Category: {sculpture}

Sculpture

Passage 13

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Ed Jansen writes again with news that no. 13 of his Dutch-language web magazine Passage is now online:

Number 13 of Passage contains stories about the Buddha Machine, a strange little box that emits music, then there is ‘Escape from the dollhouse?’, which is about the art of Hans Bellmer, surreal and strangely erotic, ‘The Skeleton that Climbed in Through the Window’ tells the equally strange and sad story of the life of Unica Zürn, companion of Bellmer and ‘Nomads of the Timestream’ is of course about the work of Michael Moorcock. This collection begins and ends with two sides of a story about the version of the visit of Odysseus to the Underworld, by Ezra Pound.

The customary eclectic mix, in other words. The Buddha Machine section is a nice overview of recent ambient music machines. I love the ad art for Zhang Jian’s Short-Wave of Bengal Bay.

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Previously on { feuilleton }
• Passage 12
• Gristleism
• Passage 11
• Buddha Machine Wall
• Passage 10
• God in the machines
• Layering Buddha by Robert Henke

Three Heads Six Arms by Zhang Huan

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A new sculpture by Chinese artist Zhang Huan which was officially dedicated in San Francisco’s City Hall Plaza last week. The photo is by Flickr user David Dasinger and similar views can be found in this Flickr pool. Huan’s copper figures may be intended to evoke Buddhist serenity but I can never see that plaza without remembering the horrible ending of Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Three Heads Six Arms is part of a series of monumental works depicting the fragmented extremities of Buddhist statues. The series was inspired by Zhang’s discovery of religious sculptures that had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution for sale in a Tibetan market. (More.)

Via Erik Davis.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Arnaldo Pomodoro
• Sculptural collage: Eduardo Paolozzi
• Dead monuments
• The art of Igor Mitoraj

Ricardo Bellver’s El Ángel Caido

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This Luciferian statue by Spanish sculptor Ricardo Bellver (1845–1924) was drawn to my attention in the comments a while back and I thought it about time it had a post of its own. Statues of Satan/Lucifer or fallen angels are usually depicted at the mercy of Saint Michael’s feet and sword, it’s unusual to see such a work where the forces of Heaven are implied rather than shown. It’s even more unusual to have such a figure on display in a public park, as Bellver’s is.

The sculpture … of great dramatism and originality, obtained the First Medal at the Spanish National Fine Arts Exhibition in 1878, and the same year was cast in bronze for the third Paris World’s Fair. Later on, the Prado Museum donated it to the City of Madrid, and in 1885 it was installed in a square with the same name in the Retiro Park (the largest one in Madrid).

The writhing serpents are probably a nod to the Laocoön and manage to impose modesty as well as evoke an erotic frisson, a familiar ambiguity as I’ve noted before. Wikimedia Commons has a lot more photos while Flickr has even more here and here.

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Previously on { feuilleton }
• Melancholy Lucifers
• Angelo Colarossi and son
• Dark Angel
• Men with snakes
• Angels 4: Fallen angels

Wildeana 2

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Further flotsam from the wilds (so to speak) of the web. The above portrait is a collage constructed by this Flickr user with pages from The Picture of Dorian Gray as the raw material. A remarkable work.

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Wilde’s face in the collage portrait comes from one of the famous photographs taken by Napoleon Sarony on the writer’s visit to America in 1882. Another of Sarony’s photographs was used as the basis for this cigar advert which sought to exploit Wilde’s fashionable notoriety. Possibly the first and last time that cigars have ever been offered for sale as “aesthetic”.

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