Edward Mayer: Artist-On-Location 1988

ANAMNESIS, WOOD, 24' x 28' x 9'6" / Artist's Statement: 

ANAMNESIS is built on a 4' module, like the lines inscribed in the concrete of the plaza. Its sides parallel the flanking buildings. The angled interior walls echo a nearby architectural detail. It is centrally situated in order to engage and confront as many people as possible.

The structure is both familiar and ambiguous--with and without function. It is unimportant whether or not my intentions are clear; the work is deliberate and proof of its own existence. It reveals something of my own obsession with repetitive modules, simple systems, changing spaces, and self-contained enclosures.

Strong shadows form as the sun moves overhead. At night, it turns a soft, even yellow from the incandescent lights located a short distance away. It echoes its surroundings but does not belong to them; it hovers above the plaza. There is one entrance, in the  middle of what might be described as the front, dividing a 'porch' into two separate platforms. 

The inside is an inverted pyramid, a center, a refuge, an open enclosure. Sound is noticeably muted. The thousands of lengths of woodlath stapled to the superstructure create a visual noise a repetitive excess, a calming order.

I build my sculptures on site and leave them behind for others. During the planning and construction phases, I meet and talk with Mark Wooldrige. He responds to the idea of the Maelstrom Percussion Ensemble composing a work based on ANAMNESIS, and performing it in and around the sculpture. We talk about primal forms and structures, repetitive rhythms, pieces in sections, inside/outside experiences, the call and answer, the acoustic vitality of the plaza site, the visual similarity of the sculpture's surfaces to certain percussion instruments, and the potential for coupling the visual and the auditory, two temporal forms, to extend them both. We determine dates for a series of daytime performances in September, when activity in the plaza is maximal, and just prior to the removal of the piece.

ANAMNESIS becomes a departure point and a performance site for a musical score that might serve equally well as the construction diagram to represent the work.

Special thanks to Jim Hartel for his enthusiastic support; to Anthony Bannon and Bud Diehl, and the committee which invited me to Buffalo; to members of the Buffalo State College offices of space management and the physical plant for quick decisions and equipment loans; to the Maelstrom Percussion Ensemble for inspired collaboration; and to Alex Mayer, for coming to help when I needed him most. Edward Mayer

Brochure: Hartel, James J.; Mayer, Edward; Wooldridge, Marc. Edward Mayer : Artist on Location 1988. Buffalo, New York: Burchfield Art Center, 1988. 6 unnumbered pages : illustrations ; 28 cm