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Dervish
Dervish. Stockholm, 1970. Wood.
Photograph: Tayfun Tunçelli


Dervish

This work plays with the tension of wood. When gently pushed, this work starts walking by itself. It uses a similar principle to the previous “Infinity Minus One” artworks.

One Dervish is one single piece of wood that is cut within itself and the legs stretched apart up to the point the structure can allow thanks to wooden sticks added as wedges at mid-height.

In Swedish, this sculpture of Koman is known as the “Wandering Old Man” but in Turkish he always referred to this work as the “Dervish.” Sufis of the Mevlevi Order get into a meditation state by a “whirling dance,” as this artwork used to do when Koman let it wander free on the gently rocking Hulda boat.

Scientific phenomena: tension, mechanics