'Four Roads' by Jason Rhoades When you’re waiting on your student loan, you cannot go wrong with a cheap and chic day out to The Baltic, Gateshead. Today I went along and signed up for a visitor’s pass that allowed me to take photos of the current exhibition from the Jason Rhoades. With only one floor open of the ‘Four Roads’ two floor spectacle sadly, I only got to see one half of the exhibition. Jason Rhoades was an American sculptor who, when he graduated from UCLA, got tied up in the 90s art scene. After finding patronage with the David Zwirner Gallery, New York, he displayed his first construction of a Garage called the Cherry Mikita. The ‘Four Rhoades’ exhibition displays all of his work created over 15 years (Including the Cherry Mikitia) up until his death. His ambitious scale installations reflected his larger than life visions. In order to construct them, Rhodes used off the shelf consumer goods and assembled them in such a way as to elevate them from their normal beginnings. His experiences living as a straight, white, middle class American male with a rural boyhood and strong creative drive inspired his work. As a whole, his work is an attempt to transform a jumbled mess of nothings into something ordered and meaningful. For him, the saying greater than the sum of its parts is indeed true. Like all of his installations ‘The Creation Myth’ from his systems collection is a large scale construction. It represents a model of the artist’s brain. The chaotic wires, loud music smoke and pornographic images gave me a sense of disturbance, though I found the work true and honest. I wonder if the artist conceived the pieces as one complete picture in his head before assembling them, or if they were simply the result of a trial and error approach. I suspect that the answer is a mixture of both approaches. |
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CategoriesAuthorI am Olivia Davies, aged 20. This is my blog for Fashion Retail and Enterprise. Archives
April 2015
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