OK, Now What?
« back to All BlogsBy Debbie Hagan
Frankly I'm not exactly sure why David Lang titled his latest exhibit, OK, Now What?, up now through October 2 at the Boston Sculpture Gallery. What he means by this isn't crystal clear, but that's okay by me. Lang is not an over-explaining artist. who spells out what you can see for yourself or coddles you so you don't have to think very hard. Rather he's provocative, witty, and contemplative as he blends mythology, science, and humor.
First Strike, David Lang
His sculptures are engineering feats, suggesting transportation and machinery, fashioned with wheels, motion detectors, and motley moving parts. Some play soundtracks from old radio commercials. Some pump liquids through tiny tubes. Some offer recorded snippets of conversation and play-by-plays from a Red Sox game. One is built with a Model T Ford spark coil that sends off a high voltage arc spelling out the machine's name, Aphrodite, in Morse code.
In the July/August issue of Art New England, New Sulpture: Defying Gravity, Alicia Faxon described Lang's studio in Wayland, Massachusetts, where he makes these works, as "an alchemist's abode with doll parts, records, farm implements, and welding equipment."
There, Lang tells Faxon, "The wheels represent the passage of time as well as space. Motion is inferred and actual, generated by a motion sensor in the piece."
The Swine Flew detail, David Lang
In one of Lang’s works called Swine Flew (Faxon wanted to rename it, When Pigs Fly) three small pigs with wings fly over a welded rod carriage. "Amusing, seemingly weightless, delicately structured, the work teases the imagination and our earthbound ideas of sculpture," writes Faxon. "Another light-structured piece, Horse Play, has a phalanx of preserved sea horses that gallop up and down at different heights, suggesting the rush of the sea and its inhabitants. These and other space structures challenge our perceptions of both process and finished work; however, Lang insists the most important components are air and imagination."
As Lang explains in a YouTube video , he is interested in the "unanticipated, unexpected, unlikely events that occur in our lives."
Hearing this, I think that maybe the title to this show suggests the serendipity of life, as in the John Lennon saying, "Life happens when you're busy making other plans."
Horse Play, David Lang
Making sculptures hasn't always been Lang's passion. As Chris Bergeron explains in an article he wrote for the MetroWest Daily News, the artist spent his career, thirty years, teaching art at Concord's middle school, looking forward to his retirement in a cottage that he'd purchased in Ireland. But in 2003 he had a stroke, which changed everything and limited some of his movements.
To boost his small motor skills, Lang played around with wire, which eventually led to the intricate kinetic sculptures we see today.
When I visited, on opening night, I kept circling back to one sculpture, Sound Bites. It's hard to explain what drew me to it, because it wasn't the most intricate of the group. In part, I couldn't figure out what Lang had used for the mouths, but the sound they made (more clack,clack in person than on the YouTube video) reminded me of the snapping of those joke false teeth you find in a novelty shop. Also, the rough texture of the metal with their rust, scraps of paint, and signs of wear piqued my imagination. Did they come from a machine possibly used in a factory?
As with the title, the sculptures evoke mystery and intrigue, set on wheels that help viewers escape on a Willy Wonka type of adventure, leaving behind ordinary time and space to those with less imagination.
| Really enjoyed this exhibit this Fall during the SOWA market...the gallery was always packed and on the day I went, Mr. Lang was there greeting everyone. I also enjoyed Sound Bites. Fabulous creation! |
| Posted by: Off Our Wall On: Dec 18, 2011 4:39 pm |
| Not bad at all felals and gallas. Thanks. |
| Posted by: Esther On: Oct 22, 2011 7:48 am |
