Rust

The work deals with the image of a woman's high-heeled shoe.  The sculpture was made through a dialogue in the process of classic sculpting: building a metal skeleton that supports the material. Only this time, when the sculpture is finished and the relationship between the materials examined, the material's cover was removed and the construction exposed – the structure of a shoe made of steel bars and nets.

The process of exposing the construction emphasizes the importance of the object's interior as its supporting structure as well as the skeleton as the basis of the shoe's external aesthetic.

In this work – as in my ecological research - I have analyzed the effects and the relations between the organisms, their interactions and their environment, between the interior and the exterior. In this case I examined the effect of the materials over time:  steel, metal and clay under the influence of humidity, precipitation, sun and mud.

The work deals with the paradox between the consumer culture and environmental considerations: just as ecology is a creation of nature, the shoe is man's creation. One of the central images of capitalism, excess consumerism and the concept of women in modern culture – the shoe -constituting one of the clear images of the feminist revolution. The piece freezes a certain situation of destruction, weathering and decay in order to create the tension that exists today between ecology, time and man.  The exhibition of this shoe emphasizes our society burying itself in self destruction.
 
The work was inspired by the different fossils that change in time due to effects of nature, climate and environment as opposed to consumerism. The piece discusses the fine line between ugliness and beauty, the narrow crack between man's creations, in exact and meticulous designs, to the sublimity of nature- a process that man has no power over.  This is how a new and unnatural aesthetic for the shoe is created.




Michal Fuhrer