Marc Berghaus The original idea for this piece came to me in a dream, right after 9/11. The dream itself took place just after the attacks. In it I was working for that company from the top floor of the WTC that had lost all but a few of its employees and had to quickly relocate to New Jersey. Everyone was rushing around, trying to keep things going with a minimal crew and volunteers. In the corner of the busy, dark office was a glass trophy case, lit from within near its top, with a grid of china plates on its glass shelves. Growing up from the bottom was a dense thicket of ivy, being drawn over time up towards the light. The ivy was engulfing the plates, and I knew that eventually the plates would be toppled over. This is really all I remember from the dream, its stillness amidst all the frantic activity of the office. I took its meaning to be that of a cultural metaphor for what most of us were fearing at the time--a basic, primitive, outlook able to slowly overturn or overthrow what had become a fragile, delicate and sophisticated culture through not only violence but sheer patience. In this context, the piece does not belong in this show. However, I have also always been visually attracted to its image, in a very different, though slightly related context. Its basic elements, a neat grid of delicate china plates, created with great care and sophistication, still being engulfed by wild, natural vines that threaten to engulf the plates and knock them crashing to the floor. It can be interpreted in all sorts of different ways- as nature reclaiming our attempts at permanence or elegance, or a related meditation on time, and our feeble attempts to make things that truly last. Or the unpredictability of nature, either versus the plates or the fact that the ivy could well die during the exhibition for various and possibly overlapping reasons. Considering that this exhibition is essentially about strictly constructed grids opposing the unpredictable, I decided to include it in the show. |
