The Narative Of Fabrication - Or The Connection Between Martin Puryear And The Birds Nest

I love Beijings “Bird’s Nest” and since I am a bit of an ostrich at times managed to be unaware of the wonder in making until the actual opening ceremony.
I have now of course read about it extensively and on of my favorite posts about it was on Hello Beautiful, I warmly recommend you click and read.

One of the Artists Hello Beautiful mentions in connection to the Birds nest is Martin Puryear.
I am only vaguely familiar with his work, but like the with  the”Birds Nest” a peace descends on me while looking at it so I went searching for more information on him and his work.
in an interview to Art:21 he says

I think the way I work is probably out of step with what a lot of artists are doing in 2003, which is telling stories or conveying specific kinds of information, be it sociological information, psychological information, sexual information. Work that is really a vehicle for conveying kinds of information. I came from a generation where the work was itself the information and so there remains this belief that the work itself can have an identity that can hopefully speak. Whether it’s through beauty or through ugliness or whatever quality you put into the work. That is what the work can be about.

The work doesn’t have to be a transparent vehicle for you to say things about life today or what you see people doing to each other or things like that. Not that that’s not in the work ever, because I think the work can contain a lot of things, but my vehicle typically is to make work that is about the presentation of the work itself and what went into the making of the work as an object. And there’s a story in the making of objects. There’s a narrative in the fabrication of things, which to me is fascinating. Not as fascinating perhaps as the final form or the final object itself, but I think by working incrementally there’s a built in story in the making of things which I think can be interesting.

Photo: Richard Barnes/Museum of Modern Art

Looking at his work, this philosophy is quite clear. There is a quietness and modesty in work that speaks of the process and media - of the transformation from one state to another that is so profound, it is hard to find in works that actually have a “message” or a Speech to deliver.

Although Birds Nest actually does speak volumes, of the transformation of materials(woven steel - hard and soft) of humankind and its many chosen paths and of other things it does all this through pure form and function much like Puryear and his work.