Homage to Dale Eldred

Fig. 4. SethRiskin,sketchesof Rainbow Man,a light and danceperformanceinvolving direct interactionwith sunlight. (left)A compressednitrogenand water tank on the performer’sback (lowerright) connectstojets on his body (right),which spraya mist of water dropletsthat reflect rainbows. Homage to Dale Eldred Jurgen Claus Dale Eldred died on 26July 1993in his studio in Kansas City, Missouri while trying to save his artworks, which were threatened by the rising waters of the Kaw River. He was a solar artist in every sense of the term. His optimism and strength were related to the biospheric elements of nature, light, time and space. Since the late 1970s, he had devoted his artistic energy to “diffraction sculptures,” or works that were defined by light reflecting from surfaces.Just as the earth is related to the sun, these works included the reflector as well as the reflecting space [11. I remember Dale’s attentive interest in the idea of the Biosphere I1 when it was founded near Oracle, Arizona. We Jilrgen (:laus (artist, writer. educator). (:rntrr Overoth. B. 4857 Baelen, Belgium. Rrceivrd 13 March 1995. had many talks about the possible solar aspects of this experiment and the chances for integration of or at least feedback for solar artworks in Biosphere 11. We discussed connections between the concept of solar art and concepts put forth by researchers in the fields of geography and ecology, one of these researchers being the “father”of the Biosphere, the Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945). Vernadsky observed that the terrestrial face becomesvisible where it receives light from celestial bodies, particularly the Sun. .. .The biosphere is as much, or even more, the creation of the Sun as it is a manifestation of Earth-processes. . . .W e are now obliged to consider the phenomena of the Earth’scrust as a manifestation of cosmic mechanisms [2]. Eldred constructed public solar artworks (Fig. 5) from Phoenix, Arizona, to Helsinki, Finland. In 1978 he used 8 miles of Mylar prismatic diffraction tape to transform an expansive exterior wall of a warehouse in Kansas City. Mirrors reflected the sunlight onto the huge wall, creating an ever-changing image that shifted from brilliant red to glowing green. Antero Kare made the following comments in the catalog for Eldred’s exhibition and installation in Helsinki in 1982: Dale Eldred actually takes over a city when he works. He utilizes its geographical location and architectural profile; spatiallyalters its buildings, its parks and his horizons; and exposes his audience to some of the basic elements of life-energy, rhythm, pulse and inter -relationship. With the varying reds,yellows,greens and blues of the spectrum, Dale Eldred succeeds in emphasizingcertain basic interdependencies: there is no light 328 SolArt Global Network without shadow; the sun and the earth rotate around each other, and this rotation is controlled by two forces,velocity and gravity.Reflectionis the second generation of light; reflection continues its path at a given angle, and it can be bent around-downwards to the inner corridorsof pyramids, for instance. ... Eldred, the KansasCityArt Institute’s Sculpture Department became one of the most unique, personal and productive units of art education in the United States. Its individualityis a reflection of several positive phenomena, especiallythose which exemplifyDale Eldred: personal magnetism;an indomitable will; acute and comprehensive intelligence; and ruthless fusion and utilization of everythinghe comes across.The sun is an excellent tool for Dale Eldred [3]. Otto Piene, himself a light artist, first Under the leadership of Dale invitedDale Eldred to participate in the SkyArt Conferences and Exhibitions in 1981,and Eldred continued to participate in following years. For the 1981conference, held at Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT), Eldred produced Sun Structures,an installation that made use of a mirror battery and a reflective panel placed on opposite banks of the Charles River in Boston. When the mirror battery on the north bank was activated by the sun at high noon, the five-color panel on the south bank was transformed into a light-active field of intense color. About Sun Structures , Eldred wrote, I have returned to this concept of light and shadowas entities directlyrelated Fig. 5. Dale Eldred, T h eIncident, installationwith sunlightreflection at the Nelson-Atkins Museumof Art, KansasCity, Missouri, 1979...