I am posting regularly on the recent placement of the 2008-2009 ArtInPlace public sculptures along the byways of Charlottesville. Please follow me in this series as I give you a little tour...
Sculpture has both the luxury and curse of existing in three dimensions. It can be viewed in the round, but it ultimately must succumb to the realities of gravity and physics. Two dimensional art, although limited by its typical residence on a flat surface, gets to play with boundless visual realities. Jackson, Missouri sculptor Chris Wubbena takes advantage both these concepts.
In his AIP submission titled "the reality assumption" (located at the intersection of Emmett Street and Stadium Road near the UVa campus) Chris immediately puts the viewer on notice that this is not a typical sculpture. You can identify that the structure is created from formed and fabricated steel, but the steel has been made to look like large stones. Typically, sculpting in stone utilizes a reductive process (the removal of material), whereas metal sculpting generally utilized the additive process (building up of material and construction). So Chris gives us one material that is made to look like another and uses one sculpting method that is reserved for the other material. Interesting. This juxtaposition stimulates the eye/mind connection as well as the subconscious.
The strength of Chris' sculpture lies is his use of both the realities of three dimensions and adding the boundless nature of a two dimensional image. On the surface of his steel stones, Chris has fashioned wooden window frames. The windows are filled with painted cement giving views of a landscape on one side and a distant cityscape on the other. Not only are we able to look at the piece, we are able to look into the piece... Into another world from the one we are standing. It's a terrific affect and elevates this sculpture as one of my favorites in the AIP group.
Chris says this about the piece:
"the reality assumption" is a sculpture composed of acid etched steel, wood and painted cement. The sculpture references the dichotomous world of fact and belief. The wooden framed windows within the rock-like, fabricated steel sculpture represent an individual's view into the world. The view is blocked by painted cement that fills the window and prevents an actual account of reality. The black, painted views on the cement are of grass and cityscape, two opposite realities. The etched areas are eroded with hand written text. The works "blind" and "faith" repeatedly appear on separate sides of the sculpture in order to mimic the wooden frames. The two words become evident as the viewer steps closer. In the end, this sculpture is designed to encourage the individual to question what is fact and what is fiction within the social and physical world.
Regarding his work in general, Chris says this:
The artwork I create exists as a series of artifacts that exhume, analyze, and challenge issues from yesterday and today. The concepts and forms that make up my artwork generate from an interest in melding physical and cultural history into compositions that reinterpret and reinvent contemporary belief systems. Through a growing assortment of media, I author compositions that seek not only to compile but also erode visual information, thus revealing uncertainty with assumed realities in global and personal contexts… The overall body of my work to date investigates our shared contemporary existence as it sits teetering atop a world of accumulated beliefs, traditions, and misconceptions.
For more about Chris Wubbena and his art, check out his website here.
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