Steven Gontarski, 2008
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I selected this piece of public art because I was drawn to the silhouette of the piece. As this is not a popular sculpture, there isn't many pictures of it online. Seeing this with my own eyes allowed me to look at the sculptures from different angles, providing me with different silhouettes.
- Using origami style forms
- Adds 3D element
- Use body as base on which to form a structure
- Repeated shapes make the 3D shapes more effective, as if layered- perhaps look at idea of repeated shapes in artworks
As I continued working on the figure, I realized that the best angles were those from the side. I really like the way this shape turned out because it has the exaggeration of the shoulder and arm, while still maintaining the arched shape that is present in my research.
Public Art
- Public Art is art in any media that has been planned and executed with the intention of being staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all.
- Rather, the relationship between the content and audience, what the art is saying and to whom, is just as important if not more important than its physical location.
steven Gontarski, 2008
- Sculpture by Steven Gontarski.
- Persimmon-colored abstract sculpture made of painted and lacquered glass-fibre-reinforced plastic that rises from the ground to a height of five meters.
- It refers to an organic tradition that informed many international artists in the mid-twentieth century yet exhibits an aesthetic firmly rooted in contemporary practice. The form is recognisable but not identifiable, conjuring comparisons to many things in the real world: clouds, organs, oceans, smoke rings. The artist wanted to make something that would ‘create a heart in the midst of an urban development’.
- Impact increased due to location between office blocks, boring quotidian world broken up by the sight of the sculpture, appears at odds with its surroundings, makes it more effective
Included in the original 1965 New Generation show, Declaration, 1961, was one of his first abstract sculptures. Consisting of three basic geometrical forms in repetition, and made using urban building materials, it is a bold statement of King's intent to create a new sculptural language. Another iconic and innovative work from the period is Rosebud, 1962, one of a series of plastic sculptures based on the simple form of a cone. The outer layer is penetrated by a sinuous, vertical slit revealing a dark green core, which is suggestive of the fold of petals. King later made use of sheet metal painted in vivid colours to produce complex, multi-faceted compositions such as the yellow, red and blue sculpture, Quaver, 1970.
Malevich’s costume designs for Victory Over the Sun...show voluminous creations in bold colours which reshape the human figure'. - V&A Russian Avant-garde Theatre: War Revolution and Design 1913 – 1933
'For his costumes, Malevich provided radical, anti-realist designs that combined volumetrically-shaped body coverings and shocking color schemes'. - http://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/
I really like how Malevich takes literal shapes and block colours and applies them on the body. There forms are very geometric. They are characterised by the genre of suprematism which adopts basic geometric forms. Like Suprematism, I like the geometric simplicity of Russian matchbox labels in colour and in shape. I also appreciate the vivid colour choices which compliment Malevich's bold pigment's too. In my own response, inspired by his practise, I want to take literal cyclical and globular shapes from the Barbara Hepworth Sculpture and apply them to the body in a similar fashion, focusing on silhouette primarily, then moving onto colour later.
Suicides by Location on the Golden Gate Bridge
Here we see San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and the “sad tally” of 1,218 known suicides by location. Each black square represents a person who has taken his or her life and 128 light poles are used as reference points.
The east side of the bridge, where most of the suicides occurred, has a pedestrian walkway. The first suicide was just 10 weeks after the bridge opened in 1937.
- Particularly like the use of arced shapes as if pleated together, creates volume
- Can be achieved by draping whilst at the same time appearing very structural
- Reminiscent of the curves found in the movement of diving, sense of weight, using gravity as a force to create a form
Phillip king
“Sculpture might ostensibly be the most visible of arts in that the viewer can quickly gauge size, weight, colour and so on, but there is also something that escapes you in the most mysterious manner. It can never be totally visible in the way that a painting can, where surface is everything. With sculpture, there is surface, but there is so much more going on behind.
- Striking similarity between modern day and vintage designs
- Particularly like the idea of using the back as a plain on which to build a structure, area often overlooked, appears like a spine
- Contrast between strong, bold shapes and the curves of the body
- Idea of using wire or boning around shapes to create a structure
Vincent Fecteau is known for carefully handcrafting modestly-sized sculptures from everyday materials such as rubber bands, paper clips, seashells, and string, often incorporating these things into papier-mâché or foamcore structures.
"I like to work on a group of pieces all at the same time, spending long periods just staring at things and trying to activate or access a feeling that somehow relates to what I'm trying to make. …When I'm open to things but not fixed on an objective is when I'm most likely to discover a connection that helps a piece feel more resolved."
resource: http://www.matthewmarks.com/new-york/artists/vincent-fecteau/