Princeton, NJ
Princeton University Art Museum
Standing nearly 18 feet tall and weighing eight tons, Doug and Mike Starn’s luminous outdoor installation (Any) Body Oddly Propped continues their preoccupation with dendritic growth and sunlight, while adding a weightiness not previously seen in their work. Seven tremendous steel frames hold vividly colored glass panels etched with silhouettes of tree branches that form networks akin to veins or synapses. The massive rectangles, like deconstructed architecture, are propped diagonally against one another; two are held up (or rather seem to be) by spindly cast-bronze tree limbs. The richly hued glass, translucent and layered with imagery, catches and filters the light, while allowing surrounding trees and sky to show through. One can walk in and around the piece, experiencing it from inside and out and from multiple viewpoints. Since the 1980s, when they began to fashion composite photographs using Scotch tape, the Starns have worked by fastening parts into a whole, leaving the connecting material, as well as the seams, visible and integral.…see the entire review in the print version of June’s Sculpture magazine.
