Sequential figuration

The show contained twenty-two sculptures of the human form. All but three of the figures in the show were derived from five half life-size figures. Of these five figures three were female and two male. The group of five figures were each represented in the three media of beeswax, aluminum, and bronze. The aluminum and bronze figures move in two rows down the length of the room. They are based on large black concrete "tabletops" that are held aloft by a cantilevered steel arm that anchors into a black concrete foot, making a shape rather like a large 7. The aluminum figures I refer to as Recombinant figures (a play on genetic engineering), as they have extra body parts added to them from the other figures or repetitions from themselves. The aluminum is polished and wire-wheeled to a pure metallic shine. The bronze figures I refer to as Sequential figures (a play on RNA and natural genetic repetition), as they retain all marks that occur during the lost wax casting process. The patination on the bronze is a multilayering of browns and greens, with raw polished bronze detail and heat induced reds and blues. The beeswax figures were suspended 3' off the floor by silk harnesses. A narrow tube of silk connected the harnessed figure to an 8' length of titanium rod that sprung from a counterbalancing 2' tube of black cement. These figures hung far into the room, while their anchors lined the wall, leading back to the trebuchet. A trebuchet is a medieval siege weapon that replaced the catapult. Loaded as ammunition is one of the female wax figures, and the trebuchet is pointed at the entrance to the gallery. At the entrance of the gallery stand two sentry-like aluminum figures. They each stand on a two-thirds life size leg, and their torsos and heads are combinations of male and female characteristics. On the far rear wall are the three Furies made from quarter life-size female figures that erupt into doll arms at the shoulders. A male wax figure also protrudes from the wall on a shorter titanium rod and silk harness. This figure reveals the process of the wax forms by allowing the hemp backing to show through the figure and erupt from the head. The same male figure is used to create the Recombinant aluminum form in polished bronze. This bronze recombinant figure stands on a "7" base, separate from the rows of figures on like bases. ' The figures create an uneasy and pensive mood, crowding the room with the immediacy of their existential dilemma.

SEQUENTIAL FIGURATION by Daniel Lyle Gerhart A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts Department of Art and Art History The University of Utah December 2001 Copyright © Daniel Lyle Gerhart 2001 All Rights Reserved SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE APPROVAL THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS of a thesis submitted bv D a n i e l G e r h a r t This thesis has been read by each member of the following supervisory committee vote nas been found to be satisfactory. and by majority' Chairman: ^ ^ Ra i t i S l a t e r / J u s t i n D i g g l e !& ' 2 3 - R .D . W ils o n THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS FINAL READING APPROVAL To the Graduate Council of The Universitv of Utah: in its final'form and have found that (1) its format, citations, and bibliographic style are consistent and acceptable; (2) its illustrative materials including figures, tables, and charts are in place; and (3) the final manuscript is sausfactorv to the Supervisorv Committee and is ready for submission to the Graduate School. Date Kaiti Slater Chairperson. Supervisory Committee Approved for the Major Department Elizabeth Peterson Chairperson Approved for the Graduate Council _____,z»r.*rr=i___v. i -------/c - ~ g f a a -- r - w ------- Phyllis Haske11 Dean, College of Fine Arts ABSTRACT The show contained twenty-two sculptures of the human form. All but three of the figures in the show were derived from five half life-size figures. Of these five figures three were female and two male. The group of five figures were each represented in the three media of beeswax, aluminum, and bronze. The aluminum and bronze figures move in two rows down the length of the room. They are based on large black concrete "tabletops" that are held aloft by a cantilevered steel arm that anchors into a black concrete foot, making a shape rather like a large 7. The aluminum figures I refer to as Recombinant figures (a play on genetic engineering), as they have extra body parts added to them from the other figures or repetitions from themselves. The aluminum is polished and wire-wheeled to a pure metallic shine. The bronze figures I refer to as Sequential figures (a play on RNA and natural genetic repetition), as they retain all marks that occur during the lost wax casting process. The patination on the bronze is a multilayering of browns and greens, with raw polished bronze detail and heat induced reds and blues. The beeswax figures were suspended 3' off the floor by silk harnesses. A narrow tube of silk connected the harnessed figure to an 8' length of titanium rod that sprung from a counterbalancing 2' tube of black cement. These figures hung far into the room, while their anchors lined the wall, leading back to the trebuchet. A trebuchet is a medieval siege weapon that replaced the catapult. Loaded as ammunition is one of the female wax figures, and the trebuchet is pointed at the entrance to the gallery. At the entrance of the gallery stand two sentry-like aluminum figures. They each stand on a two-thirds life size leg, and their torsos and heads are combinations of male and female characteristics. On the far rear wall are the three Furies made from quarter life-size female figures that erupt into doll arms at the shoulders. A male wax figure also protrudes from the wall on a shorter titanium rod and silk harness. This figure reveals the process of the wax forms by allowing the hemp backing to show through the figure and erupt from the head. The same male figure is used to create the Recombinant aluminum form in polished bronze. This bronze recombinant figure stands on a "7" base, separate from the rows of figures on like bases. ' The figures create an uneasy and pensive mood, crowding the room with the immediacy of their existential dilemma. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................................iv SEQUENTIAL FIGURATION......................................................................................... 1 BEAUTY? ......................................................................................................................... 2 ALUMINUM....................................................................................................................... 4 BRONZE............................................................................................................................... 6 PRESENTATION.................................................................................................................7 BEESWAX........................................................................................................................... 8 KINDERFRESSER............................................................................................................10 NATURE.............................................................................................................................13 PRINTS...................... ......................................................................................................... 18 SEQUENTIAL FIGURATION My aesthetic derives from a conception of the necessity for isolation, isolation not as alienation, but as a cultural condition of the modem individual, and the struggle for personal identity and autonomy without culturally predetermined signifiers. My approach to sculpting the figure from life allows no allegory, by not portraying a figure in a situation other than the situation of being. The only liberties I have taken offer nonspecific emotive metaphor, relating to an Underlying Urge and an Expressive Form. The Underlying Urge is sometimes nothing more than a response to the subtle implications of archetypes, a response that demands attention without denying ambiguity. The Expressive Form is the human figure from direct observation. That observation is far more than an unbiased mechanical eye, but rather a kinesthetic response. This response expresses, without overt intent, a wealth of knowledge that is not the sculptor's to know, but the sculpture's to portray. And then there is the "accident," the serendipitous alterations of original intent: to let go of all thought of skill or craft or concept, to facilitate as many chances for transformation beyond control, yet within the realm of experience, allowing chaos. BEAUTY ? Idealized beauty, of the Platonic meta-form, defined the sculpture of Greek society. Attributes of many figures were combined into one to portray a cultural ideal of beauty. Naturalism was not realism, but a hybrid of ideal forms. Figurative sculpture was made to serve cultural and political ends. A classical figure, therefore, is not a personal investigation of an individual artist. Because of the changing role of the artist in society, a contemporary artist working with the figure has entirely different concerns. My concerns deny the Platonic meta-form of the ideal, and my naturalism relies on neither realism nor overt beauty. The random alterations derived from the process of creating the form have a natural authenticity to them. They are the maladies of time upon the psyche. To achieve permanence and strength, simple classical beauty must be sacrificed. A modem beauty must have an appreciation of imperfection or chaos overcoming order. My work is ultimately not about beauty, yet it speaks of beauty and alludes to the beautiful, and though it may even be beautiful or have such aspects it was not created to be as such. The work allows beauty without presenting it, as beauty is in the living act of the present. Beauty can only be alluded to, and art can only point toward it. To set out to make beauty is a vain misunderstanding of beauty's temporal living quality. Any beauty within these works is derived solely from the nature of process. ALUMINUM The aluminum figures were the result of an ongoing mood of what I had learned and abandoned from the Kinderfresser exhibition and what I could no longer keep from myself. The Kinderfresser exhibition came together in the first year of my MFA. It was a conglomerate of children's toys mixed with concepts of adult sexuality. My intent was cultural commentary with dark sarcasm, the central piece of the show engaging the audience through a game of driving remote control "chromosomobiles" within a colosseum made of romance novels. At this point I was not sculpting the figure, but using life-study molds from the year before entering the Master of Fine Arts program and molds I had made of Kinderfresser doll hands. These first crossover figures became a sensual and horrid triumvirate. I thought of them as the Furies, in relation to the cast paper Graces made from the full, unaltered figure. The unaltered figure held little appeal in comparison. Upon returning to the figure I modeled the form less self-consciously than before, but all the same with a worry that I had been better before somehow, not realizing that I was better now without what had been left behind. What had been left behind was an insecurity with representation that always begged my knowledge of the figure. I realized that I knew enough to explore and that what I wanted from the figure was not to be found if bound by ideas of representation. I am still realizing this and intend to explore it further through a commissioned work for the Utah Opera. In sculpting people I sometimes see more than they intend, their nakedness before me being more complete than they would want, but to notice people in this manner is part of the sculpting process for me. The alterations of the figures were specific to what I intuited. The sculptures then become portraits of a peculiar nature. The danger with the aluminum figures was the immediate associations and pop-psyche analysis they elicited. An allegory was expected, people wanted to know their story, or a specific intent. There was none, there was just what felt right for the figure in conjunction with what I had gleaned from the individual who had modeled. My own role in the alteration was often a confusion of sympathetic response and overt purpose gleaned as much from myself as from the individual. The response the figures engender from the models allows me to trust the alterations. Still there was an unease with the overtness of my manipulations. From here came the idea of media grouping. Sculpt no more new figures, but explore the fullness of the conception through repetition of the figures allowing the media and process to set the parameters. BRONZE The work is not about process. The leavings of process in wax and metal serve the same purpose as my manipulations in aluminum. However, where the aluminum was too overt, too much an alteration of my intent, and too tempting to overlay with specific meaning, the bronze allows natural forces to play upon the figure without my overt and intentful hand. Allowing the inherent problems of the casting process to remain in the aluminum brought out the naturally accumulated unease I was after. In bronze I undertook these inherent problems as metaphorically as the aluminum alterations. I left the wax unchased and made the waste-molds so they would encourage flashing. I intended to pour the metal too hot to create shrinkage and pitting and left all welds unchased. PRESENTATION I wanted each figure to be based separately on identical bases to emphasize their singularity and similarity. The bases were in two parts that fit together, an angled leg and a tabletop. First is a steel cantilevered leg with a cement counterweight-toe. This upholds a concrete tabletop measuring 14" x 53" x 27". The tabletop is widest at the unsupported end, which puts more weight over the foot, but appears to make the structure less stable. Each base weighs 260 pounds. The tabletop is 3' from the floor, allowing the half life-sized figure to stand at eye-level with the viewer. Each figure is bolted to its base in accordance with its own particular relationship to the seeming imbalance of the base and in relation to the other figures. Eleven bases and figures then create their own floorplane, floating precariously 3' off the ground. BEESWAX The figures in beeswax, as the most tenuous material, are the most perfectly cast. Their vulnerability led me to create all five figures as cleanly as possible. Backing the figure with hemp added strength, but made joining the molded forms difficult. The hemp offered a possibility of chaos that I pursued for one figure of Shawn, but I realized that for the MFA show I wanted all the figures cleanly molded. The interest of creative exploration in hemp and wax had to be abandoned, or put off til after the exhibition, in favor of making a complete set of beeswax figures. Hanging the figures was the only way to store them, and this led me to think of how to present them with the other figures, and of their unique character in contrast to the cast figures. The physical vulnerability of their organic materials made them rare and assailable. They seemed the natural ideal of who a person feels themselves to be as a possibility of self. The Trebouchet then is not only destructive of the beeswax figures, but transformative of them, just as death is a transformative event. Throwing the figures is to pass from one conception of existence to another (the ideal to the real, the natural to the industrial, the naive to the experienced) where destruction of form is inherent to transformation. The possibility of transformation is inherent within the form of the Trebouchet. The Trebouchet then becomes a threat to the naive ideal of self, and herein is the direct tie to the ongoing concept of the Kinderfresser. KINDERFRESSER The beeswax figures relate to an ideal of self, similar to that of childhood. The ideal nature of these figures is misleading if one idealizes childhood. It is the hemp-Shawn that offers the form of self in relation to childhood to which I refer. The childhood world of human consciousness is a world where the brain is still developing and the mind cannot yet grasp certain concepts, and so order is made in a most peculiar manner. The childhood that relates to an ideal of self is also that time when the world is of a rational order that allows the natural order of the irrational. There is a leap in understanding the physical world that occurs at a discrete developmental stage in childhood called Conversion of Mass (COM).1 Prior to COM equal volumes of a substance can change in volume depending upon their shape. If equal volumes are represented in a tall form and a short form, say a pint of water poured into a tall pipette and a pint of water poured into a bowl, the child can see that the volumes are equal, a pint was poured into each, yet when poured into the different shaped containers the child will perceive the mass to change. The tall container will be a larger amount than the short one. ' f 1 Conversion Of Mass (COM) is an early benchmark stage of brain development and cognitive ability. Explaining how it works will not help the child grasp the conceptual flaw {you once thought this way). Another such shift in awareness may or may not occur and has exponentially declined over the past century. It can first occur in the mid to late teens, and if not then, it will manifest in the 40s or possibly not at all. This is the level of Ethical Thought.2 This is the individual's ability to stand outside the groupthink of society. It is the birth of personal conscience. It denotes the difference between those who follow rules of law and canon and so believe they are good, and those who know goodness. Explaining how it works will not help (you may have yet to reach this one). With this breach in adult consciousness, the widening gap inverts Platonic conceptions of The Real and The Ideal and The Self. The Shadow of humanity becomes a greater force as we are placated out of basic human awareness. The Shadow is a metaphor from Carl Jung. Jung envisioned himself climbing a mountain at night by the light of a small candle and struggling to keep it from being snuffed out. I misread his intent in this passage and understood for myself that an engagement in a futile struggle awakened an awareness of the darkness, darkness not as the calm of night, but the wild and unknown place beyond the knowable. I intuited an aspect of self that is of that darkness, that moves within the darkness and the self. In this sense my aesthetic recognizes the Shadow: the irrational realm of Nightmare where terror of the unknown, helplessness of 2Ethical Thought is a late benchmark of brain development and cognitive ability. ignorance, and the confusion of ego-disintegration become states of transcendence. The Shadow lives in the time before Conversion of Mass is grasped, lives as a disturbing doppleganger, an awkward invisible friend, like a living Grimm's Fairy Tale. This envoy of the Shadow has been my muse- a boogyman of sorts. The Norwegian form is Kinderfresser, or child-devourer. In my work the Kinderfresser sees any age person as a child. There are still many stages of development, stages that, to the Kinderfresser, are more obvious than COM, and more intricate than Ethical Thought. The maturity missing from humanity is what the Kinderfresser offers; a terrible experiential knowledge and paradigm shift as far removed from what we know and are as the adult from the child. In this sense of the experience of the terrible I unknowingly aligned myself with Rodin's exploration of the underworld. The eroticism of death within the Gates of Hell, Orpheus, The Burghers of Calais: all are envoys informed of the same paradigm shift that motivates my own work. NATURE My strong tie to Modernist thought relates to my insights regarding the figure as nature and myself as nature, not the idealized bourgeois nature, or the foreign otherness nature is to the mall-bred American, but the nature that demands constant movement and reliance upon the raw animal body in conjunction with the sum of the intellect operating at level of intuition. This is a nature that is lived in, not adventured in. As a patrolman on the continental divide I lived this reality within a raw wilderness, allowing a constant movement, an animal body of instinct and energy, and an intuition for land, weather, trespassers, and animals. I've compiled my essays on these experiences into an unpublished book, and in so doing have found another intuition. This is the intuition for intuition: the intuition for this intuition is the ability to recognize it. In the wilderness it was my prior knowledge of where trespassers were, or the easier to explain away weather "instinct" that was so right-on that the crew and boss planned their day around it. It is something I can't think about to know; instead my mind must be relaxed and my body at the ready and the world a place I willingly disappear into as another movement. The constructed world of humanity moves far differently from this, allowing little movement, denying the real body, and overrunning intuition with intellect, desire, and entertainment. This was the struggle that began Modernism, pushing Gauguin to the South Pacific and van Gogh to an introspective nature. The only places within the city I have found myself able to have full experiences similar to those of my wilderness self are through the fine arts and the martial arts. While focusing on my MFAI gave up the martial arts. (Martial arts allowed too much focus and release, and the hardest reality of creating art of an intuitive nature from within society needed my full commitment. This commitment pushed everything out of balance, allowing discord with my body, my feelings, and my intuitions.) In becoming a stranger to myself I found what was true and lasting, then moved to create it again and claim them as self. This occurred through the acknowledgment of an intuition-for-intuition within the fine arts, my creative focus driving me toward the figure. The figure allows all of the conditions of patrolling the wilderness; there is the constant movement similar to walking the trailless wilderness, but walking with my hands instead of my feet. There is the reliance upon the raw animal body to labor in conjunction with the instinct and intellect combining to intuition. This is sculpting a body that feels right. Anatomy is understood but not an overt concern. There are measurements taken and not strictly adhered to. Instead there is a sense of just-out-of-reachness, an always-never-quite-there, or a was-there-and-not-now. There are the perfect motions as stepping to a bed-sized boulder upon a steep alpine slope, and it spins underfoot, and just as its balance fails, stepping to a next perfect spot just as the spinning boulder crashes down the mountain, and having felt no surprise, no panic at its twisting and falling from underfoot. Instead it is part of a perfect unbroken rhythm. When the sculpture moves under the pressure of creation and rhythms lead to distortion within the figure, and are not overt distortion or abstraction but more an implication of passing movement or internal intent or a perfect refutal of Platonic body/soul dichotomy...this is where the intuition for intuition can begin. Up to this point and through it is strictly mountain intuition, and I can remain content if I maintain ignorant of intuition-for-intuition. Herein is Sartre's existential dialogue, Rilke's self as Malte Laurids Brigge, Jung's collective subconscious, Duchamp's ability to remain unseduced by art, and Rodin's exploration of the cusp of death. I realize that these are poets, philosophers, psychologists, and artists of a prior century, yet they span a gap in the consciousness of humanity that has always been the core issue of my own interests. Knowing them has clarified and supported and given similitude in ways that my contemporaries largely do not. What seems to be missing in my Post-Modern contemporaries is the essential tie to a nature that has been lost to our century, but that I have had unique opportunities to experience. This Post-Modern self-consciousness and wry acrimonious view of the self-as-artist blends with my Modernist inclinations and troubles my work in a manner that is essential to my creative response. A contemporary who spans a dark gap in human consciousness is Stephen de Staebler. His figures struggle between chaos and form, process and intent, media and manipulation. I found inspiration in the integrity and rawness of his explorations. There is a raw antagonism toward the self and art that infused the Kinderfresser exhibit, aligning with Jeff Koons and Mike Kelly. The self­ conscious bad-boy posturing has its appeal, but is not a sustaining direction for me. The Avant-Garde has become a parody of itself since the superstardom of artist "personalities." I did keep the antagonism toward my audience and my work, and the overt statement of this antagonism was the weakest point of the show. I am referring to the Trebouchet, and the resultant "perfect" wax figures. I regret that I pursued that direction, as it limited my exploration of form in beeswax and hemp and hamstrung my creative process with an overt concept that drove the work, rather than the work generating the concept. The creative powers, the urge to make, they have always been a part of me, always my place of focus. What has been the hardest struggle is how to direct myself. Questions such as what is art? What is the artist's responsibility to society/themselves/art? Why pursue art in a culture that devalues it, or only values its monetary potential? Why pursue the figure? Why allow that carving a figure into a responsive material such as wood or stone has an appeal? Can a serious contemporary artist take their work seriously? Or sincerely? Can the figure lead an artist even in the 21st century, with a full realization of art and the art world, without becoming self-conscious? These are the mosquitoes that keep me walking, because the moment I stop they are all over me. They drive me to the high country, the empty lean places, the hardest and most rewarding places to go. Sometimes I only arrive because the bugs have driven me there, the best days are ones of synergy in which the mountains give me the energy to climb them and encourage me up. So too the figure is a place of retreat, of hardship and effort, and of the most complete artistic synergy I have known with the same vast unexplored spirit of back-country wilderness. 18 Print 1 Sequential Jessica 1/2 Life Size, Bronze 20 Print 2 Recombinant Jessica 1/2 Life Size, Aluminum 22 Print 3 Beeswax Jessica 1/2 Life Size, Beeswax &Hemp 24 Print 4 Graces into Furies 1/4 Life Size, Aluminum Print 5 Trebouchet with Beeswax Emily 12' height x 4' width x 9' length Print 6 Partial view of show Bronze, Aluminum, and Beeswax Figures