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Ad Code: 3
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from Auction House Records.
Study for Object-Drama
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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Biography from Stuart Collection:
| Terry Allen is a multidisciplinary artist in the truest sense of the
term. In addition to his indoor installation sculptural work- which is
emphatically mixed-media- and his paintings, writings and drawings,
Allen is also a songwriter, composer, pianist, and lead vocalist who
makes country rock records with his own Panhandle Mystery Band in
Lubbock, Texas. Allen is perhaps best known for his cross-disciplinary
project Youth in Asia, which was initiated in 1983. The numerous works
in this series reflect on the experience of the Vietnam War by
exploring American value systems through a variety of means ranging
from mass-cultural heroes to fairy tale protagonists like ethos of
roadhouses in the American Southwest.
Allen's diverse talents and experiences are highlighted in his project,
Trees, for the Stuart Collection. He remarks upon the continual loss of
natural environment at UCSD by salvaging three eucalyptus trees from a
grove razed to make way for new campus buildings. These trees,
preserved and encased in skins of lead, stand like ghosts within a
still-thriving eucalyptus grove between the Central Library and the
Faculty Club. Although they ostensibly represent displacement or loss,
these trees offer a kind of compensation: one emits a series of
recorded songs and the other a lively sequence of poems and stories
created and arranged specifically for this project.
For the music tree (2MB) William T. Wiley, known for his paintings
filled with literary puns and eccentric maps, sings Ghost Riders in the
Sky, accompanying himself on a homemade instrument; West Texas singer
Joe Ely sings Mona Lisa Squeeze My Guitar, while the Maines Brothers
work pedal steel guitars, a Thai band plays, and filmmaker/musician
David Byrne sings a song he composed especially for this project.
For the literary tree, Bale Allen delivers his poem about scabs, the
poet Philip Levine recites, plus there are Navajo chants, translations
of Aztec poems, duck calls, and many other contributions. There are
currently about five hours of material on each tree, and Allen and
others are at work on future contributions.
The third tree in Allen's installation is near the entrance to the vast
geometric library building and remains silent-perhaps another form of
the tree of knowledge, perhaps a reminder that trees must be cut down
to print books and build buildings, perhaps a dance form, or perhaps
noting that one can acquire knowledge both through observation of
nature and through research. This tree stands out quietly in the rather
stark man-made site at the library entrance.
On the other hand, one could walk through the grove several times
without noticing Allen's two unobtrusive Trees. Not only do these trees
reinvest a natural site with a literal sense of magic but they
implicitly make connections between nature and death and the life of
the spirit. It is not surprising that students have dubbed this area
the "Enchanted Forest."
Folklore: People have been permitted - even encouraged - to carve
initials into the trees. The letters fade and new ones are carved on
top, creating the effect of the passage of time and people becoming
part of the layers and history of the trees. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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