Tim Hawkinson

Tim Hawkinson in front of "Wall Chart of World History from Ancient Times to the Present," 1997

By Michele Leight

In ancient times, Tim Hawkinson might have rubbed shoulders with alchemists, artists, monks, magicians and flute and lute players. Merlin might be called a scientist today instead of a magician or alchemist, but the word 'scientist' had not been culled for contemporary usage in medieval times.

When the Director of the Whitney Museum of Art in New York called Hawkinson a "modern medievalist," not a mad scientist, it struck the right chord. The artist's first major retrospective is a wildly imaginative rollercoaster ride of emotions, artistry, mechanics, materials, self-examination and a beguiling blend of ancient and modern references and inspirations, grounded in solid classical traditions.

"Divan," pastel and paper on foam core on panel, 1997, collection Tony and Gail Ganz

Fine artistry is always close at hand in Tim Hawkinson's work despite the deliberately distracting wizardry, mechanical dexterity and complexity of some of the constructions, not to mention the sheer wealth and variety of materials, both found and fashioned, that make up the majority of the pieces. There is one work that might be called a "painting," a gorgeously subdued, fantastical work featuring multiple shrinking Tinkerbells - fairies - in monochromatic colors: "Divan" (1997) in the hands of Hawkinson, becomes a sofa extraordinaire. Now in the collection of Tony and Gail Ganz, it is one of the most straightforward pieces in the show in terms of materials, created from pastel and paper on board mounted on wood.

Fascinated by cartoon and Hollywood magicians, I have always relished the way a person or thing becomes humongous or miniscule with a simple wave of technology, often disguised as the 'magic wand': Tim Hawkinson's works generate the same sense of wonder as they veer from gargantuan and humongous to minutely detailed and tiny. For example, the drop in scale from the colossal "Pentecost" in the opening gallery of the show to the tiniest "Feather" (1997), created from a strand of the artists own hair - or a eensy "Bird," (1997), artfully constructed from the artist's own superglued nail clippings.

"Emoter," altered ink-jet print, monitor, stepladder and mechanical components, Andrea Nasher Collection, 2002

It is just not possible to walk past a work by Tim Hawkinson without reacting. Familiar with his mechanical face, "Emoter," 2002, (included in this show), from The Whitney Biennial in 2002 (see The City Review article), I was even more drawn in by "Uberorgan" in the Atrium of the IBM Building on Madison Avenue in New York.

"Uberorgan," (following three images) in the IBM Building Atrium, Madison Avenue and 56th Street, New York, woven polythylene baloons, nylon, cardboard tubing, mechanical components and air.Andrea Nasher Collection, commissioned for exhibition at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, 2000.

I was on my way to an event but stopped dead in my tracks, smitten by the huge multi-armed aerial octopus, or tree-branch - or whatever the gigantic construction reminds you of on a particular day - with inflated organs trailing entrails, anchored by pipes which invoke Tibetan horns if your imagination is ignited. The sound this modernist organ makes in one musical segment is just like the Tibetan horns I heard in Ghoom Monastary not far from Kurseong, clinging to the mountainside on the dizzy ride up to Darjeeling, in the foothills of the Himalayas. There are no monks, or mountain mists, here in the heart of Manhattan's vertical columns of commerce and enterprise, but the sounds generated by this work are eerily similar. "Uberorgan" unlocks different memories and associations for different situations.

If, like some, you are more perplexed than impressed by the aerial construction in the IBM Atrium, you will still probably stop and look at the massive contemporary art organ mated with a wind instrument for a giant, if for no other reason than fascination that it is constructed of all kinds of wonderful media - found, man-made and deftly fashioned. I connected the name of the artist on the description of the piece in the IBM Atrium to an upcoming press preview at The Whitney. The "Uberorgan" made me mark my calendar in bold script - go see this show. I wondered what else this witty Merlin of contemporary art had to offer.

I was not disappointed; the show at the Whitney appeared at first to be about many wildly imaginative things, including "Uberorgan" installed down the avenue at IBMs headquarters, but the more I looked at, smiled at and absorbed Tim Hawkinson's work the more seriousness I found. The playfulness is winsome, especially when you are all grown up now, and the unselfconscious approach of the works - mirrored in the artist himself - makes it okay to have fun, to be young again, but the seriousness comes later.

Smart, playful, witty and original, Hawkinson's multi-disciplinary approach belies a keen intelligence. While it is easy to be taken in by the playfulness and leave it at that, spending more than just superficial time with some of the constructions at the show recalls life- preserving and life-threatening equipment, all under the innocent guise of a mechanical face, or musical instrument, or weird contraptions that blip water via a computer simultaneously into several steel buckets with the pulsating accuracy of a plasma drip.

