 Wysłany: Śro 9:24, 11 Maj 2011 Temat postu: Sculpture? It’s a walk in the park |
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| Sculpture? It’s a walk in the park
Of all the plastic arts, sculpture is the most involving. It can be seen, touched, heard in the case of kinetic art, walked around, looked through, occasionally sat upon and even used as a climbing frame by children.It occupies our own space Marble Sculpture in a way that paintings hanging on a wall simply cannot match.So why then, on the formal level of dedicated exhibitions, do we see so little of it?Well, often it is quite large, bulky and difficult to move. Also it needs space to be seen and indoors that can be tricky.Plus, of course, with each piece working in its three dimensions (OK, four, if you include the time needed to view) it interacts with adjoining pieces, not always to the advantage of either. That is one of the reasons why sculpture parks are increasingly popular.There, sufficient space is available to show each piece to its advantage and in any case, as the painter LS Lowry once remarked, anything looks good on a hill.In these parks, unlike the case of the great landscaped gardens, sculpture is the point, not something to articulate the space between lakes, trees and the sweeps of lawn.Maybe one day, if we get a new purpose built arts centre for East Africa it will have a sculpture park, or at least garden, attached… a pleasant place in which to stroll, picnic,Welding Hose, and enjoy large-scale works by local artists.Until that happy day we used to have the small front garden at the RaMoMA in Parklands (and the galleries are to reopen shortly to host an art and dance exhibition Marble Sculpture celebrating diversity) and we still have the grounds of the Kuona Trust arts centre, where some capable sculpture lies around looking lost and in need of direction, rather like the actors in Pirandello’s play Six characters in search of an author.It is inside the Kuona exhibition hall that a show has been set up in an attempt to give sculpture a push.In the European tradition, sculpture as fine art has no useful function in itself.When it became useful, as a support for a lintel, or perhaps as part of a marble fireplace, or decoration for a cathedral choir stall, it was rather snootily designated applied art.In Africa however, such a distinction is largely meaningless because masterpieces were often produced for a specific purpose � for votive use, or as caryatids to support, say, a stool, or as the decorative handle of a box. Oddly enough, it is sculpture by African artists working in the European tradition that is on show here.The exhibition ― called 2 Shacks Dimensional, a reference to the work produced in the Kuona’s two sculpture sheds ― is planned as the first of an annual series Marble Sculpture designed to highlight the talent of the Kuona house sculptors.Nine of them offer work: Cyrus Kabiru, Gakunju Kaigwa, Omosh Kindeh, Michael Mbai, Kepha Mosoti, Dennis Muraguri, David Mwaniki, Meshack Oiro and Anthony Wanjau.There are some surprising omissions from the Kuona crowd. Peterson Kamwathi, for instance, who, although known primarily as a printmaker and draughtsman, has also produced some powerful stone carvings and clay figures. Topics related articles： This Hummer Returns To Moraga's Station 41 Pet Talk-Horse Summer Dermatitis Now I know what "red eye" means |
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