This sculpture appeared on a street in town for our sculpture festival last summer. I was hoping it would disappear again when the summer was over…! But alas - I noticed last weekend that it’s still there.
If it has been affected at all by all the snow and ice during the winter, I would not be able to tell.
The artist is Frank Stella and the name of the sculpture is Catal Hüyük. Does that clarify anything for you?
I just looked it up in Wikipedia again. I still can’t quite see it.
Catalhöyük was a Neolithic settlement in Turkey, 7500 BC to 5700 BC with an average population of 5000-8000 people living in mud-brick houses crammed together rather resembling a beehive structure, with no streets in between. The doors were on the ceilings, and ladders were used to get in and out. Archaeologists found very little rubbish inside, apparently that was all disposed of outside. Over time, houses were renewed by partial demolition and rebuilding on a foundation of rubble. Up to 18 levels of settlement have been uncovered. Graves, murals and figurines found suggest a religion rich in symbolism and possibly a matriarchal social structure.
As for this modern sculpture... If anything, when I saw it again after the winter… I hope no one takes offense if I say it made me think of recent pictures from Christchurch. After earthquake; before rebuilding.
But of course the sculpture is not really chaos at all, since it was put together by someone who I assume had some sort of idea behind what he was doing, even if I fail to get it. (Oh. Maybe that’s it? Because the same could probably be said of those people in Catalhöyük 9000 or so years ago…)
Anyway… With ‘real’ chaos in mind… earthquakes and war zones and serious mental disorders and whatever… I had a hard time coming up with anything in my immediate neighbourhood that really deserves to fall under the title Chaos. So this was the best I could do: a thing that reminds me of things that are worse (and makes me wonder if I really need that particular kind of reminder).
… … …
As I publish this post – Thursday evening – there has been another kind of more ‘normal chaos’ going on outside my windows for about 30 hours. Just as we were beginning to raise our hopes of spring, we were hit by another snowstorm yesterday, still going on. Well, it seems to have turned into rain just now… But it might turn to snow again in the night… Anyway… I’m not feeling the least bit tempted to go out there to take more photos of icy slush… Have enough of those already…
Organized chaos (kaleidoscoped slush!)