Detail of Wall Chart of World History From Earliest Times to the Present," 1997. Ink and colored pencil on paper. Private collection, courtesy Ace Gallery

Speaking with Tim Hawkinson was effortless and he was good-humored about having his picture taken in front of "Wall Chart of World History From Earliest Times to the Present," (1997), a gorgeous and obsessively detailed pink, red and gray scroll, reminiscent of the ancient Chinese variety, of enormous length - 51 inches wide by 420 inches long.

"Let's take the photograph here, so the red shows up," he said, ever aware of the impact of color. The result is the photo at the top of the story. The artist smiled when I said his work was both playful and serious. "Yes," he replied, eyes gleaming.

Hawkinson has a keen sense of humor, and our conversation somehow turned to children: I said how wonderful it must be for his daughter - Claire, just 16 months old - to have a father who makes such fantastical constructions and artworks.

"Balloon Self-Portrait," 72 by 48 by 33 incyhes, 1993, refabricated 2005, Ace Gallery

"Actually, that one scared her," said Hawkinson, indicating "Balloon Self-Portrait," (1993), an inflated latex human form suspended from the ceiling above our heads.

"I had covered myself in latex and was waiting for it to dry and she walked in on me in the bathroom," he explained, revealing the process of the aerial baloon man above us. Little Claire did not go for "Balloon Self-Portrait" - but the other works in the show do not involve her father becoming smothered in grungy fluids that must have looked pretty strange to a toddler - so they must delight.

Through the centuries serious issues and messages have lurked behind humorous and playful facades - Shakespeare's buffoons and clowns for example. They get to say what Shakespeare himself wanted to say about many things: they were safe to hide behind. The bard knew only too well how the public could be. Hawkinson's work has the same banter and buffoonery.

"H.M.S.O.," wood, fabric and string, 90 inches diameter, 1995, collection Dean Valentine and Amy Adelson

Imbedding seriousness in humor makes it infinitely more palatable. That takes a lot of savviness these days, with all of us so bored and over stimulated by everything. We are in perpetual visual surround-sound, and therfore in danger of over-dosing. Most of us would rather have fun, then - if we absolutely must - deal with reality. We know cod liver oil is good for us, but we can't see the good it is doing and who really likes to ingest that awful tasting stuff anyway? My son used to ask in his blunt childlike way:

"How do I know it is good for me? I can't see it. Show me."

Confronted with this ingenius form of kid logic I ended up promising my son chocolate cake in return for taking the foul tasting mixture (without spitting it out) which worked far better than the "it's good for you" approach. I have not drifted away from the subject: the "chocolate for ikky tasting vitamin or medicine" trade is just how I felt about the approach Hawkinson takes to engage the viewer - humorously, gently, cleverly - and then the seriousness, the idea or underlying message emerges, by which time it is far easier to deal with.

The following three photographs show Hawkinson's "Uberorgan" with tentacles outstretched in the IBM Atrium on Madison Avenue and 56th street in New York City. Here is how the artist describes his creation:

Detail of "Uberorgan" Another view of Uberorgan

"Several bus-size biomorphic baloons, each with its horn tuned to a different in the octave, make up a walk-in self-playing organ. A 200 foot-long scroll of dots and dashes encodes a musical score of old hymns, pop classics, and improvisional ditties. This score is deciphered by the organ's brain - a bank of light sensitive switches - and then reinterpreted by a series of switches and relays that translate the original patterns into non-repeating vairations of the score."

Uberorgan, 2000, is constructed of woven polythylene balloons, nylon, cardboard tubing, mechanical components, and air. Andrea Nasher Collection, commissioned for exhibition at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, 2000.

There were a couple of dazed and confused looking ladies with grey hair peering up at the gigantic "Uberorgan" octopus in the Atrium of the IBM Building the first evening I saw it. No doubt the cost of the piece was running through their minds, and what is the point of it? what does it mean? has the world gone mad if this is art? But they stopped and reacted - they did not just walk on by. They even smiled after a while.

Great and good art should produce a reaction; anger and outrage is better than no reaction at all. Worst of all is catatonic acceptance and boredom. Anyone who goes to "Tim Hawkinson" at the Whitney will react and not be bored or disappointed, even if they don't 'get' the art. That might come later. The kids will love it too - that is a certainty. For one who has been to many contemporary art and sculpture shows, I was pleased to discover that I could still be altered by a show. I am frequently moved and exalted by art, but to be altered even in a small way is challenging these days. Changing the way one thinks, even slightly, is something. I found the show opened up whole areas of thought that had lain fallow after years of neglect - I became connected to my art school days. Happy times.

Tim Hawkinson explores the ins and outs of the world, emotions, bodies, perceptions and the inner self with quixotic grace and intelligence - then sews or knits his discoveries into the wider fabric of our existence, revealing the magic and madness, beauty and barbarism that is the 21st century. The seeming innocence of much of his works makes the viewer long for that state of innocence, now gone from ourselves and our vision. But the latent seriousness in many of the pieces is a reminder that seriousness has after all preserved civilizations - and our acknowledgement of the need for a "classical order" is historically proven.

