Kansas Sculpture by Irish Artist for London
Dublin artist John Gerrard, a big hit at the Venice Biennale, is to have his 30-year Kansas virtual sculpture, Oil Stick Work, installed at London’s Canary Wharf Underground station.
It’s a digital moving 3D image projection, what we might call an animation, of an aluminum silo in the far southwest corner of Kansas being painted black in real time by a Mexican-American character who paints a black square a day, 6 days a week, until the whole structure is black - which will be in 2038.
The installation is at Canary Wharf’s Tube station for one year. Art on the Underground is inviting the commuters of Canary Wharf to enter this virtual scene exactly three years into the slowly unfolding story of the work. Last year it was in New York.
I tell you this in case you happen to be travelling to London, and pop out to the docklands only to see a moving projection of a West Kansas scene measuring almost 15ft by 20ft - and wonder why.
Also, I’m an Irish artist myself with a soft spot picked up on my cycle across America for elevators, silos, barns, and grain bins - as the following paintings should illustrate:
• Elevator Sunday ($1,270)
• Elevator Island SOLD
• Elevator in Winter I ($285)
• Elevator in Winter II ($285)
• The Plains I SOLD
• The Plains II: Elevator SOLD
• The Plains III ($125)
I really like this idea - the subject matter and the time factor - but I suspect I’d prefer, and I say this not having seen it “in the flesh”, if it was actual video.
Art Daily has more on Oil Stick Work (Angelo Martinez, Richfield, Kansas), and you can of course read about it and more of the Irish artist John Gerrard, on his own website.
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Hey love your site, and the John Gerrard pieces above are great. Perhaps you and your readers might be interested in this? I’m swapping my MX5 convertible sports car for a painting… any takers? http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-want-to-swap-my-MX5-for-art/296055773557?