About
the Artist
Pol BURY (1922-2005)
Pol Bury begins his artistic career as a painter, working in the Jeune Peintre
Belge group and the Cobra group. In 1953, he is drawn to sculpture and around
1958 he introduces electric motors in his works in order to create extremely
slow, erratic movements. As such, he is considered with Rafael Soto and Takis as one of the leading artists of the Kinetic sculpture movement.
In 1964, Pol Bury visits New York for the first time at the occasion of his one-man show held at the Lefebre Gallery, titled "Cinétisations". These so-called "Cinétisations" consist of photographs or reproductions of familiar sights of buildings and monuments (in this case mainly New York sights).
Pol Bury has used this approach on several occasions, with
a clear subject-preference for post-card or cliché-images. The goal
of this at first sight unkind treatment of all too familiar images, is to wake
up the viewer and let him look anew at these images which have become meaningless
through overexposure such as the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Mona
Lisa by da Vinci, views from Venice, etc. In 1970 and 1971, a huge traveling
retrospective exhibition of Pol Bury is held in the States. Starting in Berkeley,
and afterwards going to Saint Paul, Minneapolis, Iowa, Chicago and Houston
it is shown at the Guggenheim in New York.
Pol Bury had a habit of creating
images like his "cinétisations" for
the places where exhibitions of his were taking place. In this print of the Guggenheim,
created at the time of his traveling retrospective in the States, he treats the
iconic Guggenheim Museum building in a way which is similar in purpose as his "Cinétisations".
Instead of distorting the image through the means of displacement of cut-out
circles, he lets the building be invaded by his trademark steel globes, creating
a somewhat alienating, bizarre effect, which is only enhanced by the shift of
colors used, which creates a blurry, vibrating effect. |
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