Above all, the devotion and often myopic diligence required of many of Tim Hawkinson's works recalls the excellence and discipline required of artists, goldsmiths and sculptors in medieval and ancient times. The artisans guilds or monastaries that were a hot-bed of fully funded patronage and support; the inter-action between artist and the "work" is reminiscent of the Zen monks of olden times who painted the most awesome calligraphic artworks with their own hair and squid ink; a time when apprenticeship as an artist entailed back-breaking attention to detail and surface preparation - often as many as 24 coats of gesso, fine sanded between each layer, for a Renaissance master's gilded triptych. As we explore a Hawkinson work in front of us we understand the exactitude and focus beneath the playfulness. Our role changes - viewing and having fun is not enough and we start to engage in the rigour of "making" and the mental gymnastics required in the process of understanding.

"Pentecost," polyurethane foam, sonotubes, solenoids, found computer program and mechanical components. Dimensions variable. Andrea Nasher Collection, 1999

Works like Uberorgan and the fantastical "Pentecost," 1999,(Andrea Nasher Collection) in the opening gallery at The Whitney make us by their sheer size step back, as well as engage, as one does when confronted by a sight as awe-inspiring as The Grand Canyon or The Eiffel Tower. The huge works push the viewer away, yet they are strangely cosy and accessible. The minute "Bird," 1997, (fingernail pairings and superglue, Andrea Nasher Collection), seems innocent enough: it's tiny scale is inviting - then close inspection reveals it is made of clipped finger nails, and we are momentarily startled, taken unawares and off-guard. Fingernail clippings? Eek!

"Life-Size Mirror Self-Portrait," Synthetic polymer and aluminium foil on polyester. Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, 2000

Hawkinson knows the power of positive/negative: attract/repel. But he pulls back just in time so that things don't get too disturbing. A strange tune emerges from an even stranger looking construction that suddenly emits a well known and comforting passage by Bach, or a recognizable pop song!

Background, "Volume Control," paper, aluminium foil and glue on panel, 1992, private Collection, courtesy Ace Gallery; Foreground, "Armor Ooze," aluminium foil, synthetic ploymer on urethane foam, and brass brads, 1996, collection of Eileen-Harris Norton and Peter Norton

History is important to Hawkinson, as well as our place in it; in the process of engaging our focus with a simulated CD made of luscious aluminium foil, (in front of which lies what looks like a latter day fallen knight in shining armor), or "Drip," with its fine, vein-like tubes of blipping fluid, we accept that there is a steady, consistent flow, a stabilizing physical, emotional and mental "classical order," that has been passed on through the centuries.

Preserving the past while making his mark in the present and moving into the future is a constant theme in Hawkinson's work; continuity is cleverly packaged in startling 21st century objects fashioned from found and ready made materials that are non-threatening, often strangely familiar and therefore re-assuring. It can also be eerie, surreal, disquieting - like all great art.

"Drip," 2002, polythene, mechanical component, and water. Dimensions variable. Collection Steven Neu.

When one of the constructions abrubtly stops working for instance, we are uneasy: the voice inside says:

"It has stopped." Like a heart beat, a pulse.

What if everything we have come to rely upon stopped working? How reliable is what we know, feel , see and touch - everything that is our world? How permanent is all this? Hawkinson's constructions make you stop and stare, no matter how busy or preoccupied your mind is.

One of my favorite exchanges about his work took place between two thirty-something businessmen, intent in conversation, striding purposefully through the IBM Atrium, thankfully right past my alert ears.

As if to exert its magic over two diligent souls too busy to notice its presence, "Uberorgan" began its whizzing, gas-emitting, soft-strangulation, sublimely sonorous and extra-terrestrial sounds, accompanied by ever-so subtle bumps and mechanical grinds.

"What's that?" asked one businessman, amazed, momentarily rooted to the ground.

That's art," his colleague replied seriously.

"Really," he said, looking up in wonder at "Uberorgan," suspended like some extra-terrestrial above the bamboo trees.

Found Here: http://www.thecityreview.com/thawkins.html

Denderah Zodiac from the Temple of Hathor

The temple to Hathor at Denderah, Egypt was constructed as a monument and a learning venue for Motherhood. The design of the monument carries the celestial theme throughout its grand architecture. Within each chamber and hall are magnificent and profound works of art which glorify the qualities of benevolent motherhood. In the entrance areas are fully inscribed columns with the Nile Lotus replaced by the head of Hathor wearing her traditional wig over cow ears. The temple is the product of the Hellenistic Period after the conquests of Alexander the Great during the Ptolemaic Dynasties, just prior to, and overlapping the initiation of the Christian era.. The Nile Lotus and the Wig of Hathor are both symbols of the object held in the hand of the constellation Virgo. Modern astronomers recognize the wig as Coma Berenices; the wig of Berenices. However it should be self evident that the stars at the top of the axis of the galactic sphere can be connected to look like a sprig of wheat, an ear of corn, a Red Pandanus, a Nile Lotus, an Indus Lotus, or any fertile flower. The essence of a fertile flower is the theme of the temple to Hathor, and the essence of benevolent motherhood. This essence is drawn directly from the positions of the stars at the top axis of the galactic plane of the Milky Way, perceived from earth.

