Chazen Museum Of Art to hand-crank the year to a start with moving sculpture in Automata
Courtesy Chazen Museum Of Art
"The Early Bird" by British sculptor Neil Hardy
If you've ever looked at a fine, fraught work of art and said, "Yeah, but what does it do?", then this one's for you. The Chazen Museum Of Art's first new exhibition of the year, Automata: Contemporary Mechanical Sculpture, running Jan. 16 through March 14, will feature 14 international sculptors' takes on hand-cranked contraptions that actually move about in playful, whimsical fashion, instead of just sitting there like some dead Italian guy's depressing marble figures. Actually, since all of these are presumably precious works of art on loan from reputable galleries and rich people, the masses won't be invited to start up their ingenious workings by hand. Instead, videos in the Chazen gallery will demonstrate the pieces in motion. Luckily, these things go far beyond your average music box with some crummy ballerina twirling on top. To give you some idea of what to expect, here's an action clip of Dean Lucker's "Man Drinking In The Moon," which will be included in the exhibit:
