86”w x 72”h x 24”d
THE PROMISE
A kinetic sculpture by artist: Andrea Davide
And, in that moment, the promise was understood: so long as faith endured, so too the people, each generation arising anew, for all time.
The Promise awaits us and responds, glass shattered but still holding, moves while life around goes on, as it always has,
the ordinaries of light and color, of motion and form, of becoming and undoing, events of the everyday concealing acts
of betrayal, tragedy and survival.
But, but, faith endures: what is torn apart returns, is reunited and, as faith endures, the cycle repeats again and again, the
People arising anew, down through the ages of mankind.
ANDREA DAVIDE Talks About "The Promise"
The Promise speaks specifically to the artist’s view that we, as a society, have managed to construct an unfounded illusion of civilization’s continual advancement, always progressing for the better with each successive generation; a viewpoint which exists in stark contrast to the constant emergence of events which arise and recede: war, political upheaval, disease, famine, elections, and revolution. A cycle that has existed from a time before written records; Davide is asking if there is any reason to believe that mankind has conquered its violent nature. Are the geopolitical problems that we face today really any different than the ones our ancestors have faced throughout history? Have we evolved as a species?
At 7’ long, this motorized, fully kinetic sculpture was engineered and created in close association with a Holocaust Survivor to suggest hope and promise in the face of atrocity. Concurrently, The Promise expresses the artist’s thoughts on human nature in relation to geopolitical upheaval and the constant emergence of dire events which arise yet always recede.
In the artist’s own words:
We exist in time; time passes and so do we, our concerns small and large, approach, obscure our vision, and then float away, becoming smaller and dimmer as they recede. It has always been so; for all of our pretentions of modernity and progress, life and the human condition have changed little and, with regard to time, apparently not at all. We each are born, grow, flourish, recede and fade away, preserved only in the memories of successive generations. Yet the Sun rises and the Moon sets, as it always has, following the same eternal course, at the same steady rate, instant following instant, and we can only observe and wonder at its’ nature.
These timeless perceptions, in stark contrast to the apparent immediacy of events: war, disease, famine, elections, revolutions, weigh on the mind of an artist, resulting in a growing series of works about time, including time, harnessing time, yet letting it, as always, flow away.
The Promise is Andrea Davide’s most sophisticated engineered sculpture to date. At 7’ long and 6’ high, Davide uses motors, arduinos and motion sensors to move heavy, cracked glass discs across a long stainless steel panel. The shattered discs travel until uniting in the center of the work, with an intense flash of light; delicately yet deliberately joining together, and becoming one. Lights flash while painted gears spin pulling the sheets of glass along long steel shafts. The shattered glass discs interact with the flashing lights as each fracture catches and reflects the variety of colors.
The Promise sits stationary, in a motionless state and, by use of embedded motion sensors, only sets into action when it detects a viewer has entered the room.
A Holocaust Kinetic Sculpture