In the ceiling of the Osiris chamber the architects installed a cosmic story about the deflowering of motherhood. The story was told as a prophecy, and an example teleology; the belief that design and purpose are apparent in nature. It is derived from the Egyptian record of the experiences of life, and their recorded knowledge of the most ancient traditions of the whole world. It is the quintessential document which relates to the conversation between the Egyptian priest and Solon in Plato's dialogue by Critias. For the monument reads like a history book, in which the clock of the heavens defines the space-time frame, and the rhythm of Plato's Dance of the Gods. Besides a history of the ancient world, the monument tells a story about the maturation cycle of human souls in the whole of Western Civilization for an additional 8600 years to come. The solar eclipse of August 1999 demonstrates that the great accuracy of the celestial knowledge of the temple architects included dramatic teleological aspects. Within the presentation of their material science, the spiritual message of the Egyptian priests and priestesses is clearly visible. It is a story about love and reason, arrogance and wisdom, banishment and salvation. Most of all, it is a story about a man child (Horus) and his mother (Hathor), and the dialog of mankind with the Creator.

This is the Greatest Story Ever Told. It has been told around the world. In Polynesian traditions it is the legend of the Land Under the Land, where a disenchanted wife meets a stranger and goes to the Land of Shadows to have her husband's child before returning to the top of the world with peace in her heart, and a Red Pandanus in her hand. In Mesoamerica it is the legend of Hanahpu and his brother Xbalanque. In Mesopotamia it is the legend of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, among many others. In India it is the dance of Shiva. In China and east Asia, it is the dance of the Sun Dragon. The Bible tells the same story with many different players, including Adam and Eve, Isaac and Ishmael, Aaron and Moses, John and Jesus, and the Child of the Madonna. On August 11, 1999, the sun winked as it entered into the Kingdom of Heaven. To let this incredibly important moment pass without recognition of its historical value would be a sacrilege against all that has been sacred since the beginning of the dialogue between man and Creator. For, to be silent is repression. Thus, this story is being told in the hopes that a modern world is not so cosmically deaf that it has lost all value in its ancient sacred meaning.

COMMON SENSE IS INTUITIVE

The reason why so many of the world's sacred myths have a familiar ring to them is the fact that they were all taken from the same patterns in the stars. To say that the stars contain Plato's Lost Island of Atlantis would not be an exaggeration, for the stars contain all the lost legends of our past. The legends are all testaments to the observational brilliance that accumulated at the predawn and early dawn of civilization. They are the foundations of our modern Jungian archetypes. Within these great legends is an unmistakable common belief in the benevolence of Mother Nature. It is the trust and faith that humans gave to Mother Nature that caused her to be deflowered as Western Civilization became a domain of the rule of law. Civilization is not to blame for her being deflowered. It is a process which humanity must pass through. Mother Nature deflowered herself so that the man child could grow to full maturity. The stranger she had come to know was the rationalizing husband and the immature son that she loved so dearly. They had forgotten her value as the vessel of life. In her own words, as spoken through her son, we find the echo of all the great legends.

John 14:1-3
1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself;
that where I am, there ye may be also.

The deflowering of motherhood is the essential path which all children must follow, sooner or later. For you see, it is not the mother's body that is deflowered, it is the ideal of the goddess she represented when we were young. Our rational mind searches for scientific truth, in the hope that one day we can be independent of the myths we learned within the mothering bonds that we hold in the memories of our youth. When we finally reach the end of our adolescent umbilical cord, it breaks, and we search for the mothering bonds to find out what went wrong. As we turn back, we can become a "pillar of salt" and lose all emotional bondage, or we can shed the tears of our temporal identity and be grateful that the Cosmos was willing to give us mothering when it was needed. After the bond is broken, it can be restored again by the simple grace of gratitude. Then we become wise and are capable of passing on to those who follow us, the stories we once believed to be the material and maternal facts of life. At the end of our mother's cord we learn that she had prepared us to break the bondage of the rational umbilical cord, which was our dream of her divine nature. A few years wandering in the wilderness is all that any rational person needs to recognize that we do not live in a world dominated by the rational ideas of men, we live in a world bound to the breast of Mother Nature. We cannot break that bondage by death. We can only stress and distort it by denial during life.

