Vedette (detail)

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on December 2, 2011 at 9:53pm

Curator’s Comment:

 

I’m struck by the elegance of your sculpture, and the way you’re able to fluidly vacillate between plastic space and two dimensional works of the same subject matter.  Vedette is quite beautiful, in an almost tragic manner.  Rather than seeing the animal as a warning outpost or scout, she seems encumbered by her role via the obtrusive bell tethered around her neck, and the necessity of perching precariously atop a post.  Instead of functioning as a guardian or sentry, she is psychologically and figuratively frozen in an arduous position.  The picture is identified as a detail, and I’m wondering if seen in its entirety if the ‘bell’ is in fact the top of a shell casing?  The textural surface qualities of the bronze change throughout the piece, and I enjoy the visual contrast between the coarse body of the goat, and her twisted horns.  I also really like the complexity of the elephants performing in similar suspended positions, but their recognized identity as circus animals injects a playful quality to the pieces that doesn’t exist for me in Vedette.  Like in the piece titled Carry On, the goat is presented as sacrificial, with all of the loaded mythological iconography and folklore intact.