Unveiled at the artist Cesar Domela’s ripe old age of 67, this metallic on clay sculpture solidly punctuated a public consciousness milestone, dependent on how the subject matter touches you. Every artist intends to express his/her most inner thoughts without telling you directly, lest the right intention brings forth misdirected interpretations that sometimes are more trouble than it is worth.
Now, each of us brings our biases, hopes and emotional packages and what not into museums, and it is here that the artist hits this writer the hardest. The oval is shaped like an egg, for a human it is the womb. The dark red represents the inside of the organ and the head, of course, is that of the unborn.
Now, watch how Domela contoured the shape and dare I say it is exactly a question mark reversed. The meaning can’t be clearer: a question mark asks the question while the flipped image is the answer. Take that however you like but in life, a question often contains the answer in it. It is not about the whys or the hows but …. there you have it.
Even more poignant is how unrefined and raw looking the metal is. We have not a shiny, chrome-like exhibition-worthy metals but very much something the artist intended: natural, flowing, rawer and purer than anything. And galleries and museums have always had a huge hand in presentations, and the work is framed in a thin structure. This is no doubt to give emphasis to the grey matter enveloping the embryo.Or whatever you like to think what the damn thing is.
Hakone Open Air Museum (Tokyo)
Composition 1967
By Cesar Domela (Dutch 1900-1992)
Unveiled at the artist Cesar Domela’s ripe old age of 67, this metallic on clay sculpture solidly punctuated a public consciousness milestone, dependent on how the subject matter touches you. Every artist intends to express his/her most inner thoughts without telling you directly, lest the right intention brings forth misdirected interpretations that sometimes are more trouble than it is worth.
Now, each of us brings our biases, hopes and emotional packages and what not into museums, and it is here that the artist hits this writer the hardest. The oval is shaped like an egg, for a human it is the womb. The dark red represents the inside of the organ and the head, of course, is that of the unborn.
Now, watch how Domela contoured the shape and dare I say it is exactly a question mark reversed. The meaning can’t be clearer: a question mark asks the question while the flipped image is the answer. Take that however you like but in life, a question often contains the answer in it. It is not about the whys or the hows but …. there you have it.
Even more poignant is how unrefined and raw looking the metal is. We have not a shiny, chrome-like exhibition-worthy metals but very much something the artist intended: natural, flowing, rawer and purer than anything. And galleries and museums have always had a huge hand in presentations, and the work is framed in a thin structure. This is no doubt to give emphasis to the grey matter enveloping the embryo. Or whatever you like to think what the damn thing is.