“The operation the goddesses Juno and Iris perform is a transformation (an abstraction) – from the globe of the eye (from bulbus oculi) to a pattern of plumage, from the organ of sight to an ornament (to illustration). A symbolic transplantation, taxidermy of a concept. By making the peacock the lasting bearer of the notion of Argos’ multi-ocular gaze, Juno maintains Argos’ legacy. It is without doubt the many-eyed Argos (the Panoptes – the All-Seeing) who, by his surveying gaze, is enabled to gain an exhaustive conception of an image of the world.…
The book ‘Plants and Soil – The Visual Development of a Structure’ contains a photographic sequence comprising forty images. Identified here as the pivotal element of a certain spacial configuration in an urban setting in the city of Hamburg, the photographs portray a topiary-like garden sculpture in the shape of a peacock.”
a peacock made of shrubs and flowers captured from different angles and in different seasons, sometimes in full bloom, sometimes overgrown and without its colourful plumage of flowers; due to the living and growing materials used for this sculpture, elements of time and metamorphosis are added to the work, no picture is like the other because of these elements and thus the sequence of photographs allows the reader to experience a process of flux; 40 full-colour photographs of the same topiary sculpture, or should we say 40 distinctly different sculptures? hard cover, cloth-bound, 27,5 x 18 cm, 68 not numbered pages, with 8 gatefolds, ed/400, Maastricht 2009
ISBN 978-90-72076-38-0
