| Spun of the Limits of my Lonely Waltz is an upside-down gothic cathedral whose blueprint is based on the footprints of my dancing the waltz with bare, painted feet. I chose the waltz because of its romantic spinning vertigo, which was once considered vulgar by aristocrats. The lead and the female positions were each danced separately—the male position is represented by the flying buttresses that surround the female position in the form of the cathedral nave. I was interested in making a building of a body rather than for a body. |
|
Diana Al-Hadid is a Brooklyn-based artist who was born in Syria. The recent work she mentions below will be on view (now called Record of a Mortal Universe) at Perry Rubenstein at from October 19 to November 21.
Spun of the Limits of my Lonely Waltz is an upside-down gothic cathedral whose blueprint is based on the footprints of my dancing the waltz with bare, painted feet. I chose the waltz because of its romantic spinning vertigo, which was once considered vulgar by aristocrats. The lead and the female positions were each danced separately—the male position is represented by the flying buttresses that surround the female position in the form of the cathedral nave. I was interested in making a building of a body rather than for a body.
My inclusion of the soles of the feet carries an undercurrent of subversion. Revealing the soles of your feet or shoes to another or to the heavens is a sign of disrespect in Islamic tradition. I was interested in the revolutionary aspect of the flying buttress and how they allowed structures to be exposed on the exterior of a building while creating vacuous interiors meant to give the visual effect of lightness—a building reaching for the heavens. I wanted to destabilize the historical monument by turning this cathedral upside down, shifting the attention away from the heavens and to the earth.
My most recent work is a hypothetical musical instrument and architectural structure that illustrates an imagined narrative. I am continuing to use Classical and Gothic architectural devices to construct a structure around the event of a hero’s collapse. A grand staircase leads to a decomposing Greek temple with a gaping hole in the floor that reveals the rigid crests of waves (cast in concrete) below. Protruding through the floor of the temple is a gramophone. Rather than playing a record, the gramophone’s needle simulates the playing of fictive sounds of water ripples (sound waves) made by the fall of the hero from the top of the stairs.
