Thursday, January 12, 2012

Post-Industrial Pagan Megaliths

by Robert Boyd

At night, you come across this semi-circle of glowing objects. The light from them, especially in the cool winter air, makes you think of Christmas decorations, and their verticality makes you think of Christmas trees. This group of sculptures is collectively called Constructed Chaos and was built by James Ciosek.

Constructed Chaos sculpture group
James Ciosek, from left to right: The Boat, found corrugated tin and bamboo, cement; Agriculture, found corrugated tin patterned with buckshot, deer slugs, .38, .22 and .223 pistol and rifle rounds, found corrugated fiberglass, fluorescent lights, cement; Sex, found corrugated tin patterned with buckshot, deer slugs, .38, .22 and .223 pistol and rifle rounds, found corrugated fiberglass, fluorescent lights with pink lenses, cement; Entropy or infinity, found corrugated tin patterned with buckshot, deer slugs, .38, .22 and .223 pistol and rifle rounds, found corrugated fiberglass, fluorescent lights with purple lenses, cement, all from 2011

Ciosek found the corrugated tin and fiberglass on the streets of Houston after hurricane Ike. He states that by recycling these materials, he is monumentalizing "destruction as a necessary and integral component of growth/creation/regeneration.  The concept of destruction is referred to by the disordered areas of the material.  Broken outer layers reveal a complete and/or luminous center- a serial movement or growth.  The idea of creation is represented through the phallus and yoni composition.   Reclaiming hurricane debris to use in sculpture is a cycle of regeneration in and of itself. Compositionally, Constructed Chaos is based on the number three, which represents the completeness and interdependence of seemingly opposing forces in the cycle of creation, destruction, recreation."

Monumentalizing cycles has been one of the major activities of humanity for thousands of years. Looking at this half-circle of pillar-shaped sculptures makes one think of Stonehenge. The cycles are different, though. Stonehenge was about the year, and the cycles that were so important to agricultural man. For us, the cycle of building, destruction, recycling and building happens at its own pace. But even so, building a monument to this process seems apt--a modern man making a monument to a cycle that is important to us now, just as the makers of Stonehenge were making a monument to the cycle that was most important to them.

Constructed Chaos sculpture group
James Ciosek, from left to right: Sex, found corrugated tin patterned with buckshot, deer slugs, .38, .22 and .223 pistol and rifle rounds, found corrugated fiberglass, fluorescent lights with pink lenses, cement; Entropy or infinity, found corrugated tin patterned with buckshot, deer slugs, .38, .22 and .223 pistol and rifle rounds, found corrugated fiberglass, fluorescent lights with purple lenses, cement; The Fossil Record found corrugated tin patterned with buckshot, deer slugs, .38, .22 and .223 pistol and rifle rounds, found corrugated fiberglass, fluorescent lights with amber lenses, cement; The Insanctity of the Species found corrugated tin patterned with a paintball gun then cut out with a plasma torch, fluorescent lights with blue lenses, cement; all from 2011


Constructed Chaos sculpture group
James Ciosek, from left to right: The Fossil Record found corrugated tin patterned with buckshot, deer slugs, .38, .22 and .223 pistol and rifle rounds, found corrugated fiberglass, fluorescent lights with amber lenses, cement, 2011; The Insanctity of the Species found corrugated tin patterned with a paintball gun then cut out with a plasma torch, fluorescent lights with blue lenses, cement, 2011; Crone Mother Lava, found corrugated tin patterned with buckshot, deer slugs, .38, .22 and .223 pistol and rifle rounds, found corrugated fiberglass, fluorescent lights with red lenses, cement;, 2010; Peeling Reed found corrugated tin and fiberglass, steel, fluorescent lights, 2008; Man Made Disaster,  found corrugated tin patterned with buckshot,steel, 2009

Coming across these at night is a pretty magical experience. The were a bit tricky to photograph, and I have toconfess my photos make them look a little like the UFOs in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In person, they are a lot less "glowy." But the lights and their height (between 11 and 12 feet) create an impressive experience. In addition to circular megaliths, it also made me think of sacred groves. In short, there is a kind of pre-literate feeling, from a time before science when everything was magic. At the same time, the materials give the work a post-apocalyptic feel. Of course, these two things--post-apocalyptic fictions and pre-literate magic places are related. Some science fiction writers use post-apocalyptic settings to imagine worlds that have returned to a neolithic, pre-scientific state (see, for example, Earth Abides.)

The sculpture group will be up through April 3 and is located in a lot next to Redbud Gallery, which is hosting it.

  Share

5 comments:

  1. Congratulations James! Great show, awesome art!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stonehenge? Especially overzealous and ridiculous! Gaudy Christmas trees, and the forever overused rusty corrugated metal cactus garden of the amateur hobbyist and craft-market vendors, yes. The redundant, insecure man made penis/phallus, longing and long, here, shot up with disease, yes. Another example of big is not necessarily better, darlings. For you two, I would love to love these, but they are just not lovable, near, or at a distance. They cannot elude the tie between border town aesthetics and tin craft, even now with a hot cup of coffee on a cool dark morning. Please, turn them off!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi anonymous. Thanks very much for that comment. I will sound strange, but I wish more readers would call bullshit on what I write (as long as they are reasonably civil about it, natch). I get tired of the sound of my own voice, and I want there to be dialogue--especially contentious dialogue--about art in Houston.

      Delete
    2. "It will sound strange", not "I will sound strange"

      Delete
  3. This show has been extended indefinitely and is still on display at Redbud, although some of the pieces have been sold and delivered. Look for James Ciosek later this year at the Art Car Museum and Lawndale Art Center.

    ReplyDelete