You will all be pleased to know that finding this object at the Whitney Museum was not a surprise. You would think it might be, given my mention lately of so many things I was surprised to see. This is an amazing piece of sculpture and the thing that makes it even more amazing is where it is located. It is on a window ledge in the stairwell in the museum. AND... When you stand next to it, there are instructions to look out the window and across the street, where there are two other similar sculptures, one on an outside windowsill, and another on top of a chimney! They are all called "Dwellings," by the artist Charles Simonds. If you click on this to see more detail you will see that the structures are meticulously constructed, and resemble some of the Native American structures in the Southwest U.S. This is a beautifully detailed piece. If you are curious, the clay-colored base is about 18" from left to right.
The buildings are neat but the photo gave me the creeps. It looks like someone's fingers are trapped in the middle.
ReplyDeleteJoan
That's cool, but those finger looking things are vaguely unsettling. Are the sculptures across the street big enough to see, or do they have a telescope set up?
ReplyDeleteHi Eric: You can see that the other sculptures are there across the street. Not in any detail, really, but you can see that they are there. I am not sure how long they have been there, but there is a tree growing in the way now, so the one on the window sill is only partly visible. Yes, the "foot" thing is strange, but it is not unlike the nature of the landscape in the southwest.
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