Swan Waves
1996
An intricate series of angled steps overlooks the mouth of Swan Creek. The installation is a focal point in beautiful Boeschenstein Park at the Middlegrounds.
About the Artist
Biography
Athena Tacha was born in 1936 in Greece. She received an M.A. in sculpture from the Athens School of Fine Arts in Greece; an M.A. in art history from Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio; and a Doctorate in aesthetics from the Sorbonne in Paris (1963). After her studies, she worked as Curator of Modern Art at the Allen Memorial Art Museum of Oberlin College, organized contemporary art exhibitions (including Art In The Mind, 1970), and published as A. T. Spear two books and various articles on Auguste Rodin, Brancusi, Nadelman and other 20th century sculptors. She married art historian Richard E. Spear in 1965. From 1973 to 2000, she was Professor of sculpture at Oberlin College. Since 1998, she has been an Affiliate of the University of Maryland, College Park, and lives in Washington, DC.
*biography courtesy of Wikipedia, website en.wikipedia.org
Artist Statement
RHYTHM AS STRUCTURE
Copyright (C) 1977 by Athena Tacha
First published in Landscape Architecture, May 1978, pp. 196-205.
"All things flow." Heraclitos
In ancient India it was believed that each artist, before becoming painter, sculptor, poet or musician, had first to master dance, mother of the arts. Indeed, excepting perhaps architecture, dance is the only art which combines all the elements that separately constitute the domain of the different visual and auditory arts; the only one which merges space and time as vehicles of formal expression; and also the only art in which the live body is the prime transmitter of form.*
In many ways, my sculpture is comparable to dance. Naturally, it exists in real space and relies greatly on visual means (including color). Yet, it can be fully experienced only through body-locomotion, and therefore through the element of time and physical participation of the human body.
Time enters my sculpture at many levels......... Click Here to read the full Artist Statement
Press & Links
Athena Tacha Home Page
www.oberlin.edu/art/athena/tacha.html
