There is a tendency to judge Bob Dylan, first and foremost, by
his musical output and not as an artist in the widest sense, which is what he
truly is. Musician, painter, draughtsman, sculptor – these disciplines are not
so far removed from each other, all requiring their own imaginative input, time
and practice. That Dylan, this artistic live wire, is responsible for
magnificent, intriguing iron sculptures should not be a shock at all, and on
reflection they are entirely of a piece with what has come before.
Growing
up in Hibbing, in an area of Minnesota known as the ‘Iron Range‘, Bob Dylan was
surrounded by the influence of industry during his childhood in the region: the
hulking machinery and huge workforce going to and from the mines; the
truckloads of taconite rock and rust-coloured haematite ore being driven down
to the port. These are the kinds of images that would tattoo themselves on to
an impressionable young mind – images of a world where raw materials and
man-made objects were bound by the grass roots of production. The
influence of iron and nature on Bob Dylan’s youth is also the juxtaposition
contained within his Gates: the material of the structures and the division of
landscape that they represent. These works allow you to see what lies behind
them, while at the same time barring your path – although not with a sense of
confinement, but as a signifier of a change of scenery, a doorway, a symbolic
entry point to a new world. With their symbolic potential, the Gates reveal a
reverence for the past, for industry and agriculture of the kind now being
consigned to the past in our developed world. As opposed to the relentless
march of technology, the artist’s faith is still in the soil and the hand and
the tool.
“I’ve been around iron all my life ever since I was a kid. I was
born and raised in iron ore country – where you could breathe it and smell it
every day. And I’ve always worked with it in one form or another. Gates
appeal to me because of the negative space they allow. They can be closed but
at the same time they allow the seasons and breezes to enter and flow. They can
shut you out or shut you in. And in some ways there is no difference.”
~ Bob Dylan
