Crystals of Resistance & the Process

Altho it really isn't collage, I want to mention one of the things that are currently fascinating me...and this is the website of the massive installation by Thomas Hirschorn at the 2011 Venice Biennale. The title of his masterpiece is "Crystals of Resistance". It's a huge installation created in the Swiss Pavilion, made of raw materials placed in grand scale. He uses many visual cues to reinforce his basic premise, and they all equal a very powerful exhibit that has enchanted me even just by viewing on the internets.

You are inside a geode. Crystals poke from every direction.

In addition to all the imagery, he has this website that accompanies it. In the site, he supplies many documents and sketches and illustrate the birth of his idea and the evolution that followed. He goes into detail and writes about the project and the meaning of the various dioramas he creates....he supplies a book list of the books that he read that influenced his work. It's a huge treasure trove of his process.

Crystals of Resistance website home page

It's all about the process.

He tells a tale on the Schema page that relates to a time in his past when he witnessed children selling crystals....
I was moved. It was a simple tale, but the fact that he shared it helped me follow along his train of thought, and allowed me a glimpse of his work from another dimension.

My attempts at documenting my not-so-recent Mohawk Valley pieces on Tumblr was an extension of this idea where I am sharing the process. I am not achieving this nearly as well as Thomas Hirschorn with his massive and thorough website exposé!

At first glance, the exhibit appeared to be harsh to me, the appearance of the raw tape and foils and the fact that he makes no attempt to hide it at first jars me and makes me snarl. But I am enraptured by the crystals, since I have a fondness for them, being a Herkimer Diamond fiend.....so I keep looking through the pictures and it all begins to make sense. This is how art is I think. Art used to be something that hung on a wall and looked good. We are living in new times! I am learning to embrace them.