Clement Meadmore

clement meadmore sculptor

    Clement Meadmore is one of the most highly respected artists of his generation, for both the quality of his work and the integrity of his commitment to public sculpture. This sculptor has been uniquely successful as a creator of public art that serves as a positive, unifying force in the environment.Although initially linked with the Minimalists, Clement Meadmore transcended geometry with work of uncommon force and elegance, powerful in large scale and small.

    It relies for its effect on the opposition between line and mass, also deriving power and eloquence from its fusion of formal invention with intense feeling, a frankly spiritual dimension. Yet ultimately the appeal of Clement Meadmore’s work lies in its success as sheer form.The artist has managed to overcome geometry’s qualities of stasis, containment, rigor, and sobriety. His sculptures deny their physical reality, suggesting weightlessness. Because of this extroverted and animated character, his public commissions provide oases of humanity in the urban environment. He himself has stated: “A building is part of the environment, but a sculpture is a presence inhabiting the environment.”

    Clement Meadmore’s works range in size from those that fit in the palm of a hand to others that stretch more than forty-six feet, not to mention a proposal for a six-hundred-foot skyscraper sculpture. This range in scale is belied by the seeming monumentality and robust physicality of even the smallest maquette.In a typical Meadmore sculpture, a large rectangular volume of steel twists and turns upon itself. The point about his classic works is that they are huge, and so the great curl of steel takes on this epic scale, as if mighty and usually exuberant forces are at work. In Melbourne, a massive steel structure called Dervish has been sitting beside the Yarra River for 20 years.

    Another Meadmore sculpture called Flippant Flurry slumbers on the rooftop of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It was hidden behind a wall until 2010, now it can be seen through the glass panes of the gallery rooms. But a Meadmore sculpture titled Janus has met a more controversial fate. Australia donated Janus to Mexico City for the Mexico Olympics in 1968, and for a while it was on public display, but that’s no longer the case. Since 1996, it’s been inside the grounds of a private school. Some people are now saying the Mexican government has effectively abandoned this gift and Australia should now ask for it to be returned.

published in : Clement Meadmore | Sculptor

clement meadmore sculptor

    Clement Meadmore is one of the most highly respected artists  of his generation, for both the quality of his work and the integrity of his commitment to public sculpture. This sculptor has been uniquely successful as a creator of public art that serves as a positive, unifying force in the environment.

Articolo Lighting’s Nicci Green

How One Designer Is Handling Australia’s Reopening

    Nicci Green is not new to global crisis. The designer founded Australian lighting maker Articolo Lighting when the Great Recession led to the demise of her previous glassware company, Bribe. “Pretty much overnight that business wasn’t relevant anymore” Green recalls. Standing at an empty Maison & Objet booth in 2010, “I held one vase on my hand upside down and another one on top of it and joked, ‘I don’t know—we could get into lighting.’” Today, Articolo is a global brand that operates showrooms in Melbourne and New York.

    This time around, when COVID-19 began to threaten small businesses, Green took a decidedly different tack. “We approached the coronavirus pandemic with a more positive perspective,” she says. Working with long time architect David Goss, Green prepared her local showroom for reopening after lockdown with projects that include a floor-to-ceiling installation comprising 90 glass spheres from Articolo’s Fizi product line. “It shows our ability to customize our lighting for larger scales and format,” Green says.

But the undertaking also inspired her to reflect more deeply on quarantine. “I thought, ‘What are we all going to be looking forward to?’ We will want to be together.” That thought led Green to start to seek out collaboration opportunities. Soon, Articolo began to commission new creative partners with gusto. The company produced a short film with Paris Thomson of SIRAP Motion Lab, and tapped illustrator Alex Watson to reimagine the lighting collections in a series of prints. Watson now works for Articolo one day per week.

    Now, some of these projects are being shared in Articolo’s Australian showrooms, as the country began reopening its economy in phases approximately a month before its American counterparts. Simultaneously, Green is finishing up a collaboration with digital media artist Yandell Walton that will transform her reopening into a spectacular event. Walton will amplify the Fizi installation’s presence by immersing visitors in motion graphics of bubbles. “When regulations allow us to have an event of 100 people, we’ll showcase this amazing digital art piece,” Green says. “COVID-19 gave us the quiet to explore this.”

The wider Melbourne community has used that time to similar ends. Interior designer Fiona Lynch launched an open-source platform for sustainable design called Future Archive during quarantine. And Green’s fellow designer Christopher Boots is welcoming clients to a new showroom that he created with interior designer Pascale Gomes-McNabb.

    Green, who is launching three new product collections this summer and hopes to expand her business to six showrooms worldwide by 2025, thinks her response to COVID-19 will inform her professional thinking for a long time. She feels particularly confident that Articolo’s future trade fair stands will more likely resemble a Walton-like environment than past booths, for one. But Green does not advise her American peers to necessarily parrot Melburnians as they navigate an eventual reopening. “It’s got to come from the heart,” she says. “If you try to orchestrate something just to capitalize on this moment, then you have a business proposition rather than an authentic expression.”

By David Sokol

published in :  articololighting.com

Articolo Lighting’s Nicci Green

Nicci Green is not new to global crisis. The designer founded Australian lighting maker Articolo Lighting when the Great Recession led to the demise of her previous glassware company, Bribe. “Pretty much overnight that business wasn’t relevant anymore,” Green recalls.Standing at an empty Maison & Objet booth in 2010, “I held one vase on my hand upside down and another one on top of it and joked, ‘I don’t know—we could get into lighting.’” Today, Articolo is a global brand that operates showrooms in Melbourne and New York.