Floating Mountain (Mt Hemo)
2011 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
275H x 215W cm
Vidya Gastaldon
Gastaldon has made a number of soft sculptures using materials associated with knitting and sewing that have alternately fetishistic, nightmarish or contemplative qualities. “Floating Mountain” is one of a group of works made from wool that overtly depict mountain forms. Suspended from the ceiling, the sculpture floats just above the floor. In the form of a mountain with a colored top, the sculpture recalls images of Mount Fuji, normally shrouded in snow, and memorialized in countless Japanese woodcuts. Mount Hemo, however, after which the work is named, was famously climbed by King Philip V of Macedonia, a feat that was alluded to by Petrarch in his own ascent of Mont Ventoux. Philip was a warrior king who fought the Romans and allied himself with Hannibal. The obvious link with the form of a mountain is complemented by the visual affinity of the work with a costume, possibly a bridal gown with its delicate filigree. The softness of the form and texture recalls the body. The presence of blood red suggests a carnal reading, the passage from innocence and virginity to knowledge and experience. The work thus unites landscape, sexuality and femininity within a single form whose delicacy and lightness suggests something dreamlike and ephemeral. The work is made via knitted yarn; has a makeshift feel in the sense of improvisation, although Gastaldon is an artist for whom craftsmanship is of great importance. Its craft also suggests the flow of liquid as one color bleeds into another. The linear construction of the object links it to the drawings that the artist makes of fantastical landscapes.
Vidya Gastaldon creates microcosms of hallucinatory, saccharine symbols with her sculptures, drawings, video animations, and prints. Working with mediums traditionally associated with feminine labor, such as knitting, sewing, and crocheting, Gastaldon continues the tradition of feminist trailblazers like Judy Chicago, Mary Kelly, and Rosemarie Trockel, but consciously avoids overt political statements. Eastern religion and new-age spirituality are dominant themes in Gastaldon’s work — especially the idea of transformation. In her sculptures, yarn and thread form mountainous cones and internal organs, while her drawings depict mystical creatures with exaggerated smiley faces that morph into fantastical landscapes. Gastaldon’s embrace of spirituality and psychedelia is genuine, but she also explores mankind’s darker side through her allusions to nuclear destruction and the pervasive imagery of mass marketing. Born in Besancon, Gastaldon lives and works in Geneva.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » KADIST
Fabiola Torres-Alzaga
2013Fabiola Torres-Alzaga plays with magic, illusion, and sleight-of-hand, fabricating installations, drawings, and films that toy with our perceptions...
© » KADIST
Marcelo Cidade
2010Adição por subtração 4 (Addition by Subtraction, 2010) is an intervention into the white cube with both beautiful and intimidating results...
© » ARTFORUM
Drawing Center Names Olivia Shao Inaugural Burger Collection & TOY Meets Art Curator – Artforum Read Next: AMY HAU TO LEAD NOGUCHI MUSEUM Subscribe Search Icon Search Icon Search for: Search Icon Search for: Follow Us facebook twitter instagram youtube Alerts & Newsletters Email address to subscribe to newsletter...
© » KADIST
Michelle Handelman
2009In Dorian, a cinematic perfume, video is used as a community gatherer, a tool to speak about particular subcultures, in this case the trans-gender drag queen New York community, past and present...
© » SLASH PARIS
Guy Leclercq — Épures et couleurs — Dutko / Quai Voltaire Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Guy Leclercq — Épures et couleurs — Dutko / Quai Voltaire Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Guy Leclercq — Épures et couleurs Exhibition Painting View of the artist’s studio Guy Leclercq Épures et couleurs Ends in 27 days: December 7, 2023 → January 13, 2024 Dutko Gallery is pleased to present from December 7th until January 13th a selection of the most recent works by Belgian artist Guy Leclercq...
© » KADIST
Bruce Conner
1995Bruce Conner is best known for his experimental films, but throughout his career he also worked with pen, ink, and paper to create drawings ranging from psychedelic patterns to repetitious inkblot compositions...
© » KADIST
Colter Jacobsen
2010The title Untitled Passport II was first used by Felix Gonzalez-Torres in an unlimited edition of small booklets, each containing sequenced photographs of a soaring bird against an open sky...
© » LENS CULTURE
Cultural Changes at the Coldest Place on Earth — A Photo Story from Yakutsk - Photographs by Alex Vasyliev | Essay by Marigold Warner | LensCulture Feature Cultural Changes at the Coldest Place on Earth — A Photo Story from Yakutsk Photographer Alexey Vasyliev offers an intimate look into the life and changing culture of the Evens, an indigenous tribe in his hometown of Yakutsk — one of the coldest places on Earth...
© » KADIST
David G. Tretiakoff
2016Immolation I is taken from the four-part Immolation series which shows four Arab revolutionaries who publicly sacrificed themselves through self-immolation and in so doing heralded the beginning of the Arab Spring...
© » KADIST
Natasha Wheat
2011Wheat’s work is built on a strong conceptual framework that weaves together commentary on social and political issues and the radical potential for change...
© » KADIST
Laura Gannon
2017The impressionistic surface of Wild Money (2017) recalls the 1950s paintings of Philip Guston...
© » KADIST
Zhang Kechun
2011Zhang Kechun’s photographic series The Yellow River documents the effects of modernization along the eponymous Yellow River, the second longest in Asia...
© » KADIST
Peter Robinson
2012Defunct Mnemonics (2012) plays off woodworking traditions found in indigenous art in order to create a body of formally minimal objects that are both beautiful in their restraint and profoundly moving in their associations with the totemic...