December 1 - December 1, 2004 Neighbours

The sculpture Brancusi Torso and Kookaburra is part of a series that use icons of New Zealand and Australia in sequence like a visual cultural exchange of imagery.

The torso is a playful referral and jest on the famous modernist artwork by Constantin Brancusi called Torso of a Young Man. Brancusi made several of his torso shapes from a variety of materials; walnut and maple wood (walnut as he thought the surface had the same tight taut quality of human skin), stone and highly polished bronze. The first of these was made in 1923, with the further studies appearing in 1924. They were part of the evocations of the “Machine Aesthetic” that he was famous for with geometrical and regular cylindrical forms with unbroken polished surfaces of great simplicity and beauty. In this work the shapes depict not just the torso but recall gleaming pistons.

Dibble has recreated this form but irreverently added a kookaburra, the laughing Australian bird with its ability to taunt, perched along one side.