Review

"Corpus Core," Fossils, Aluminum, Photographic Vinyl.

Alan Detrich
Corpus Core

24 Hours.

11th Street, between Massachusetts and New Hampshire
Lawrence, KS

Summer 2011.

Artist's site: http://www.spearofjesus.com
Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission site: http://lawrenceks.org/advisory_boards/lac/home

Yes, I'm sticking with the "Get off the computer and go outside, it's nice" theme today.  Also, with the "sculptors with Lawrence ties who have made international reputations in other fields" mini-theme.

Today's featured artist, Alan Detrich, is a renowned paleontologist and fossil hunter (whose finds include a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton) and a noted proponent of the Intelligent Design movement. He's also a sculptor who holds an MFA from Wichita State University.

Detrich's passions meet in  his art — including Corpus Core, part of the 2011 Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition in downtown Lawrence.

The — well, core — of the piece is a column of vertebrae from the Xiphactinus, a prehistoric predator that was the terror — or, rather, one of many terrors — of the warm, shallow sea which once covered Kansas. Fifteen to 20 feet long when full-grown, with wicked, daggerlike teeth, it was the largest bony fish of the late Cretaceous period.

Detrich has incorporated the spine into a matrix of dinosaur bone fragments, all contained within an aluminum structure covered by photographic vinyl.

The photo doesn't do it justice, which is so often the case with any piece of art — and especially of those created in three dimensions and designed (yes, there's that word again) to be seen from multiple angles.

In fact, while we're on the D-word, what better place to launch another D-word — dialogue — on the subject of Intelligent Design than from the spot where Detrich's sculpture stands? Like his work, the issue is complex and deserves to be approached from a variety of viewpoints.

(All of which, he hinted, involve not only getting outside the house, but also being willing and able to step outside one's own perspectives ...)

-re-

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