Facts on the ground, OI#17241

Bob Gramsma’s installations and sculptural interventions are concerned with finding spatiality in nature and the outdoors, often taking the form of monumental sculptures that are forms of holes excavated from the earth. His interventions are both coincidental and concise as he rearranges existing elements in nature or introduces foreign materials to a natural environment, searching for form. Facts on the ground, OI#17241 is a site-specific earthwork made from negative space. The artist has created a mound and then dug into it, only to fill it with concrete, making a cast of the cavity. The outcome is a sculpture, partially raised from the earth and appropriately in line with the horizon and sunset. The slanted slab of concrete located in the Palestinian Museum’s “Garden of Resistance” unintentionally mimics the blocks of cascading stone adjacent to it, but also looks as foreign as a sinking wall, submerging and becoming horizontal with the earth. The title suggests a plain view of what is happening ‘on the ground’, bringing to mind industry and war, the real-estate boom happening throughout the West Bank and Gaza, checkpoints and searches, and the streets. Visitors are welcome to walk on the sculpture. Facts on the ground, OI#17241.2017.