Artist John Grade will return to Mystic Seaport March 20-21 to add pieces to his kinetic sculpture Murmur: Arctic Realities, currently on exhibit in the Collins Gallery at the Museum.
Grade will add panels to two of the steel spines that support the piece. Murmur: Arctic Realities is an intricately carved sculpture (15’ x 38’ x 42’) that represents a pingo, a hill of ice that grows over centuries in the Arctic’s highest latitudes, then collapses, pockmarking the tundra. This sculpture simulates a pingo in Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve that Grade saw when he was exploring the tundra two years ago.
Just as a pingo grows over time in the natural world, so Grade envisioned his piece would evolve as it toured museums and galleries before its final stop at Anchorage Museum. And even there, Murmur will again change as it will hang upside down from a ceiling in a gallery, offering visitors an entirely different experience.
“Evolution and change are what interest me most with my projects rather than arriving at a static state of completion or finish,” Grade said. “Rather than aiming to preserve a sculpture in an ideal state, I am also more interested in witnessing and understanding how it might change through interaction with time and the elements. As a project is exhibited in multiple venues, it is important to me that it relate to each space in a different and site specific way each time, ideally changing its configuration or orientation in some significant way as well.”
The evolution of the piece was part of what attracted Mystic Seaport to the idea of staging the exhibition in the Thompson Building, said Nicholas Bell, senior vice president for curatorial affairs at the Museum.
“When John set out to create his own Arctic landform, he knew it would evolve over time as it moved from museum to museum,” Bell said. “Visitors to Mystic Seaport have already enjoyed the installation’s international debut. Now they will be able to see the monumental sculpture change before their eyes when he returns this month to apply new wood panels to the form’s kinetic steel spines.”
The piece is carved from salvaged Alaskan yellow cedar. Grade will be adding panels to two of the eight spines that hold the piece. The top of the spines open and close, powered by hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders, to also mimic a pingo’s growth and collapse.
Murmur: Arctic Realities is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday-Sunday, through March 23. From March 24 to April 22, Murmur is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week.
