VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF ATOMIC ENERGY

After last week's post on Henry Moore, a friend sent me a link to the Hyde Park Historical Society website. Much to my surprise, I found myself looking at a grim bronze monument by the artist commemorating the birth of nuclear energy. The skull-like sculpture entitled Nuclear Energy 

(1964-1966) was commissioned by the University of Chicago to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of their successful atomic experiment. In 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi and his team built the first nuclear reactor and "initiated the first controlled release of nuclear energy (1)."  The work, which was installed on the campus in December of 1967, is a visual reminder of the positive and negative consequences of nuclear power.

A FRESH LOOK AT HENRY MOORE

Henry Moore, Two-Piece Reclining Figure No. 9, 1968

Henry Moore's Two-Piece Reclining Figure No. 9 (1968) kept me company on many Sunday afternoon visits to the Kansas City Sculpture Park along with the dynamic form of his standing female figure Large Interior Form (1981), which never ceased to amaze me no matter how many times I viewed it. I especially loved the way his monumental bronze sculptures, with their sensual curves, flirted simultaneously with abstraction and figuration. Although I have never viewed Moore's biomorphic forms as radical creations, Christopher Bedford's review of "Henry Moore" in Art in America has persuaded me to look at Moore's work with fresh eyes.