Drawing new lines
A new art installation at Brancott Estate rises elegantly from the Marlborough vineyard.
A Marlborough winery sits sculpture in the vines
“I don’t know why, but I insisted that it would go from flat to standing,” says New York-based designer Dror Benshetrit of his recently unveiled installation at Brancott Estate. “I actually wanted it to perform.” The result of a four-year collaboration with Brancott winemaker Patrick Materman, ‘Under/standing’ is a complex geometry of squares. The piece sits lightly on four points, its squares and angles self-supporting but interlocking. How did the place influence the project? DROR BENSHETRIT The two things about the place that were really fascinating for me is this alteration of nature, of raw nature into rows of nature – and the effect that you have when you drive by. You get this rhythm and movement of direction. How did you bring that to life? When the piece is completely on the ground, it’s just interlocking squares. When it comes up, all the squares become triangulations. When you look through the rows from one direction, the piece appears very flat, but when you start moving you get this ‘flexity’ and it kind of opens up. Was that difficult? It was. For a little while it was a bit exhausting, because you have this idea in mind but how do you actually unfold it? It’s tough – made from Corten – but delicate. Exactly. Of course we thought about wood and concrete and paint. But Corten is a natural choice because it doesn’t require any treatment. I wanted it to feel like it’s growing from the ground – the four points are pretty much corresponding to the row of the surrounding grapes.