July 2019 – Mostly True

Southern Oracle: We Will Tear the Roof Off, Heather Hart

Part of African-American artist Heather Hart’s “Rooftop Oracles” series of temporary installation art, Southern Oracle: We Will Tear the Roof off is the fourth in the series. An interactive work, it’s meant to be climbed on and in, and it’s especially popular with children.

Each of the four works in the series are life sized rooftops that look as if they were either dropped from the sky or is emerging from the earth. Not surprisingly, the series gets its name from the Parliament-Funkadelic song “Mothership Connection.” Each work is unique. With this work, Hart allowed museum staff and volunteers to paint the exterior in bright stripes.

It’s a popular, though temporary, addition to the Museum Park.

Southern Oracle

Standing Figure: Knife Edge, Henry Moore

Standing Figure: Knife Edge, by British sculptor Henry Moore, is yet another of the many great works of art on display at the North Carolina Art Museum in Raleigh.

While an abstraction of a human body, the nearly 12-foot tall bronze is based on the shape of a bird’s breastbone. During the planning stages of the work Moore would pinch clay onto a bone to develop the shape of the sculpture. Once Moore was happy with the shape, a head and base was added.

I love the placement of this work. The natural bone-like shape and the beautiful green patina of the bronze contrasts nicely with the clean angular lines of this space outside the West Building at the museum.

Standing Figure

Abstract Fish No. 4, James Prosek

This beautiful bronze sculpture is located in a reflecting pool in the North Carolina Art Museum’s North Garden. While it’s an abstract work, there’s no doubt that it’s a fish, a subject that’s near and dear to the artist.

Prosek is an American artist, writer, and naturalist. An avid fisherman, Prosek co-founded World Trout, a conservation effort to preserve native trout species worldwide. His first book, Trout: An Illustrated History, was published while he was still a student at Yale University. His paintings of fish are collected in several books, and his documentary about 17th century author and angler Izaak Walton won a Peabody Award in 2002.

If you’re a fisherman and would like to learn more, World Trout can be found at Patagonia.

Abstract Fish No. 4

Lunar Bird, Joan Miró

I love the North Carolina Art Museum. There’s always something that I haven’t seen before, both inside and outside. I took a walk around the West Building and discovered a sculpture that’s new to the museum. Lunar Bird, by Spanish artist Joan Miró, is a wonderfully whimsical work of art on loan from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.

Miró’s work is, to my mind, magical. While he never associated himself with a style, Miró is most often described as a surrealist, with French poet and co-founder of the surrealist movement, André Breton, describing Miró as “the most Surrealist of us all.”

Lunar Bird

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