Hidden behind the logic of this microscopic maturation cycle of a single human soul is the macroscopic maturation cycle of civilizations. Like individuals, civilizations strive to break the umbilical bondage. And like individuals, health is restored when a civilization recognizes that Mother Nature knows only Tough Love. She gives us a scepter of flint as proof that we are capable of self inspiration when we walk in the pits of our emotions. She gives us a flail as proof that we can overcome physical stress. She gives us a crook as proof that we can lead others to the Promised Land. And last, she gives us a door through which we can pass a material record of our lives on to her children who come after us. In Egypt the door was Rostau, where Osiris ascended to Orion, and the Great Pyramids promised his return. It is through that door that the present essay will lead. The metaphor of the way of the door has been fabricated many times and in many ways. The ceiling monument in the chapel to Osiris is a detail of Mother Nature's passages through the cosmic door into the mystery of the heavens.|

Read More Here: http://www.siloam.net/cornwall/cornwal4.htm
Denderah Zodiac
S. Battaglia, G. Miglietta and Opera Laboratori Fiorentini

Full scale reproduction of the Zodiac from the Temple of Hathor in Denderah, the first depiction of the heavens in which use is made of stereographic projection. The outermost circle shows 36 decans, each scanning a 10-day interval; the first decan is level with Sirius, the star that heralds the beginning of the year and the arrival of the Nile flood. The second circle shows the constellations in the southern hemisphere. The third circle shows the constellations in the northern hemisphere. The figures of the Zodiac are aligned along the eccentric circle of the ecliptic. The axis joining Cancer to Capricorn (the solstices) points in a north-south direction. The temple's transverse axis is perfectly oriented towards the heliacal rising of Sirius, which rose at 18o east-southeast. Sirius, portrayed as a squatting cow, is correctly shown at the point of maximum culmination on the celestial meridian of the southern hemisphere.

Found Here: http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/galileopalazzostrozzi/object/DenderahZodiac.html
History

During the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt, Vivant Denon drew the circular zodiac, the more widely known one, and the rectangular zodiacs. In 1802, after the Napoleonic expedition, Denon published engravings of the temple ceiling in his Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte.^[4] These elicited a controversy as to the age of the zodiac representation, ranging from tens of thousands to a thousand years to a few hundred, and whether the zodiac was a planisphere or an astrological chart.^[5] Louis Charles Antoine Desaix, a member of the expedition, decided to remove the relief to France and so, in 1820, the antiquities dealer Sébastien-Louis Saulnier commissioned Jean Baptiste Leloraine, a master mason, to remove the circular zodiac with saws, jacks, and scissors constructed for the job. The zodiac ceiling was moved in 1821 to Restoration Paris and, by 1822, was installed by Louis XVIII in the Royal Library. In 1964, the zodiac moved from the Bibliothèque Nationale to the Louvre.

The controversy around the zodiac, called the "Dendera Affair", involved people of the likes of Joseph Fourier (who estimated that the age was 2500 BC^[6]), Thomas Young, Jean-François Champollion, and Jean-Baptiste Biot.^[7] Johann Karl Burckhardt and Jean-Baptiste Coraboeuf held, after analysis of the zodiac, that the ancient Egyptians understood the precession of the equinoxes. Champollion, among others, believed that it was a religious zodiac. Champollion deciphered the names of Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and Domitian on the ceiling of Dendera's temple, and placed the zodiac in the era of Roman rule over Egypt.^[8] Baron Georges Cuvier placed the date 123 AD to 147 AD.^[9] His discussion of the dating question is an interesting summary of the reasoning as he understood it in the 1820s.

Over the last 10 years, I have been presented with a star-code science called cosmogenesis. From 2000 July 17th to 2007 July 17th a pattern of psycho-physical reference points to astronomical events were presented over and over again to engage and synchronize my attention to the placement the Egyptian’s called Heaven’s Gate: The Cancer-Leo Boundary. The code cosmogenesis uses to construct meaning is based on an epistemology designed by the Egyptian Cosmologists. For the sky-priests who closed the Egyptian Empire’s Old World Order, they designed an ingenious calendar wheel at the Temple to Hathor was called the Denderah Zodiac. I made it my concern to follow the on-line study of this remarkable cosmology with the help of Rush E. Allen an engineer and astro-archaeologist whose mentorship provided me the firing-pins for walking the path of the True Priest.

To present the revelation of the Little Lion, we will walk through the basics of Egyptian Cosmology. The modus operandi for their vision of reality is not unlike that of the modern sages like Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen who argued that a quantum state corresponds not to reality but to the information we have about a subsystem of the universe. The quantum state for The Egyptian sky-priests who authored the science accepted two fundamental bodies of knowledge. One was called the Horus of the Two Horizons and the other was Coming Forth By Day, or the study of the First Fire Ceremony. Between these two pillars of science did the Egyptian cosmologists attempt to construct based on information gathering how the planets, milky way and stars were set to the house of creation that made room for one very unique ally in creation: man and his perception of self within a living system. The D.Z. concretized all these aspects with one important axiom. To acquire the experience of Truth one must suffer the burden of cosmic responsibility once he has put his ‘feelings straight’.

