England-based artist Ben Long has been making a series of work called Spirit Structures, which are geometric sculptures made out of spirt levels.
His website explains:
The Minimalists employed manufacturing processes as a rejection of expression, as a way to avoid what they viewed as self-referential complacency in their work. Long adopts this approach, not necessarily to mirror this detached austerity, but as a way to relate his own sculptures to the techniques of replication that enable goods like the spirit level to be widely available for domestic consumption.
I find Ben Long’s dealings with Minimalism in this work fascinating.
Pictured here are Modular Spirit Structure (Fisco L52 series) and Two Part Modular Spirit Structure (Fisco L25 series) both from 2010, and an isometric projection for a new Spirit Structure, which is currently in the works. The new Spirit Structure is the first of the large scale Spirit Structures. This particular one encompasses the phenomenon known as “strange loops”, which you might be familiar with from the graphic works of Escher.
up_today_arch
2011.03.02 09:53
Wow… I pealise why not enough of spirt levels at my site:)))….
Dave
2011.03.02 18:37
I’m all for interesting art, and originality, but how is this minimalism? There is nothing minimalistic about this. If anything it is quite the opposite. Its wasteful, useless, impractical and pointless. No offence to the artist. I’d just like to see minimalistic design on minimalissimo.
As a side note, isn’t it funny that the word minimalism isn’t minimalistic?
Atw
2011.03.02 18:47
Dave, i’m totally with you. I realise that this is “art” but it’s totally pointless and in my opinion the opposite of what minimalism is about.
I don’t even understand the far from minimalist ramblings on this piece of arts reason for being.
Sloan 8
2011.03.03 00:04
Remember that minimalism in design, and Minimalism as art movements are different things. Perhaps including modern and contemporary art on this blog is not a good choice. It’s obvious the writers of the above comments have conflicts between the two.
mics
2011.04.22 18:33
i totally agree with sloan 8. This object or structure is perfectly minimal. For me this represents the shape of a square in an even sarcastic and cruel way. can i get more minimal?