Disgusting
We identify ourselve with an artwork, while watching. While watching We Come With Peace the disgust becomes stronger.
No, I don't want to admit that my mouth is sometimes experienced by an other as a maw. I would like to believe that my words are felt by others as constructive and supportive.
No, I deny that my glasses function as a mask so nobody can read my emotions. I deny that my eyeholes are blank and no twinkle is there to be seen. I would like to believe that others feel love and warmth even when I look for a minute.
No, my lower body is not a vehicle which is designed to seize, to take, to crush. I would like to believe that my closeness feels like a soft caress.
We Come With Peace by Huma Bhabha causes disgust by the memory of the disgusting behaviour of people during a war, a natural disaster, oppression.
By Theo, www.artatsite.com
Vertaling
Weerzinwekkend
Wij identificeren ons met een kunstwerk, tijdens het kijken. Tijdens het kijken naar We Come With Peace wordt de weerzin steeds sterker.
Nee, ik wil niet toegeven dat mijn mond soms als een muil wordt ervaren door een ander. Ik wil geloven dat mijn woorden anderen een constructief gevoel en steun geven.
Nee, ik ontken dat mijn bril functioneert als een masker waardoor niemand mijn emoties lezen kan. Ik ontken dat mijn ooggaten leeg zijn en dat er geen twinkeling te zien is. Ik wil geloven dat anderen liefde en warmte voelen zelfs als ik eventjes kijk.
Nee, mijn onderlichaam is geen voertuig dat bedoeld is om te grijpen, te nemen, te verpletteren. Ik wil geloven dat mijn nabijheid voelt als een zachte streling.
We Come With Peace van Huma Bhabha roept walging op bij de herinnering aan het weerzinwekkende gedrag van mensen bij een oorlog, natuurgeweld, onderdrukking.
Door Theo, www.artatsite.com
www.thecontemporaryaustin.org:
Often described as post-apocalyptic, the work of sculptor Huma Bhabha responds to the violence and turmoil in the world around her through depictions of anthropomorphic figures—or “characters,” as Bhabha calls them—that often appear to be dismembered, melted, or dissected.
www.wikipedia.org:
We Come in Peace was a commissioned art installation created by Huma Bhabha, a New York–based Pakistani-American sculptor, for the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The installation consisted of two sculptures, named We Come in Peace and Benaam, wh"nameless" in Urdu. We Come in Peace was a 12 ft (3.7 m) tall standing figure, while Benaam was a 18 ft (5.5 m) long figure lying prostrate. According to AM New York, the We Come in Peace sculpture was gender fluid.
www.unframed.lacma.org:
Bhabha’s sculptures have been described as artifacts from the future, as they could be the ruins of an ancient civilization or the creative outgrowth of an epoch yet to come. Drawn to the ways in which our 21st-century mega-cities can at times resemble archaeological digs, and to the breadth of resources that she finds in a sweeping view of historical and geographical art references, Bhabha’s unconventional materials and gestural approach rebuke the traditional role of monumental sculpture, which is typically solemn and heroic. God Of Some Things is not only indicative of Bhabha’s distinctive style and approach, but ample evidence of her broadly encompassing diasporic perspective.
www.wikipedia.org:
The sculptures were made of clay, styrofoam, and cork cast in bronze to allow them to withstand the elements. The title of the installation makes reference to a 1951 film, The Day the Earth Stood Still. According to AM New York, Bhabha viewed the characters as cooperative, with We Come in Peace coming to aid Benaam, but arriving too late because Benaam has already died – though to her mind the latter might stil"rise up ... things that you would not imagine might happen. That's the hope."
While Bhabha considers the work to be "very much an anti-war statement", she also wanted it to be multi-layered and open to a wide variety of interpretations.
Scott Lynch of Gothamist, remarking on the pieces' diversity of inspiration, observed, "Both pieces allude to a wide swath of art history, from ancient African and Indian sculpture to contemporary works by the likes of Basquiat and David Hammons". He said that the sculptures created an "ominous but open-ended narrative, inviting visitors to explore their own thematic interpretations: subjugation and supplication, respect, fear, and/or adoration; social upheaval and displacement; gender, power, and 'memories of place.'"
