Goodness Selma, this is the land of blowhards (mostly nice thoughtful blowhards, but blowhards nonetheless) so quit with the apologizing and just go ahead and say your stuff. I for one am digging your input enormously.
Your question about Turell is really challenging. I love James Turell, pretty much without reservation. And yes, I think the call for sublime experience carries about the same weight with him as with Serra. I agree with Tom's characterisation of the "funereal I hate you and want to crush you presence" of Serra's big metal things. And I'm personally not so keen on material and objects. I have never seen any Serra outdoors, and have always been in a relationship to the work of feeling slightly threatened, but also stunned by massiveness. I found the maze (I'm not even going to address its supposed femaleness cause that if that was intended in the work its the dumbest idea for a sculpture I've ever heard) quite unnerving, and I sort of enjoyed the personal challenge of overcoming claustrophobic fear to see it to the end. By far the most engaged I've ever felt with his sculpture.
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Your question about Turell is really challenging. I love James Turell, pretty much without reservation. And yes, I think the call for sublime experience carries about the same weight with him as with Serra. I agree with Tom's characterisation of the "funereal I hate you and want to crush you presence" of Serra's big metal things. And I'm personally not so keen on material and objects. I have never seen any Serra outdoors, and have always been in a relationship to the work of feeling slightly threatened, but also stunned by massiveness. I found the maze (I'm not even going to address its supposed femaleness cause that if that was intended in the work its the dumbest idea for a sculpture I've ever heard) quite unnerving, and I sort of enjoyed the personal challenge of overcoming claustrophobic fear to see it to the end. By far the most engaged I've ever felt with his sculpture.
- sally mckay 4-20-2004 12:11 am