Landmarks

Placed close together and fixed firmly in the ground, two steel rods have scraps of metal fixed to their upper end as though lashed to the rigging of a sailing ship.

Landmarks as reference points are vital aids in the sailor’s unending confrontation with the ocean, enabling him to establish fixed points along the coast or else warning him of sandbanks and reefs, and by these means he can safely steer his course.

Simpler ones are made of wood driven into the ground and held together with rope.  Exposed to sand, storms and salt air these essential structures do not last long against the elements.  They rot, are shaken violently and break up and can only survive with constant patching and replacement.

The small landmarks show how they look when new – short and sturdy, firmly secured, fresh and strong.  The large ones show the result of continuing decay.

Wolf uses steel, and steel makes the bending and buffeting by the wind even more evident.  ‘Landmarks’ expresses the reality that just as this hard metal is unable to resist the wind’s ceaseless onslaught and will in the end be destroyed, so too, in the long run and despite every effort, man himself cannot win the battle against the forces of Nature.