ALEX VOLBORTH 1924-2009
AleatoricArt co-founder Alex Volborth’s interest in art history, world cultures and spiritualism plays a major role in his particular brand of found art photography, which seamlessly juxtaposes decaying objects with geological formations. To call his work simply ‘found art’ is an understatement- ‘found artifacts’ or ‘undiscovered art’ would describe it better, as his photos may include anything from a rock formation bearing a resemblance to the Edvard Munch painting, ‘The Scream’, to a small skeleton of an unknown animal perfectly shilouetted in red sandstone. But whether it’s a piece of a broken bicycle or an old Sicilian ashtray, Volborth shows us more than just that with his uncanny ability to recognize the art in the mundane, and create the sense that he is uncovering a secret- by revealing for the first time what has been there all along.
A well-known Geologist, Geochemist and Mineralogist, Alex has described and published the geology South of Boulder City, well as the Gold Butte Quadrangle South of Mesquite and North of Lake Mead. The published work covers a large part of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. It was done for the Nevada Bureau of Mines and the Mackay School of Mines, University of Nevada, Reno, where he served as Mineralogist and Professor from 1956 to 1973.
The fieldwork did not leave much time to admire the beauty of the mountains and the rock formations of this area - one of the most picturesque in the world! Ever since, Alex has regretted not doing more photography and artistic recording of the most inaccessible and remarkable rock forms, caves, as well as plants, the cacti, and the rare desert animals he had seen and encountered. Thus, after over 40 years of active scientific activity which has taken him through all continents (except Antarctica! ), teaching and lecturing at universities and academies of science, studying Lunar Rocks from Apollo Missions for NASA, and consulting in Russia, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, South Africa, and Nigeria - he has retired in Montana but has returned to his 'first love' - Nevada and the "Rapakivi" granites which he has discovered in 1958 in Southern Clark County. The Guggenheim fellowship gave Alex an opportunity to study similar rocks in Egypt (and Australia).
In Egypt related rocks have been used to build Pharaonic temples, giant statues of Ramesside Pharaohs and the famous monolithic obelisks of the only woman Pharaoh Hatshepsut.
Born in Finland of a German-English-Russian family, which has produced artists, scientists, an Evangelist Lutheran Pastor Senior at St. Peter in St. Petersburg, Russia, a Major General, military officers, and government officials. Alex has his own ideas about 'rock art'. He sees in nature-molded or 'sculpted' rocks and monoliths not only forms resembling dinosaurs, elephants, turtles and other animals, human forms and man-built structures, but has photographed and collected unique combinations and products of weathering and plain coincidental 'arrangements' - that do not resemble anything reminding us of human - produced images; other perhaps than a coincidental similarity of some well-known modern painter's tableaus - such as by Dali, Bracque, Pollock, Rothko, Malevich, Warhol, etc...
Alex loves 'odd' surfaces seen on rocks and sandstone slabs, and schist, and stray boulders spotted on his long walks through the desert floor. He likes to photograph them covered with desert patina, green lichen, or just dust; but especially when they are found after a rare desert storm - still moist, shiny, colorful, and preferably what he calls free of all anthropomorphic signs or ghosts that would tend to make one think or recall some known object. This does not prevent Alex from discovering mystical images from the Old Testament, phantoms and faces done as well by NATURE itself, as a Michelangelo, a Leonardo, or a Raphael might have done. His photos of combinations of naturally fallen rock slabs can recall some Greek temples, or Gothic cathedrals, even a still life by Zurbaran !
http://alexvolborth.com
Photo: J Coleman Miller 2008
TOMB OF THE GIANT Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
From childhood, the visual arts and sciences were my main attractions. Our large house near Viipuri in Finland (now Vyborg, Russia), our 'dacha',
was full of great portraits and paintings. Both my aunts and my mother had studied art in St. Petersburg and Paris, my grandfather from my mother's side had been a traveler and publisher of art books, and the walls of many rooms were lined by bookshelves with rare books and
encyclopedias; mostly in Russian, German, and French. There also was one forbidden library room, to which my sister and I soon found the keys. Comfortable sofas stood in the libraries where we spent much time reading. My father, retired Colonel of the Russian Semyonovsky Leibgarde Regiment, had earned a doctorate in Organic Chemistry in Bonn, Germany, but now was an asthmatic, and unable to work in industry. This permitted him to teach my sister and I at home all the subjects required in order to pass external exams.