Martha Schwendener of The New York Times described the installation as "a spare and unsettling sculptural installation", that "ripples" with associations of "colonization, invasion, imperialism". She suggests that the work invites the observer to consider the sheer strangeness of extraterrestrial or "post-humanity" lifeforms as they would likely be experienced by humankind, but that such encounters may ultimately offer the possibility of a "melding of cultures and aesthetics that might be harmonious rather than imperialist."
Describing the work as "eerie, other, unnerving, ambiguous, even alarming", Jerry Saltz for Vulture saw the work as a critique of the West: its "vivisected, gouged idol covered in blotchy graffiti could be from any photograph seen daily of the mayhem in the Middle East, just part of the carnage, interventions, and wars [Bhabha] has called a 'systematic demonization and humiliation of the people and their ancient and present Islamic cultures' ... her Met installation is a vivid rebuke of what the West says to all the cultures it invades: We come in peace." He assessed the work as "among the best Met roof sculpture installations since the program began in 1987.
www.saatchigallery.com:
Bhabha’s The Orientalist conveys ideas of exoticism, difference, and otherness. Equally primitive and futuristic, Bhabha’s figure theatrically poses as an ominous king or deity. Cast in bronze, it sits as an imposing relic from a fictional history, a regal air emanating from its polished geometric armour, molten death mask, and ethereal chicken wire veil. Humanised through exaggerated hands and feet and sympathetic cartoon styling, its powers waver between the comically surreal and portentously intimidating, drawing narrative suggestion from the loaded clichés of late night science fiction and horror movies.
www.unframed.lacma.org:
Typically Bhabha works with humble, castoff materials such as recycled packing materials, tires, cork, and other industrial and consumer refuse, although in the last 10 years she has occasionally worked in bronze. God Of Some Things (2011) was one of two large-scale bronze sculptures that flanked the entrance to Bhabha’s fir museum exhibition at MoMA PS1 in 2012. The sculpture highlights her interests in figurative sculpture and direct carving; the patinated bronze is cast from molds made from an original hand-chiseled piece of cork. Texturally, the sculpture gives the appearance of lightweight cork, and plays against the viewer’s expectation of the heft and permanence of bronze.
The columnar figure is ambiguous in many respects: female or male, god or human, ancient or modern—all classifications could be valid. As is typical of Bhabha’s approach, God Of Some Things draws from a vast repertoire of examples from art history and archaeology. The singed cork of the original carving has the quality of volcanic rock, and suggests that the sculpture may have emerged directly from the earth. Morphologically, Bhabha also finds inspiration in Alberto Giacometti’s lissome bronze figures, representations of the Egyptian deity Thoth as a baboon, the symmetry of 19th-century Fang reliquary sculptures, the jagged surfaces of Georgtz’s wood forms, and designs of Hollywood science fiction monsters.
www.yorkshire-sculpture.org:
Working almost entirely in figurative sculpture, Huma Bhabha’s approach is unconventional and cross-cultural, making connections between histories, languages and civilisations.
Huma Bhabha made her first public realm commission in the UK for Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019, which was on display in Wakefield city centre for the duration of the festival. Now the festival has closed, Receiver is on display at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Assembled and carved from everyday materials like Styrofoam packaging, cork, clay and plaster, Bhabha’s work has a timeless quality and her practice is a meditation on new ways of approaching the tactile challenges of sculpture-making. Her work draws on wide-ranging influences that include ancient vocabularies, to Picasso, Giacometti, Daumier and German Neo-Expressionists; and the sci-fi dystopias of Philip K. Dick.
Bhabha has exhibited widely, inclthe acclaimed “We Come in Peace”, for the Roof Garden Commission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York (2018), “Greater New York” at MoMA PS1 New York (2015-16), the 2015 Venice Biennale, the 2012 Paris Triennial; and the 2010 Whitney Biennial.
www.wikipedia.org:
Huma Bhabha (born 1962) is a Pakistani-American sculptor based in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Known for her uniquely grotesque, figurative forms that often appear dissected or dismembered, Bhabha often uses found materials in her sculptures, including styrofoam, cork, rubber, paper, wire, and clay. She occasionally incorporates objects given to her by other people into her artwork. Many of these sculptures are also cast in bronze. She is equally prolific in her works on paper, creating vivid pastel drawings, eerie photographic collages, and haunting print e
We identify ourselve with an artwork, while watching. While watching We Come With Peace the disgust becomes stronger.
