07
Above Cook Strait, New Zealand
09
Aoraki Mt Cook, New Zealand
11
Haast River, New Zealand
12
Huka Falls, Taupo, New Zealand
13
Niagara Falls, Canada
14
Above New York State
15
Above New York State
16
Tarmac
17
Tarmac
19
Taupo, New Zealand
20
Towards Amsterdam
21
Above Los Angeles
23
Delaware River, Philadelphia
24
Maritime Hotel, New York
25
Maritime Hotel, New York
26
Madison Square Park, New York
27
Madison Square Park, New York
29
Madison Square Park, New York
30
Roxy Paine Sculpture, "Cojoined"
Madison Square Park, New York
33
60 Thompson, New York
City Hall, Chambers Street, New York
Baccarat Museum, Paris
35
Above Monterey, California
Above Mt Tongariro, New Zealand
Approaching Buffalo, New York State
37
Lake District, England
39
Auckland, New Zealand
Monterey, California
Wellington, New Zealand
41
Raumati South, New Zealand
43
Raumati South, New Zealand
45
Raumati South, New Zealand
47
Raumati South, New Zealand
49
Raumati South, New Zealand
50
DIA Beacon, New York State
51
Central Park, New York
52
Wharekauhau, South Wairarapa
54
Towards Amsterdam
56
Above America
60
Paradise Valley, New Zealand
64
Louvre, Paris
65
Penelope, SoHo, New York
List of Works
Roxy Paine, Conjoined, 2007,
Stainless steel, approx. 40 x 45 feet,
Installed at Madison Square Park, NY, NY
Artwork is © Roxy Paine/courtesy
of James Cohan Gallery, New York
paradise road
Stuart McKenzie
For the invisible things of him from the creation
of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead . . .
St. Paul, Romans 1:20
Out of the foaming ferment of finitude
Spirit rises up fragrantly.
Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
It is at the same time true that the world
is what we see and that, nonetheless, we must learn
to see it--first in the sense that we must match this vision
with knowledge, take possession of it, say what
we and what seeing are, act therefore as if we knew nothing
about it, as if here we still had everything to learn.
Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible
07
Above Cook Strait, New Zealand
09
Aoraki Mt Cook, New Zealand
11
Haast River, New Zealand
12
Huka Falls, Taupo, New Zealand
13
Niagara Falls, Canada
14
Above New York State
15
Above New York State
16
Tarmac
17
Tarmac
19
Taupo, New Zealand
20
Towards Amsterdam
21
Above Los Angeles
23
Delaware River, Philadelphia
24
Maritime Hotel, New York
25
Maritime Hotel, New York
26
Madison Square Park, New York
27
Madison Square Park, New York
29
Madison Square Park, New York
30
Roxy Paine Sculpture, "Cojoined"
Madison Square Park, New York
33
60 Thompson, New York
City Hall, Chambers Street, New York
Baccarat Museum, Paris
35
Above Monterey, California
Above Mt Tongariro, New Zealand
Approaching Buffalo, New York State
37
Lake District, England
39
Auckland, New Zealand
Monterey, California
Wellington, New Zealand
41
Raumati South, New Zealand
43
Raumati South, New Zealand
45
Raumati South, New Zealand
47
Raumati South, New Zealand
49
Raumati South, New Zealand
50
DIA Beacon, New York State
51
Central Park, New York
52
Wharekauhau, South Wairarapa
54
Towards Amsterdam
56
Above America
60
Paradise Valley, New Zealand
64
Louvre, Paris
65
Penelope, SoHo, New York
List of Works
Roxy Paine, Conjoined, 2007,
Stainless steel, approx. 40 x 45 feet,
Installed at Madison Square Park, NY, NY
Artwork is © Roxy Paine/courtesy
of James Cohan Gallery, New York
paradise road
Stuart McKenzie
For the invisible things of him from the creation
of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead . . .
St. Paul, Romans 1:20
Out of the foaming ferment of finitude
Spirit rises up fragrantly.
Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
It is at the same time true that the world
is what we see and that, nonetheless, we must learn
to see it--first in the sense that we must match this vision
with knowledge, take possession of it, say what
we and what seeing are, act therefore as if we knew nothing
about it, as if here we still had everything to learn.
Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible
62
aspect communicate the infinite--in the
sense of the sublime which exercised
the imaginations of eighteenth-century
artists and thinkers taking their lead from
Edmund Burke--but also in its quiet and
intimate moments. It is not only the raging
storm, the frenzied surf, the blizzard, or
the precipice that awes man with infinity,
but also the contemplation of undisturbed
nature. In his essay "Nature," Emerson
writes:
I become a transparent eye-ball; I am
nothing; I see all; the currents of the
Universal Being circulate through
me; I am part or particle of God . . .
I am the lover of uncontained and
immortal beauty. In the wilderness,
I find something more dear and con-
nate than in streets or villages. In the
tranquil landscape, and especially in
the distant line of the horizon, man
beholds somewhat as beautiful as
his own nature.
2
Brian Sweeney might well agree with
Emerson that "the happiest man is he who
learns from nature the lesson of worship."
The proper focus of worship was on
Emerson's mind when he was invited to
address the Harvard Divinity School on
Sunday, July 15, 1838. He complained
that organized religion had failed to
communicate man's own infinite nature
through an engaged appreciation of the
outdoors:
In how many churches, by how
many prophets, tell me, is man
made sensible that he is an infinite
Soul; that the earth and heavens
are passing into his mind; that he
is drinking forever the soul of God?
