Cubes
Posted by ben on 17 Apr 2007 at 03:33 pm | Tagged as: responses/reviews
The other night I had a dream that I was searching for one of Sol LeWitt’s cubes in an ancient temple turned into a modern tourist attraction. I won’t go into detail, but the whole dream embodied this strange tension between spirituality, diversion, and aesthetics; not to mention antiquity and modernity.
The morning after this dream, I came across an article in the New York Times about Gregor Schneider’s black cube sculpture in Hamburg. This piece is intended to resemble the Kaaba, a huge cube at the center of the Great Mosque in Mecca. Although there is no law in Islam against representing the Kaaba (and it has been represented many times), the piece has been considered too politically charged to show by several institutions. It is now finally being shown outside the Hamburger Kunsthalle as part of an exhibit honoring Malevich.
There are too many convergences here for me to follow all the threads, but the transformation of the cube from spirit (Kaaba, and also New Jerusalem), to feeling (Malevich), to concept (LeWitt), to politics (Gregor) is really leaving me speechless right now.
Yoshitoshi’s courage, vision and force of character gave ukiyo-e another generation of life, and illuminated it with one last burst of glory.
“When Being A Critic Means Making Your Education Public”
4 Comments – Show Original Post
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Gabby said…
This reminds me of something Earl Miller said at a panel discussion about criticism at York last year: “Being an art critic means changing your mind in public.” I think he even added “a lot” to the end at some point.
In any case, I understood the way you were quoted in Eye as being pretty civil towards both artist and project. And it is creepy that the internet/blogging world will never die.
April 9, 2009 8:34 AM
Leah Sandals said…
Thanks for the comment Gabby. It’s basically all part of the job.
April 9, 2009 10:58 AM
L.M. said…
Nothing creepy about it at all, it’s a record of an interesting public conversation.
(and being an artist involves growing up in public — can’t remember who said that first)
April 9, 2009 12:21 PM
こゝろ said…
The deed has been done. We wed, we honeymooned, and now we are back to Real Life™
April 10, 2009 12:51 AM