28 Critical Reflections: random 1 t0 7
"Shut up", I told the breakfast table. "I asked for coffee and waffles, not your dream from last night."
I finished my breakfast in a silence that was, I suspect, sulky on one side. "Reflective surfaces, huh? Sometimes they can get above themselves."[2]
River Form reminds the viewer of a pebble that has been gently shaped by the currents of a churning river. The piece is a contemplation of water, space and the sky. The artist’s interest in exploring the void and the interaction between positive and negative space is evident in the cutaway interior which gives the impression of having evolved over time.[1]
And the play of inside against/with outside, the seeing through, the laid bare view, makes everything that is around part of the sculpture too.[4]
But the first thing to make clear is that a specular reflection cannot be taken as a sign if one follows the definition given in this book. Not only can it not be properly called an image (since it is a virtual image, and therefore not a material expression) but even granted the existence of the image it must be admitted that it does not stand for something else:on the contrary it stands in front of something else, it exists not instead of but because of the presence of that something: when that something disappears the pseudo-image in the mirror disappears too.[3]
Regarding Hepworth's River Form, I get alien, extra terrestrial, other- or even non-worldly: something this world could not 'naturally' produce: spacecraft, alien, non-human edifice. And yet I can take the alien view, I can see out the portholes, glimpse the alien view from the exposed innards. Paradoxically, the alien structures, Hepworth's sculptures in her garden, sit wonderfully, Barthesian blissfully well in our 'natural' world. They accentuate what 'just happens to be' as if it were special: which it, of course, is.[4]
River Form reminds the viewer of a pebble that has been gently shaped by the currents of a churning river. The piece is a contemplation of water, space and the sky. The artist’s interest in exploring the void and the interaction between positive and negative space is evident in the cutaway interior which gives the impression of having evolved over time.[1]
Regarding Hepworth's River Form, I get alien, extra terrestrial, other- or even non-worldly: something this world could not 'naturally' produce: spacecraft, alien, non-human edifice. And yet I can take the alien view, I can see out the portholes, glimpse the alien view from the exposed innards. Paradoxically, the alien structures, Hepworth's sculptures in her garden, sit wonderfully, Barthesian blissfully well in our 'natural' world. They accentuate what 'just happens to be' as if it were special: which it, of course, is.[4]
28 Critical Reflections random 8 to 14
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Sources
[1] http://www.neworleanspast.com/art/id62.html
[2] Ken MacLeod, Reflective Surfaces, New Scientist, 2009.
[3] Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics, Indiana University Press, 1979.
[4] Clive Fencott, Reflections on seeing River Form in Barbra Hepworth's garden in St. Ives.
[5] http://www.flickr.com/photos/nigelhomer/316548379/
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specular_highlight