This background, I believe, enabled me to successfully graduate from the University of Helsinki with eximia cum laude and a doctoral degree in Geology, Mineralogy, and Inorganic Chemistry. The high grades resulted in a grant to do my post-doctoral studies at the Universities of Vienna, Heidelberg, and at California Institute of Technology, from where I was invited to the University of Nevada, Reno. I have served there as Head of the Nevada Mining Analytical Laboratory, Mineralogist of the State and Professor of Geochemistry. There I received the Guggenheim Fellowship.
Later, as Professor of Geochemistry at the University of North Dakota, and as visiting professor at The University of California, Irvine, Killam Professor at the Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada; and the University of Washington, Pullman; and finally at 'Montana Tech' of the University of Montana system, where I served also as Director of The Fast-Neutron Activation Laboratory, the Senior Radiation Safety Officer, and Professor of Engineering Geology, when I retired.
My work permitted me to travel, consult, and lecture widely in Europe, Australia, Africa, Japan, and the Americas (Brazil); Consulting for Canadian and US mining companies especially in Russia, Kazakhstan, India, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, South Africa, and the USA, I have had considerable opportunity to see much 'rock' and when lecturing in cities always had reserved enough time to visit and spend considerable time in museums, especially art museums!I never forgot my old love for visual art, sculpture, history, Archeology and pre-history. I especially cherished the opportunity to spend unhurried time in Egypt, Greece, Sicily, Italy, Spain, France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iran.
The Southern Nevada landscapes, and red sandstone and the caves of the Mohave desert, and some rocks I photographed there, remind me of the Martian 'blueberries'! (see the Louise Bourgeois' Avenza and her 'The Destruction of the Father"). And, the Mohave fine dark dust covering the desert floor, reminds me of the lunar surface with its black 'soil' or 'dust' which I have studied from Apollo samples. The Montana Stillwater area, where I have done my latest work with the platinum-palladium deposits, naturally also have become my favorites. Surfaces, surfaces, surfaces, flashing at us their fully random compositions and always varying colors, forms, lines, and ghost-like images - scratched by the Indian tribes already long disappeared. Surprises, surprises that one finds on subsequent visits! Just as if the ground, the desert
LEONID Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
The Demon II (THE DEMON DIPTYCH), Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2007
"Prehistoric Kiss" Homage to Constantin Brancusi. See
especially his "The Kiss, 1908" The one with a rough surface; in private
collection. But it is otherwise similar to "The Kiss, 1916, Philadelphia
Museum of Art. The other Kiss, 1907-8, is in the Museul de Artå, Craiova,
Roumania. Red Sandstone, Black oxide and multicolored lichen crusts. Mohave
Desert, S. Nevada, 2007.
See http://www.saintcyr.com/melandruss/brancusi_kiss.jpg
"Homage to Dali" See "The Enigma of Desire," 1929.
Staatsgallerie moderner Kunst, Munich. My: "The Pink Desire." Pink Sandstone cave wall. North of Lake Mead, Nevada.
Sorry, I could only find a reproduction at:
http://www.artinthepicture.com/artists/Salvador_Dali/desire.jpeg
"Homage to Picasso" or "My Woman with Grey Hair" Reminds me of Picasso's "Woman in Grey (Paris)" 6 August 1942. The Alex Hillman Family
Foundation Collection, NY.
"The Scream". Homage to Edvard Munch. Multicolored sandstone. Mohave Desert, Nevada.
See the painting by Munch here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream
"Dragon Spewing Fire." Homage to China. 2005. Red sandstone cave. North of Lake Mead. Mojave Desert. Nevada
Homage to Francis Bacon: "The Head of a Man-Study of Drawing by Van Gogh, 1959" 2005
"MUMMY OF A CHILD." Homage to EGYPT. Some grass, dark gravel, pink sand in front, and a sandstone humanoid form sleeping in a small cave. I think It is still looking into Eternity. Mohave Desert, North of Lake Mead. Nevada.
11/2/2005.
Old Russian Churches. 2005 Red Sandstone cave. Mojave Desert, Nevada
Resurrection or Golgotha. Homage to Matthias Grünewald. Isenheim Altar, Colmar 1505.
