Read Catalog - Charles Simonds

Ritual Architectures and Cosmologies
These are horological architectures-a series of living structures
that measure time. In part they are distillations from the information
gathered and experienced by the artist through his
activity of building Dwellings in the streets. But these are abstracted,
conceptualized architectures that exist in their own
space, apart from everyday, built reality. Some of these works
are attempts to make architectural emblems for particular
body/life functions, for example, Labyrinth {pl. 16) symbolizes
seduction. Formally and functionally they examine the metaphoric
relationship between body and house, the grown and
the built.
The Three Peoples explore architectural structures that are a
reflection of their beliefs about their relationship to the past
and future. The People Who Live in a Line construct an endless
house that wanders over the land. Oriented directionally, their
continual explorations leave their past behind as a museum.
People Who Live in a Circle have a compelling sense of a center.
They constantly excavate and reintegrate their past into
their present; memories are transformed into myths. Orientation
is determined by the seasons and by chance occurrences
{fires, family arguments, etc.). Their architecture operates as a
personal and cosmological clock. People Who Live in a Spiral
bury their past beneath them and use it as building material.
The mathematical philosophy revolves around speculation as
to when their death and the inevitable collapse of the dwelling
will occur. They are conservational, anal, materialistic, proud,
and monumentalizing, with a fixed point of view.
Plate 12. Picaresque Landscape, 1976, detail: Linear People.
Installation at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Collection of the artist.
Plate 13. People Who Live in a Spiral, 1974. Collection of the
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College,
Oberlin, Ohio.
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