A scientific paper was presented during the time of Seti I to define the ability to understand the science of predicting outcome. The Hunefer Papyrus was the Occam’s Razor of the 17th Dynasty.

Found Here: http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/Lion/Lions_Gate_July_17.htm

The Hidden Geometry of the Zodiac in the Temple of Hathor, Denderah
1. The eight Horus figures holding the circle of the heavens define a pair of crossed axes by the lines defined by knees and elbows. 2. A hexagram may be drawn in by joining the points where the Isis figures hands meet on the circumference of the circle. 3. A pair of horizontal lines are drawn as shown by connecting the "shoulders" of the Horus figures, then point where their headresses terminate. These lines occur at the correct location to each form one side of the regular pentagram which can be inscribed in the circle. Thus two pentagrams are formed; one upright and one inverted. 4. With the remaining lines of the pentagrams drawn in, confirming proof that these constructions represent the intent of the designers is provided by the placement of the straight lines which connect the two fishes of Pisces. Note how one of these two lines not only forms a small section of the side of the pentagram itself, but occurs at the point where this line is intersected by the horizontal diameter of the circle.

Related Pages:

Hidden Geometry in Art:
Pierro Della Francesca:
Fra Angelico
Fra Luca Pacioli
Denderah Zodiac

Geometrical Analysis of the East Meon Crop Circle

Etheric technology of ancient Egypt: The Temple of Hathor at Denderah

Original Article Found Here: http://www.russwill.com/experiments/astro/Denderah/hidden_geo/geo_zodiac.htm

Statue of Shapur I Sassanid at Cave of Shapoor

The entrance of this cave is one of the largest in Iran. It is a 20m wide and 5m high portal leading to a 50x100m big and up to 12m high chamber. At the far end various short passages start, which may be explored. Appropriate equipment is needed, especially good light. We have no information about the difficulty of the visit, however, the archaeological remains in the entrance hall are very easy to visit.

In the middle of the entrance hall is a 1,800 years old statue of Shapoor I., the Great (241-272). About 1,400 years ago, after the collapse of the Sassanid dynasty, it was pulled down and lost one of its legs. About 70 years ago, the arms of the statue were also broken. 30 years ago a group of enthusiasts raised it on its feet and fixed the foot with iron and concrete.

The story how the arm was destoyed seems to be true, but it sounds like a legend. 70 years ago, a young man from the Qashqaie tribe, who own this area, fell in love with a girl. The girl's father asked the young man to prove his courage by going to the cave at night. The young man went to the cave the same night, ignoring the danger of wild animals. He brought a stick with him, which he rammed into the floor beneath the statue, to prove he had been there. He did not have light, and in the complete darkness he did not mention that he nailed the long tail of his traditional costume into the floor too. When he tried to leave, he was hold back by his cloth, and as he thought he was grabbed by the statue he got a heart failure and died beside the statue. In the morining some people looked for him, and found him dead in the cave. The young man's brother thought the statue had caused his death (which was partly true...) and threw big stones at it until one of its arms was broken.

Found Here: http://www.showcaves.com/english/ir/caves/Shapoor.html

7 meter tall statue of Shapur I Sassanid king of Persian empire that captured Valerian the Roman emperor, located at Tang-e-Chowgan in front of a mysterious cave, near Kazeroun, Southern Iran.

Found Here: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1678299

Archaeologists discover ancient Michael Jackson bust, finally proving that his videos were, in fact, reenactments of history.

A bust of Egyptian Michael Jackson was discovered in the corner of the Field Museum’s Ancient Egypt exhibit earlier this week. Finally proving that his music videos were a window into Michael Jackson’s ability to travel through time.

Michael’s video for “Remember the Time” chronicles his infiltration of the Pharroh Nakh Ra’s palace and his budding relationship with the Pharroh’s wife, Kimiri.

A bust of Egyptian Michael Jackson was discovered in the corner of the Field Museum’s Ancient Egypt exhibit earlier this week. Finally proving that his music videos were a window into Michael Jackson’s ability to travel through time.

Michael in full Egyptian regalia. Complete with missing nose.

Michael’s video for “Remember the Time” chronicles his infiltration of the Pharroh Nakh Ra’s palace and his budding relationship with the Pharroh’s wife, Kimiri.

As you can see, this was further on in his career. Michael loved traveling through time. He took down an entire crime syndicate in his video “The Girl is Mine” and he gave the flappers something to dance about and nearly started a literal Zoot Suit Riot in “Smooth Criminal”.

