RABBLE

©Photos by Clements/Howcroft, Boston

Rabble
2003
Approximately 10'h x 15'w x 44'l
kinetic Mylar butterflies, stainless steel cable, pewter weights, silk flowers
North Carolina Museum of Art
Raleigh, NC

In conjunction with the exhibition "Defying Gravity", Helmick and Schechter were commissioned by the North Carolina Museum of Art to create a work of art with references to flight in both content and form. The new work is comprised of nearly 1400 subtly moving parts depicting over a dozen species of butterflies that together form an image of an F-35 jetfighter. The steeply banking plane is caught in mid-flight, frozen in time yet filled with the fluttering movement of the individual butterflies. Suspended by cables from the ceiling, each Mylar butterfly is anchored by a small pewter weight. Floating behind the plane are contrails of brightly colored flowers.

In Rabble, an immensely heavy, metallic, industrially manufactured machine is transformed into a porous, ephemeral, animated construction of natural forms. A hallucinatory synthesis of manmade and natural flight, it is, in the artists’ words, "a conversation between two kinds of rapture, natural and technological, with all the beauty and terror that each encompasses."

Commissioned by the North Carolina Museum of Art with funds from the North Carolina Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest), 2003

Project team: Sarah Rodrigo, Chris Taylor