Social Hieroglyphics

WTF in 24-carat gold leaf on a marble tombstone sits on an artificial lawn in front of a wallpaper sky. Local artist, Daniel Worth’s small exhibition, Social Hieroglyphics, ticks so many boxes: contemporary yet reflecting on the ancient history of sculpture, complete with interactive, site-specific, performance elements and a sense of humour.

Daniel Worth, WTF

Carving hieroglyphics has been done since the ancient Egyptians, but Worth has updated them carving the emojis and abbreviations that we regularly use today into stone. This isn’t a cheap stunt of contemporary references there is depth to these works. The ancient Egyptian were communicating information by carving hieroglyphics, whereas Worth is quoting; removing the poo emoji from its original context. The difference between an ancient Egyptian carving hieroglyphics and what Worth is doing is art. That short word; ‘art’ is a significant difference, referring to millennia of history while finding new and contemporary expression.

Worth clearly enjoys the beautiful and luxurious materials that he is using. Yet, 90% of the stone in the exhibition has been found or reclaimed. Some of the stone came from stonemason’s off-cut bins and from an 1840s drainage system at York’s first railway station. Only the Carrara marble for the big Stone Phone, the centre-piece of the exhibition, was bought.

Daniel Worth, Stone Phone

I asked Worth about the ethics of sourcing stone. “I feel it important to use stone that is being discarded because it gives it a second life, it also works with my frugal and resourceful nature. Sometimes that chance encounter with a found stone mixes with an idea that transforms it into something new.”

Some of his carvings only exist in a stone rubbing in crayon and 24-carat gold leaf on paper as the carved stones have been installed in undisclosed locations. One a small brick of marble found along Thames foreshore was carved with LOL, and the Worth threw it back into the river. If future mudlarks along the Thames resemble the present ones, they will research these letters and laugh.

There is an interactive aspect to the rubbing carvings. Wax crayons allow visitors to make their own laughing tears emoji rubbing from one of Worth’s carved stones. Visitors are encouraged to use the back-half of the room-sheet to add a rubbing. So you get your own souvenir piece to take home from the exhibition.

Daniel Worth, stone rubbing table

There is so much potential in this solid exhibition. Worth’s art is infinitely scalable; scalable is what every internet business is looking for. Worth could do more with the ideas in this exhibition, more art, exhibitions, even giant works of public art.

This was the first exhibition that I have seen since the COVID-19 lockdown. I had to make an appointment to see it at Noir Darkroom Gallery, and when I did, I was the only visitor to the shopfront gallery on Moreland Road.

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Marblephilia

The immense, almost two metres long, polished, muscled torso turning at the waist, made of the white marble is Peter Schipperheyn’s most recent sculpture, River God. It refers back to figures one of the figures on the Parthenon’s tympanum (you know, that triangular bit filled with carved figures under the pitched roof).

Peter Schipperheyn, River God, 2012/13  (photograph courtesy of Mossgreen Gallery)

Peter Schipperheyn loves carving marble, particularly Carrara marble. Marble is a metamorphosed limestone, the crystals in the white stone is vary in size and occasionally mixed with tiny specks of mica. The white marble can be naturally stained with yellow with iron oxide or green with copper oxide. The block of marble is then under goes a second metamorphosis when it is carved.

Schipperheyn wants to be part of the marble carving tradition around Carrara. Marble has been quarried in Carrara since the Roman Empire. Quarrying and carving marble in Carrara is a tradition that might appear conservative but it also includes a tradition of anarchist radicals since the 19th century.

Peter Schipperheyn was first inspired by the large marble, stainless steel, silver bronze, nickel-plated steel sculpture in the NGV, Jean-Robert Ipoustéguy’s Death of the father (La Mort du père) 1967-1968. I always wondered what influence this macabre installation like an exploded medieval tomb of a bishop would have on Melbourne’s art. Schipperheyn understood the power and the instinctual desire to touch that that polished surfaces of Ipoustéguy’s sculpture generated. This desire to touch is expressed in several of Schipperheyn’s sculpture including Erotica, 2009.

Ipoustéguy had other resonances in Schipperheyn’s life. Eric Westbrook, the director of the NGV who had acquired Death of the Father also wrote a letter of reference for Peter that helped get his first trip to Italy where discovered his love for carving marble. Years later Schipperheyn managed to meet Ipoustéguy in Choise La Roi, on the outskirts of Paris.

Peter Schipperheyn carving the River God (photograph courtesy of Mossgreen Gallery)

I met Peter Schipperheyn at an exhibition of his ten of his recent works in marble and bronze at Mossgreen Gallery. Peter was wearing a bright orange linen suit and plain t-shirt. His marble carving tools, still with marble dust on them, are on exhibition in the built in vitrines at Mossgreen Gallery. He is happy and relaxed, he is on a hiatus after a lot of hard work, at the same time he is keen to get back to work.