Crab-Legs (Studio)
Kim Adams
May 25 – September 30, 1994
Kim Adams, Crab-Legs (Studio), 1994; corrugated metal, steel, plastic, lamps, paint; Track, 50'L x 5'6" W; Studio, 23'H x 20'L x 9'6"W; Studio Shuttles, each 5'4"H x 5'1"L x 4'W
Artist Statement
I have had this work in mind since 1987, when I visited a friend at his farm in Quebec. He had walked me to an abandoned open pit mine. At the top of the very large pit there were several buildings, including one which, in the industry, is referred to as a Gravel Tipple. This leggy, boxed and stacked industrial structure was built so that trucks had easy access to its under-belly, picking up loads of gravel. I was told that the building was free and could be taken by anyone as long as they would move it off the site. To move it to Toronto, however, would probably cost more than to build a new one. Although I could neither afford to build a new one nor to move the existing building, I was still interested in the type of structure and its possibilities as a sculpture studio. After the sighting, I designed a building in the form of a drawing and a small model, with the intention of eventually building a larger model of this "wish studio" to fit my artistic and domestic needs.
Crab-Legs is a realization of this idea in the form of a model sculpture. In its construction, it is related to some of my earlier works which included mobile, stacked garden sheds, recreational vehicles on legs or stilts and other types of homes on wheels. The work is complete with a loading dock, workshop, studio space, library and living area. In addition to interior lighting, there are two working model street lights illuminating the loading dock and workshop area inside, where one can see a sculpture in progress. The building, which is placed on double tracks with two separate housing structures within, can itself be moved. This is suggestive of various types of industrial workshop units which relocate or move along as part of the construction assembly process, whether as a whole or in separate, able to be re-assembled modular units; either expanding or contracting, and incorporating the process of its own making. Crab-Legs is a distributor-maker of sculpture.
