Meg Webster | Dia Beacon
Sculptures made with soil, salt, and sticks celebrate the splendor of nature
Dia Beacon has several great exhibits currently on view. A highlight from a recent visit was a collection of nine minimal sculptures made with natural materials by artist Meg Webster.
Created from 1986 to 1990, the works on view represent a “pivotal period in Webster’s oeuvre,” according to the exhibition notes, “when the artist defined her distinct sculptural method and vocabulary of negative and positive volumes, containers, and enclosures.”
“I first made works in the early 1980s in response to the scary place we were in,” Webster told Artnet in a recent interview. “My idea was to reference natural shapes and materials, and in some cases make something with raw natural material to be entered into.”
Webster creates incredible structures and shapes composed of soil, salt, sticks, and more – often loose and without supports – that defy gravity and blow minds.
Created with “soil sourced from a nearby virgin forest” (exhibition notes), Nearest Forest Soil was firmly packed into a cylindrical mold – made-to-measure to be as wide as Webster is tall, and as high as the artist’s waist – and released, forming a stout and tidy column, reminiscent of building a giant sandcastle.
Cono di Sale (Salt Cone), a towering, snowy white pyramid made entirely of grains of salt, is even more mystifying in its smoothness and precision. While Cono di Sale stands tall with a sharp apex, Concave Earth, encircled by a steel mesh, gradually sinks down at its center, creating a massive crater in its dry, cracked surface.
Webster takes natural elements and transforms them in unexpected ways: Moss Bed, King, lies on the floor like a comfy, king-sized mattress covered in a lush, mossy quilt; the honey-scented Wall of Beeswax is a gently curved, eight-foot-tall wall of fragrant, translucent wax; and Stick Spiral consists of a generous bundle of long branches, laid out to form a curlicue pathway that invites visitors in to explore its sylvan majesty.
Born in San Francisco in 1944, Webster received her MFA (1983) from Yale University where she studied with Vito Acconci, Hans Haacke, Robert Irwin, Donald Judd, and Richard Serra. After graduating, she worked as a studio assistant to land artist Michael Heizer. Webster creates indoor and outdoor sculptures that raise awareness of environmental issues and invite viewers to marvel at the wonders of the natural world.
If you are in the Beacon, New York area, be sure to visit Dia Beacon and see this phenomenal exhibit!
Learn more at diaart.org and megwebsterstudio.com.
Dia Beacon
3 Beekman Street
Beacon, NY
On view long-term