John Ruppert
born 1951, Winchester, MA
works in Baltimore, MD
www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Colleges/ARHU/Depts/Art/people/Jruppert/
Pumpkin Series, 1996, cast aluminum, 4 sculptures, 29" x 43" x 42" each; Lent by the Artist
The Pumpkin Series is based on a single 700-pound gourd, selected by the artist for its shape, which simultaneously suggests swelling fecundity and imploding rot. Ruppert made a mold of this vast vegetable, and from it cast four identical sculptures in aluminum. The contrast between the objects' organic subject matter and their rigid industrial materials results in enigmatically suspended states of gravity, density, time, change, growth, decay, life, and death. Further complicating these matters is the placement of the pumpkins—three together, one apart—that sets up a surreal narrative among identical inanimate objects. In Ruppert's work, our surety about the natural order of things, and our place in it, is repeatedly questioned.
