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Basic Information: This is the Human-headed winged lion or "Lamassu" from gateway in Ashurnasirpal II's palace in Nimrud, Mesopotamia(Assyrian culture). This piece is from the Neo-Assyrian time period, 883-859 B.C.E. with a gypsum alabaster medium. The piece's recorded height is 10'3 1/2" and can currently be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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Mechanisms + why I chose the Human-headed winged lion

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Mechanisms + why I chose the Human-headed winged lion

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This is a relief sculpture, or a sculpture that projects from a flat surface. This particular sculpture is also in reference to a guardian figure which were used at the gateways and entrances throughout a palace which as previously mentioned is where this artwork originated. These figures were meant to show fearsome power of the Assyrian ruler and the authority given to him by the gods. The figure is twice as tall as a human with the head of a man, bodying strength of a lion, wings and seeing eyes of an eagle, and a horned cap signifying divinity, god's support, and protection over Assyria.
I chose this piece because I have seen it in person on a trip to England a few years back and I thought it was so interesting the mere detail put into the sculpture. For example my favorite part of this piece which I have yet to mention is it's five legs. The purpose of the five legs are so that the figure appears to be standing from the front and striding from the side. The movement it exhibits as a stagnant object and the mere size makes it truly captivating, interesting, and clearly suitable for a king.

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Do Ho Suh's Some/One 49th Venice Biennale

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Do Ho Suh's Some/One 49th Venice Biennale

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Basic Information: Do Ho Suh is a sculptor that published this piece as an exhibition of international contemporary art in 2001. It is made of stainless steel military dog tags, nickel plated copper sheets, steel structure, glass fiber reinforced resin, and rubber sheets. An abstract quality of this work is that the dimensions are variable. The artist is Korean and the exhibit was displayed in Venice, Italy for 65 participating nations.

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Mechanisms+why I chose the Some/One installation of the 49th Venice Biennale

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Mechanisms+why I chose the Some/One installation of the 49th Venice Biennale

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Korean art is influenced by the surrounding cultures like Japan or China, but maintains unique in organic and elegantly simplified forms. The artist Do Ho Suh explores issues of identity, individuality, and collectivism in an immersive sculpture he calls Some/One. The piece is based on the armor worn by the successful 16th century military leader Yi Sun-sin and is used as a commentary or conceptual piece describing Do Ho Suh's experience in the Korean army. The use of so many dog tags help get the point across that the army felt dehumanizing and beat him down to become part of a larger collective. The use of glass fiber and so many other durable materials helps present that being pushed to such extremes did help him feel strong and invincible. These details help make it a more than a sculpture but also a conceptual piece that makes a viewer think about their own identity. The use of material does this by not only the use of dog tags but also the reflection the metal creates allowing viewers to physically see themselves.
I chose this piece because of the thought that went into the material as well as the fact that it is such an introspective work. The piece was made with such personal reasoning and displayed for so many nations that the piece feels heavier in my opinion. Not only physically but also with the weight of all the viewers that are put onto the piece with so many individual stories, it is heartwarming and heartbreaking simultaneously. A piece that if I'm ever lucky enough to see in person. I have no idea how I would see the rest of the museum.

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Basic Information: This piece is a lintel from the series "The Yaxchilan Lintels" that is currently displayed in the British Museum. in London, England. It is a carved limestone lintel from the Mayan culture which originated in Mexico. The work has the dimensions 43 x 30 3/4 x 2 3/8. The production date is said to be around 725 C.E.

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Mechanisms + why I chose the Maya Lintel 24 showing Shield Jaguar and Lady

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Mechanisms + why I chose the Maya Lintel 24 showing Shield Jaguar and Lady

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These pieces are carved into limestone showing a series of ceremonies undertaken by Shield Jaguar and his wife, Lady Xoc, and these three lintels from a structure in Yaxchilan reinforce a rulers power through the prayer and sacrifice evident in these works. The writing around the edges of the scene tells us the names of the figures and describes what is taking place, serving its purpose as a text art. Using limestone for the piece also shows me what good condition these have been kept in because limestone is a soft sedimentary stone and while they may have benefitted from that while engraving it must be hard to keep in such good shape over the centuries. Limestone is also not a light art piece, it is still a stone and the fact that they used such a heavy canvas for such a weighted topic is a bit symbolic.
I chose this piece because I liked that it was a series, and that it told a story. I like that it not only meant something because it was a piece that someone slaved away over but because it is representative of history. This series of tiles tells a story of ritual that meant so much to people in the past and that they probably used to show generations and generations after the initial sacrifice that influenced these heavy pallets. I love that it meant so much.

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Basic Information: These statues are found on a small remote island known as Easter Island, about 1,300 miles off the coast of Chile. These stone sculptures are called moai and the style of monolithic heads and torsos with abstracted and symmetrical features are native to Polynesia, They date back to around 900-1500 C.E.. The work is made of volcanic rock and represent deified ancestors who were chiefs. Their heights and weights vary with around 50 tons worth of volcanic rock making them extremely heavy and anywhere from 10-60ft in height.

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Mechanisms + why I chose the Moai ancestor figures

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Mechanisms + why I chose the Moai ancestor figures

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The name of the pieces alone is symbolic. Moai translated to seamount, statue image, or bearers of the gift, which ties the piece immediately to the culture in which it came from. The monolithic heads and torsos as mentioned before are a Polynesian style with their abstracted and symmetrical faces. The weight of the work is extremely heavy, with the red hats alone weighing approximately 10 tons. The hats are made from volcanic rock that has been scattered around the island and it is confusing how at a time so long ago they figured out how to mount such heavy rocks in deliberate ways. The large quantity of the moai also suggest that there was some kind of ritual, ceremony, or cultural importance to this process or maybe even just the outcome. The features of the moai is also very deliberate with. deep eye sockets, angular noses, pointed chins, elongated earlobes, and an upright posture representing esteemed members of the community who assembled them. The red volcanic stone hats are said to represent crowns which would identify them as ancestor chiefs.
What interests me about these figures is how people in 887 CE had the technology to document this style, carve out these figures, move them to placed platforms along the coastline. So much of it doesn't make sense to me but I think that is part of why I like it so much. Quite frankly I enjoy not knowing and letting my curiosity go crazy. I even enjoy simply being impressed by the statues and moving on, they are exactly that, impressive.