I am very eager to find out what else he did and I implore all wealthy readers of this site to help fund these scientists to find out what other events in our HIStory were affected by the time-traveling King of Pop.

Found Here: http://www.octavarius.com

sculpture source:life

The history of the sculpture is varied and is illustrative of how sculpture has changed extensively over the ages. The art of sculpture continues as a vital artform worldwide. From pre-historic and ancient civilizations to the contemporary, from the utilitarian and religious to Modernist abstraction, and conceptual manifestations of both form and content, a continuous stream of creativity & an extremely modest show of compassion.

Sculpture has been central in religious devotion in many cultures, and until recent centuries large sculptures, too expensive for private individuals to create, were usually an expression of religion or politics. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the Ancient Mediterranean, India and China, as well as many in South America and Africa. Moses's rejection of the Golden Calf was perhaps a decisive event in the history of sculpture. Aniconism remained restricted to the Jewish, Zoroastrian and some other religions, before expanding to Early Buddhism and Early Christianity, neither of which initially accepted at least large sculptures. In both Christianity and Buddhism these early views were later reversed, and sculpture became very significant, especially in Buddhism. Christian Eastern Orthodoxy has never accepted monumental sculpture, and Islam has consistently rejected all figurative sculpture. Many forms of Protestantism also do not approve of religious sculpture. There has been much iconoclasm of sculpture from religious motives, from the Early Christians, the Beeldenstorm of the Protestant Reformation to the recent destruction of the Buddhas of BamyanTaliban. by the

Sculpture in ancient times

Venus of Willendorf.

Sculpture as an art form goes back to Prehistoric times. Most Stone Age statuettes were made of ivory or soft stone, however some clay human and animal figures have been found. Small female statues known as Venus figurines have been found mainly in central Europe. The Venus of Willendorf (24,000-22,000 BC), from the area of Willendorf, Austria, is a well-known example.

Later, in the Near East, (the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers), the Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian kingdoms flourished. Materials used for sculpture during this time included basalt, diorite (a type of dark, coarse-grained stone), sandstone, and alabaster. Copper, gold, silver, shells, and a variety of precious stones were used for high quality sculpture and inlays. Clay was used for pottery and terra cotta sculpture. Stone was generally rare and had to be imported from other locations.

Sculptures from the Sumerian and Akkadian period generally had large, staring eyes, and long beards on the men. Votive stone sculptures of this type from 2700 BC were discovered at Tell Asmar. Many masterpieces have also been found at the Royal Cemetery at Ur (2650 BC). Among them are a wooden harp with gold and mosaic inlay with a black-bearded golden bull's head.

Social status

Nuremberg sculptor Adam Kraft, self-portrait from St Lorenz Church, 1490s.

Worldwide, sculptors have usually been tradesmen whose work is unsigned. But in the Classical world, many Ancient Greek sculptors like Phidias began to receive individual recognition in Periclean Athens, and became famous and presumably wealthy. In the Middle Ages, artists like the 12th century Gislebertus sometimes signed their work, and were sought after by different cities, especially from the Trecento onwards in Italy, with figures like Arnolfo di Cambio, Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni. Many sculptors also practised in other arts, sometimes painting, like Andrea del Verrocchio, or architecture, like Giovanni Pisano, Michelangelo, or Jacopo Sansovino, and maintained large workshops.

From the High Renaissance artists like Michelangelo, Leone Leoni and Giambologna could become wealthy, and ennobled, and enter the circle of princes. Much decorative sculpture on buildings remained a trade, but sculptors producing individual pieces were recognised on a level with painters. From at least the 18th century, sculpture also attracted middle-class students, although it was slower to do so than painting. Equally women sculptors took longer to appear than women painters, and have generally been less prominent until the 20th century at least.

Found Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sculpture

Sebastian Brajkovic

Sebastian Brajkovic is an unusual artist who has managed to blur the lines between graphics, sculpture and furniture creating an unusual and exciting artform that is all his own. I am sure you have seen the above image out there floating in the blogosphere but if you have yet to look at his work it is well worth a gander.

Prometheus at Rockefeller Center, sculpture by Paul Manship, 1933

Paul Manship's highly recognizable bronze gildedPrometheus recumbent, bringing fire to mankind, features prominently in the sunken plaza at the front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The model for Prometheus was Leonardo (Leon) Nole, and the inscription from Aeschylus, on the granite wall behind, reads: "Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends." Although some sources cite it as the fourth-most familiar statue in the United States, behind the Lincoln Memorial, Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty, Manship was not particularly fond or proud of it.

statue of the Greek legend of the Titan


Found Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Center

[edit] Prometheus in other arts

Prometheus: Poem of Fire, Opus 60 (1910) by Alexander Scriabin.

Prometheus, Symphonic Poem No. 5 (S.99) by F. Liszt.

