Down Amongst The Dead Men
Warren Viscoe, Artist
This is one of the
sculptures
in our collection.
It was made in
Auckland, Auckland Region, New Zealand
in 1994.
See full details
Object Detail
About the Work
"
In
the
last
decade
Viscoes
love
of
transformation,
inversion
and
relocation
has
been
embodied
in
multi-part
installations
that
are
laden,
lateral,
and
densely
argued.
The
compression
of
narrative
in
the
suggests
poetry
more
readily
than
sculpture,
and
none
achieve
greater
compression
than
'Down
among
the
Deadmen'
and
'Coral
Gardens/
Cultured
Pearls'.
Like
'The
Pink
and
White
Bathers',
both
these
installations
reclaim
and
resurrect
a
ubmerged
history
-
namely,
the
violence
of
World
War
II
and
the
recent
nuclear
test
-
but
one
need
not
know
this
to
yield
the
strangeness
of
Viscoes
transformations.
Together,
the
form
Viscoe's
most
beautiful
and
mysterious
evocation
of
the
Pacific
seascape.
Nothing is only itslef in these installations. We face a forst of gouged wood forms which seem to have been bleached into Saline purity...
...In Down among the deadmem, Viscoe updates the romantic myth of a South Seas Garden of Eden for the war-toen twentieth century. Viscoe calls 'Deadmen' "A theatre of war, festooned, decorated, reclaimed." On the walls are emblems of the American forces who fought in the Pacifc during World War II - silk stockings, KIlroy peering over a wall- and all around are what look like the masts of sunken warships, encrusted with coral. Viscoe seems to be taking us down to the sea-bed, where the fragments of military history have been transformed into something rich and strange. Keep looking and these structures start to suggest bleached white coral, then pillars of salt, and then the bones of drowned sailors."
Justin Paton in 'Warren Viscoe Life and Limb' pub 2000 by Sarjeant Gallery . pg 44
Nothing is only itslef in these installations. We face a forst of gouged wood forms which seem to have been bleached into Saline purity...
...In Down among the deadmem, Viscoe updates the romantic myth of a South Seas Garden of Eden for the war-toen twentieth century. Viscoe calls 'Deadmen' "A theatre of war, festooned, decorated, reclaimed." On the walls are emblems of the American forces who fought in the Pacifc during World War II - silk stockings, KIlroy peering over a wall- and all around are what look like the masts of sunken warships, encrusted with coral. Viscoe seems to be taking us down to the sea-bed, where the fragments of military history have been transformed into something rich and strange. Keep looking and these structures start to suggest bleached white coral, then pillars of salt, and then the bones of drowned sailors."
Justin Paton in 'Warren Viscoe Life and Limb' pub 2000 by Sarjeant Gallery . pg 44
Measurements
2400 x 290mm
Media
Carved and painted wood, rock, wall art
Description
Mixed media sculptural installation mostly comprising of carved wood with a textured surface, painted white.
Credit Line
Collection of the Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui. Purchased, 1998.
Collection Type
Permanent collection
Acquisition Date
03 Dec 1998
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Accession Number:
1998/38/1