Historical Abstract: CPI, 1995

laminated & carved basswood

29" deep x 26"w x 40"h

In conversation with my students I was struck by the radical difference between their experience as young artists and my own. They pay unthinkable rents and leave school heavily in debt. They cannot, as I did in the '70's, work sporadically to finance full-time in the studio. I investigated these economics by consulting the Statistical Abstract of the U.S and the government website devoted to the Consumer Price Index. I graphed historical trends in housing, food and fuel costs and turned the numbers into a sculpture.

Each ovoid layer is one year. The vertical axis is the annual Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food for that year, and the horizontal axis the CPI for gasoline plus electricity. The rising line through the center is based on the CPI for housing. The long, flat 'snout' is the 1960's when housing costs and food were steady and low. Fuel got slightly more expensive over the decade but the big increase occurs at the area of the large bulge above the snout. That's 1973 - OPEC, gasoline lines, the whole mess. Thereafter the cost of most everything kept rising.

Historical Abstract: Humdef, 1995

21"w x 40" deep x 56"h

laminated & carved poplar

The sculpture is a response to a 30 year conversation with my wife concerning OMB federal spending on U.S. Department of Defense and human resources (welfare, housing, Health and Human Services, Social Security, unemployment insurance, etc). Each ovoid lamination represents one year. The dimension of the vertical axis of the ovals is based on annual Federal expenditures for human resources (Housing (HUD), Education, welfare, social security, Medicare, etc) for that year, and the horizontal axis on the expenditures for defense. The indentation near the rear (wall end) of the sculpture is the "peace dividend," the brief decrease of defense expenditures following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The rising line through the center of the is based on Population . "Human resources" and its various entitlement programs now accounts for more than 50% of the Federal budget and is growing rapidly. The sculpture begins in 1945 and runs through 1994.

Historical Abstract: Love & Marriage, 1998

27"w x 7" deep x 46"h

laminated & carved cherry

Each ovoid layer is one year. The longer axis is the rate of married births, the minor axis the rate of unmarried births. Each oval is centered on an imaginary line whose path is set by the total birth rate (on the broad side) and the total marriage rate (on the narrow side) for each year. The sculpture begins in 1940, at the bottom, and ends in 1995 at the top.

Note that there are gaps in the statistical record which were filled by interpolation as needed. No attempt was made to make the sculpture measurements correspond exactly to the statistical numbers.

Sources:

U.S. Government Bookstore: “Historical Statistics of the U.S.", U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (2 volumes, 1970) Tables B1-4, B28-35, others; Statistical Abstract of the United States

Historical Abstract: Pipes, 1998

small: 7.5" dia x 39"h; large: 17.5" dia x 39"h

lathe turned and ebonized poplar

The small pipe represents the share of the US aggregate income received by the middle 20% of families from 1970, at the bottom of the pipe, to 1995 at the top. The large pipe represents the share of the US aggregate income received by the top 5% of families from 1970, at the bottom of the pipe, to 1995 on the top.

The sculpture itself is intended to function formally as well as informationally. Pipe diameters, for example, are suggestive of trends.

Sources:

Statistical Abstract of the United States; For longer timelines, see Historical Income Tables, U.S. Bureau of the Census; and also... Daniel Weinberg, "A Brief Look at Postwar Income Inequality" (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/img/p60-191.pdf)

Crime & Punishment, 1999

62" deep x 10.5"w x 45"h

laminated & carved mahagony

Sources: United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics

U.S. population is 4.5% of the world total of 6,000,000,000 people, yet it has 25% of the world's prisoners (2 million of 8 million total). One in every 150 U.S. residents is in prison.

Attorney General Janet Reno

Department of Justice 

Constitution Avenue

Washington, DC  20530     July 8, 1999

Dear Attorney General Reno:

For the past few years I've been making sculptures based on statistical data. Though apparently "abstract" in form, they are actually quite representative of certain social conditions in the U.S. over periods of time. As such they are all called "Historical Abstracts."

I have addressed such topics as married and unmarried births, the changing ratio of social versus defense spending, etc. I could not, of course, leave out crime, especially as the popular perception that crime rates are rising is contrary to the facts. I chose to contrast the U.S. homicide rate with the incarceration rate over 70 years, from 1926 to 1996. I include here - for your amusement or horror, as the case may be - photographs of the resulting sculpture.

All aspects of the sculpture were arrived at deliberately. Each laminated layer represents one year with the vertical dimension deriving from the number of prisoners in federal, state and local penal institutions and the horizontal dimension from the homicide rate. The form of the piece reflects, I think, the high testosterone level implied by the topic, and the color (the sculpture is made of mahogany) approximates the hue of the racial mix in those institutions.

I thought you and/or your staff might find this interesting.

