Sculpture Garden Research Articles

Transformation of the artistic form and ideological content of the memorial complex in memory of the Sino-Japanese War in Beijing

The article is devoted to the problem of transformation of the imagery of the monumental sculpture ensemble created in memory of the Sino-Japanese War in Beijing. The construction of the memorial took place in two stages: the Memorial of the Chinese People's War of Resistance to Japanese Aggression was erected in the late 1980s, and a decade later the Sculpture Garden of the Memorial of the Chinese People against the Japanese War was laid. These elements of a single ensemble represent different options for using figurative-meaningful, compositional-spatial, artistic-stylistic and plastic features of monumental sculpture and interpreting its semantic role in such structures. Using the example of these memorials, it is possible to identify and trace the development strategy of memorials and their sculptural design, especially the dynamics of changes in the creation of an artistic image of sculptural groups. The author uses the method of art criticism to describe the visual and expressive features and the ideological content of the monumental sculpture of the memorial plan on the example of an analysis of the aesthetic qualities of two different elements of the ensemble in Beijing. This requires an analysis of the artistic structure and forms through which the authors express their ideological messages, as well as a comprehensive study of visual and expressive means. The object of attention in the article is the role and place of monumental sculpture in the development of historical memory and culture of China, and the subject is the options for the development of figurative and stylistic features of the art of sculpture in the context of the expansion and transformation of memorial complexes. Sculpture is considered as a reflection of the ideological and creative pursuits of Chinese sculptors of the late XX and early XXI centuries. The research material is a monumental sculpture as the most important artistic element of the memorial ensemble in memory of the Sino–Japanese War in Beijing, which allows for artistic comparisons, including with similar monuments on the territory of modern Russia. The article provides an opportunity to reveal the nuances of artistic, spatial and semantic interaction between the memorial and the sculpture garden.

Lower Bound for Sculpture Garden Problem: Localization of IoT Devices

The purpose of the current study is to investigate a special case of art gallery problem, namely a sculpture garden problem. In this problem, for a given polygon P, the ultimate goal is to place the minimum number of guards (landmarks) to define the interior polygon P by applying a monotone Boolean formula composed of the guards. Using this problem, it can replace the operation-based method with time-consuming, pixel-based algorithms. So, the processing time of some problems in the fields of machine vision, image processing and gamification can be strongly reduced. The problem has also many applications in mobile device localization in the Internet of Things (IoT). An open problem in this regard is the proof of Eppstein’s conjecture, which has remained an open problem since 2007. According to his conjecture, in the worst case, n−2 vertex guards are required to describe any n-gon. In this paper, a lower bound is introduced for the special case of this problem (natural vertex guard), which shows that if a polygon can be defined with natural vertex guards, then n−2 is a lower bound.

The Pedagogy of Talking Back: Challenging the Modernist Ideologies of the Murphy Sculpture Garden Through Contemporary Definitions and Practices of Public Art

Though widely celebrated as a masterpiece, the Murphy Sculpture Garden raises important questions about the role of art in public space today. How do we define public art? When is it art, and what exactly makes it public? Growing scholarship in urban studies, fine art, historical preservation, and social sciences suggests that the paradigms for public art are shifting. While societal values and environmental circumstances change with time, many existing public artworks endure, unchanged and unchallenged, as if frozen in perpetuity. The Murphy Sculpture Garden cannot be experienced or understood as it was conceived almost 60 years ago. Using the sculpture garden as a case study, this article examines emerging theories, competing definitions, key paradigms, and ongoing tensions in the discourse of public art.

Illustration Credits

Illustration Credits

Peanut Butter Milk Stout [MicroBusiness

I very much enjoyed attending the International Microwave Symposium (IMS2022) in Denver last June. Among the many outstanding activities was the welcome reception on Monday evening. It was outdoors in a sculpture garden and featured a variety of food options as well as a broad selection of craft beers from local brewers. When I got there, I went to the closest brewery’s station and sampled a couple of their offerings. I didn’t bother trying their Peanut Butter Milk Stout. I know that I wouldn’t enjoy a beer like that. I like a good stout from time to time. I also think peanut butter is quite tasty. But I don’t see the appeal of mixing them. I’m a bit of a purist in these things. I’ve often told friends and family that I like beer that tastes like beer and coffee that tastes like coffee. No hazelnut vanilla java for me, please!

