2009
12 electromagnetic levitation modules, 12 inflatable balls, plywood,
sheet aluminum, paint, cable
63 × 81 × 15 inches
––
The mission of the Museum of Sketches — “to illuminate the creative process” — is realized through a unique collection of artists’ sketches and models.
Arguably a romantic Modernist project – housing the “Eureka” moment – the Museum’s unruly collection and salon-style exhibition mode challenge conventions of art viewing.
Multiple versions and variations of artworks are presented
without resolution.
Viewing is alert and uncertain.
Hungarian-born French artist Marta Pan (1923-2008) is represented in the collection with small-scale models of large commissioned works, hand-drawn construction documents, and small black-and-white photographs of completed sculptures in situ.
Browsing her artist monograph in the Museum library, I discovered an early image of Pan’s “Sculpture flottante I,” 1961, commissioned by the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, The Netherlands.
Inspired and provoked by the Museum’s mandate, I set out to re-make Pan’s elegant, biomorphic sculpture.
My tools included the resources of MIT, where I was based as an artist researcher and fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, founded in 1967 by Hungarian-born American artist Gyorgy Kepes, a contemporary of Marta Pan.
The hand-drawn exhibition catalogue, Exhibition Manual, produced
in conjunction with “Everything Trembles,” is an irregular record of
the process.
Very little is copied.
The original repeats.
1 of 4
Photo: Museum of Sketches
2 of 4
Photo: Museum of Sketches
3 of 4
Photo: Museum of Sketches
4 of 4
Photo: Museum of Sketches