Steel rusts, chains orphan
Time glowers like a coffin
Stone sledgehammer gives clay persist
Marked by man, machine, glyphsi
Rare craft, menacing creation
Scrawled permanence of civilisation’s memorandum
Reed cut, ridges, worn edges
Marble stamped missing pages
‘Neath structural braggadocio snows
Luminous encryptions of tik-tak-toes
Biting scattered diamonds of light
Cuneiform signs, subterranean fight
Motheringii shield of stainless steel vexxed
Rodin’s broken body frames Holzer’s broken textiii
Sheltered, not shtetled
Words: history’s forgotten vesselsiv
Stone sledgehammer gives clay persist
Marked by man, machine, glyphsv
- On glyphs:
a glyph is a design or composition which stands in its own space and exists–whether cut in stone or written by brush–both by the act of the plastic imagination which led to its invention in the first place and by the act of its presentation in any case since. Both involved–I shall try to show–a graphic disciplining of the highest order.
~Charles Olson (1910-1970) in “Project (1951): The Art of the Language of Mayan Glyphs ↩
- The mother is pregnant with possibility, y’know, like zero was for the Ancient Mayans. ↩
- Jenny Holzer is mostly known for her witty poetic phrasing on oversized posters, a jumbo “text artist” of sorts. I actually don’t mind her work generally, it’s definitely above average compared to the admittedly modest standards of the “art fair” scene. That being said, perhaps her typical fare is a bit too political for the Sheikh Zayed crowd? In any event, this 2017 work of hers at the Louvre Abu Dhabi shows remarkable artistic flexibility and sensitivity. I really think she got the butter and the money for the butter in creating a contemporary artwork that thoughtfully reaches into the past while also holding its own against the dramatic, impossibly-domed Jean Nouvel superstructure.
- It’s vessels all the way down. ↩
- Holzer reminds us how important Larva Labs’ Autoglyphs are, especially when rendered larger-than-lyph:
