[…] “Oppressive” just about fits “Cupid’s Garden” by David Gardner, which looks like something that ought to adorn an Ayn Rand tract. It’s a gray piece of twisted metal in the middle of a traffic island. Worse, much worse, is Nancy Holt’s “Dark Star Park” — get a load of it! I’m always thinking one of those giant concrete golf balls is going to break lose and roll into traffic. Holt was apparently trying to create an interactive and meaningful piece of art — at a certain time of the year, shadows cast by the objects were supposed to line up with markings on the ground (which I have never seen) to commemorate the purchase of the land on which Rosslyn is built — but even a more traditional artist probably couldn’t do much with this set-up: “The site encompassed a parking lot, the plaza of an office building, an island three-lane traffic intersection and a small park, all looking desolate.” (Quoted from this site.) It still looks desolate; I felt sorry for the poor cicadas a few years ago trying to dig their way out of the few patches of dirt left unpaved. […]
May 24th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
[…] “Oppressive” just about fits “Cupid’s Garden” by David Gardner, which looks like something that ought to adorn an Ayn Rand tract. It’s a gray piece of twisted metal in the middle of a traffic island. Worse, much worse, is Nancy Holt’s “Dark Star Park” — get a load of it! I’m always thinking one of those giant concrete golf balls is going to break lose and roll into traffic. Holt was apparently trying to create an interactive and meaningful piece of art — at a certain time of the year, shadows cast by the objects were supposed to line up with markings on the ground (which I have never seen) to commemorate the purchase of the land on which Rosslyn is built — but even a more traditional artist probably couldn’t do much with this set-up: “The site encompassed a parking lot, the plaza of an office building, an island three-lane traffic intersection and a small park, all looking desolate.” (Quoted from this site.) It still looks desolate; I felt sorry for the poor cicadas a few years ago trying to dig their way out of the few patches of dirt left unpaved. […]