Review: Avant-Garde in the Cornfields: Architecture, Landscape, and Preservation in New Harmony

Review: <i>Avant-Garde in the Cornfields: Architecture, Landscape, and Preservation in New Harmony</i>

Review: Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest, by Laura Raicovich

Review: <i>Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest</i>, by Laura Raicovich

Moral Entertainment – The Buddhist Hell Parks of Thailand

Visiting Hell parks is a popular pastime in contemporary Thailand. Situated near Buddhist temples, these gruesome sculpture gardens depict the Buddhist vision of Hell. These grotesque and violent sculptures are usually seen as an oddity and a form of low art. Perhaps for this reason, they are rarely studied by scholars. This article focuses on the parks as modern entertainment. Usually found in rural areas, these spots try to answer the challenges of the commercialisation and globalisation of Thai society. A detailed analysis of four Hell parks, Wang Saen Suk, Wat Pa Lak Roi, Wat Pa Non Sawan and Wat Pa Thewapithak, shows that these religious amusement parks serve not only as means of entertainment but are also places of Buddhist morality.

The Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture Garden Plan Designing in Reverse

The article follows the history of the Hirshhorn Museum of Art's Sculpture Garden in Washington DC and explores the highlights of the proposal that is being considered that will change the present sculpture garden design and layout. There is a summary of sculpture garden design throughout history and a review of the original garden that was designed by Gordon Bundshaft in 1974 and why it was changed by Lester Collins in 1981. It also explores how it has evolved into the present sculpture garden. It discusses the proposed garden design and the critical change the new design will have on the current garden and what are the supposed benefits and criticisms the new plan has caused.

A Tribute to Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

Abstract: Elizabeth Cook-Lynn was a professor and writer of English literature and Native American Indian studies. Her writings contribute significantly to a growing body of Native American literature that addresses controversial issues pertaining to tribal sovereignty and treaty rights, but also to mindfully responsibilities of sovereign nations. She strengthened the Native voice when she helped to found the Wicazo Sa Review , a scholarly journal to inform subscribers nationally and internationally of the state of Native American affairs in the United States, especially those of the Oceti Sakowin Oyate, heretofore known people of the Great Sioux Nation. Always an engaging intellectual and thinker, she founded and co-chartered the Oak Lake Writers' Society, a one-of-a-kind tribal writers model, to assist aspiring writers to continue the revitalization of the Oceti Sakowin oral and written literary tradition. Dr. Cook-Lynn wrote curriculum and pedagogical strategies to help scaffold the emerging discipline of American Indian Studies. To raise awareness and respect for contributions of notable Oceti Sakowin leaders, activists, and writers, she helped to create the First Nations Sculpture Garden in Rapid City, South Dakota. In summary, Dr. Cook-Lynn lived and practiced her cultural values for which she received numerous prestigious awards and national recognition.

