Hans Bellmer, John Chamberlin, Gego, and Ruth Vollmer

These are the drawings, photographs and sculptures of Hans Bellmer. I chose these images in particular because they most closely relate to the work that I just finished with the mattresses. 

Bellmar's drawings often depict women or womanly figures bound, ensnared or contorted in different forms and shapes because of some constricting line. Some figures seem to be bound and faced away from the viewer, seeming more helpless then the action that keeps them static. 

 The wrapping of the legs and torso here do not show the same violence that comes to mind with words like bound or constricted. The denotation of these words carry through the materialty.

Hans Bellmar is mostly know for the sculptures, photos and intervention type of installations he created using dolls that have been tied, reconstructed or adapted to specific shapes or gestures. He created forms that seem to be bulging out of their restraints. His sculptures and images remind me of the way meat might be tied with twine.

With one of my own sculptures, I did something similar by using elastic band to control and wrap a mattress foam pad. The foam is porous and can be depressed making the form looks as though it is growing like yeast in bread, or bulging like flesh or fat escaping from a string.

 

I was originally inspired with the mattresses after looking at John Chamberlin's smashed cars and wrapped foam sculptures. Chamberlin works in this readymade fashion that implies a heavy process that will completely transform the object, space, or material. 

Another Artist that uses line to create or shape a space to a specific form is Gego (Gertrude Goldschmidt). Here beautiful line installations ensnare her viewers into a visually perspective where you must rely more on your other senses than your vision to navigate through the space. I can only imagine  how this would be so visually jarring. I relate her work to another artist, Ruth Vollmer, who CAPTURES the space crated through the networks and wrappings of forms.

Gego with one of her unidentified sculptures

Progress Photos and Project Updates - Adam Germann

For my second project, I am wrapping and binding different mattresses and other bed like materials (i.e. sleeping foam) with other forms of line other than yarn. I have purchased 5 mattresses and 1 foam pad so far and my goal is to experiment with the forms individually as well as bringing together all forms to make one larger form. I found that I can respond to the textures, colors and designs on each mattress with what I choose to bind it with. For example, the comparison of the two forms could infer that the blued nylon covered twin bed appears to be more masculine than the foam and elastic form. The mechanical nature of the tie-down, implying senses of labor and tools, is different than the foam which was hand wrapped with a stretchy elastic band that could be tied and knotted. The foam pad is more feminine, who soft curves and natural contours and forms. I want to continue thinking about these mattresses this way, where experimentation with combining materials as well as forms together is the focus. 

Also, I am thinking of these beds as being site-specific. They connote personal identity, health, copulation and are present in everyday life. My inspiration for each bed form and its respective wrapping material will derive from the aspect of the forms site-specificty.

Four Mattresses and One Foam Sleeping Pad

 Industrial sized tie down strap with vinyl covered twin-sized mattress. I bent, rotated and crushed the bed into half folds. The bed has taken a volume in the middle where the different folds resemble the shape of a body turned to its side.

Wrapped Foam Pad with Elastic Band Tied

 Above, the two forms are side by side for comparison.