Final Images

Amy Hauft: Counter Re-Formation

On December 2, 2009, artist Amy Hauft presented her sculptural piece at the Anderson Gallery. The work expanded to fill almost the entire room, with a spiral staircase in the corner so that one could view the piece aerially, or as Hauft put it, "as a spacial experience of abstraction." She also described the staircase as a different experience depending on the body type of the viewer and that she liked the idea of "wearing the staircase."

Hauft explained that she always works in large architectural structures, always creating a landscape. She describes herself as an "eccentric magnet": certain things stick and other things fall off. For this piece, she looked at 16th and 17th century cook books and considered the use of sugar to imitate porcelain. The sculpture references an etching of a dessert table from the time of Louis XV, with small snow-drift like arrangements that structurally correspond with the edges. Hauft mentioned that she wanted their appearance to be versatile and could also be icebergs or sand dunes. They appear to be made of sugar, though the only element actually consisting of sugar is the spiral staircase at the center.

The piece gave me a somewhat nostalgic feeling of winter and snow, which was interesting because Hauft relayed that some of the basis of it was a memory of her father shoveling snow and walking through the "snow walls." Her work always strives to remake a physical experience she had outside, which she said is "completely futile, but there's something sweet about trying."

I very much enjoyed listening to Amy Hauft speak; she made her concept very clear (as well as interesting), yet still allowed room for the curiosity and imagination of the viewer, exuding the idea that the experience of viewing it would be unique to the individual.