Image 1 Hide, 2023
Image 2 Shielding (Light Box), 2023
Image 3 Blockhead, 2003
Image 4 Blockhead 2, 2023
Image 5 Studio Scene, 2019
Image 6 An ABC of Holes in Sculpture, 2004
Image 7 Rome Studio, 2003
Image 8 Upholstered IBeam 2023
Image 9 PSERT, 2003
Image 10 Lost Works (Clay), 2004
STONE APPRECIATION: SELFIE
Despite its hidden armature and padding, the tailored tarpaulin, constructed to mimic the form of a rock, doesn’t quite live up to the glamour of the image that it literally projects of itself.
The pairing of stone and tarpaulin, digital photograph and ungainly fabric form, internal structure and surface effect, appears to mirror something of the awkwardness of partnering inherent in collaboration. Does one element undermine or enhance the other, can two distinctly different parts become a cohesive and convincing sculpture?
Dunhill and O’Brien first came across a small image showing an example of an erratic boulder, at the Natural History Museum in London. Struck by its position elevated on three supporting ‘plinths’ of rock they decided to visit this naturally formed sculpture, one of the ‘Norber Erratics’, near Austwick, North Yorkshire, for themselves.
The geological term erratic refers to a boulder that has been transported from its place of origin by the movement of a glacier and deposited at a different location, in some cases thousands of miles from its geological source.
Their decision to cover the boulder with blue tarpaulins, purchased in a local store (along with some staplers) after a day measuring and filming the boulder in situ, was something of an afterthought. Wanting more information about the rock to take home, making an accurate ‘skin’ of the boulder was appealing. Not so much an homage to Christo and Jeanne Claude, but rather a way of temporarily gathering information. In the rolling hills of Ribblesvale this migrant boulder appeared wrapped and ready for further transportation.
Images 1 and 2: Stone Appreciation: In the Morning
2019, 30 x 38 x 15cm
aluminium
Images 3, 4 and 5: Stone Appreciation: Okasan
2019, 28 x 20 x 15cm
lava Rock, MDF, felt, plywood
Photo: limited edition postcard, painted plywood stand with acrylic.
Images 6 and 7: Stone Appreciation: Otosan
2019, 30 x 50 x 30cm
flocking on jesmonite, vintage brown bowler hat, steel.
Images 8 and 9: Balanced Rock: Selfie
2019, 33 x 36 x 28cm
jesmonite, oil paint, aluminium, souvenir plate of Balanced Rock, Colorado.
Images 10 and 11: Brimham Rock: Upholstered
2019, 50 x 38 x 38
wood, mixed media and linen
Image 12: Mountain Geta
made as part of installation Yama to Ana 2007, completed as single work 2019
50 x 37 x 50cm
wood, fabric geta straps, jesmonite, wooden stool, acrylic sheet.
In Stone Appreciation: Booth, exhibited at Camberwell Space, London, participants were invited to experience the challenge of making, communicating and collaborating through modelling a clay form. Two small screens on top of the booth showed a sequence of images of a free-standing erratic boulder.
Working in collaboration two participants at a time were allocated 20 minutes to discover if, and how, it was possible to model a likeness of this complex natural form from a clay block, without seeing what they were doing or speaking to each other. A camera in front of the booth filmed the modelling process and when finished the soft clay forms were presented in a damp store/vitrine before new clay forms made by the next round of participants replaced them at the end of each week. Meanwhile a video of the modelling process ran continuously throughout the month-long exhibition.
Feedback from participants indicated that they had found that this unspoken form of negotiation, through modelling clay, had been both strangely intimate and absorbing. The process had also revealed frustrations and rivalry and it soon became apparent that participants from different backgrounds responded to the task in very different ways. Meanwhile those who had not previously met reported that they developed a sense of connection and camaraderie. All participants spoke of a strong sense of shared ownership, pride and fascination in the form that resulted, no matter how ungainly or how little it resembled the boulder that had been the catalyst for their work together.
In Western culture stones and rocks often have negative associations as dumb, unfeeling and burdensome. Figures of speech such as ‘between a rock and a hard place’, ‘like getting blood out of a stone’, alongside the legend of Sisyphus with his eternal punishment, reinforce this low status. Meanwhile there are other instances, most notably in Japan and China, where rocks are venerated and used as a focus for contemplation or pilgrimage.
Stone Appreciation 3 presented videos of Dunhill and O’Brien in various British landscapes drawing and measuring large boulders alongside film of their attempts to model those same forms in clay from memory without viewing the clay object as it forms. The physical act of clambering on, under and over these rocks, attempting to gather information has been translated into the smaller gestures and awkward intimacy of hand modelling.
The geological term erratic refers to a boulder that has been transported from its place of origin by the movement of a glacier and deposited at a different location, possibly many miles from its origin.
We first came across an image of a particular erratic boulder, at the Natural History Museum in London and were struck by its curious position elevated on three small supporting rocks. We set off to find it in Yorkshire and there, in an area with many rocks seemingly thrown about at random, was this rock on its limestone plinths.
