Sculpture Studio Spring 2010

Project 3: Site, Place, and Installation
ARTIST RESEARCH

 

Maya Lin

Maya Lin derives inspiration for her installations from the earth and natural environment. She strives to connect natural topographies and geologic phenomena to “convey complex and poetic ideas using simple forms and natural materials” (3). In doing so, she uses the naturally occurring curvatures of the earth and applies a mathematical graph. This allows her to represent the texture and form found at a microscopic level on a much larger scale (1). For instance, in Flutter (2005), which is installed outside the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Miami, Lin responded to the boat-like imagery of the building by creating “grassy waves that mimic rippling sand” (2). By surrounding people with such large installations, she addresses how they “relate and respond to the environment,” and gives them “new ways of looking at the world” (2). She is very passionate about environmental issues, and therefore conveys this enthusiasm in her art. Through her installations she is asking us to pay attention to our natural world (2).

Her installations allow viewers to move around, under, on, or through the work. Sometimes, the action of the viewer is directly connected to the meaning of the piece. For example, in her 2004 installation Eleven Minute Line, Lin worked with the relationship between 2-D space (line drawings) and 3-D space (mounds of earth). This piece was based on prehistoric forms of burial grounds, such as the Serpent Mound, created by the Hopewell and Adena tribes. Inspired by these earlier forms, Lin created a meandering line throughout an open field that ran through a farm. Through this large-scale installation, she wanted the experience of viewing it from afar and of actually walking on it to be balanced (2).

In order to create such large works, Lin’s design process consists of: first creating a 3-D model, then scanning and plotting it into a digital drawing, and finally implementing the design in a full scale construction (3). This process was used with her collaborative work, Input (2004). The overall shape of the piece was inspired by rectangular punch cards, that Lin once spent hours punching, set into the ground in a very systematic arrangement. She collaborated with her brother, Tan Lin, who is a poet, in order to add text to the piece. The words are based on their visual memories of Ohio University. Since it is in a very public place, Lin strove to make the poem relate to “anyone who has spent time in Athens or at the University,” (2) and therefore create a “place of refuge and contemplation” (4).

While she has many works involving landmasses, Lin also uses other found materials such as glass, wood, particleboard, etc. In an installation for the Wexner Center for the Arts, Lin used “dump truck loads of broken car glass” accumulating to 43 tons (1). In this installation she was inspired by the meeting of Japanese raked gardens and Indian burial grounds. In order to create a large-scale installation in the elements, she had to be more spontaneous and treat the outdoors like her studio (she did not use a detailed plan). She also has works intended for galleries, such as 2x4 Landscape (2009), which is created out of 50,000 vertical 2x4 boards. This work is reminiscent of Tara Donovan’s process works made out of a repeated single material.

Throughout her career Lin has maintained the “ideal of making a place for individuals within the landscape” (1). In doing so, her installations are both compelling and inviting.

(1) http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/lin/clip2.html
(2) http://www.mayalin.com/
(3) www.arcspace.com/architects/lin/sys_landscapes.html
(4) http://www.pbs.org/becomingamerican/ap_pjourneys_bio5.html

 

 

 

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy’s installations are created outdoors, in nature, with nothing but the raw materials he finds on site. He usually only uses his hands or natural processes (i.e. ice freezing) to create the works; however, if he needs an instrument he will use sticks, thorns, and other raw materials (1). For instance, in his work Ice Arch (1982) he allowed ice to freeze in an arch, supported by stones. When it had finally frozen, he removed the stones, and the final product appeared to be defying gravity (6). Regarding his choice of site, Goldsworthy stated, “a building, no matter how beautiful is a dead space compared to the outside, and it takes whereas the ephemeral work gives” (3). He means that a gallery can be a space for installations; however, he needs the sun for many of his pieces. Because these works are isolated and transient, Goldsworthy often relies on photographs to document his work. For example, in Sycamore Patch (1986), Goldsworthy stitched together leaves with stalks and suspended them from a tree (6). The success of his photograph relied on the sun illuminating the leaves so that the delicate veins and patterns became visible. In a gallery setting, this piece would lose its connection to the natural environment and therefore its reference to natural phenomena.

In order to evoke the viewer’s curiosity, he focuses on found verses created order- all of his compositions can be found in nature, but applied to other materials in other contexts (1). Goldsworthy’s compositions are minimal (such as: circular, light to dark, or big to small) in order to assign focus to the struggle against gravity and connection to naturally occurring processes. He also believes that “a work of art is not finished until all signs of the effort of making it have been removed” (2). He tries to recreate the same quality that existed in the original natural process, and therefore strives for effortlessness. In his 1984 installation, Continuous Grass Stalk Line, Goldsworthy utilized mud-covered rocks and thorns to suspend a grass stalk (6). Since the final piece looks airy and delicate, Goldsworthy successfully achieved a sense of effortlessness and defying gravity. He takes his work to the very edge of its collapse, and often it fails before he even gets to photograph it (5). Therefore, a lot of Goldsworthy’s process consists of trial and error, until he gets into the rhythm of the material.

Often his work results from the raw materials found at the site, but Goldsworthy also creates site-specific installations, and works in museums where he brings materials to the site. For instance, he did an installation at the de Young Museum in 2005 called Drawn Stone that was created using paving stones and boulders to recreate the appearance of a fault line (4). In the gallery setting, he has a group of craftsmen and laborers who help him reproduce his works (2); however, he spent three days recreating Hanging Trees (2007) alone in a basement gallery in Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2).

The point of his installations is to “embody the beauty in the act of creation” and remind us of the beauty of nature (1). In doing so, he is critiquing the industrial and postindustrial means of production in which raw materials are rarely, if ever, used. By creating installations in remote locations and photographing them, Goldsworthy inspires awe in nature.

(1) http://d-sites.net/english/goldsworthy.htm
(2) http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/mar/11/art.features3
(3) http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1610464,00.html
(4) http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/spark/profile.jsp?essid=4157
(5) http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Andy+Goldsworthy&search=Search&gl=IE&hl=en-GB
(6) http://www.goldsworthy.cc.gla.ac.uk/image/?id=ag_03150&t=1