Thursday, July 10, 2008

Ry Rocklen



I was really intrigued by this simple sculpture I saw at PS1 the other day. So reductive in its materials but still really powerful I thought. I love to see interesting and beautiful things made out of overlooked, everyday objects. This piece is simply broken coloured glass and a clothing hanger. It is made by the artist Ry Rocklen. Here are some more examples of his work...

From the Whitney Biennial 2008 website:

"Ry Rocklen's sculptures paradoxically reflect at once a respect for the Duchampian sculptural tradition and an anarchic rebellion against art historical constraints. Collecting cast-off objects from the streets, dumps, or thrift stores, he doctors and assembles them into readymade sculptures charged with an eccentric delicacy that gives them a second, more "poetic" life. Rocklen strategically capitalizes on the viewer's mental and emotional associations, as Robert Rauschenberg did for his Combines, by selecting objects as much for their cultural connotations as their form. At times employing a wry sense of humor to balance his stringent editing techniques, Rocklen treats manufactured items, like toys, food packaging, furniture remnants, and construction materials, with a spontaneity he traces back to his youth and the development of the creative process through pretend play. This sense of play is reenacted in Rocklen's process-based studio practice, as he sifts through and rearranges society's leftovers."

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