The UK-based American artist Randy Klein’s work is bound up with storytelling. His exhibition ‘Moment to Moment’, currently on display at Chichester Cathedral, brings together one hundred sculptures, which together form a single work by uniting snapshots of a human life.
Randy Klein says, “I wanted to capture the feeling of an animation with each single frame of a human journey depicted by a sculpture.” When you first approach the work ‘Moment to Moment’, you are initially struck by the fragmentary nature of the individual pieces but gradually you are drawn to the beginning and from there the story of a human life reveals itself. “It begins in childhood and moves through the discovery of the outside world, adulthood, marriage, children,” Randy explains, “but they are individual moments joined together.” These are precious moments common to many of our individual lives.
Randy Klein works in a variety of media, including sculpture, painting, graphics and artists’ books. His limited edition books are represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum and he has work in other public and private collections in Europe and the USA.
The importance of the interactive relationship between artist and viewer is acknowledged by Randy. From time to time he has visited Chichester Cathedral. “I stand back and listen to wonderful people responding to my work,” he says. The insights displayed in this show have required a great deal of reflection and thought over the last two and half years.
The work invites us to look back over our lives and relive those moments which have formed us as people. Among these moments, both our joys and our sorrows are recorded with a lyrical, almost musical ebb and flow, like the rise and fall of notes written on a score. I ask Randy about these qualities in his work and he responds enthusiastically, “There is a section in ‘Moment to Moment’ that I call ‘through all kinds of weather’, which is a metaphor for the trials and tribulations of life. Music in spirituality and in the church is very important to me. I always have music playing as I work in my studio.” The sense of movement in this work is captured by ‘Dance’, illustrated here. The procession ends with an invitation to look through a window and go through a door representing a life beyond this mortal journey, which Randy refers to as “looking beyond the trappings of daily life to our epiphany”.
The figures and objects have been forged from copper and steel and Randy has drawn on them in weld, which gives a three-dimensional quality. Many have been patinated to give the effect of bronze.
Randy Klein has been drawn to exhibit in cathedrals across the UK. “Cathedrals give you that wonderful space in your mind,” he explains. “When you walk in, you leave behind your daily cares and it opens the mind and makes you receptive… to the transcendent and transformational.”
This exhibition has toured Italy and the UK and I ask what Randy is most looking forward to next; he replies, “Getting back into my studio and creating.” Each of us is called to a vocation in life and, whether that is something expressed in the human journey, as Randy sets out for us in this exhibition, or in his own case creating art, there is no peace without answering that calling.
Individual sculptures from ‘Moment to Moment’, this extraordinary tale of a human person, are for sale. As a Christian, I observe how work is part of God’s purpose, bound up with the very fabric of creation. When we work generously and in relationship, it blesses us. It is right, therefore, that we celebrate the beauty in Randy Klein’s work in this selling exhibition, which speaks to both the individual and the common narrative of humankind. The exhibition continues at Chichester Cathedral until 30th October and entry is free. For more information about ‘Moment to Moment’, go to www.chichestercathedral.org.uk or visit www.randyklein.co.uk.
By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 16th October 2013 in the West Sussex Gazette.