes me think of the astronauts putting a flag on the moon…kind of monumental.
Speaking of monumental…
Sol LeWitt, Tower (DC)
I like how pure this is. I kind of wish it was enormous…building sized…except that you can’t go in. That would be cool, right?
The next three works are all busts…so different, though!
John Wilson, Eternal Presence
I am SUCH a fan of his work. Gorgeous. He had a solo show at the Danforth, which I wrote about here. He is supremely talented and brilliant.
I’m kind of pondering the base, though. I think that they need to fill in the dirt around it so that we don’t see the rough bottom edge of the concrete. Thoughts? It kind of makes it look like an afterthought, or as if it could be moved anywhere, and isn’t properly rooted to it’s ground. Just my two cents. It’s a stunning work of art, though.
Jaume Plensa, Humming
I love how this is distorted and elongated. Don’t you love the title too? I think of the sound of Buddhist monks chanting a long “Om……” I like how this one is in the shade….seems right.
Joseph Wheelwright, Listening Stone
Fascinating, right? I don’t know whether to think his upper ear is listening, possibly to the sounds of nature or of my son’s yelling, or is he listening to the earth? Thoughts? Sometimes as a parent, I feel like my head’s made of stone and I’m not listening. Is that bad?
Aaron Stephan, Untitled (16 Cans)
You can see the silhouette of my son standing amongst this sculpture. It’s pretty minimal. It’s also kind of funny, because if you turn around…this is what you see:
No, that’s not part of the sculpture. That’s just a trash can. Don’t you love the DeCordova???
Besides this excursion, we also went to visit a friend who was renting a house on Plum Island. My son and my friend’s son had a blast generally running around and yelling. You know how it is, right? No? Well, you’re damn lucky, then.
Take a look at this RIDICULOUS dahlia we saw:
No joke.
Speaking of ridiculous, take a look at this turkey we saw at the same farm:
They are SO CRAZY looking. He really is like a big butterball. Sometimes, he would raise and fan out his scraggly tail feathers, like a moth eaten peacock. What an odd creature. I love the dark iridescent feathers on the main part of his body. I could do without the blobby snood. Look how freakish the domestic turkey is compared to the wild one:
Right???? If I was that wild turkey…I’d run, or rather fly, out of there STAT! It makes me think of these guys:
Run, Alice! RUUUUUNNNNNN!!!!!
Filed under: sculpture | Tags: art, artist, Dan Flavin, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, godzilla, mundane, sculpture, Tony Feher
Well, it’s BALMY in BOSTON. I think that we’re at around 80 deg F and 80% humidity. SOUPY. I feel like I am sticking to everything, and that’s not only a result of my poor housekeeping skills. Has anyone else noticed that it’s difficult to get a dried Rice Krispy off of the floor? Well, I have. Thank god I don’t bother with manicures, or else our floor would be a minefield of dried krispies.
I stopped by the deCordova museum to see the work of Tony Feher. Now, let me just preface this discussion (one sided, of course) by noting that I am not usually very interested in found object sculpture. I know…I’m a philistine. Anyway, so I wasn’t sure what I was going to think of Feher’s work.
WELL…I LOVED IT. LOOK AT THIS:
Mountain Home, Tony Feher, 2004, plastic containers
I know. I KNOW what those are…but I love that they’ve taken on this ethereal form. They look so pure and delicate, and yet solid. It’s a modern Mayan temple in miniature…well, not really. Here is an overview of the main room of his work:
Tony Feher at the deCordova Museum
Each piece is quite simple, typically using only one or two types of objects, but the reconfiguration is fascinating.
Tony Feher, Sharadiant, 2000, mop and broom handles with rope
I love this too. It makes me think of a Dan Flavin piece that’s turned off and seen during the day.
I know…I know…they are NOT even MARGINALLY related. What can I say? These are the associations that I come up with. Speaking of associations…what do you think of this?:
Tony Feher, Come Out And Play Stephen Jay, 2013, painter’s tape
Yes. That’s tape. TAAAAPE. Now THAT made me think of Van Gogh’s Starry Night or wavelite crystals…
Swirly!
I’m sure that you’d rather see more of Feher’s work, rather than my bizarre and boring associations. Fine.
Tony Feher at the deCordova Museum
This is Feher’s installation in that great stairway at the deCordova. This space is pure genius (thanks to William Rawn Associates), as it creates this really unusual installation space. I love seeing what different artists do here. Feher has taken two liter bottles and filled them with colored liquid. It’s often hard to get a good photo of this space, as it’s so narrow. It’s 21st century stained glass, right?
Tony Feher, 8 White Elements, 2001 and Honcho Grid 1, 1999
Yes, you are looking at a tower of styrofoam packaging. I can’t help but think of an architectural model…perhaps for the New Museum in NYC? Hell, Yes! (that expletive relates to the New Museum…I’m not normally so brash.) The grid in the background is made from plastic straws and polyester thread. BRILLIANT!
I love how simple and elemental his pieces are. I love how these mundane objects feel truly transformed through their reconfiguration. He doesn’t cut/break/bend the objects…he just puts them together so that they form a new, single object. There’s such clarity to his work.
Speaking of clarity…oh wait, I never have clarity. Nevermind.
I’ll segue by my household’s own transformation of the mundane into…well, it’s still all mundane. My son is obsessed with Godzilla. A friend of mine is moving to TX, and she let me take some of her boys’ old toys. WELL, we got a small Godzilla set…and the rest is history. Godzilla is the perfect combination of dinorsaur-ish creature PLUS a force of ridiculous destruction/demolition. Greaaaaat.
My son doesn’t seem at all put off by the idea that this is simply a person in a lizard suit lumbering around a model city. Perhaps that’s because he’s used to me lumbering around the living room, stepping on Lego buildings, and growling? I have better skin than Godzilla, thankfully. (Check in with me again if I make it to 90, and I may not be able to say that, though.)
This is a drawing that my son did in homage to the great beast:
Let me describe this for you…the lower left has a monster truck parked next to a skyscraper. The tall thing on the right is Godzilla’s leg, with monster toenail. Yes, he’s SOOO HUGE that he can’t even fit on the page. Priceless.
I’m also hoping that my toenails did not provide inspiration for this drawing…sigh.
slightly wonky 