Ad Astra
Rachel Logie
February 7 - March 8 1998
Rachel Logie'sAd Astra takes its point of departure
from the spiral staircase that leads to the Townsend Observatory,
and becomes itself a work about points of departure. As the artist
herself says Ad Astra is: "an installation considering our precarious
understanding of the nature of things and our efforts to fathom
mysteries and knowledge..."
Unlike the solid traditional practicability of the Observatory staircase,
Logie's construction is deliberately precarious. Leaning on a rakish
angle with only two of the glass treads in place, no one would dare
traverse the territory that Logie is mapping out. Logie suggests
there is still much work to be done in humanity's search for absolutes,
and her unfinished staircase doesn't just represent the quest for
astronomical learning. Logie's work suggests the study of knowledge
itself is merely a conundrum, and that the DNA helix of epistemology
spirals endlessly, but, like the staircase, remains fundamentally
flawed (and floored).
Logie's work is not, however, intended to merely confound the viewer.
Delight in construction reflects the artist's roots in architecture.
Indeed, the work itself possesses some of the Constructivist's zeal,
but as a model for progress the work turns in on itself in a classically
de-constructionist moment of self-abnegation.
The materials reflect the nature of Logieís desire (however
thwarted) to reach the stars; shiny, delicate steel, and cool green
glass enhance the notion that this is a staircase of the mind, and
not the body.
The remaining treads of glass wait ranged against the wall in
Alpine formation. Perhaps in time they will be slotted one by one
into their rightful places on the empty staircase. Until then, they
evoke icicles, as if the fruits of knowledge are in a perpetual
ice age. Their sharp points also hint at the potentially painful
path of knowledge, like Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid,
whose cognisance of mankind and transposition from one world to
another (sea to land) was marked by the agony of standing on knives
wherever she walked. Painful, dangerous, impossible, yet still ultimately
tempting, Logie extends an invitation to pedestrian humanity to
begin its foolhardy ascent into the skies.
Reviews, Essays & ArticlesArchitectural ensembles
The Press, 1998 Mar. 4, p. 16
Fusco, Cassandra.
Sleep: Hamish Wright, at the Space. Ad Astra: Rachel Logie, installation,
at the Physics Room.
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