This is the first of two new sculptural pieces I have made
Gregory Hayman, bath piece and bronze
recently. This work has its roots in interest I have had with work made from bathroom furniture. It is concerned with cleansing and the erasure of dirt, and the spiritual connotations that cleansing also has.
The pedestal for a hand sink I have had for some time. I was attracted to its potential, but unclear how I wanted it to function as an artwork. Bathroom objects of course go right back to Duchamp and his fountain piece, but I find that work sometimes a little to literal, although i have to acknowledge its seminal position in the history of art.
The pedestal, for me had all the support connotations that come with its original function (to support he basin), but it was been separated from it and left without purpose and this for me began to offer it a new more interesting future. The pedestal also has the sense within it of the thing resting on it being more important than it, i.e. that it is playing second fiddle to the basin, and therefore there is a form of object apartheid inherent in the coupling.
The question for me was whether the pedestal would take centre stage in this work – that is to be presented by it, or whether it would be possible to combine it in such a way as it share equal billing with something else.
In the end, it was recruited to help with experiments I am undertaking to make forgettable art. The pedestal is a forgotten object and it is pointless without its ‘other half’, but in its new manifestation, it is very much the point. I also began to realise that it could be a thing of beauty in its own right. By experimenting with viewing it in different ways, I began to appreciate its form more keenly. I could now see a wide range of possibilities for this humble object.
The bronze twigs are broken segments from an artichoke stem, themselves no longer attached to the flower head they once supported, so the two objects, stem and pedestal, share a common history or purpose, which has been removed to allow them to combine in a new role and history.
Gregory Hayman, Bath Piece with Bronze 2014
The pieces together hint at the separated other, the symbiotic sibling, the ‘conscious uncoupling’ also hints at the lack of inevitability of its previous destiny and allows us to consider each anew and in alternative combinations.
There is the question as to whether it qualifies as achieving forgettable status as an artwork, and I think the answer lies in the forgotten or missing other, the part that it once supported, is forgotten in this new manifestation or combination. The pieces works so well that the viewer forgets the original purpose of the elements which makes the new whole and so it could be argued that it represents successful forgetting.
gregoryhaymanartist 