Monday, February 1, 2016

Ursula Von Rydingsvard in Princeton

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I've been a big fan of Ursula von Rydingsvard ever since discovering her work at Storm King. [Footnote: Storm King is arguably one of the three coolest things about the Hudson River Valley, along with Opus 40 and the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome.) So when I learned that there was a show of her work at the Princeton University Art Museum, off I went.

The untitled work is nineteen feel high, and is clad in more than three thousand hand-hammered
copper pieces over a maquette of stacked cedar beams shaped with a circular saw. It's the first time von Rydingsvard has worked with copper and it took her six months to build.

And it's gorgeous.

There's a small show of von Rydingsvard's work at the museum, comprising four works on (or of) paper, four wooden sculptures and one of dried, sewn, and stacked cow stomachs. Not a big retrospective, alas, which admittedly would cost a fortune to assemble, move, and mount. But well
worth seeing if you're in the area.


Above: My camera phone can't really do it justice. But there's a full-length shot of the sculpture, a medium-length one, and a detail of the surface. 

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3 comments:

Laurence Brothers said...

> ... Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome...

Sorry to derail, but yeah that place was great! I was writing a WWI-era fantasy novel last year concerned with period aviation, and going up in a biplane was enormously useful to get the feel of the experience. Fun too :)

Michael Swanwick said...

Okay, yes, I envy you, Laurence.

I'd pretend otherwise, but who would believe me?

Sandy said...

Michael, I can see why you are impressed with her work. That is a very disquieting and alien-looking piece of sculpture.