Where now sounds the persuasion,
that by its very melody imparadises
my heart, and so affirms its own ori-
gin in heaven?
3
According to Emerson, the Churches
had lost their way. By seeking to separate
the sacred from the profane--and hoard
it instead around their own buildings,
vestments, and rituals--they had in fact
lost touch with the sacred and diminished
human nature at the same time. His
words caused a scandal--especially as he
advocated that the real miracle was nature
and repudiated the need to believe in the
supernatural miracles of Jesus.
The evaporation of the sacred from
modern consciousness might be seen as
an effect of organized religion's attempt
to hold it apart. Certainly, Western man
now tends to occupy a stubbornly profane
cosmos diminishing him against its brute
immensity, rather than exalting him
through common cause.
Of course, non-religious man, in so far
as this is an active role, attempts his own
[tragic] grandeur by refusing any appeal
to transcendence, seeking instead to raise
himself up by himself. As Eliade explains,
non-religious man:
makes himself, and he only makes
himself completely in proportion
as he desacralizes himself and the
world. The sacred is the prime ob-
stacle to his freedom. He will be-
come himself only when he is com-
pletely demysticized. He will not
be truly free until he has killed the
last god.
4
Intriguingly, however, Eliade goes on to
point out that, whether he likes it or not,
non-religious man is a direct descendant
of religious man. To the extent that non-
religious man has sought to purify himself
from the beliefs and observances of his
ancestors, those very behaviors continue to
structure his existence.
He forms himself by a series of de-
nials and refusals, but he continues
to be haunted by the realities that he
has refused and denied. To acquire
a world of his own he has desacral-
ized the world in which his ances-
tors lived; but to do so he has been
obliged to adopt the opposite of an
earlier form of behavior, and that be-
havior is still emotionally present to
him, in one form or another, ready to
be reactualized in his deepest being.
5
In other words, while we may have
lost a religious outlook, there are certain
modalities of nature that continue to move
us on a symbolic and/or unconscious level.
No doubt this is part of the power of Brian
Sweeney's photographs in Paradise Road.
Even if we don't view them through the
eyes of faith, his keenly discriminated
images of sky, clouds, horizons, mountains,
water, and trees will nevertheless strike us
with an atavistic sense of the sacred power
of nature.
The sky is a recurrent symbol in
Sweeney's work. As Eliade explains:
Simple contemplation of the celes-
tial vault already provokes a reli-
gious experience . . . Transcendence
is revealed by simple awareness of
infinite height. `Most high' sponta-
neously becomes an attribute of di-
vinity.
6
Whether he is on the ground looking
up at the sky, or in the sky looking out or
down, Sweeney's heavens are invariably
shot through with clouds. Clouds have a
transitional quality, linking the sky with
the earth, the high with the low, the sacred
with the profane. (In this respect, they offer
a perfect path for Sweeney's imagination,
as he seeks to invest the everyday and
sometimes overlooked world with higher
value.)
Perhaps, too, clouds for Sweeney are
particularly seeded with meaning, given
that the Maori name for New Zealand is
Aotearoa--literally, "the land of the long
white cloud." Named by the legendary
navigator Kupe, traveling across the vast
07
Above Cook Strait, New Zealand
09
Aoraki Mt Cook, New Zealand
11
Haast River, New Zealand
12
Huka Falls, Taupo, New Zealand
13
Niagara Falls, Canada
14
Above New York State
15
Above New York State
16
Tarmac
17
Tarmac
19
Taupo, New Zealand
20
Towards Amsterdam
21
Above Los Angeles
23
Delaware River, Philadelphia
24
Maritime Hotel, New York
25
Maritime Hotel, New York
26
Madison Square Park, New York
27
Madison Square Park, New York
29
Madison Square Park, New York
30
Roxy Paine Sculpture, "Cojoined"
Madison Square Park, New York
33
60 Thompson, New York
City Hall, Chambers Street, New York
Baccarat Museum, Paris
35
Above Monterey, California
Above Mt Tongariro, New Zealand
Approaching Buffalo, New York State
37
Lake District, England
39
Auckland, New Zealand
Monterey, California
Wellington, New Zealand
41
Raumati South, New Zealand
43
Raumati South, New Zealand
45
Raumati South, New Zealand
47
Raumati South, New Zealand
49
Raumati South, New Zealand
50
DIA Beacon, New York State
51
Central Park, New York
52
Wharekauhau, South Wairarapa
54
Towards Amsterdam
56
Above America
60
Paradise Valley, New Zealand
64
Louvre, Paris
65
Penelope, SoHo, New York
List of Works
Roxy Paine, Conjoined, 2007,
Stainless steel, approx. 40 x 45 feet,
Installed at Madison Square Park, NY, NY
Artwork is © Roxy Paine/courtesy
of James Cohan Gallery, New York
paradise road
Stuart McKenzie
For the invisible things of him from the creation
of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead . . .
St. Paul, Romans 1:20
Out of the foaming ferment of finitude
Spirit rises up fragrantly.
Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
It is at the same time true that the world
is what we see and that, nonetheless, we must learn
to see it--first in the sense that we must match this vision
with knowledge, take possession of it, say what
we and what seeing are, act therefore as if we knew nothing
about it, as if here we still had everything to learn.
Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible