Aerial: Other Cities #4
Artist
Susan Goethel Campbell
(American, born 1956)
Date2012
MediumRelief print with perforations
DimensionsPaper Size: 39 1/2 × 25 in. (100.3 × 63.5 cm)
Frame Size: 28 × 42 in. (71.1 × 106.7 cm)
ClassificationsPrint
Object numberUAC6075
DescriptionThe art of Susan Goethel Campbell illuminates her fascination with the intersection of the human environment and that of the natural. Aerial: Other Cities #4 is part of Aerials, a series of woodblock prints that portray with black and gray tones the urban landscape from a bird's-eye view. Handmade perforations trace the linear elements of the city while the swirl pattern that is inherent to the grained-down surface of the wood contributes to the invocation of atmospheric phenomena. In conjunction with the tonal palette, it plays the role of wind, fog, light pollution or other pollution that hangs in the air above a human conglomerate. Humans as wingless creatures achieve this perspective daily through the technology of air-travel. Goethel Campbell attained her images with snapshots of the view from her window seat on planes, placing directly in Aerials a pressing awareness of human interaction with the terrain. The punched holes that outline the cityscape allow light to pass through the wood, thus creating a tangible juxtaposition of man-made material and nature-made material that echoes the dualities found in the intersection of environments. This captured moment of a landscape that expands vastly beyond the ground straight below reminds viewers that these environments - natural or artificial - are ephemeral, a consequence caused by the innate system of things, but also more so caused by human intervention and activity.Goethel Campbell’s studio produces an assorted array of artworks- from prints and books to sculpture and installation. Aerials was partially inspired by her previous work that was displayed at the Detroit Institute of Arts: Detroit Weather, 365 Days (2011), a video that encompasses the photo documentation of Detroit over 365 days. Goethel Campbell set up a webcam at the near top of the Fisher Building in New Center. At every minute, for 24 hours a day for an entire year, the webcam archived an image. Her interest in weather patterns and the topography of natural and artificial elements was instinctively manifested in this project.
Goethel Campbell received her MFA in printmaking from Cranbrook Academy of Arts. She has lectured and joined panels at a myriad of events, has served as visiting artist at various institutions, and taught at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit for fifteen years.
Danielle Cervera Bidigare
Picture of the Week, 05/14/2018
----------------------------------------------------
Susan Goethel Campbell is an artist whose work spans multiple media and considers ever-changing perception of the contemporary, Western world. Campbell’s work frequently uses scientific data and systems as a mode of inquiry, creating a visual representation of the unseen world. Other Cities 4, from the body of work, Aerials is a woodblock print containing thousands of small perforations which come together to form an aerial view of the Detroit skyline. The birds-eye view of Other Citied 4 recalls satellite-imaging technology, juxtaposing a highly-evolved way of looking at the world with simple, handmade perforations. This print exists on both a concrete and abstract level—at first the perforations form a kind of abstraction, it is difficult to immediately discern what is being depicted, but upon further examination the viewer begins to mentally put together the hundreds of small holes into clusters of representative forms.
Text by Aleksey Kondratyev
Collections
