RHYMES OF GOODBYE, 2011. Rock, broken car wind screen. By Anya Gallaccio. (via Daily Serving)
Even before I clicked through to the article about this sculpture, it made me think of my times driving around in New Mexico. That might be because I did most of my driving in an old Volvo stationwagon with a smashed out window that I never fixed because it doesn’t rain there, and it made putting groceries in the back that much easier because the hydraulics on the rear door didn’t work and it would fall down onto your head/neck/back with potentially deadly effect if you opened it unawares, leaving exposed the highwaysystem of your nerves to its roughly forty pounds of mass. Or it could be because of the rock, whose type I don’t know since I did not pay attention in earth science (sorry Mrs. Brady), definitely has a southwestern affect on me in a sort of subconscious way. I think it’s just lovely. The piece also makes me think of the contrast between sort of natural permanence and strength to humanity’s sneaky resilience, since the glass is decisively broken, but it’s that no-shatter glass that doesn’t fly inward and cut you all up, so it’s not as broken as it could be — or — it’s simultaneously broken and not-broken, which is, you may admit, an extremely human sort of mode of being.
