The two artworks that I’ve chosen to research on are The Dialogue by Mineko Grimmer and Melting Men by Néle Azevedo.
Insert:
Brazilian artist Néle Azevedo carved thousands of figures out of ice. She placed them on city steps and left them in the sun to melt. Although the work was originally created for a different purpose, Azevedo embraced the fact that people also saw it as a comment on the issue of global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps over the coming years. Without the use of time, and a little help from the sun, the piece would not have been so powerful.
Reflection:
Upon further research I found it quite interesting that the artwork is well known for an idea different from the artist’s original, which was a response to the historical monuments ” those bronze guys on rearing horses and generals on pedestals that are popular in South America and, really, all over the world” and create something that was the complete opposite “small figures, that sit on the floor. It doesn’t honor anybody. It does honor the anonymous”. Instead it’s known for climate change.
I love the ephemerality of the medium she uses though, because the ice lasts for such a short amount of time it brings a lot of meaning such as the fragility of human existence and also how we are small and have short lifespans in contrast to the Earth, which brings about different issues.
Thousands of little ice met are set up and displayed at multiple locations all over the world. They melt in about thirty minutes depending on the temperature and humidity of the location. The water left behind will eventually evaporate and leave nothing behind which is great in terms of clean up.
Insert:
Mineko Grimmer uses time, gravity and sound in her installation piece, The Dialogue. Suspended over a framework of bamboo poles and guitar strings hangs a pyramid block of ice. Frozen in the ice are hundreds of pebbles. As the ice melts, the pebbles are released. As they fall through the bamboo and guitar strings, they produce sounds of a musical quality. Through the use of time, Grimmer has developed an instrument with the ability to play itself.
Reflection:
This artwork talks about a “dialogue” using the medium of music, an ever-evolving minimalist composition forged from opposites: natural elements (wood, water, stone, metal) and an imposed grid; stillness and motion; silence and sound.
“Guitar strings stretch across the platform standing in the other pool, 16 of them arranged in two loosely interwoven pyramids. Hollow brass rods pass through a post in the pool’s center. When pebbles drop onto the strings, either directly or glancingly, notes resound, one at a time or in short runs. Often the stones will miss the strings and ping against the brass rods, or fall straight into the water with a gentle splash. The frozen pyramidal masses are replaced when they have fully disintegrated, and the action/inaction continues.”
As the sound is ever changing due to the irregularity of the stone dropping, no two soundscapes are alike which creates this dialogue between the artwork and the viewer using sound and silence. It’s meant to provide the viewer a nourishing, expansive, restorative and invigorating experience.
Compare & Contrast:
The main similarity between the first artwork and the second artwork is the medium because they both make use of the ice melting, the thousands of little melting men in the sun and the ice that thaws and allows the pebbles to drop. I believe that both artworks have different messages, one being about climate change and a reaction to historical monuments and another about constant change in life. Other than the ice I do feel that these artworks are actually quite different overall, even in terms of space, one being a piece that has gone to many parts of the outside world and another in galleries.
In relation to time I think that these artworks are both examples of measured time, because they viewers are waiting for the ice to melt, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. In the first artwork the beginning is the placement of the thousands of little ice men, the middle is the melting and the end is when they’re fully melted and start to evaporate. In the second artwork the beginning is when the iced pebbles are placed above the instrument, the middle is when the pebbles fall and create sound with the instrument and the end is when the final pebble falls. The cycles are continued with human intervention for both works which would be the making and replacement of the melting men or the pebbles trapped in ice.
Reference:
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-02-24/brazilian-artists-work-doesnt-last-it-melts-and-thats-her-point
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210783/Melting-men-Thousand-ice-sculptures-left-thaw-sun-highlight-climate-change-Arctic.html
https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/03/art-review-mineko-grimmer-at-koplin-del-rio-1.html