one million sculptings

i bet you thought you were in a brash new gallery in chelsea when you saw these photos, didn't you? well, they might as well be fresh new york art stars because i give you the cream of the crop, the tops in their studios, the daring dozen who out-scored the throngs of sculptor grad hopefuls, indeed, the very future of art: the graduate sculptors of virginia commonwealth! while they guard our strong foundations on the sturdy ground floor here on 1000 broadstreet far from where we painters stray to the lofty third floor, we can still catch a strain of the sculptor cheerleaders' chant seeping through the concrete architecture from below, "we're number one, we're number one, we're number one, WE'RE NUMBER ONE!" and so it is with great pride and prejudice that i present the cultural pride of richmond. i may even re-edit this post to name artists with artworks someday. but for now, since i don't know their names, they are "THE sculptors."
so, cool show huh?
my initial thoughts on the show are that they hold to a contemporary pattern of young art - a sort of low-fi pattern. wether it be banal everyday materials or rudimentary mechanical devices or a studied throw-away careless manner of construction. and the attitude is pretty fun or even sinister, after all, not-serious is the new serioius. anyway, i'm a fan of the show and i am now a blogger so i took these pictures.

i don't know what's going on with this one but that thing inside revolves...and look how low-fi it is! it's just in an ordinary cardboard box like no one even cares!

another basic kinetic guy, this time a surfboard which dips down and up down and up down probably about infinity times

if you're like me and one of those painters who can't seem to fight off the urge to draw these sort of geometric lines this sculpture will at once attract you and fill you with self-loathing for your trite visual addictions. this is an elegantly welded version and i heard that the choices of point and line are dictated by a map of richmond shopping. diagramming weeks of purchases by studying receipts. way to bring in some content to muddy up that pure form.

batroscope. i know what you're thinking - scary - but this isn't even the most sinister piece in the show.
THIS IS

that's real money they've sanded into ziplocked oblivion!!! sick.

this one may look sinister at first glance to the naive eye influenced by socially constructed notions of thorns and horns , but it's not. it's a pretty stringed instrument like a pretty medieval bard would play for the lords and ladies (i saw and heard so myself)


now i pegged this one as sort of a functional looking yet clearly non-functional excersize system. boy was i wrong. i happened to be passing the gallery during a group critique and the artist was WEARING it! it was on like a jet pack with those dangling white straps fitting perfectly around the head and those grips in perfect position for the hands and the belt thing securely around the waist...moving parts and lights too. everyone seemed so jovial as the artist maneuvered around the room with his delightful art equipment that i realized that it DOES have a function: it's a fun maker.

careful, lest you get bored looking at this "i don't care how it looks" art. wait til i tell you that this frankenstein's ironing board has a motion detector that makes it jerk around when you approach it. (don't go to this show if you've seen that new exorcism movie) (i will not see that new exorcism movie)


i'm going to have to procrastinate a statement on this one until i learn if it moves around or lights up.


i have to admit this could give the sanded dollar bill a run for it's "most sinister sculpture at VCU 2005" title. it is indeed a giant rag dolly. can you read the letter she wrote? its a rhyme inviting you to put a pin in her body. at the risk of what a psychosexual analysis would uncover i will confess to putting a pin in the dolly's left big toe area.


ahhh. an artist after my own heart, hearkening directly to the indivisble donald judd. there's that "whatever" attitude again. man, i need to loosen up in my piety of my art heroes.

nice tape ball. it's like a geode made of paper




if you're scared of multitudes of glowing orange eyeballs bursting at you, you might be tempted to label this one the most sinister. but i'm scared of it because it's like a giant spawn of frog eggs. gross!


this is the only piece in the show that my roommates would immediately recognize as sculpture. it's a bird. it's a plane. it's the 4th anniversary of 9-11 yesterday....coincidence?!?


look at all these circular forms! i didn't withstand the critique that surely discussed this so i confess i did not pause to form my own connections between circular braided hair, circularly stacked egg shells, and a circularly packaged roll of tape - except the circular part, but i took the detail photo to try and show that the tape is balanced on pins stuck along the central ring. i thought that was neat.


But wait, there's more!
these Sculptors are prolific! uncontent to rest on the laurels of the show posted above, which is obviously fantastic and worthy of resting on, the sculptors have banded together again to make a set of diminuitive sculptures fashioined to fit in an undergrad locker up here on the third floor.
the show is called Scurvey Picnic and just might outdo the fun of the debut show posted above. they had mini chocolates at the opening, spoke in 'yaar', told pirate jokes (...yaaar, and it's drivin' me nuts!") and sang selections from the pirates of penzance and everything. doesn't get much better than that!

i mean, it has it all. a light set off by a motion detector that clicks on when you bend down to peer inside. a red button which, when pressed, activates a miniature rocking chair, and all the great themes of young art within a pirate dioramma!

but this is the best part. see that pie the size of a quarter??? oh, yes. it IS real. down to the filling and baked pie crust woven in milliminal strips. and those are mini teeth in the jar on the right and mini severed hands in the foreground but i don't think they're as real as that pie.