Venus on the Road Again

Venus on the Road Again

This mixed media sculpture features the form of a woman enclosed within a wooden superstructure. The material used to create the exterior of the woman's form is concrete and is greyish-white in color. The figure of the woman is nude from the waist up, her lower torso and legs covered by a garment that drapes over her form, closely bunched at the waist. Her right foot can be partially seen at bottom where the garment has fallen away, while her left foot is missing and appears to have been broken off. She stands upon a horizontally oriented, thick, rock-like form, also of the same concrete medium. The form is flat on top and somewhat rough in texture on the sides. Its right side is rather squared off at the front and back corners on the left side of the work, while those on the left are rounded. The figure is depicted in the classic contrapposto pose, with the line of her hips traveling somewhat opposite to that of her shoulders. Her hair is drawn back into a chignon and her face appears placid in expression. All of these particular characteristics of her form as well as the title of the artwork make it clear that she is meant to allude to the famed Venus de Milo sculpted by Alexandros. As noted earlier, the woman is enclosed on all sides by a wooden form. It is composed of pieces of lumber attached with metal bolts and stands much taller than the woman. All sides of the structure are open, while the bottom is completely enclosed with wooden boards which run from front to back, and the top is partially enclosed with boards that run from left to right, though with a large gap between the centermost boards that also runs from side to side. Horizontal wooden boards are also employed in the superstructure enclosing the woman. They are seen on all four sides of the structure, appearing just above their vertical midpoints. The horizontally oriented boards seen on the front side of the structure are outward facing, while their counterpoints at sides and back are not, instead enclosed by other boards. Six short, movable, wooden pieces of wood have also been arrayed around the sculpture near her waist. Each of these shorter boards is affixed at one end by a bolt to that of the horizontal band of wood appearing at mid-vertical of the wooden superstructure, their other ends oriented towards, but not touching, the woman's waist. The shorter boards seen at left are attached to the left board appearing at mid-vertical on the superstructure, the two at the back are attached to its back board seen at mid-vertical, and the two on the right are attached to its right board employed at that same vertical level.

Neda Miranda Blažević-Krietzman was born in Gračac, Croatia 1951, received her education in Comparative Literature and Sociology at the Zagreb University of Philosophy. She studied art in Zagreb and Berlin, Germany. From 1976 until 2013, she has published eleven collections of poetry in Croatian, English, German and French, three books of short stories and novelettes, three novels, a book of essays, three plays and a collaborative book of essays about multiculturalism, A Woman is a Woman is a Woman: Changing Yourself and the World, (Houghton Mifflin, 2003) with her American, African, Asian and Middle Eastern students at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she taught in the English Department and the CORE from 1993 until 2007. During her tenure at St. Kate’s she had two exhibitions: Dreams, Utopia and Cappuccino, 1994, and Dubrovnik, Sedona and the Grand Canyon: Aesthetic Mirroring of Nature and Architecture, 2005. She is also the 2012 recipient of the most prestigious poetry award in Croatia the “Tin Ujević” for her tenth collection of poems, “Vesuvius Door” and was named the Croatia Poet Laureate. Neda Miranda Blažević-Krietzman lives and works now between Zagreb, Croatia, and San Diego, California.

https://cdm16120.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/fineart/id/905/rec/1

St. Catherines University Library and Archives

1994

St. Catherine University

This image may not be reproduced for any reason without the express written consent of the St. Catherine University. Contact the Visual Resources Library regarding rights to this collection. 651-690-6639

29 1/2 in x 30 3/4 in x 7 1/2 ft

English

Sculpture

2013.0.41