Immediate Response:
A first look at Dolos by Jordan Griska leaves a sense of confusion and curiosity. The transparent, unnatural-looking structure looks completely out of place. It seems like there is no real reason for the dolos to be where it is, and it seems to have no purpose at all. It’s hard to make out any real form or figure in the structure because of its transparency. My first thoughts of this artwork surrounded its stark contrast to the area around it and I was prompted to look closer and think more about what is being shown by the artwork.
Objective Description:
The artwork is a singular dolos, which is a wave-breaking structure normally made out of concrete. This structure, however, is made of clear acrylic and sits outside of the water on a grassy patch next to a walkway for people to view it. The structure is 12 feet tall and wide. The acrylic is held together using metal pins that can be seen clearly through the acrylic. The structure is an awkward shape, it is like two letter T’s that are joined together on the long ends, except the “heads” of the T’s are rotated 90 degrees from each other. This means that there is no discernable way in which the structure should be positioned and it is just lying awkwardly on its side on a grassy patch.
Technical Decisions:
Jordan Griska’s piece is made out of clear acrylic. This is an important design choice because instead of looking natural and as though it blends into the environment, the acrylic that you can see through makes the structure look unnatural and out of place, and makes the viewer curious. The acrylic is also held together by metal pins that shine and stand out, and I think that this is an important technical decision because you are meant to see that it is not an organic shape, but that this is man-made and has been crafted to be this way, even though it doesn’t actually serve any purpose being there. The next technical decision that is important is the positioning of the dolos. It is sitting on a grassy patch, not in the water, and even the water that it is positioned next to is not very rough, and this only emphasizes the uselessness of the dolos.
The Work in the World:
The artwork is a replica of the cement dolos that can be seen all over the world on coastlines that encounter rough weather and large waves. The dolos is usually placed together with other dolos in large numbers to act as man-made wave breakers to protect the coastline from becoming damaged due to large storms. The Dolos that Jordan Griska has made are the exact same shape but different in almost every other aspect. Instead of being placed in the water, it is out of the water. Instead of being strong because it’s made of concrete, it is weak because it’s made of acrylic, and it is isolated from everything else around it. All of these relationships between what it is and what it should be says a lot about the artwork’s meaning.
The Story it Tells:
The clarity of the acrylic and the way the light shines on it has a strangeness in the contrast between the dolos and everything around it. The structure is beautiful but it seems out of place. When thinking about what a dolos is, one is prompted to think of large, strong concrete barriers between the sea and the coastline, but when looking at the acrylic dolos it is isolated and nowhere near the water. The beauty that the dolos has, but its apparent uselessnes when compared to other cement dolos tells a story about the way our society works. The dolos has an isolation from what we view its purpose is, and it seems strange that it isn’t functioning the way that it should be, but only because we have compared it to what other dolos do. If the viewer was to take the acrylic dolos just by itself without comparing it to what it should be doing, the viewer is able to realize that the beauty of the dolos can be its purpose in its own regard. The dolos has been created and has an innate beauty, and its difference from every other cement dolos is what makes it beautiful. I took this thinking and extended it to mean that this artwork is an interpretation of the innate beauty we have in all of us and that our own uniqueness and non-conformity are what make us beautiful.