Black Hole4" x 4" x 4.5"
cardboard, tape spool, copper wire, aluminum foil, glass beads, tissue paper, acrylic paint, steel wire, glue
As an unrepentant pack-rat, I felt justified of my habit upon finding photographs of Joseph Cornell’s studio. I had been contemplating a box idea ever since I had learned about Cornell. Years later, still not acting on my box constructions, but having moved my collection of junk three times, I saw a retrospective of Rauschenberg which included small wooden boxes he built in the 1950’s. These reinvigorated my desire to proceed with my boxes.
Black Hole is the latest in a series of assemblage boxes that I have been constructing. An object suggests to me what the idea of the box may be. With Black Hole, the object was a nearly spent roll of black cloth, electrician’s tape. It was the negative space of the roll, combined with the idle fact that the cardboard spool had begun to unravel that I focused on.
Black holes have long held a fascination for me. The idea that all matter is going to be spiraling down a massive, insatiable hole, that has the strongest gravitational pull in the universe, both frightened me and held me in awe.
In this box, I have tried to render the concept of space being bent by the enormous gravitational forces exerted by the black hole by showing the interior space narrower at the back than at the front. Matter spiraling into the hole and x-rays shooting out are depicted by the white beads and the silver foil respectively.
I get a sense of ironic humor that I have contained one of the most destructive forces in the universe in a 4-inch square box. The universe may be infinite, but that also means that it can be contained in that small space.
Black Hole was first exhibited as part of the Hocus Pocus exhibition at Curious Matter.
Black Hole is the latest in a series of assemblage boxes that I have been constructing. An object suggests to me what the idea of the box may be. With Black Hole, the object was a nearly spent roll of black cloth, electrician’s tape. It was the negative space of the roll, combined with the idle fact that the cardboard spool had begun to unravel that I focused on.
Black holes have long held a fascination for me. The idea that all matter is going to be spiraling down a massive, insatiable hole, that has the strongest gravitational pull in the universe, both frightened me and held me in awe.
In this box, I have tried to render the concept of space being bent by the enormous gravitational forces exerted by the black hole by showing the interior space narrower at the back than at the front. Matter spiraling into the hole and x-rays shooting out are depicted by the white beads and the silver foil respectively.
I get a sense of ironic humor that I have contained one of the most destructive forces in the universe in a 4-inch square box. The universe may be infinite, but that also means that it can be contained in that small space.