“As Clear as It Needs to Be”: A Conversation with Thomas Kinsella

“As Clear as It Needs to Be”: A Conversation with Thomas Kinsella Adrienne Leavy and Thomas Kinsella (bio) from the Archives This article originally appeared in New Hibernia Review 24:1. the following interview, first published in Reading Ireland, is given to New Hibernia Review in advance of its inclusion in a book of essays on Thomas Kinsella that is forthcoming from Wake Forest University Press. The Wake Forest collection is edited by Adrienne Leavy, with essays by writers on the varied aspects of the poet’s career. Thomas Kinsella’s interview, with email questions from Adrienne Leavy in Phoenix, Arizona, and replies from Dublin, gives his memories of growing up in working-class Dublin; his time as an Irish civil servant and in US universities; and many general comments, in particular on publishing and politics, poetry and the poetic process. ________ AL: You grew up in the Inchicore-Kilmainham area of Dublin. In your book A Dublin Documentary (2006), which is part memoir, part poetry book, you refer to this place as “The Ranch.” Could you describe what it was like growing up in Dublin in the 1930s and 1940s? TK: Inchicore is a district on the western outskirts of Dublin. The Ranch is a settlement of six small streets westward from Inchicore. In the 1930s and 1940s if you went one step further westward from The Ranch you were heading into the country toward Ballyfermot and picking blackberries. I believe The Ranch was designed for workers on the Great Southern Railway, though I have never checked this. It is connected with the railway works [End Page 65] by a pathway people called “the Khyber Pass,” which suggests a date around the time of the Boer War. The Ranch was a perfect place to grow up. The streets safe, free of all traffic. One boundary was the Liffey Hill. From there, downhill and across a wide field, and you were on the bank of the River Liffey. The other boundary a high blank wall—the wall of the old landlord Inchicore Estate, in walking distance from the Model School. AL: Poems such as “Hen Woman,” “Ancestor,” “The High Road,” “A Hand of Solo,” and “Tear” evoke the world of your childhood and the people and places of your early life. The aforementioned poems were first published in Notes from the Land of the Dead, and Other Poems (1973), after you had started reading Jung. Do you think that Jungian philosophy facilitated this imaginative exploration? TK: Awareness of Jung came after the event. I had been wondering at the insistence of certain subjects: detailed memories of random places and happenings, gestures and voices, distinct as though they were there. A phrase heard only once, a glimpse through a doorway, that would never go away, always part of my daily thoughts. With these insistent memories it was not enough to leave them as recorded memories. There was a need to put them in intense words—words that would try to remake the memory and my response so as to make it possible always to re-experience the exact memory and the response. Reading Jung’s psychology of the unconscious, I recognized and understood. Art as a means to resist, in Jung’s own words, “the relentless flight of time . . . the poison of the stealthily creeping serpent of time . . .” AL: On April 10, 2019, you attended the opening of a sculpture garden with President Michael D. Higgins and his wife Sabina Higgins at the Inchicore Model School which you attended as a child. Your poem “Model School, Inchicore,” from Songs of the Psyche (1985), celebrates the school. Can you describe the school’s significance for you? TK: The Model School was small and a place of discovery. I learned there, for the first time, that there was a world outside The Ranch with enormous activities and things to understand. Our classes were small. We had two teachers, friendly and willing to answer all questions. There was a growing awareness of the troubles in Europe; I remember being uneasy at talk of General Franco and the voice of Hitler on the radio, full of hate. Our time in The Ranch ended with the...

Review: John McAndrew's Modernist Vision: From the Vassar College Art Library to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, by Mardges Bacon, and Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art: The Arthur Drexler Years, 1951–1986, by Thomas S. Hines

Review: <i>John McAndrew's Modernist Vision: From the Vassar College Art Library to the Museum of Modern Art in New York</i>, by Mardges Bacon, and <i>Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art: The Arthur Drexler Years</i>, 1951–1986, by Thomas S. Hines

Southern Light in a Beautiful Sculpture Garden

Southern Light in a Beautiful Sculpture Garden

Genocide in the sculpture garden and talking back to settler colonialism

ABSTRACTIn this essay, I explore how Native American rhetoric of resistance exposes the settler colonial logics that constitute a hegemonic force in the greater social imaginary. Focusing on two sites—the Minneapolis Walker Arts Center’s Scaffold exhibit and The Landing, a historic settlers’ village located twenty miles from the Walker—I assess both how settler colonialism is enacted in these spaces and how Native American activism represents a talking back to settler colonialism. I argue that examining places as networked arguments reveals the ways in which they can speak to each other and unsettle dominant ideologies. To better understand the settler colonial logics that Native American resistance rhetoric seeks to unsettle, I advocate for critical examination of how scholars and activists are constituted by those very centering logics.

