Last Friday, at the ICA, I was completely mesmerized by all of the works there. It was hard to choose just to choose two favorite works, but lukily I found two to talk about. The first piece I really liked was titled "Hanging Fire/Suspended Arson" by Cornelia Parker. I've seen this piece before at the ICA when I had to go during Pre-Semester, and it's still a breathtaking piece every time I see it. This piece is composed of charcoal pieces individually tied on strings that form a rectangle. The charcoal pieces acually come from a woodshop that burned down under mysterious circumstances. I love this piece how when it's strung up, it resembles crackling fire, and the nails in the wood give it an even eerier quality. Cornelia herself says "If you lie this charcoal on the ground, it starts to look like a morgue, but once you reanimate it, once it's in the air, it becomes reactivated." It's just a stunning piece to look at, and how eerie it appears as it resembles the flames that took it down. It has such a commanding presence, looking as if the piece was compacted for such a long time, and that it just burst, and floats wildely.
The other piece that I found interesting is a claymation from the PIXAR film "Ratatouille". The piece I found interesting was the one of the character Linguini, holding Remy the rat, close to him, protecting him from other humans. If you've already seen this movie, you'd know that Linguini's character is very shy, nervous, and easily intimidated by other people. I love how the pixar people just captured the character's personality in just one sculpture. And I love how the shape of this piece contradicts the mood and form of the first one. The second piece is so shy and scrunched up, whereas the first one is just so free-floating, alive, and free-spirited. I just love how the mood of both pieces just contracdict each other. There were so many pieces I liked, but unfortunately, I didn't have the time, or a camera! I've seen a lot of these works before some of them are new, like the clay figurines.There are just so many talented artists out there that it's just a great thing to see other pieces, to give you great inspiration for your own work.
