| Tyler Meadows Davis Sculptor |
Associated with the advances of the industrial revolution, steel has evolved into a material with a deep
conceptual connection to the ambition of western culture. With it, we have constructed bridges and ships
to carry us across previously impassable waters, we have erected monolithic edifices that seem to reach
the sky, we have constructed vast mechanized armies with terrible destructive capabilities which have
been used both to wage war, and to ensure peace, for the better part of a century.
Artists, too—Calder, Smith, Caro, Serra, and others—have used this modern miracle material as their
creative medium. Concerning Eduardo Chillida’s use of iron in his sculpture, French Philosopher Gaston
Bachalard observed, “The world of iron is all muscles. Iron is the straight, the certain, the essential force”
(Selz, Peter. Chillida. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York. 1986, 11). Ironically, however permanent and
indestructible this material may have seemed at the dawn of the era, still, when exposed to the elements
of water, air, and time, it cankers, weakens, and eventually returns to the earth from which it was once
extracted. Emphasising this inevitable return to the dust, sculptor Robert Smithson writes,
Steel may be alloyed with other metals, nickel, chromium, etc. to produce specific
properties such as hardness and resistance to rusting. Yet, the more I think about steel
itself, devoid of the technological refinements, the more rust becomes the fundamental
property of steel…[it] evokes a fear of disuse, inactivity, entropy, and ruin.
Harrison, Charles and Paul Wood. Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Blackwell publishing Ltd. 1992. Pg. 879
In this sense, steel acts as metaphor, illuminating by its most basic qualities our own mortal dilemma, the
temporary nature of our own physicality.
| Steel |