After stumbling upon the soggy remains of his papier-mâché sculptures, which had been ruined by the elements when a negligent collector left the work outside, artist James Grashow decided to embrace the inevitable destruction of all artworks. He resolved to construct an epic, cardboard sculpture called “Corrugated Fountain” based on the baroque Roman fountains of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
[vimeo 60590119 w=640 h=360]
If you’d like to see how Grashow went about creating this amazing feat of cardboard engineering, then you’re in luck, because filmmaker Olympia Stone spent 5 years documenting his process of making the work and produced an award-winning documentary from the footage called “The Cardboard Bernini.”
After shows in New York City and Pittsburgh, Jimmy finally installed the fountain outdoors at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, CT on April 1, 2012. It was there for a total of six weeks, after which time Jimmy took his degraded cardboard masterpiece to the dumpster: “Ashes to ashes, mush to mush.”
[via Archie McPhee]
