Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place & home

Posts tagged ‘sculpture’

My Vienna: how centuries pass at Judenplatz (Jewish square)

Above/featured: Judenplatz at night. The Holocaust memorial is in the foreground at centre. In the background are “To the little trinity” at centre and Misrachi House (Museum Judenplatz) at right. Photo, 10 Jun 2022.

At Judenplatz are clear visual reminders of the city’s first Jewish community in medieval times.

The first Jewish community in Vienna settled around present-day Judenplatz in the Middle Ages with mention in written documents dated mid- to late-13th century AD/CE. Daily Jewish life thrived around the Or-Sarua Synagogue, the Jewish School, and the Mikveh ritual bath. The community along with the surrounding Jewish neighbourhood came to an end with the Pogrom of 1421. Catholic Habsburg Duke Albrecht II rolled out a decree (Wiener Geserah, Vienna Gesera) which legitimatized the expulsion, incarceration, torture, and murder of some 800 Jewish residents; accompanied by destruction and forced takeover of buildings and property.

Below I highlight remnants and traces to the medieval Jewish community at this square in central Vienna.

Judenplatz, Vienna, Wien, Oesterreich, Austria, fotoeins.com

Facing northwest: B, Bohemian Chancellery; H, Holocaust Memorial; L, Lessing monument; M, Misrachi House; T, To the little Trinity. Photo, 20 May 2018.

Judenplatz, Vienna, Wien, Oesterreich, Austria, fotoeins.com

Facing southeast: B, Bohemian Chancellery; J, Jordan House; H, Holocaust memorial; L, Lessing monument. Photo, 20 May 2018.

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Vietnam Women's Memorial, National Mall, Washington, DC, USA, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, seventeen

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

21 April 2012.

The Vietnam Women’s Memorial is located in the National Mall in Washington, DC. Inaugurated in 1993, the statue by artist Glenna Goodacre (1939–2020) is a tribute to the over 10-thousand American women deployed to Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The names of eight women killed on active duty are included in the list of over 58-thousand names on the adjacent Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Vietnam Women's Memorial, National Mall, Washington, DC, USA, fotoeins.com

Vietnam Women’s Memorial.

I made both images above on 21 Apr 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/160-sec, f/5, ISO100 and 30mm focal length (48mm full-frame equivalent); 1/100-sec, f/5.6, ISO100, and 49mm focal length (78mm full-frame equivalent). My thanks to SK for making possible my visit to Washington, DC. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lW2.

African American Civil War Memorial, African American Civil War Museum, US civil war, U Street Metro, U Street NW, Washington, DC, USA, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, sixteen

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

20 April 2012: Washington, DC.

Up from the U Street Metro station at the Vermont Avenue exit is the African American Civil War Memorial, located across the street from the African American Civil War Museum. The sculpture called “Spirit of Freedom” was created by artist Ed Hamilton in 1997. The memorial reminds us of over 200-thousand African-Americans who served during the U.S. Civil War; its conclusion led to the liberation of over 4 million African-American slaves.

I made the image above on 20 Apr 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/500-sec, f/5.6, ISO100, and 23mm focal length (37mm full-frame equivalent). My thanks to SK for making possible my visit to Washington, DC. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lVR.

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Tidal Basin, National Mall and Memorial Parks, Washington, DC, USA, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, fifteen

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

19 April 2012.

On a beautiful spring day, it’s an easy walk around the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC. Beginning from the Washington Monument on the National Mall, I walk clockwise to the Jefferson Memorial, followed by the George Mason Memorial and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. Finally, the large stone blocks appear, towering over the area, with the likeness of Martin Luther King Jr. with a confident and contemplative gaze. Chinese master artist Lei Yixin created the sculpture which was opened to the public in 2011.

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” 1958.

“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies; education and culture for their minds; and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.” Norway, 1964.

