Critique by Richard Turner

This arrangement by Christoph Daim (Austria) adapts the conventions of the museum to viewing stone display. The bronze hand, presumably from a Southeast Asian Buddhist sculpture, is mounted on a metal rod in much the same way that fragments of antique sculpture from Europe, Asia, and elsewhere are displayed. The stone, which shares the simple base with the hand, was found in Carmargue, France. It suggests a fragment of a male torso. The juxtaposition of the two found objects, one fabricated and the other natural, is intended to suggest that the fate of humankind lies in the hands of the gods. The fact that the stone is leaning against the hand and literally depends on the support of then hand to remain vertical, reinforces the idea of human reliance on the gods. Contrasting the elegance of the hand and the roughness of the stone accentuates the distance between the gods and humanity. Interestingly, the bronze hand is in the teaching mudra. A mudra is a sacred gesture found in Buddhist and Hindu art. Christoph’s display is clearly a lesson in contemporary approaches to viewing stone presentation.