Sensthethesia

An Engineer’s Review

Ulrich Museum March 2^nd, 2007

Thomas Engdahl

I was given an insightful tour of the Ulrich Museum and the adjoining facilities by Joshua Unterman. He first showed some of the processes of the art before exposing it in order to help the viewer understand the art better. Most specifically he introduced the basics of printing and showed some of the equipment. Then we proceeded into the Ulrich Museum from the back entrance.

The piece that really caught my eye was “Double Transversal” by Richard Serra. This was a very large print. The piece is very large in scale and occupies most of the wall it is hung on. It was also one of the first pieces visible when coming in from the back entrance. The print is very monochromatic; the black creating very large negative space opposed to the white walls of the room. The piece’s parallelism with two identical shapes create a very interesting illusion when view from a moderate distance both giving the shapes depth and also making the viewer doubtful of the two shape’s equality by use of devices such as skewed and concave perimeters. When viewed at a closer distance, more depth is exhibited from the large amount of ink used on this print. The inks clump up creating an almost metallic texture, like panted over oxidizing iron. Of course when viewed from the side the piece has no depth as all prints are flat, but the piece seems to merit such practices.

Another Piece that was discussed was “Torn Leaf Hold to Fallen Elm with Water” by Andy Goldsworthy. What was viewed was not the piece itself but a picture to document a temporary piece or ephemeral work. Goldsworthy used limited tools in this work, constructing the entire piece from trees and leaves and other elements from the surrounding stream. This clash between the eternal nature of the wild built on the brevity of life is portrayed by the platform that is the elm and the construction of the artist on the elm torn against the elm, revealing elm beneath the construction of leaves.

The last piece I want to discuss is “Landscape (detail)” by Kristen Beal –De Gandmont. This installation consisted of many small uniform pieces of plastic mounted to the wall. The white light shining from above the piece then created patterns as it affected by the properties of the plastic. The piece created an interesting three-dimensional presence when the light was viewed in conjunction with the plastic, making the plastic look like crystalline or solid glass. Upon further inspection, these fixtures were flat pieces of plastic shaped like raindrops. The idea of rain is further exemplified by the dense distribution of the plastic figures toward the top and a thinning number of figures as it worked its way to the floor. All the droplets faced downward which is important in a portrayal of rain and gravity.