I made the image above on 19 Apr 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/250-sec, f/5.6, ISO100, and 50mm focal length (80mm full-frame equivalent). My thanks to SK for making possible my visit to Washington, DC. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lKC.

My Berlin: Alicja Kwade, bridging art and science

Above/featured: Alicja Kwade exhibition, at the Berlinische Galerie. HL:X70.

In October 2021, I watched DW Culture’s Arts.21 feature on Polish-German artist Alicja Kwade. I knew I had to see her work and exhibition in person, but would it be even possible? My answer arrived six weeks later with a quick jump home to Berlin.

All of Kwade’s sculptural pieces in her exhibition, “In Abwesenheit” (In Absence)”, are “self-portraits.” But none of them show her face; the pieces aren’t necessarily simple, nor are they “selfies” characterized by the present vernacular. She is not physically present, and yet, every piece provides the visitor a glimpse into her mindset including questions she raises about the volatility of the human condition and about where we fit within a very large universe.

As former research scientist, I’m recognizing and I’m loving the influences on her art. She is clearly very interested in mathematics, physics, astrophysics, biology, genetics; but she’d be the first to admit she’d need multiple lives to completely fulfill all of her interests. The deconstruction of “self” into precise scientific elements is another way of expressing those (dreaded) “selfies” or self-portraits. I admire the clever play: it’s the breakdown into those elements that tell us what she is, and it’s the measured synthesis of those elements into the broad strokes of her sculptures that tell us who she is.

We’re all playing this game. Everyday things seem so important. But then you zoom out and realize that you’re standing with another billion [people] on a spinning sphere. With that perspective, you’re reminded to just be glad you’re here at all.

– 16 April 2019, Artnet News about her rooftop commission at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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The Retired Draft Horse and the Last Pulled Log, Ken Lum, Kings Crossing, G and F Financial Group, Burnaby, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: “The Retired Draft Horse …”, by Ken Lum

I’m highlighting this month Chinese-Canadian artist Ken Lum: born and raised in the western Canadian city of Vancouver; he began studying chemistry at university before switching completely to art. Today, not only does he continue to make art, but he also comments about the contemporary and historical nature of art and about how art and society continuously shapes and informs each other. All of Lum’s pieces featured this month are located outdoors and freely accessible to the public at zero cost.

In 2020, Lum completed a sculptural work commissioned by Cressey Properties for its development in the city of Burnaby. “The Retired Draft Horse and the Last Pulled Log” resides at Kings Crossing at the intersection of Kingsway and Edmonds. Lum wrote in his proposal:

“… about a draught horse that is no longer called to work.The horse is a Clydesdale or a Persheron, the largest of draught horses that were commonly employed in British Columbia in the 19th- and early 20th-centuries. The log with chains on the Edmonds street site is meant to be in dialogue with the horse sculpture at the primary site of Kingsway and Edmonds.The larger than life size but not greatly larger than life sized horse surveys the modernity that has transpired since its working days in Burnaby and acts a sentinel of both the past and the future of the site.”

I made the photo above on 16 May 2021 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime (18.5/28mm). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-llo.

Fotoeins Friday: “From shangri-la to shangri-la”, by Ken Lum

I’m highlighting this month Chinese-Canadian artist Ken Lum: born and raised in the western Canadian city of Vancouver; he began studying chemistry at university before switching completely to art. Today, not only does he continue to make art, but he also comments about the contemporary and historical nature of art and about how art and society continuously shapes and informs each other. All of Lum’s pieces featured this month are located outdoors and freely accessible to the public at zero cost.

These look like wooden shacks along a creek or small river. In 2010, Lum completed a sculptural work commissioned by the City of Vancouver next to the four-star Shangri-La Hotel, as a “reminder of contested local histories.” Meant only as a temporary display, the piece was eventually removed. In 2012, the District of North Vancouver purchased Lum’s piece; a modified smaller version of the sculptural piece is installed at Maplewood Flats, in the very same area where shacks had once populated the mudflats along the northern shores of Burrard Inlet. Represented are houses once owned by artist Tom Burrows, writer Malcolm Lowry, and OrcaLab founder Dr. Paul Spong.