Prometheus, opera using Aeschylus's original Greek by Carl Orff, 1968.

Prometheus' torment by the eagle and his rescue by Heracles were popular subjects in vase paintings of the 6th-4th c. BC. He also sometimes appears in depictions of Athena's birth from Zeus' forehead.

There was a relief sculpture of Prometheus with Pandora on the base of Athena's cult statue in the Athenian Parthenon of the 5th century BC.

[edit] Cults of Prometheus

Prometheus had a small shrine in the Kerameikos, or potter's quarter, of Athens, not far from the Academy. The Academy had its own altar dedicated to Prometheus. According to the 2nd-century AD Greek traveler Pausanias, this site was central to a torch race dedicated to Prometheus.

Pausanias also wrote that the Greek cities of Argos and Opous both claimed to be Prometheus' final resting place, each erecting a tomb in his honor.

Finally, Pausanias attested that in the Greek city of Panopeus there was a cult statue claimed by some to depict Prometheus, for having created the human race there.^[13]

[edit] Prometheus and liver regeneration

The mythological story that Prometheus was chained to a rock in the Caucasus mountain and his liver was eaten every day by an eagle only to "regenerate" in the night has been used by scientists studying liver regeneration as an indication that ancient Greeks knew that liver can regenerate if surgically removed or injured^[20]. Because of the association of Prometheus with liver regeneration, his name has also been associated with biomedical companies involved in regenerative medicine.^[21]

Sculpture of Prometheus in front of the GE Building at the Rockefeller Center (New York City, New York, United States).

Found Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus

Bronze Kate Moss in knots? That’ll be £1million

Seven sculptures of Kate Moss in yoga poses could fetch up to £1 million when they are sold in New York.

The bronzes, which include one of her with her legs stretched behind her head, went on display at the Mary Boone gallery in Manhattan.

The statues are on display until the end of June

They are by Marc Quinn, famous for his sculpture in Trafalgar Square of Alison Lapper, a woman without arms and fully developed legs, and are estimated to fetch £137,500 each.

The white-painted bronzes are part of the ?Sphinx? exhibition - socalled because of Moss?s mysterious persona.

The model appears in a variety of yoga poses

Although highly realistic, the sculptures are not portraits.

Quinn said they represent "an image, and the way it is twisted and sculpted by our collective desire".

He said the yoga pose sculpture showed Moss as "a knotted Venus of our age".

Heavy metal: Kate Moss has been immortalised in a series of sculptures

A polished bronze named "Sphinx (Road to Enlightenment)," shows Moss sitting in the lotus position.

The model did not get into the contortions herself - Quinn used her head and face but drew the positions from a yoga expert.

Found Here:

The Gateway of the Sun - TIAUANACO SUN GATE

The 10 ton Gateway of the Sun is monolithic, carved from a single block of Andesite granite, and is broken right down the center. Its upper portion is deeply carved with beautiful and intricate designs, including a human figure, condors, toxodons, elephants and some symbols. Directly in the center of the gate is the so-called "Sun-god," Viracocha, with rays shooting from his face in all directions.

He is holding a stylized staff in each hand which may represent thunder and lightning. He is sometimes referred to as the "weeping god" because tears are on his cheeks. The figures flanking the centerpiece are themselves unfinished, leading investigators to wonder what could have interrupted the craftsmen working on the gate that it was left unfinished. This monolith, when first discovered, was broken in half, and was lying askew deep in silt until restored to its proper position in 1908. The Sun Gate now stands in the northwest corner of the Kalasasaya temple.

The famous carved figure on the decorated archway in the ancient (pre-Incan) city of Tiahuanaco, known as the "Gateway of the Sun," most likely represents Viracocha, flanked by 48 winged effigies, 32 with human faces and 16 with condor's heads. This huge monument is hewn from a single block of stone, and some believe that the strange symbols might represent a calendar, the oldest in the world. A huge monolithic figure, facing east in the direction of sunrise, stands as silent witness to an unknown civilization established around 2200 years ago.

There is a pre-Incan legend that speaks of Viracocha who is depicted in many forms. There is a duality about this deity, which is not unlike gods in other civilizations - the good god and the warrior side to his personality. We see him as he enlightened god in the white robes who brings knowledge and the warrior god with staves in his hands and a sun symbol around his head, not unlike the sun god Ra in ancient Egypt. As we third dimension is a duality - all things have good and evil charactistics - including the gods of all myths. Viracocha - as duality is depicted as the sun god of creation [wearing a sun crown] and the moon god.

Viracocha, as the feathered serpent god, is one of the great mysteries of ancient American cultures. He was called Kukulkan by the Mayas, Quetzalcoatl by the Aztecs, Viracocha by the Incas, Gucumatz in central America, Votan in Palenque and Zamna in Izamal.

Found Here: http://www.crystalinks.com/tiahuanaco.html