Pyramids

Lately I have been studying researching ancient Pyramids in Egypt, like many others I have been fascinated with their impressive scale, their hidden meanings the geometry behing them but I am also also looking at how the image of the pyramid is  been used now days in a completly different context by varied artists. I am doing this as in the future I would like to work on a conceptual piece based on the  image of the pyramid but I am also interested in the social meaning more to do with Capitalism that has come up in some Contemporary American artists to challenge the notion of Capitalism as it stands at the moment & their version of producing something alternative to Capitalism: a more equal social structure.

Officially Ancient Pyramids where tombs of the Pharaos and their Queens. But the variety of symbols, their positions made people study & discover other meanings. Some people say they are symbolic of a mountain, that the square base actually rappresents the four corners of the world and four directions and that the peak connects the sky to the earth basically it is a path between the wordly and the heavenly so they where houses of eternity but it also rappresented social class. The social structure was based on power. The Paraoh was at the top with officials then priests then scribes last where the peasants. If One compares this with the contemporary artwork, performance by occupy LA with Robby Herbst where they mirror contemporary class dynamics inspired by a 1911 diagram by industrial workers of the World called Pyramid of the Capitalism system.Robby Herbst & Occupy LA work seems to be about how we act or how we move our bodies to shape the pyramid or reshape and doing so how we shape and reshape our society, our place in the pyramid or how he said it: how we construct and enact the pyramidal form. Or by his other work stacked chairs which I find really freeing, from the obsolate strict hierachy structure of Capitalism which is based on money and power, as anybody can sit on the chairs at any given time

 I am also interested in the Maslow hiererchy of needs, by the American Psychologist Abraham Maslow, which is potrayed in the shape of the pyramid where he says phychological needs have priority over other needs and they should be met first  where self actualization is most important and especially by the fact that he says that without a balance between physical, financial, health, wellbeing, safety maybe  due to war, family violence, abuse people or economic crisis as we are experiencing at the moment a lot of people are at a disadvantage and experience post traumatic stress. So what interest me is not only the physical rappresentation of the pyramid but also the psycholgical, emotional side which in a capitalistic society is taken aside behind producing and consuming. 

There is also the work of David Huffman: Basketball Pyramid  at SF Arts Commission Gallery where he looks at race trought the use of the basketballs, a popular object known to almost any American. Then there is the work of Beau Blinky which is completly different it's more sculputural in a more traditional way on the right hand side he is interested in outdoor sculptures more then indoor conceptual work so another different function of the pyramid.

and then there the minimalist Isometric paintings Pyramid of Sol Let Witt which are directly painted onto a wall as other minimalist artists he was interested in the idea not to show that the artist had created the painting so he left just instructions on how to paint it for others to do it.

 Sample of other art works rappresenting pyramids made from scraps or Lego

Or the human body as the pyramid through it's chakra centres as it's known in new age circles. I have been looking at the different forms and meanings of the pyramid for my own conceptual work I am interested in the actual physical structure, the geometry but also by the different concepts that have been used by contemporary artists that have used the image of the pyramid combined with concepts to open a discussion about Capitalism and our role in society.