I made the photo above on 3 Jul 2021 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime (18.5/28mm) with digital teleconverter set to 33/50mm. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-llf.

Monument to East Vancouver, Ken Lum, East Van, VCC-Clark, Millennium Line, SkyTrain, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: “Monument for East Vancouver”, by Ken Lum

I’m highlighting this month Chinese-Canadian artist Ken Lum: born and raised in the western Canadian city of Vancouver; he began studying chemistry at university before switching completely to art. Today, not only does he continue to make art, but he also comments about the contemporary and historical nature of art and about how art and society continuously shapes and informs each other. All of Lum’s pieces featured this month are located outdoors and freely accessible to the public at zero cost.

In 2010, Lum completed a large sculptural work commissioned by the City of Vancouver. The work “Monument for East Vancouver” is situated in East Vancouver, standing above a rapid-transit station over the filled-in area of former tidal mudflats. Also informally called the “East Van Cross,” the sculpture situated in the “working class” or east side of the city faces west towards the wealthier parts of the city, including downtown and the west side. The symbolism regarding economic background and the specificity of place will be obvious to people of colour. Lum once said:

“… It’s a crucifix, that’s what it is – a highly charged symbol. Christ suffered on the cross. East Van suffers on the cross. The point (is): someone is suffering. And immigrants suffer the most …”

“Ken Lum”. ed. Grant Arnold, Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2011, p. 123.

I made the photo above on 31 May 2014 with a Canon EOS6D mark1. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lkW.

A Tale of Two Children: A Work for Strathcona, Ken Lum, National Works Yard, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: “A Tale of Two Children”, by Ken Lum

I’m highlighting this month Chinese-Canadian artist Ken Lum: born and raised in the western Canadian city of Vancouver; he began studying chemistry at university before switching completely to art. Today, not only does he continue to make art, but he also comments about the contemporary and historical nature of art and about how art and society continuously shapes and informs each other. All of Lum’s pieces featured this month are located outdoors and freely accessible to the public at zero cost.

In 2005, Lum completed a permanent work commissioned by the City of Vancouver for its public works yard on National Avenue. The work “A Tale of Two Children: A Work for Strathcona” is not only a nod to his formative years growing up in the Strathcona neighbourhood, but provides different views to children and their changing (and precipitous) views regarding self-worth within a society that’s already prejudged them.

I made the photo above on 1 Jun 2021 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime (18.5/28mm). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lkF.

Das Fremdlinge und Flüchtlinge Monument, Olu Oguibe, documenta, Königsplatz, obelisk, Florentiner Platz, Kassel, Hesse, Hessen, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday in Kassel: monument to foreigners & refugees

Nigerian-American artist Olu Oguibe created the 16-metre high obelisk “Monument to Foreigners and Refugees” (Das Fremdlinge und Flüchtlinge Monument) for Kassel’s documenta 14 in 2017. On four sides is the inscription of a single sentence in Arabic, English, German, and Turkish, respectively:

.كنتُ غريبًا فآويتموني
I was a stranger and you took me in.
Ich war ein Fremdling und Ihr habt mich beherbergt.
Yabanciydim beni konuk ettiniz.

The line is directly from the Bible’s New Testament: the gospel of Matthew chapter 25 verse 35.

Initially placed at Königsplatz, the obelisk was dismantled after conservatives and the far-right complained about their comfort level with what little human capacity they had remaining. Fortunately, common sense prevailed: the city purchased the sculpture, and reinstallation took place in April 2019 at Treppenstrasse/Florentiner Platz (ArtNews | Frieze | HNA, Deutsch).

I made the photo above on 3 Oct 2017 with a Canon EOS6D mark1 and the following settings: 1/160-sec, f/16, ISO2000, 28mm focal length. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-kGA.

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