Anthropologie’s art-centric side project The Anthropologist was updated earlier this week with a new vignette. The new update focuses on a project by noted large-scale artist Jim Denevan. Denevan and his team traveled to Lake Baikal in southwestern Siberia and created an amazing piece of landscape artwork that spanned over nine square miles.
The end result is something between a crop circle in the snow and ice and an almost jewelry-like adornment for a lake that many in the region consider sacred. It’s amazing to see the before and after pictures of the lake –even nature itself seemed to dot the landscape with snow in a pattern of hills and valleys, which Denevan and team massaged into a brilliant pattern of both the intimate and the grand. I can’t get over the scale! It was interesting to read about the photography project and how the Russian pilots who initially refused to do a second pass of the project gave in after seeing how beautiful it was.
Though the work melted in May, the process was captured by filmmaker Meredith Danluck for a documentary that is currently in post-production. I can’t wait to see how they did this. Looking at the work I’m struck by both the aesthetically pleasing proportion and the perfection of each circle. No two circles are alike yet they’re all perfectly round and the corresponding sizes from one ring to another make sense in an exponential way.
I love how at the center — the most intimate level — a little disorder takes over and the circles, while still perfectly round, are not quite as balanced spatially. It’s clear which circle started the project — or is it? The team commentary on the site says they enjoyed the process of making the design more than seeing the finished project. Seeing at now it’s just as much fun to try to deconstruct it, to imagine how this project came together. Was it rings built upon rings? Rays created based upon angles and planning? A carefully placed map carved out later?
photo from Jim Denevan’s websiteCircles are my favorite shape in art and clothing design because I love what they represent to me — continuity, endlessness, togetherness. It’s engrossing to see such perfectly round ones (seemingly unnatural) laid out upon natural elements. They fit in and yet they stand out. Another thought-provoking project to be sure!
Jim Denevan is based out of Northern California. His art projects are created upon sand and waves, meant to be washed or worn away over time. He is also the founder of Outstanding in the Field, a nomadic series of outdoor feasts that are part art-installation, part celebration of the bounty of small farms across the globe.
Previously:
email: anthro in our own words (unconditional love)
Introducing the Anthropologist