Red sandstone cave. Mojave Desert. 2005
See the inspiration here: http://www.bible-art.info/wpe84.jpg
The Shaman of the Spirit Mountain. Red sandstone cave. Mohave desert. Nevada
"The Sphinx" Homage to Richard Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker." Red Jurassic sandstone, Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
Read about Dawkins here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Watchmaker
STALKER Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
LEGIONAIRES Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
HARLEQUIN Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
GRUMP Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
BANISHED Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
UNTITLED PROFILE OF A MAN Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
THE FALCONER Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
HOMAGE TO ROTHKO #3 Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
THE SHAMAN Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
DARK HAIRED GIRL Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
SPHINX Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
Crucifiction 2005 Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada.
Zhivago, Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
UNTITLED (APPETITE) Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
The Demon (THE DEMON DIPTYCH) Red sandstone; Mohave desert, Nevada. 2005
DAYTON MENORAH TREE / FLATHEAD LAKE, 2009 The sun lights the first candle...
This is the last image made by Alex before his passing in October 2009.
Blue Boy by my Great Granddaughter Haley, July 2009 at Flathead Lake.
"Reposessed 2009" A victim of the housing bubble explosion!
"HOMAGE to JAMES ENSOR" or "Old Couple Praying Before Their God"
Two Stars, Mohave Desert, Nevada
"Homage to NASA and the Hubble Telescope" Red Sandstone Cliffs with green and multicolored Lichen and dark oxide Crusts. Mohave Desert, Nevada
"Bird Shaman Officiating in a Cave" Red Sandstone. North of Lake Mead,
Nevada. Mohave Desert.
"Entrance to Hell" See the black snake crawling up into the entrance. White guano droppings around, and little devils watching. Cave opening reminding of a duck. Mojave Desert, North of Lake Mead. Red Sandstone. From my series "Coprolites. 4/19/05
This image was rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise to reveal the VM version of "Beauty and the Beast" during a collaboration with J Coleman Miller.
'Altar with The Shaman throwing Flames' or "Birth of Religion." Sandstone
Cave of the Churches. North of Lake Mead, Nevada. 4/18/2005 P4180071JPG ...
"Elephant's Foot" "Homage to Joseph Palermo." Impression on red Sandstone
Cave. North of Lake Mead, Nevada.
"Painter's Palette" Dolomite, limestone, red sandstone, basalt, shale.
Mountain north of Lake Mead. Highway to Overton; note the straight rim of
the pavement in front. Nevada. 2005.
"Nature's Chessboard" Dolomite, limestone, sandstone, and basalt. Mountains
North of Lake Mead, Nevada. 2005.
"Maiden's Hair." Homage to Kiefer: See "Dein goldenes Haar Margarethe"
'Your Golden Hair Margarethe.' North of Lake Mead, Nevada desert after rare
strong rains for a couple of weeks. 4/16/2005.
See the original at http://www.english.txstate.edu/cohen_p/postmodern/Art/Kiefer/Margarete.html
Crucifixion. Homage to Anselm Kiefer. See "Im Gewitter der Rosen" (In the
Thunderstorm of the Roses, 2000, collection of the artist; and "Resurrexit,
1973. Sanders Collection, Amsterdam; Nevada desert floor after rain,
4/20/2005. A yellow saprophyte that grows after strong rain. Locals call it
Maiden Hair.
See Resurrexit here: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kiefer/resurrexit.jpg
"The Essence of the Sphinx" Homage to Brancusi. There is something in
this form reminding of his "Princess X," 1915 (white marble), Sheldon
Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. See the original Pincess X here: http://www.toutfait.com/issues/volume2/issue_4/articles/graham/popup_19.html
Spirit Mountain
'Rapakivi' Granite. Contrary to the polished marble surface, you can see
here a rough surface with large Orthoclase Feldspar crystals sticking out.
Spirit Mountains, Nevada, 2004.
"The Rocking Chair" Homage to Henry Moore. Rapakivi Granite. Spirit Mountain,
Nevada, 12/13/2004. See Henry Moore's Reclining Figures, 1965. Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center... see it here: http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/moorenyc/moorenyc.html . Learn "Moore" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Moore
"Homage to Warhol" See "Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car 1), 1963. Andy
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts."
