packaging as content

December 30, 2009

Thierry Delva’s 48 Dozen

Belgian/Canadian artist, Thierry Delva’s 1995 sculpture entitled, 48 Dozen. (A column of plaster egg-cartons in a stabilizing, Jenga-block-style stacking arrangement.)

(More of Thierry Delva’s packaging-related sculptures, after the fold…)

“Cooler” carved marble, 1995

For the past several years Thierry Delva has been making finely
detailed, full-size (one-to-one ratio) representations of prosaic
objects in such materials as granite, marble and sandstone. Two of his
three works in this show continue that practice, while one is somewhat
of a departure. The departure consists of forty cast-plaster egg
cartons, stacked in a four-foot column. 48 Dozen manages to refer to
both architecture and the body (classic sculptural concerns), while
remaining resolutely what it is—a record of the space once occupied by
cardboard packaging… Cooler, a white marble carving of a Styrofoam
cooler, is an exact reproduction, hollow with a removable lid.

–Ray Cronin, Conceptual evidence: … Manifest
C: International Contemporary Art, Sept-Nov, 1998

“Power Mac G4 Cube” hydrocal plaster and MDF base, 2001

“ZIP 100, Portable USB Drive” hydrocal plaster and MDF base, 2001

“Electronic Models” consisted of plaster casts made of the interior of boxes from which fax machines, computers, cell phones, VCRs and other consumer electronics have been removed. The commodity having been extracted, the styrofoam and cardboard inserts were re-inserted and the boxes filled with hydrocal plaster. Each plaster cast sits on a plinth made of MDF, constructed to the exact dimensions of the cardboard box that contained the ghost of the sculptural piece now set upon it.