Photo by Andrea Rossetti
Title: Trails Rising
Artist: Anne de Vries
Year: 2011
Size: variable from 223 cm high up to 12 meters high
Material: Plastic, sand, metal
About: The sculpted totem poles ‘Trails Rising’ are made from a mixture of sand and epoxy clay which has been marked by the tread of various sneakers. The imprints forged by ergonomic footwear, designed to augment the body, remain as traces forming future terrains. In their profusion the individual prints join and become a pattern across a mutable landscape – as if a multitude of solitary runners meet one another in a collective space, traversing the poles in a direct attempt at transcendence. One reference might be Brancusi’s monumental Infinite Column, built as a WW1 memorial for those who died defending the Romanian city of Targu-Jiu, which was created as a means of symbolic ascension to heaven. Through these similar gestures, we are presented with a different process-based interpretation, opposing Brancusi’s essentialist notion of what enhanced realities could be.
Documentation from: Sandy Brown Berlin, Éric Hussenot Paris, Fluxia Milano, and The Composing Rooms London.