No, I don't want to admit that my mouth is sometimes experienced by an other as a maw. I would like to believe that my words are felt by others as constructive and supportive.
No, I deny that my glasses function as a mask so nobody can read my emotions. I deny that my eyeholes are blank and no twinkle is there to be seen. I would like to believe that others feel love and warmth even when I look for a minute.
No, my lower body is not a vehicle which is designed to seize, to take, to crush. I would like to believe that my closeness feels like a soft caress.
We Come With Peace by Huma Bhabha causes disgust by the memory of the disgusting behaviour of people during a war, a natural disaster, oppression.
By Theo, www.artatsite.com
Vertaling
Weerzinwekkend
Wij identificeren ons met een kunstwerk, tijdens het kijken. Tijdens het kijken naar We Come With Peace wordt de weerzin steeds sterker.
Nee, ik wil niet toegeven dat mijn mond soms als een muil wordt ervaren door een ander. Ik wil geloven dat mijn woorden anderen een constructief gevoel en steun geven.
Nee, ik ontken dat mijn bril functioneert als een masker waardoor niemand mijn emoties lezen kan. Ik ontken dat mijn ooggaten leeg zijn en dat er geen twinkeling te zien is. Ik wil geloven dat anderen liefde en warmte voelen zelfs als ik eventjes kijk.
Nee, mijn onderlichaam is geen voertuig dat bedoeld is om te grijpen, te nemen, te verpletteren. Ik wil geloven dat mijn nabijheid voelt als een zachte streling.
We Come With Peace van Huma Bhabha roept walging op bij de herinnering aan het weerzinwekkende gedrag van mensen bij een oorlog, natuurgeweld, onderdrukking.
Door Theo, www.artatsite.com
www.thecontemporaryaustin.org:
Often described as post-apocalyptic, the work of sculptor Huma Bhabha responds to the violence and turmoil in the world around her through depictions of anthropomorphic figures—or “characters,” as Bhabha calls them—that often appear to be dismembered, melted, or dissected.
www.wikipedia.org:
We Come in Peace was a commissioned art installation created by Huma Bhabha, a New York–based Pakistani-American sculptor, for the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The installation consisted of two sculptures, named We Come in Peace and Benaam, wh"nameless" in Urdu. We Come in Peace was a 12 ft (3.7 m) tall standing figure, while Benaam was a 18 ft (5.5 m) long figure lying prostrate. According to AM New York, the We Come in Peace sculpture was gender fluid.
www.unframed.lacma.org:
Bhabha’s sculptures have been described as artifacts from the future, as they could be the ruins of an ancient civilization or the creative outgrowth of an epoch yet to come. Drawn to the ways in which our 21st-century mega-cities can at times resemble archaeological digs, and to the breadth of resources that she finds in a sweeping view of historical and geographical art references, Bhabha’s unconventional materials and gestural approach rebuke the traditional role of monumental sculpture, which is typically solemn and heroic. God Of Some Things is not only indicative of Bhabha’s distinctive style and approach, but ample evidence of her broadly encompassing diasporic perspective.
www.wikipedia.org:
The sculptures were made of clay, styrofoam, and cork cast in bronze to allow them to withstand the elements. The title of the installation makes reference to a 1951 film, The Day the Earth Stood Still. According to AM New York, Bhabha viewed the characters as cooperative, with We Come in Peace coming to aid Benaam, but arriving too late because Benaam has already died – though to her mind the latter might stil"rise up ... things that you would not imagine might happen. That's the hope."
While Bhabha considers the work to be "very much an anti-war statement", she also wanted it to be multi-layered and open to a wide variety of interpretations.
Scott Lynch of Gothamist, remarking on the pieces' diversity of inspiration, observed, "Both pieces allude to a wide swath of art history, from ancient African and Indian sculpture to contemporary works by the likes of Basquiat and David Hammons". He said that the sculptures created an "ominous but open-ended narrative, inviting visitors to explore their own thematic interpretations: subjugation and supplication, respect, fear, and/or adoration; social upheaval and displacement; gender, power, and 'memories of place.'"
