Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Art For Art's Sake: Ziolkowski

The scale of this one never ceases to amaze me - like the original artist, sadly, I won't live to see it finished:

                          

I first read about it in a sci-fi novel, 'Logan's Run' by George Clayton Johnson and William F. Nolan - being sci-fi, the idea of a mountain sculpture hiding a supercomputer and guarded by lethal cybernetic eagles was just part of the make-believe world. Or, so I thought at the time.

Years later, I learned the truth. Amazingly, it is indeed real (though minus the supercomputer and the eagles, which is a real shame!). Or...will be real, anyway.

In 1929, Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, wrote to the sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski to propose it. Why did he choose Ziolkowski, a Polish American? I haven't been able to find out, but I can only assume that it was on the basis of his work on the more-famous Mount Rushmore monument. I admire his vision, and his steadfast refusal to take any form of government grant...

And if only all modern art were so grand and uplifting!
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2 comments:

  1. John Pickworth20 June 2013 at 09:30

    Now I like this sort of thing. It takes vision, effort and owing to it's size, it's unlikely ever to be bought up and squirrelled away in some private collector's vault or inaccessible museum.

    I could sit and look at stuff like this all day... as opposed to the half second interest in someone's unmade bed or half a shark in formaldehyde.

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  2. JuliaM22 June 2013 at 07:53

    "Now I like this sort of thing. It takes vision, effort and owing to it's size, it's unlikely ever to be bought up and squirrelled away in some private collector's vault or inaccessible museum. "

    That's a VERY good point.

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