The End and The Beginning
Micah Lexier
September 24, 2001 – April 15, 2002
Micah Lexier, The End and The Beginning, 6300 bricks, 33' x 4.5' x 2'
Artist Statement
The End and The Beginning is a brick sculpture that is constructed in sections over a period of 15 weeks. Once a week an equal number of identical bricks will be added until the sculpture reaches its final form as a straight rectangular wall - approximately 32 feet long, two feet deep and four and one-half feet high. This wall will remain standing for an additional 15 weeks.
One of my objectives is to construct a sculpture of equal but different parts. Each week 420 new bricks will be added to the sculpture, but each week the bricks will be laid out in a unique arrangement. At the conclusion of the building phase these 15 equal sections fit together, like a puzzle, to create a whole. However, these shapes will only be expressed on one side of the wall. When viewed from this side, the individual sections will be demarcated by a recessed outline of each shape, traced in the mortar. On the other side of the wall the mortar will not be scored, thus allowing the separate sections to be seamlessly hidden within the accumulated sculpture.
Much like the experience of observing a building under construction, the evolution of the artwork will be gradual but noticeable to those who pass it on a regular basis. Although the work has been conceived primarily as a study in incremental growth, it also has a parallel life as an exhibition of 15 separate sculptures presented consecutively. While it is true that everyone experiences artwork differently, by creating an artwork that evolves numerous times, I have heightened the potential for certain viewers to have radically different experiences of the work. I am intrigued by the possibility of two different viewers, each visiting the site only once but at different stages of construction, each believing that what they are seeing is not only a finished sculpture but is the same object that every other viewer will experience.
The End and The Beginning is about history and the way in which increments and physical change make the passage of time visible. Although this work is not site-specific (it can be shown elsewhere or at another time), it was made with the context of the Toronto Sculpture Garden's twentieth anniversary year in mind. My hope is that the artwork's incremental growth and components parts would reference, and be an homage to, the Garden's history of changing exhibitions.
