ANAJETLI: Metal Art

Monday, January 25, 2010

Sculptures from scrap iron (including military items)

Location: Golan heights - Mount Bental

Weirdness factor: High.

Todesfee has collected in this set a whimsical sculptures made from not so funny material: scrap military metal, left from the Yom Kippur War (Mount Bental was the site of large-scale tank battles in 1973)

She writes: "The Golan Heights is a plateau on the border of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. The Syrians attacked the Golan with 1,500 tanks and 1,000 artillery pieces. Israel countered with only 160 tanks and 60 artillery pieces. The long stretch of valley in between Mount Bental and Mount Hermon became known as the Valley of Tears. The 100 Israeli tanks were reduced to seven under extreme enemy fire. However, the Israelis managed to take down 600 Syrian tanks in the process. The Syrians eventually retreated, but not without inflicting heavy casualties on Israel."

T-Rex made from scrap military metal (do I discern parts of some plane there?) is pretty ferocious:

Mutant Mechanisms

We already featured art by Vladimir Tsesler & Sergei Voichenko in our article, but the weird mechanical monsters keep coming from their weird kitchen. Here is a couple more:

Kinetic Sculptures of Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith sculptures bubble, click, chime, make all kinds of highly sophisticated movements and endlessly entertain. And yes, they are made mostly out of metal - some found in military surpluss yard. Here is the "Bubbler":

The "Tornado" kinetic sculpture works even if the door is open:

We asked Andrew a few questions, and so he shares with us:

"People often ask me how I get the ideas for creating my Sculptures. The truth is, I usually don’t know what a sculpture will be until it is actually in the process of being built. I approach my work with a very wide expectation of what it may become, and I try to allow myself to let it go in the direction it wants to go.

Most of it is trial and error, a kind of "form follows function" construction process. If an element is not working or just doesn’t do what I had hoped, I will cut it off and try something else."

"I enjoy the raw creativity in this process. I am constantly observing the world around me seeing things that capture my attention. Sometimes I will try to incorporate these elements into my art somehow or it will spark an idea that leads to another idea and so on. My strongest pieces are usually the ones I had the most fun making. Art doesn’t always have to be serious, political or even emotional. Sometimes it can just be fun. "

"Sometimes when people look at my Kinetic or Rolling Ball Sculptures they will ask, “What does it do?”

I usually answer, “It’s doing it.”

One of the best lamp designs I've ever seen:

His bigger kinetic sculptures remind me of the work of classic science fiction artist Richard M. Powers:

"Grandfather Time" clock is an intricate "rolling ball" contraption. Every 15 minutes the ball is released into the track and as it reaches the bottom it strikes a single chime.

Use your old iron for something better

Aaron Ristau is a true master of "found objects" and metal sculpture form:

Set loose a "sentinel droid" on your lawn, see how the neightbors would react:

Bizarre metal light fixtures:

He also makes beautiful kinetic sculptures, see his site for more.

Joe Pogan's Nuts-n-Bolts Animals

"The stranger the piece of metal, the better!" - Made from scrap metal and found metallic objects, these fishes would make any fisherman proud (and art collector, too) -