Paradise Now & Then
Robin Collyer
Spring Hurlbut
Robert Wiens
April 30 – July 4, 1986
Curated by Bernie Miller
Robin Collyer, Nurture/Nature, 1986; stone, steel, Plexiglas, concrete, plants; 8' x 7' x 7'
Spring Hurlbut, Tree Columns, 1986; lathed wooden capitals and bases on real trees; 3 columns, each 12' x 16" x 16"
Robert Wiens, City of Glass, 1986; photo transparency, metal sign display unit; 30" x 90" x 8"
The distinction between what is nature and what is culture, what is natural and what arrives through human effort, is the distinction between what is changeable and what is not. This is the underlying difference between concepts of Utopia and Paradise.
In Robin Collyer's Nurture/Nature, the plants certainly have "real" leaves, but the fact that they are trained within the architectural kiosk he has built suggests horticulture. His references to media and advertising suggest the 'cultivation' of human 'nature'.
Spring Hurlbut asks a similar question with Tree Columns: Is the cultural based on the natural, as the column is dependent upon the tree trunk? Or is it culture in the form or architecture that perceives the column in the tree?
In Robert Wiens' City of Glass, aboriginal architecture is presented as more 'natural'; composed of mud bricks it seems to rise from the earth itself. This is contrasted with the crystalline architectural structures of the present. And yet, glass and steel are also derived from nature.
Text by Bernie Miller