Determination of total dissolved nitrogen in seawater based on Sequential Injection Analysis

In this paper, we established a sequential injection method to monitoring the concentration of total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) in seawater, which combined with an UV-thermal digestion. The sequential injection method consumes less reagents and less time, mixes more evenly than the flow injection method. TDN detection process mainly includes three parts: the digestion process of conversion organic nitrogen to nitrate, the reduction process of nitrate to nitrite, and the process of reaction between nitrite and chromogenic agent. The UV-thermal digestion that transforms dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) into nitrate has the highest digestion efficiency. The nitrate reduction process with a UV lamp is considered a greener choice which avoids the toxic substance and complicated operation of cadmium column reduction. We analyzed the optimal concentrations of all the reagents used in the experiment with the univariate experimental design. The reaction conditions were optimized by using three kinds of DON, which were C2H5NO2, CH4N2S and C10H14N2Na2O8. Under the optimal reaction conditions, we tested the seawater in the Qingdao Sculpture Garden and the recovery rate of adding standard. In May, the TDN concentration of seawater in Qingdao Sculpture Garden was 122.94μg/L, the relative standard deviation was 0.34%. The recovery rate was as high as 99.94% to 100.39%. The outcomes indicate that the proposed method can apply to the potential in-situ monitor.

We've explored… sculpture

How children at one setting went about creating a sculpture garden. Annette Rawstrone reports

‘Let children have a go’

Kerry Smith (below), a pedagogical coordinator at Little Barn Owls Nursery, reveals why the children in her setting have developed a sculpture garden, how her team manages challenging behaviour, and her favourite way to relax outside of work.

Contributors

Contributors

Collections Access and Custom Storage Solutions at the Smithsonian’s Museum Support Center

The National Museum of Natural History is committed to long-term stewardship of collections and to supporting their use by scientists and the general public. This stewardship role is unique among other US natural history museums. As the nation’s natural history museum, the National Museum of Natural History has a mandated commitment to conserve and protect its collections in a manner that will assure their continued accessibility by future generations and maintain the National Museum of Natural History mission. A significant number of objects from the National Museum of Natural History are permanently stored at the Museum Support Center in Suitland, MD. This space not only includes collections from the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), but also the Museum Conservation Institute (MCI), the National Museum of American History (NMAH), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (HMSG), the Freer Sackler Gallery (FSG) and the National Museum of African Art (AfA) as well as several other museums. In terms of collections access and use, the museum support center has a team, Collections Support Services (CSS), dedicated to collections’ long-term care and preservation. Collections Support Services provides access and support for the 730,000 square feet of collections housed at MSC. CSS staff perform a variety of technical and labor tasks related to the cleaning, preparation, packing, transport, unpacking, and permanent storage of objects and specimens. This includes building custom aluminum pallets for oversized objects and whale skull cradles. Moreover, while the use of palletized storage is not a new concept in museum storage, the construction of Pod 4 at the Museum Support Center in Suitland, MD posed some unique challenges for the permanent storage of oversized collections. Pod 4 provides continuous rows of 2', 4' and 8' deep cantilevered open racking from floor to ceiling (22 feet high), and allows palletized objects to be moved and placed in the racking via forklift. Traditional wooden pallets are unacceptable by archival standards, as they are acidic by nature, bulky, heavy, not fire-retardant, and prone to pest infestation. Collections Support Services circumvented these issues by establishing an innovative system of customized aluminum pallets for collections’ long-term care and preservation. These pallets are durable and lightweight, and must pass several quality control tests that include dropping and jarring. They are also designed with multiple functions in mind for ease of use, storage, transport, and maintenance.

충남 지역 조각 공원과 작품의 보존 현황 및 관리 방안에 대한 융합적 고찰

충남 지역 조각 공원과 작품의 보존 현황 및 관리 방안에 대한 융합적 고찰