ABSTRACT
The Strength and Fragility of the Egg:
Spring Hurlbut's Interventions in the Classical Idiom
Cynthia Imogen Hammond
1996
Classical architecture has a much-debated formal
history. Questions of propriety, and purity of reference to ancient precedent tend
to override questions of who and what this architectural style was and is intended to
serve. Contemporary Canadian installation artist, Spring Hurlbut, mounted an exhibition at
the National Gallery of Canada in 1992. This installation, Sacrificial Ornament, in which
these questions are addressed, uses an altered vocabulary of classical architectural
ornament. Hurlbut's alterations can be linked to the strain of iconoclasm that has helped
shape the history of classical architecture; however, her series raises issues beyond the
traditional scope of architectural history. These issues include a challenge to the
inclusivity of humanistic principles which often form the base of a defense of classicism.
Also, she investigates the anthropomorphism historically associated with classical
architectural proportions. The notion of architecture subsuming human characteristics
becomes, in Hurlbut's work, the unveiling of a human - often female - victim or sacrifice
within classicism's ornamental conventions. By utilizing classicism's claim to
timelessness, Hurlbut is able to access a wide range of historical moments in
architectural history simultaneously. The subjugation documented by architecture's
(latent) lament for its human victims, re-forms through these multiple references in
Hurlbut's work to suggest new ways of constructing agency from the ruins of the past.
Return to the Main Listing
of Theses or
use your browser's BACK button to return to the previous page