Tailoring blue tarpaulin*, purchased from a local hardware store, to clothe the erratic, we were able to take temporary possession of it – but this was not a homespun homage to Christo and Jeanne Claude. In the rolling green Yorkshire landscape it appeared wrapped for transportation, ready to be relocated in some way. This was indeed the start of its journey, albeit through a digital image, to the famous Ritsurin garden in Takamatsu, Japan’s largest and most celebrated ‘daimyo strolling garden’.
Two works were made for the exhibition at the Sanuki Folk Craft Museum. Erratic, ran the length of one wall in a gallery dedicated to a local furniture designer. An image of the boulder moved at glacial speed along a narrow track calculated to travel the actual distance that the original erratic had been transported over the 6 weeks of the exhibition. The size of the image was meanwhile in proportion to the length of the track at a ratio of 11:1.
*Blue tarpaulin is widely used internationally for protecting objects from the weather, its colour signifying the weight and strength of the material. In the Takamatsu area there were numerous applications of this ubiquitous material and a great variety of sculptural forms created by it – at least 78 were worthy of documentation.
This project was funded by Tokyo University of the Arts, with special thanks to Professor O JUN, Associate Professor Yusuke Nishimura, Yoshinori Takakura, Kenta Kawagoe
In 1981 Isamu Noguchi completed his largest, heaviest and most nomadic artwork, Thunder Rock. This 15-tonne granite sculpture travelled 3 times across the pacific in search of a home, after its original commissioner in the USA was unable to complete the purchase.
When Dunhill and O’Brien encountered the sculpture in Yorkshire on a cold windy day in March 2009 they were struck by the gap between Noguchi’s expressed intention (to make an elemental form transcending the banalities of daily life) and the logistics of repeatedly crating, shipping and storing the work, with its expanding carbon footprint and related paper trail. It seemed a particularly poignant example of one of the troublesome paradoxes that may be encountered when making sculpture.
In response to an invitation to make a temporary work for a park in Tokyo, Dunhill and O’Brien made a full-size transcription of Noguchi’s sculpture, based upon photographic documentation and written descriptions. Tailored in ‘distressed’ beige and cream leatherette to mimic the carved and un-carved surfaces of the granite, their Rock could be stowed as cabin luggage. Like an out-sized Pakamac or sports holdall it travelled with them Economy Class to Tokyo before a trip to visit Noguchi’s studio and quarry in Shikoku. Back in Tokyo and fully upholstered this ungainly object was cautiously wheeled through the back streets of Nishi Ogikubo on a convoluted route to avoid the steep hill between the studio and park, eventually reaching its month-long location at a picturesque spot overlooking the lake in Zempukuji Park.
Inspired by Japanese mountain culture and traditions such as Fujizuka and Suiseki, Dunhill and O’Brien decided to use their residency at Youkobo Art Space in Tokyo as a research and development period, devising and making a series of prototype tools and accessories to make a ‘Mountain Object’.
The work shown at Youkobo Art Space gallery was the result of a physical and somewhat ritualistic process where they attempted to make a new sculpture together, entirely modelled and formed by tailor-made geta based on topographical information of two important mountain ranges in Japan.
The installation consisted of the geta and other bespoke implements used to make the work with a video of the process that evidenced the at times competitive way in which the form was shaped.
Stone Appreciation 2 took as its subject six free standing and, to a greater or lesser extent, well known rocks: the Bowder Stone; the Idol Rock; the Toad Rock; the Chiding Stone; the Hitching Stone and the Big Stone at Bentham, all located in the North West and South East of England.
Having discovered these ‘celebrity’ rocks by purchasing postcards on the Internet, Dunhill and O’Brien have been preoccupied by a quest to visit and measure each of these, much photographed, landmarks.
Making even rudimentary measurements proved to be a tricky business. Videos capture the cumbersome choreography involved in negotiating each rock to establish basic proportions and dimensions. Meanwhile twin-modelled forms, reminiscent of portrait busts are presented, mounted on sculpture modelling stands that have been tailor-made for two artists to work in tandem.
Finally there are the postcards themselves, a collection of images of the six rocks in question, often from similar angles, they are at once a popularity index (90 of the Bowder Stone, only 6 of the Big Stone) and a record of an enduring fascination with these improbable, awkward and ungainly forms.
A life size image of a boulder (with a tailored blue tarpaulin*) from the windblown Yorkshire Dales, UK, traverses the complex, pristine, manicured and historic devised landscape of the Ritsurin gardens, Takamatsu, Japan. The photographic print of the erratic rock, is seen mounted on a large stretcher, awkwardly manoeuvred along various paths and scenic routes in the daimyo strolling garden during the heat and humidity of typhoon season.
The video was presented among a collection of cabinets at the Sanuki Folk House Museum which marked the start and end of the circuitous route of this moving image.
* see the work Erratic
