Amy Hauft Lecture: 12/02/09

Image of Installation at Western Michigan University "Counter Re-Formation" Oct. 2009

Image of Installation at Western Michigan University "Counter Re-Formation" Oct. 2009

Image of Installation at Western Michigan University "Counter Re-Formation" Oct. 2009


A professor in the sculpture and extended media department at VCU, Amy Hauft, spoke this evening at the Anderson Gallery where she currently has her “Counter Re-Formation” installed. She first installed this piece based around large architectural formats creating indoor landscapes at the University of Western Michigan Albertine Monroe-Brown Gallery from September 10 to October 9, 2009. The piece inhabited a greatly different space when installed at Western Michigan therefore posing challenges on her when asked to install it here at the Anderson. She wanted the viewer to be able to view the white sugar like sculpture acting as snowdrifts, icebergs, sand dunes, and mountain ranges from a straight on view and a view from above. Because landscapes have a large influence on her work, she felt that it is important to see the landscape that you are standing in from above; essentially understand it in a larger picture. A part of her installation, the piece that stands in the center, is a mini staircase that is reproduced out of sugar. She initially saw this mini staircase at a Cooper Hewitt show and saw it as a modern elemental representation of a DNA strand. She was able to convince people at the museum to let her spend some time with the staircase that was then made out of wood and measure it and take some photographs of it as well. She then got in touch with culinary artist and one who specializes in ephemeral art in cooking, Ivan Day, who helped her enter the world of the sugar cane. They worked together and spent time over 16th and 17th century cookbooks that then encouraged her to incorporate the table that was modeled after Louis the XIV’s dining table. Her work began to be heavily influenced by the European Baroque era where they used to make small figurines out of sugar instead of porcelain because of the price; and it looked greatly similar.

Her exhibition at the Anderson had an extra piece to it. Because of the size constraints of the room she built a spiral staircase in the corner of the room so one at a time the viewer could maneuver up the stairs and see the piece from above. The tables appear to mimic continental form and when installed at the University she used white curtains that added a river like quality and movement to the piece. I appreciated her talk of how all of her pieces came from her attempt to create a landscape indoor and recreate moments that she has had outdoors. I enjoy the personal quality her work has and the movement that it takes on even with the materials of wood and steel being the bulk of the make up. I would have liked to see it installed at the University because being a site specific installation I feel like it may have had a different effect on me as a viewer. However, I thought the spiral staircase was a clever choice and the idea that only one viewer can shimmy up it at a time makes it even quirkier.

University of Western Michigan Show Website

VCU's Anderson Gallery