Sculpture: Playhouse

Playhouse by Dietrich Wegner

Sculpter Dietrich Wegner created Playhouse, “a twenty-foot-tall tree house posing as an atomic mushroom cloud” to demonstrate the contradictions between “two conflicting ideas.” It is composed of Poly-fil, rope, wood and steel, and it was recently on exhibit at the Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati. I'm guessing that it's meant to be installed in the backyard of some nice nuclear family in the suburbs

Wegner writes: "When an image stands in limbo, between associations, it occupies a flexible place in our mind. Wegner creates images that are safe and unsettling, abject and beautiful…The ephemeral beauty of a mushroom cloud is frightening, how it floats for a minute, delicate and blooming, yet remains chaotic and utterly destructive. We experience a contradiction between what our eyes enjoy and what our mind knows."