Having grown up in a house dominated by an artistic mother, I learned fast the difference (my mother saw) between art and craft. My mother sketched, painted, and practiced calligraphy. When she lost the use of her right hand to lymphedema after breast cancer treatment, she continued to sketch and later took up sculpture and pottery. At the time she was the only person I knew who could throw clay with one hand.
My art education did not suffer even though my family was quite poor. The Catholic schools I attended as a child were short on tolerance for childish behavior, but long on charity - and culture. We children regularly attended the symphony and theater, and we were made privy to the history behind the art and sculpture that gave St. Mary’s Cathedral it’s life, light, color, and texture. Right or wrong, by the time I was 10 years old I was well aware of what constituted art and the arts - and what didn’t.
There is a sculpture in front of the Print Media Academy in Heidelberg, Germany that recently caught my eye. At 13 meters high (42 feet), it is the world's largest equine sculpture. Its sculptor, Jürgen Goertz, named it “S-Printer Horse” for both sprinting and printing. It is made of stainless steel and aluminum.
I shared a picture of “S-Printer” with my sister, an art teacher, who thought it interesting that I would like this sculpture, but not a similar sculpture in our hometown. It isn’t that I liked “S-Printer” that much; I just thought it was an interesting construction of balance and theme. Plus, it’s really big! She was right to compare the two, though, because neither of them, in my mind, constitute art.
I was 11-years-old when I caught sight of John Kearney’s “Grandfather’s Horse.” I’d never seen anything like it and only saw it from a great distance on the way to and from my grandmother’s house. No one told me what it was made of or anything else about it. I was utterly fascinated by what appeared to be a contrast of many smooth, intensely reflective surfaces and jagged lines that absorbed light. It was very much as if it might just run away in a flurry of magic. I couldn't wait to touch it.
Article comments
1 - Elaine
Love love love the horse!!
2 - Kevin Freitas
What I find interesting in your article Diana, is the contrast between your first impression, "I was utterly fascinated by what appeared to be a contrast of many smooth, intensely reflective surfaces and jagged lines that absorbed light. It was very much as if it might just run away in a flurry of magic" and your subsequent "disappointment" in seeing the sculpture up close. It seems to me, this particular sculpture, has successfully accomplished what any good piece of art should do, that is, stir the imagination. Other than a long history of artists "playing" with that fine line between what you see and what you feel when looking at art, the materials used in making it, either enhance the artist's intent or blur the perception (from a spectator's point of view) its physical reality or presence. It is not, for the most part, a switch & bait as you call it.
I probably wouldn't classify the chromed bumper horse as "found art" either - the difference is that the artist is not making do with what he found per say, but is intentionally looking for chromed bumpers to make the sculpture, they (the bumpers) are not things he found lying in the street. When I think of found art, I think of the greatest master of this genre, Marcel Duchamp or someone like Kurt Schwitters and his collages, which collage is, at its most basic form "found."
3 - Erin
I will always love the "bumper ponies" as we affectionately call them 'round here. As well as the goats, the pig, the giraffe (nicely placed inside a bank, right next to a tall potted tree), and the fighting bulls. I've always loved the smooth, shiny surfaces and to this day I still get up close to peek inside where there are gaps between the welded pieces.
In another art direction-aesthetic puzzles-, Kearney, still alive, is aware that these bumper creations are rusting from the inside out, the ones placed outside that is. He has said there is no way to repair them (since car parts were not manufactured originally to be art parts....art parts...hehe...I digress) and they'll have to simply be taken off display and done away with.
Are we really okay with that? Don't ask Diana, she'll attend the funerals ;) but really, should we let him let his artwork be destroyed?
4 - Teri Centner
Nice photo of the Heidelberg statue! ;-)