Sincerely,

6,000,000,000 Monkeys, 1999

aluminum gilt over plywood on wood frame

20' dia x 80' long (variable)

Art Gallery, SUNY Stony Brook

The central element is a mushroom shape lying on its side, suspended in space. The 'stem' is at the entry to the gallery. Over its length it increases in diameter slightly until it explodes into a plate with an outside diameter of 20'.

The space is shared with a clockwork (gravity-driven motor) which propels a kinetic element via a driveshaft to a "hopper" containing many wood balls, each imprinted with a different letter. From the opening of the hopper runs a wooden trough which accept the balls as they are released. They may or may not spell out words and - over time - sentences. In NY in 2000 the words "art" and "porn" were spelled out the first day.

The intent of the piece is to test the old aphorism that, given a thousand years, a thousand monkeys sitting at typewriters will eventually produce a "Hamlet." It is, in other words, a probability machine in which the central piece - whose shape derives directly from United Nations population statistics (see also U.S. Population estimates and the excellent Population Index at Princeton University) beginning in about 10,000 BCE and ending in the year 2,000 CE - represents the pool of available culture producers (six billion in October, 1999), the clockwork represents the driving force of time, the hopper random literary/cultural  potential and the trough's contents and its organization the ultimate product.

Clockwork

birch plywood, misc hardware

close-up, gears and pendulum

1-3000, 1999

lathe-turned poplar with gold gilt

12" dia x 48'l

private collection

The form of the sculpture is derived from United Nations population estimates beginning in the year 1 and ending in the year 3000. At the time the sculpture was being planned the United Nations estimated that world population was going to level off at about 11 billion people by the year 2050. The current estimate - you may be reassured to know - has been reduced to 9.4 billion people, making the sculpture technically incorrect. On the other hand, world population has more than tripled just this century. Shows what clean water, sewerage, hand washing and a few more calories in the diet can do

American Playhouse, 1999

mahagony & pine, wood pegs

80" h x 80" w x 30' l (variable)

Art Gallery, Drury College

Springfield, MO

(destroyed)

I’m always stunned when a reporter drops a tidbit like "$3 billion is spent every year on dog biscuits." I know the U.S. is a wealthy country with weirdly skewed priorities. I set out to find how how weird...  For instance, Americans spent $9.11 billion on breakfast cereals in 1996 versus, say, the Federal budget allocation for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of $6.6 billion.

American Playhouse has 24 "rooms," each representing the total dollar expenditures for a year (1996) for a category of recreational activity. The most popular activity by far ($505.6 billion; far left) is illegal gambling - bets on college sports and the like - with illegal drugs ($200 billion) coming in a distant second. The first legal expenditure, in third place, is fast food ($98.4 billion; "sit-down" restaurants - not represented here - are a virtual tie at about $100 billion).  Art museums account for $1.18 billion per year and, in last place, botanical gardens at $.19 billion (far right).

Scale: 1 cubic inch = $1,000,000

Sources: drugs: Washington Week, 3/7/97; gambling: The Economist, 1/25/1997; all else: Statistical Abstract of the U.S.</a> (1999) and the Budget of the United States Government online.

Corpse 1, 2000

laminated and carved pine

68.25" long x 16" wide x 13" high

Corpse 2,  2000

laminated and carved ashwood

75" long x 16" wide x 28.5" high

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

The length of each of these pieces is divided into 90 equal parts, each one representing a year of age, from infancy (0-1 year) to the 90th year, moving from the thin end to the thick. The width of each section is set by the average (1976 to 1998) number of non-gun homicides per year for people at that age. The vertical dimension is set by the number of gun homicides. In Corpse 2 the height of the arch is determined by the number of shooters in that same age bracket. The left end of the sculpture, of course, depicts infanticide and the right end eldercide. Corpse 1 was intentionally left rough and 'rubbery,' to more closely mimic the flaccidity of death.

Battle of the Titans at the End of the Millenium, 2000 (aka, 3 Titans)

Cast silver, black marble base; 11" high without base

The forms derive from the combined Sotheby's and Christies spring and fall auction revenues from 1990-98 for three artists: Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. The regularly spaced bulges reflect the seasonal nature of auctions. I arbitrarily set a maximum of $10,000,000 to keep the dimensions within workable bounds, which distorts the history a bit: Warhol's work took in $21.02 mil in May, 1998 and John's took in $22.74 mil in November, 1997. Artistic license.

The piece has been produced in an edition of ten by Polich Tallix in association with Pat Hamilton along with works of nine other sculptors including Kiki Smith, Maya Lin and Frank Stella.

Source: ARTFACT database at the The New York Public Library

Prayer Beads (Worry Beads), 2005

carnelian and hematite beads

This piece derives from Tops, made in 2001 as a response to 9/11, among other events. Each bead represents a single year beginning in 1945. The diameter of the bead is proportional to the number of terrorist-caused deaths for that year. The large bead is, of course, 2001. Black hematite beads represent years in which there were no terrorist-caused deaths. This piece intentionally looks like the strings of beads used for prayers or meditation in many religions. The extra cord is for the addition of more beads through time