Martha Schwendener of The New York Times described the installation as "a spare and unsettling sculptural installation", that "ripples" with associations of "colonization, invasion, imperialism". She suggests that the work invites the observer to consider the sheer strangeness of extraterrestrial or "post-humanity" lifeforms as they would likely be experienced by humankind, but that such encounters may ultimately offer the possibility of a "melding of cultures and aesthetics that might be harmonious rather than imperialist."
Describing the work as "eerie, other, unnerving, ambiguous, even alarming", Jerry Saltz for Vulture saw the work as a critique of the West: its "vivisected, gouged idol covered in blotchy graffiti could be from any photograph seen daily of the mayhem in the Middle East, just part of the carnage, interventions, and wars [Bhabha] has called a 'systematic demonization and humiliation of the people and their ancient and present Islamic cultures' ... her Met installation is a vivid rebuke of what the West says to all the cultures it invades: We come in peace." He assessed the work as "among the best Met roof sculpture installations since the program began in 1987.
www.saatchigallery.com:
Bhabha’s The Orientalist conveys ideas of exoticism, difference, and otherness. Equally primitive and futuristic, Bhabha’s figure theatrically poses as an ominous king or deity. Cast in bronze, it sits as an imposing relic from a fictional history, a regal air emanating from its polished geometric armour, molten death mask, and ethereal chicken wire veil. Humanised through exaggerated hands and feet and sympathetic cartoon styling, its powers waver between the comically surreal and portentously intimidating, drawing narrative suggestion from the loaded clichés of late night science fiction and horror movies.
www.unframed.lacma.org:
Typically Bhabha works with humble, castoff materials such as recycled packing materials, tires, cork, and other industrial and consumer refuse, although in the last 10 years she has occasionally worked in bronze. God Of Some Things (2011) was one of two large-scale bronze sculptures that flanked the entrance to Bhabha’s fir museum exhibition at MoMA PS1 in 2012. The sculpture highlights her interests in figurative sculpture and direct carving; the patinated bronze is cast from molds made from an original hand-chiseled piece of cork. Texturally, the sculpture gives the appearance of lightweight cork, and plays against the viewer’s expectation of the heft and permanence of bronze.
The columnar figure is ambiguous in many respects: female or male, god or human, ancient or modern—all classifications could be valid. As is typical of Bhabha’s approach, God Of Some Things draws from a vast repertoire of examples from art history and archaeology. The singed cork of the original carving has the quality of volcanic rock, and suggests that the sculpture may have emerged directly from the earth. Morphologically, Bhabha also finds inspiration in Alberto Giacometti’s lissome bronze figures, representations of the Egyptian deity Thoth as a baboon, the symmetry of 19th-century Fang reliquary sculptures, the jagged surfaces of Georgtz’s wood forms, and designs of Hollywood science fiction monsters.
www.yorkshire-sculpture.org:
Working almost entirely in figurative sculpture, Huma Bhabha’s approach is unconventional and cross-cultural, making connections between histories, languages and civilisations.
Huma Bhabha made her first public realm commission in the UK for Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019, which was on display in Wakefield city centre for the duration of the festival. Now the festival has closed, Receiver is on display at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Assembled and carved from everyday materials like Styrofoam packaging, cork, clay and plaster, Bhabha’s work has a timeless quality and her practice is a meditation on new ways of approaching the tactile challenges of sculpture-making. Her work draws on wide-ranging influences that include ancient vocabularies, to Picasso, Giacometti, Daumier and German Neo-Expressionists; and the sci-fi dystopias of Philip K. Dick.
Bhabha has exhibited widely, inclthe acclaimed “We Come in Peace”, for the Roof Garden Commission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York (2018), “Greater New York” at MoMA PS1 New York (2015-16), the 2015 Venice Biennale, the 2012 Paris Triennial; and the 2010 Whitney Biennial.
www.wikipedia.org:
Huma Bhabha (born 1962) is a Pakistani-American sculptor based in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Known for her uniquely grotesque, figurative forms that often appear dissected or dismembered, Bhabha often uses found materials in her sculptures, including styrofoam, cork, rubber, paper, wire, and clay. She occasionally incorporates objects given to her by other people into her artwork. Many of these sculptures are also cast in bronze. She is equally prolific in her works on paper, creating vivid pastel drawings, eerie photographic collages, and haunting print e