Interventions/Gary Griffin
GARY GRIFFIN, born 1945
The Garden, 1995
steel
Griffin's installation is a response to the murals by Diego Rivera. It transforms Rivera's imagery into the opening statement of an ongoing narrative on industrialization.
By reshaping concepts and visual elements in Rivera's work, Griffin has created a complex metaphor for post-industrial reality.
Rivera's murals describe the impersonal process of mining nature as a resource for industry. Griffin's work refers to a contemporary alternative for cultivating industrial resources.
The installation recalls carefully tended sites of personal and civic life - domestic gardens or urban parks. The "beds" are a mulch of scrap metal processed for industrial recycling that Griffin "mined" from scrap yards.
Rivera used the image of a conveyor belt to frame and isolate spaces on the wall. Similarly, conveyor-chain fences frame Griffin's garden. They are also meant to "convey" the idea that future chapters in the industrial narrative depend on our stewardship of resources.
"The Garden"
