Sculpture Studio Spring 2012

Project 3: Site, Place, and Installation
ARTIST RESEARCH

Maya Lin was born Ocotber 5, 1959 in Athens, Ohio. She is a sculptor and is known for her Vietnam Memorial design. Lin graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Architecture Degrees. Most of her work has been designing memorials and the sculptures are mostly landscape art. She is a very talented sculptor because whenever she creates something, there is always a story related to the sculpture. She has made sculptures for different places such as the University of Michigan’s FXB Aerospace Engineering Building. Instead of just making a random sculpture for the building, she took her time to study related subjects to create a sculpture. Lin pays close attention to the surroundings in which a sculpture will be located and the details of the subject for which she is creating the sculpture for. Her architecture skills helped her with her sculptures but she has also dedicated time to only architecture related projects.

Maya Lin’s most known sculpture is the Vietnam War Memorial. She was twenty years old when she entered and won a national contest to design the memorial. At the time, there was a lot of controversy about her designing the memorial because of her cultural background. Many of the war veterans felt offended and angry that she was making the design. “The design specified two 247-foot-long walls of polished black granite, set below grade and connected at a 125-degree angle, on which the names of all the more than 58,000 American dead and missing from the war would be carved in letters a little over half an inch high and arranged chronologically, according to the year of death or disappearance.” (Presidential Lectures) The design was simple yet meaningful because of the material used to create it. The polished black granite was an excellent choice for the memorial because of the color and the reflection. Black is usually a color that represents the mourning period after someone’s death and it gives the fallen soldier’s family time to think back about the soldier because of the simplicity of the memorial. The wall had some reflection and the visitors could see themselves while looking at the names. Lin’s purpose for this was that the visitor can have a connection with the memorial itself while remembering their family members that died during the war. Lin had created such an amazing piece that had so much meaning but when the memorial first opened, many veterans thought it was disrespectful. “It was bitterly opposed by a small but vociferous group of Vietnam veterans who objected to its color, planned placement below ground level, and lack of an "heroic" quality. Some of them referred to it as a "black ditch" or "black gash of shame.” (Presidential Lecture) The veterans did not try to look at Lin’s True intention of the piece which was to create a connection between the fallen soldiers and their relatives and also make them feel comfortable when visiting.

(Vietnam War Memorial)

“Storm King Wavefield” is a landscape sculpture that made grass look like it was a lot of waves. Lin created this sculpture to give the audience a different point of view of nature. She used a quality of water (waves) and added it to the grass. The sculpture was not made life-size but there were many scale models and models created on the computer. It was never clear as to where the sculpture would be located. Lin stated that it could be seen outside or inside of a gallery. The audience would still be able to appreciate the nature. Lin kept this design simple by just having repeating hills of grass to look like waves but allowed the audience to see nature completely different.
Maya Lin is a very creative and unique artist. Her attention to detail when creating sculptures is very important. She is always able to make a connection between the audience, surroundings and sculptures. She used her art and architecture skills to create some amazing sculptures and memorials.

(Storm King Wavefield)

Sources:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/monumental.html?c=y&page=2
http://www.mayalin.com/
http://www.art21.org/artists/maya-lin
http://www.kon.org/urc/v9/interconnected-through-art/tenbrink.pdf
http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/lin/

Images:

http://dancingczars.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/interesting-veterans-statistics-off-the-vietnam-memorial-wall/vietnam-memorial/

http://culture.wnyc.org/blogs/gallerina/2010/jul/15/datebook-july-15-2010/slideshow/

Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson was born on January 2, 1938. He was a writer, critic and artist. Smithson initially started working on abstract paintings and collages early in his career. During one of his exhibitions, he met several sculptors including Robert Morris and Nancy Holt. He began working with sculptures in the late 1960’s. He was very interested in writing while working on sculptures and would write about the places he visited and enjoyed working with natural objects. His early period as an artist helped him make progress throughout his sculpting career. Smithson’s photography and drawing skills were important in the future. The drawing skills were put to good use when he was planning for large sculptures. Smithson drew a lot and had multiple plans for sculptures but only a few of them became reality. Photography was used a lot when he was working with his sites projects. He had two types of sculptures; sites and non-sites. The non-sites were usually displayed in a gallery. The sculptures were a combination of natural materials and man-made materials. The sites projects involved Smithson traveling to different locations and using mirrors to change the landscape. It would create a new image of the landscape and some beauty to the landscaping. He also viewed how humans can alter the landscapes as well as nature itself. He did this by taking pictures of the untouched landscape and then would alter it in different ways. Nature played an important role in Smithson’s work.

(Spiral Jetty)

Site/Place was used a lot by Smithson for his sculptures. Smithson used nature for all of his work and used different factors such as time, human existence and natural events to change a certain location. He traveled to different places in the world to work on a sculpture. The sculptures he worked on site were observed over time to see how nature or humans would make the landscape change. “Spiral Jetty” is perfect example of how Robert Smithson used nature and time to change the landscape. “Spiral Jetty” is the most well-known sculpture by Smithson. He constructed the 1,500 foot jetty in 1970 with the help of the local construction company. The jetty coils counterclockwise with a fifteen foot width. The jetty was built from mud, crystal salt and black basalt rocks. The location of the jetty is near Rozel Point on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. He chose that location because of the red color of the water and its close distance to the primordial sea. Another reason for his decision in using Rozel Point as a location is because it wasn’t seen as beautiful anymore. Smithson turned the place around by building the jetty with its unusual coiling shape. The sea level plays an important role on the visibility of the jetty. It was constructed when the sea level was low which made the jetty visible and walkable. Over time, the climate changes caused the sea level to rise and submerging the jetty underwater. These changes were all part of Robert Smithson’s intention with the sculpture. He wanted to change the landscape of an area that was not considered beautiful and built an interesting looking jetty in the middle of the area. He was able to observe the changes that happen over time. In this particular piece, it was observing how nature affected the jetty and it was making it appear and disappear depending on the sea level

.

Robert Smithson had a great appreciation for nature and wanted to expose things that people ignore all the time. He used observations on how humans make a change to natural landscapes over time and how nature also changes the landscape. He was also able to make artificial changes to nature at the beginning of his sculpture period using mirrors.

Sources:
http://www.robertsmithson.com/introduction/introduction.htm
http://www.diaart.org/sites/main/spiraljetty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smithson
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-smithson-robert.htm
http://www.beigecube.de/citmg/reader/Smithson.pdf

Images:

http://www.diaart.org/sites/main/spiraljetty

http://www.mediabistro.com/unbeige/robert-smithsons-spiral-jetty-threatened-by-high-oil-prices_b4658