Tory Fair: Testing a World View (Again)
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Earlier this week I stopped by the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum to see Tory Fair’s Testing a World View (Again), a recent installation placed on the Pollack Terrace, accessible from the glass doors of the main gallery.
Tory Fair, Testing a World View (Again), 2011. Installation at DeCordova Sculpture Park & Museum. Fiberglass, aluminum, wax. Courtesy of LaMontagne Gallery, Boston. Photo by Tony Luong.
Fair casts her body (unmisktably youthful and petite) in pink resin, her head slightly bowed, seemingly in humility, her upper and lower body forming a 90-degree angle. Fair’s four figures evoke different emotions or attitudes, depending on where and how they’re mounted: restful, contemplative, whimsical (mounted on the side of the museum), or at work, such as the one in a jack-knife position, appearing to be doing a sit-up.
Small daisies cluster the heads, cascade down the shoulders, sprinkle the arms and thighs. “My sculptures are premised on the perception that nature is the imagination; that nature is ourselves; and that nature is our surroundings, however urban, deserted, bucolic, or wild they may be,” writes Fair about her work.
Tory Fair Photo by Tony Luong
Because Fair’s sculptures are life-cast, they evoke the sort empathy you’d give to a sleeping stranger on a park bench who at any moment could rustle to life and engage in conversation. The terrace makes an ideal setting for this work, the rock wall and museum’s red brick exterior wall frame the work, set them amongst nature and yet within a realistic human context.
Fair’s installation is the museum’s seventh project in its PLATFORM series--an on-going effort to invite emerging and mid-career artists to create site-specific work for the museum. Fair’s installation will remain up through spring 2012.
Tory Fair, Testing a World View (Again), 2011. Installation at DeCordova Sculpture Park & Museum. Fiberglass, aluminum, wax. Courtesy of LaMontagne Gallery, Boston. Photo by Tony Luong.
| Pretty insightful. Thanks! |
| Posted by: Elizabeth On: Aug 30, 2011 9:27 am |
| I like, Nature is the imagination... and her work brings a good boost of life back to the Museum exterior; wish this had been up when we took our students this summer - this manages to catch that crossover of nature/culture. And as you say, the pieces evoke a strange empathy. Thanks. |
| Posted by: sebastian On: Aug 28, 2011 3:23 pm |
