Ferment
Artist
Roxy Paine
(American, born 1966)
Date2011
MediumStainless steel
DimensionsOverall: 56 × 35 feet (17.07 × 10.67 meters)
Credit LinePurchase: acquired in honor of Martin Friedman and his critical role in the development of the Kansas City Sculpture Park through a gift from the Hall Family Foundation
Object number2011.1
On View
On viewGallery Location
- Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park
Collections
DescriptionFerment is a polished stainless steel tree 55 feet high and 35 feet in diameter. It is composed of multiple pieces of cylindrical steel pipes and rods of diminishing size, welded together to create the large-scale sculpture.Gallery LabelRising 56 feet into the air with a branching system that spans 35 feet, Roxy Paine's silvery sculpture, Ferment, acknowledges the power of human imagination and technological innovation. At the same time, its organic, tree-like form speaks profoundly to the dendritic (branching) structures of nature-from our bodies (torso, arms, hands, fingers) to vascular and neurological systems to river deltas and erosion patterns to botanical branching. Ferment, one of more than 20 dendroid sculptures by Paine, investigates this complex interrelationship between nature and technology.
Ferment is defined as a state of agitation or turbulent change. With its twisting, gnarled branches, Paine's sculpture embodies the surging energy of creation, growth, transformation, decay and regeneration.
Ferment is defined as a state of agitation or turbulent change. With its twisting, gnarled branches, Paine's sculpture embodies the surging energy of creation, growth, transformation, decay and regeneration.
Commissioned
from the Artist by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO in 2011.
Jan Schall, Roxy Paine: Ferment
(Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2011).
Kellie Houx and Randy Mason, “What’s Growing on at the Nelson?” KC Studio, ed. 18 (March-April, 2011):
32-36, (repro.).
Randy Mason, “Putting Down Roots: Roxy Paine’s Ferment” Your KCPT MEMber Magazine, May-June 2012, 40-43.
Antonia Bostrom et al., A Labyrinth for the Park: Celebrating the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2014), 27, 28 (repro.), 38 (repro.).
Copyright© Roxy Paine
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