The Sculpture Gallery

Have any of you heard of biodegradable art? I have. Now I'm going to blog about it :-)
Dieter Roth, a sculptor from Iceland used to have a unique way of creating his sculpted works. Interestingly enough, he fueled a curiosity for his "recycled media", by way of being different from your run of the mill sculptor. Roth was sometimes known as "Dieter Rot" because of his creations that made use of biodegradable media. Pictured below is one sculpture you may find a bit strange, yet curiously befuddled by.

The title of this work is "Rabbit Shit Rabbit" from 1972. He also made 250 editions of this piece as well. Don't be fooled though by the comedic title, Roth's many other works were also taken in very impressively by his peers. Today there's a congregation every year that remembers Roth called the Dieter Roth Academy. It has been done in Iceland, China, Germany (twice) and the Netherlands. His many friends such as Henriette van Egten, Bjorn Roth, and Andrea Tippel are among the attendees.

Even if Roth isn't with us today, his novelty of an artform still draws crowds to wonder at their ingenious, yet unorthodox existence. It just goes to show you, art is all about expression and creativity, the media is just something that follows.

I'm pretty sure there have been a lot of artists out there with a curiosity for organic pigments and media, but today I chanced upon Han Bing Lin's unique usage of fish-bone in his Asian inspired relief art. Aside from fish bones, the artist also uses related marine organics like gills, scales and even the antenae of shrimps and crustaceans. Lin's inspiration came from an old story he tells from 1998. He was inspired by the sight of a young girl in a white dress playing the violin. Where did he see her? After his meal while staring at the unique arrangement of fishbones!

Based in Xiamen, China, Lin spent over three years collecting fishbones and materials he would be able to incorporate into his artworks. His uniqueness cost him over thirty thousand yuan before any outside help managed to discover the beauty of his creative mind. Among his subjects are bold and fascinating landscapes, many of which drawn from his hometown's natural surroundings.



It's something you don't see every day; a form of art that makes use of what was previously conceived as unusable. This movement of art carries on from before the twentieth century into new exciting techniques that slowly make their way into Asian museums and galleries.

Matchstick art isn't as uncommon these days as you might think. Gladbrook, Iowa actually has a Matchstick Marvel Center that displays many interesting and award-winning contemporary pieces, including the picture in this post- a scaled model of the city of Minas Tirith from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. There are quite a few famous sculptors out there who create using this unorthodox media, such as David Mach, Jack Hall and Phil Hanson. From sculpted guitars to life-size automobiles, the subjects have no limit.

Basically many of those practicing the craft have mentioned the relation of matches to "building blocks" much as how you would view toys such as Lego or Megablocks, but on a higher difficulty. The ability for matches to function as compatible units in an overall composition is astounding, as you can see by the end product. With the development of new and unique forms of art, I'm happy right here to be able to see the design wonders that can be produced by creative minds all around the globe.