Strange Attractor for Kansas City 2007

Editor: This is Alice Aycock's "Strange Attractor for Kansas City," created in 2007. It's a large metal sculpture, almost an installation, that sits directly on the landscape. It has a futuristic vibe to it, what should we be focusing on here? Curator: Let's consider the labor and the materials, the "stuff" of art, as it were. How does the use of metal, and its implied industrial processes, connect with the landscape surrounding it? This isn't about transcendence, but about the earthly origins of form. Editor: I see what you mean. The industrial aesthetic clashes a bit with the open sky. What kind of manufacturing might have been necessary to achieve that rounded horn shape, and those lines of light? Curator: Exactly. Think about the socio-economic context of this piece. Aycock chose metal; she didn't carve from stone, or mold with clay. She chose an industrialized material, fabricated using specific tools and techniques indicative of 21st-century labor. Who are the workers behind the art? Are they valued and seen? What assumptions are made about labor, especially manual labour, in today’s consumerist society? Editor: So, it's less about Aycock's individual genius and more about the network of production that makes the sculpture possible? How the means of production itself becomes a focal point? Curator: Precisely. Even its designation as "site-specific" implies a network: Who owns the land? How does its presence transform, and get transformed by, its environment? How does this reflect power structures in play in Kansas City at that time? Editor: It makes me consider what is prioritized when public art is selected, too - aesthetic versus material sustainability, for instance. Thanks, I'm already thinking about this work completely differently! Curator: My pleasure. Questioning the underlying materials of any artwork can unearth some striking narratives about our consumption, class, and values.