Sound of Ice Melting

1970 - Installation (Installation)

Paul Kos

location: San Francisco, California
year born: 1942
gender: male
nationality: American

Sound of Ice Melting is based on the ancient Zen Buddhist koan about the sound of one hand clapping. Here, Kos has surrounded two twenty-five-pound blocks of ice with eight microphones that call to mind the political press conferences prevalent during the Vietnam War era when this piece was created. Zen practice values such absurdity as a way to transcend the limitations of ordinary discourse and rational thought—empirical processes at the root of all political conflicts.


Paul Kos works with everyday materials and video to enact a playful conceptual engagement with life and the world. He responds to simple, humble materials and the indigenous elements of specific sites, which he mines for their physical properties and metaphoric possibilities. Throughout these pieces, Kos’s work uses humor to relate the stuff of life back to larger questions of time and spirituality.


Colors:



Related works of genres: » performance art, » american conceptual artists, » live art, » process art  
» see more

This Exhibition
© » KADIST

Tino Sehgal

2004

Tino Sehgal’s This Exhibition requires an interpreter (in this particular piece, a gallery attendant) to faux faint each and every time a visitor enters into a given space...

AIDS Sculpture By General Idea Finds Permanent Home In Amsterdam Park
© » ARTLYST

General Idea

Following its display at the General Idea retrospective in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam The post AIDS Sculpture By General Idea Finds Permanent Home In Amsterdam Park appeared first on Artlyst ....

The Black Canyon Deep Semantic Image Segments
© » KADIST

Trevor Paglen

2020

The Black Canyon Deep Semantic Image Segments by Trevor Paglen merges traditional American landscape photography (sometimes referred as ‘frontier photography’ for sites located in the American West) with artificial intelligence and other technological advances such as computer vision...

The Bedroom
© » KADIST

Barbara Bloom

1997

In the 1980’s, while browsing Parisian fleamarkets, Barbara Bloom stumbled into an anonymous watercolor (dating to around 1960) in one of Paris’ fleamarkets, probably a study made by an interior designer for a bedroom...

Related works featuring themes of: » Abstract Sculpture, » Chance, » Color Photography, » Conceptual Art, » American  
» see more

Baobab
© » KADIST

Tacita Dean

2001

The photographic quality of the film Baobab is not only the result of a highly sophisticated use of black and white and light, but also of the way in which each tree is characterized as an individual, creating in the end a series of portraits...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Sirens
© » KADIST

Paul Kos

1977

Taking its title from the eponymous mythological creature—famously featured as sea nymphs in Homer’s Odyssey...

Baobab
© » KADIST

Tacita Dean

2001

The photographic quality of the film Baobab is not only the result of a highly sophisticated use of black and white and light, but also of the way in which each tree is characterized as an individual, creating in the end a series of portraits...

Related works from the » 1970's created around » San Francisco, California  
» see more

Splinters and Seconal
© » KADIST

Ed Ruscha

1973

In 1970, Ruscha began a series of paintings made from stains...

27 Punk Photos: 11. Dim Wanker: F Word, May, 1978
© » KADIST

Bruce Conner

1978

In 1977, as an already-established artist best known for his films, Bruce Conner began to photograph punk rock shows at Mabuhay Gardens, a San Francisco club and music venue...

VFGY9
© » KADIST

Larry Bell

1979

Like many of Larry Bell’s works, VFGY9 deals primarily with the viewer’s experience of sight...

Other works by: » Paul Kos  
» see more

Sirens
© » KADIST

Paul Kos

1977

Taking its title from the eponymous mythological creature—famously featured as sea nymphs in Homer’s Odyssey...

Lightning
© » KADIST

Paul Kos

1976

Parked on the shoulder of a single lane highway running through a desert landscape, Marlene looks over her shoulder from inside the car at a fierce storm looming over a distant horizon...

Burrito Bay
© » KADIST

George Kuchar

2009

Burrito Bay is a video by George Kuchar that follows the format of a diary or travelogue centered on a tropical trip to Acapulco, Mexico...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Barry McGee

Barry McGee’s Untitled is a collection of roughly fifty, framed photographs, paintings, and text pieces clustered together in corner...

Cathy (bed self-portrait)
© » KADIST

Catherine Opie

1987

Catherine Opie’s candid photograph Cathy (bed Self-portrait) (1987) shows the artist atop a bed wearing a negligee and a dildo; the latter is attached to a whip that she holds in her teeth...

Raven (gun)
© » KADIST

Catherine Opie

1987

In this work, a woman sits on a couch with her shirt pulled up to expose her pierced nipples, which are connected by a chain...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Cuban American Singer Celia Cruz To Be First Afro Latina On U.S. Quarter
© » HUFFINGTON POST

Known as the Queen of Salsa, Cruz was one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century....

Christie’s Sale of Items From Art Collector Adam Lindemann Makes $31.5 M. - via ARTnews
© » LARRY'S LIST

Part of the proceeds from the auctions are going to the Rockefeller Wing at the Met....