“All things long to persist in their being” meditates on space and time by sequencing hefty hemlock joined together into structures like a door frame or an arbor but with an ancient resonance reminiscent of the Stonehenge monuments. As the repetitive shapes move along a spiral path, they change scale from ten feet high to smaller than a domino. Your own movement alongside this spiral path is a crucial interaction in interpreting the piece. The spare constructions allow for negative space that reveals the distant iterations further along the path. Your choice of vantage point is a constantly changing parameter within this fixed mathematical relationship. The scale shifts, but the ratio remains and inches can become miles, seconds spent walking can be interpreted as years. The viewer is connected to a cosmic constant that dictates the shape of our world from seashells to galaxies.
The algorithmic nature of the piece invites comparison to Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty,” a land-based exploration of natural geometries and recontextualization of the temporal in art. If Smithson is the cool science teacher who took your class outside on a field trip, then Butler is the cool science teacher that let you build models rather than scribble equations on the chalkboard. “Castle” feels at home within the gallery walls because the sculptures act as didactic springboards for an awareness inculcated with the spiritual drive of science and inspired by the joyful craft of artistic creation.
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Ian Paige can be reached at ianpaige@gmail.com
Coleman Burke Gallery: mwethli@bowdoin.edu
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Amazing but true: each year since 1989, the tireless curatorial team at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park have scoured the New England area to put together a show highlighting artists from the area.
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This isn’t the sort of government-funded art rife with smut, perversion, and blasphemy that sparks legislative hearings — unfortunately.
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The Bowdoin Alumni Printmaking Exhibition at ICON Contemporary Art in Brunswick is the perfect primer for the array of talent emerging from the Bowdoin College campus.
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Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, Science and Technology, Sciences, Visual Arts, More
, Science and Technology, Sciences, Visual Arts, Bowdoin College, Sculpture, Robert Smithson, Ben Butler, CASTLE, Less
