Copper

After a year of working in metals I caved and bought a 10' sheet of copper today for an intaglio series in process. The copper is also the perfect gauge for use in sculpture, and I've been admiring Danh Vo's We the People, currently part of The Ungovernables. All pounded copper.



Based on the dimensions of the original and its copper weight of some 31 tons, Vo had a replica of the Statue of Liberty made which forms the main part of JULY, IV, MDCCLXXVI. He calls the gigantic sculpture WE THE PEOPLE, reciting the first three words of the preamble to the United States’ Constitution of 17 September 1787. But the monumentality of the statue is immediately qualified: the sculpture is dissected into its individual parts and thus abstracted. In his recreation, Vo concentrates on reproducing the thin copper skin (the iron scaffolding supporting the figure is missing), which gives WE THE PEOPLE a special fragility. The broken icon, the destroyed allegorical figure of Libertas, forms a strong counterpoint to the massive materiality.

Via Contemporary Art Daily

Also now posting mobile shots of the studios I work in here.