Read Catalog - Charles Simonds

More documents

Recommendations

Info

gradually deposited in front of it providing the base for the next dwelling. As time passed, a ramp was thrown up, the rate of incline planned to bring them to the highest possible point at the center of the spiral. As their predictive mechanisms became increasingly accurate and sophisticated, there were constant readjustments, such calculations determined the infrastructure of @ social system. Life was hierarchical. The uses of energies were determined by the ruling philosopher/mathematicians. Division of labor, population control, food, size, and disposition of labor and research forces were all dictated by elaborate evaluative and self-corrective mechanisms. (@ were for the most part optimistic. Although the construction required hard work and sacrifice, they labored happily knowing that the mathematicians' predictions were finer, their dwelling place higher, their lives nearer the climax. They believed resolutely that they were contributing to the most ambitious monument ever conceived by man. Their assurance was confirmed by badges of merit and honors given to the various work forces. Visitors from the spiral cities compared progress with their own and were filled with immense pride at their accomplishments. The monument relentlessly consumed all material goods. Property had importance only as it related to the construction. Objects no longer useful were by law contributed to the pile of debris at the front of the dwelling. No personal possessions were allowed, no artifacts or keepsakes, no objects of art, no religious figures, no personal or communal decoration; life was merely a function of shelter and height. As the highest elevations were reached, and fewer and fewer laborers were needed to continue, large groups were sacrificed, jumping voluntarily from the forward edge of the structure into the central well, giving their bodies to the task of pushing the edifice higher. The past, in any personal sense, was dismissed and forgotten. The exception was the carefully kept records of previous structural decisions-abstracted and distilled into mathematical equations to be used in projecting the building. The dwelling's past was reconstructed by a mathematical model to be used in dynamic relationship to its future. These records were kept with compulsive accuracy, because the slightest error might mean the failure of the entire edifice. Failure was, in fact, inevitable so that the work process was punctuated by pangs of doubt that led to depression and, finally, to extinction.
Plates All plates are illustuztions of works by <strong>Charles</strong> <strong>Simonds</strong>. An asterisk is used to indicate those pieces that are included in this current exhibition. 39
Page 3 and 4: ! I - I 'vi r ....--' I \ \
Page 5 and 6: Exhibition Tour Museum of Contempor
Page 7 and 8: Introduction Reunited for this exhi
Page 9 and 10: y Clive Phillpot, Librarian of the
Page 11 and 12: the question, just as formal analys
Page 13 and 14: miniature landscapes into an instru
Page 15 and 16: source. As has been noted in anothe
Page 17 and 18: Certainly Simonds seeks to undergo
Page 19 and 20: 4 "I think of the dwellings in a ve
Page 21 and 22: I9 Bib. I I978, Simonds and Molderi
Page 23 and 24: 33 Bristow, The Sex Life of Plants,
Page 25 and 26: miniature landscape and dwellings w
Page 27 and 28: uildings into a community park and
Page 29 and 30: Simonds: Life Built to Dream. Dimen
Page 31 and 32: toms, justified their constructions
Page 33: Three Peoples By Charles Simonds Th
Page 38 and 39: Mythologies The Mythologies embody
Page 41 and 42: Plate 2. Body - Earth, 1971. Stills
Page 43 and 44: Plate 4· Dwelling, Dublin, 1980. 4
Page 46 and 47: Plate 8. Charles Simonds building D
Page 48 and 49: Plate 11. Dwelling, Kunsthaus Zuric
Page 50 and 51: Plate 14. People Who Live in a Circ
Page 52 and 53: Plate 16. Labyrinth, 1972. Collecti
Page 54 and 55: Plate 18. Gate of Souls, 1981, deta
Page 56 and 57: u D ," Temenos, Birthscape These in
Page 58 and 59: Niagara Gorge, La Placita, Park Mod
Page 60 and 61: Plate 2 7. Proposal for a Stanley T
Page 62: Floating Cities Charles Simonds's F
Page 65 and 66: The third landscape also shows us t
Page 67 and 68: Number 10 (pl. 41) From the first v
Page 69 and 70: containing seeds which anticipated
Page 71 and 72: *Plate 33. Number 2 (Untitled), 197
Page 73 and 74: *Plate 35· Number 4 (Untitled), 19
Page 75 and 76: •Plate 37. Number 6 (Untitled), 1
Page 77 and 78: *Plate 39. Number 8 (Untitled), 197
Page 79 and 80: *Plate 41. Number ro (Ritual Tower)
Page 81 and 82: *Plate 43· Number 12 (Untitled), 1
Page 83 and 84: *Plate 45· Stone Sprout, 1981. Col
Page 85 and 86: One-Person Exhibitions I9?S-?6 Cent
Page 87 and 88:
Commissions, Projects, Films Commis
Page 89:
Art Institute of Chicago. Small Sca
Page 92 and 93:
Knight, C. "Some recent art and an
Page 94:
Museum of Contemporary Art Board of
show all

Read Catalog - Charles Simonds

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?