Show Notes
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by art historian and author Nicholas Croggon. They speak on the Power Institute, the Power Collection and the Light and Darkness exhibition.
Nick discusses a work in the Power Collection by American artist Alan Sonfist. Sonfist is a US based artist most often associated with the birth of the Land or Earth Art movement. Crystalline enclosure was created in 1970, early in Sonfist’s career. The work features a glass globe with a mineral compound inside. As the air around it heats up, the compound sublimes into a gas eventually crystallising on the curved walls of the globe. When the crystal lattice increases its density, parts of the compound drop back down to pile again in the neck, whereupon the cycle begins again. We are invited by Sonfist to observe a process.
Nick explains how the work in Sydney was part of Sonfist’s broader project of making visible our entanglement in the processes of the natural world. Nick also explores his interest in the language of visual culture and its relationship with human psychology through the work in the Chau Chak Wing Museum.
Guest: Nick Croggon is Events and Programs Officer at The Power Institute. He is an art historian, editor and doctoral researcher. He is co-founder of Discipline journal and a Sydney edition of Memo Review.
Host: Dr Craig Barker, Head of Public Engagement, Chau Chak Wing Museum and Director, Paphos Theatre Archaeological Excavations. Follow @DrCraig_B on Twitter and Instagram.
Object details: Alan Sonfist, Crystaline enclosure, mixed media - iodine crystals, para-dichloro benzene crystals, gases, silicone, glass, 1970. Purchased with funds from the J W Power Bequest 1970. J W Power collection, The University of Sydney, managed by Museum of Contemporary Art. [PW1970.39]
Read Nick’s catalogue entry on Crystalline enclosure.
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