Sculpture 2013 07-08

sculpture
July/August 2013
Vol. 32 No. 6
A publication of the
International Sculpture Center
www.sculpture.org
Lucy + Jorge Orta
Luca Vallejo
Ante Timmermans
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THE WORLDS NEWSSTAND
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For the third time since the ISC introduced its Lifetime Achievement
Award in 1991, we will be honoring two sculptors in one year. This
month we are proud to announce that the 2013 Lifetime Achievement
Award will be presented to world-renowned sculptors Nancy Holt and
Beverly Pepper at the 22nd Annual Lifetime Achievement Award Gala.
ISCs Board of Trustees established the Lifetime Achievement Award
to recognize individual sculptors who have made exemplary contribu-
tions to the field of sculpture. Candidates for the award are masters of
sculptural processes and techniques who have devoted their careers to
the development of a laudable body of work, as well as to the advance-
ment of the field as a whole. Holt and Pepper join a long list of distin-
guished artists honored by the International Sculpture Center. Last
year, Fernando Botero, who has touched the lives of many people with
his paintings and sculptures, was honored.
Nancy Holt began her artistic career as a photographer and video
artist. This approach influenced her later earthworks, which are literally
seeing devices, fixed points for tracking the positions of the sun, earth
and stars. Today, Holt is best known for her large-scale environmental
works. She has created site- and time-specific sculptures in public places
all over the world and has contributed to various publications. She has
also received five National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships.
It is also our pleasure to honor Beverly Pepper, whose brilliant and
prolific career has spanned more than 40 years. She is best known for
site-specific projects that incorporate expanses of industrial metals into
the landscape. These large-scale sculptures are often designed to
function as public spaces. Respected throughout the world, Pepper has
also received many prestigious awards.
New articles on these outstanding artists will appear in upcoming
issues of Sculpture; but if you truly want to understand what their
achievements have meant to the world of sculpture, make plans to
attend the ISCs 2013 gala in their honor. This event will be held on
October 3, 2013 in New York City. Please visit <www.sculpture.org> for
more details. The Lifetime Achievement gala is one of the most exciting
and engaging events of the ISC experience, and both Nancy Holt and
Beverly Pepper are expected to attend the celebration.
Marc LeBaron
Chairman, ISC Board of Trustees
In Memoriam
Penelope Walker, the first editor of Sculpture, came to work at the ISC
in 1983. She supervised the transformation of the ISC Bulletin into
Sculpture and began the magazines newsstand distribution, bringing
the message of contemporary sculpture to a wide public. She left the
ISC after seven years as editor and later returned briefly to be the interim
editor of Maquette. For the last several years, she was an editor
for both International Arts & Artists and the Arts in Embassies program.
She died of cancer at age 60 on May 1.
From the Chairman
4 Sculpture 32.6
ISC Board of Trustees
Chairman: Marc LeBaron, Lincoln, NE
Chakaia Booker, New York, NY
Robert Edwards, Naples, FL
Jeff Fleming, Des Moines, IA
Ralfonso Gschwend, Switzerland
Carla Hanzal, Charlotte, NC
Paul Hubbard, Philadelphia, PA
Ree Kaneko, Omaha, NE
Gertrud Kohler-Aeschlimann, Switzerland
Mark Lyman, Sawyer, MI
Creighton Michael, Mt. Kisco, NY
Deedee Morrison, Birmingham, AL
Prescott Muir, Salt Lake City, UT
George W. Neubert, Brownville, NE
Andrew Rogers, Australia
F. Douglass Schatz, Potsdam, NY
Boaz Vaadia, New York, NY
Philipp von Matt, Germany
Chairmen Emeriti: Robert Duncan, Lincoln, NE
John Henry, Chattanooga, TN
Peter Hobart, Italy
Josh Kanter, Salt Lake City, UT
Robert Vogele, Hinsdale, IL
Founder: Elden Tefft, Lawrence, KS
Lifetime Achievement in
Contemporary Sculpture Recipients
Magdalena Abakanowicz
Fletcher Benton
Fernando Botero
Louise Bourgeois
Anthony Caro
Elizabeth Catlett
John Chamberlain
Eduardo Chillida
Christo & Jeanne-Claude
Mark di Suvero
Richard Hunt
Phillip King
William King
Manuel Neri
Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen
Nam June Paik
Arnaldo Pomodoro
Gi Pomodoro
Robert Rauschenberg
George Rickey
George Segal
Kenneth Snelson
Frank Stella
William Tucker
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Departments
12 Itinerary
18 Commissions
80 ISC News
Reviews
68 Rome: William Kentridge
69 Los Angeles: Cheryl Ekstrom and JD Hansen
70 Los Angeles: Blue McRight
71 Los Angeles: Jason Meadows
71 Washington, DC: Joan Danziger
72 Atlanta: Ruth Laxson
73 Boston: Murray Dewart
74 Garrison, New York: Roy Staab
74 New York: Jim Osman
75 New York: Wang Xieda
76 Queens, New York: Civic Action
77 Oshawa, Ontario: Gerald Beaulieu
77 Vancouver: Attila Richard Lukacs
78 Buenos Aires: Adriana Varejo
79 London: Damien Hirst
On the Cover: Lucy + Jorge Orta, Life Line
Survival Kit, 200809. Steel frame, taps, pip-
ing, various textiles, acrylic paint, webbing,
flask, float, bucket, toys, rope, and whistle,
150 x 80 x 15 cm. Photo: Bertrand Huet,
courtesy the artists.
Features
20 Art at the Table: Lucy + Jorge Orta by Ginger Gregg Duggan and Judith Hoos Fox
26 Drawing Mindmaps: A Conversation with Ante Timmermans by Olga Stefan
32 Sculpting the Void: A Conversation with Luca Vallejo by Paula Llull
36 Political By Nature: A Conversation with Nnenna Okore by Robert Preece
42 Releasing Spirits: A Conversation with Eileen MacDonagh by John K. Grande
48 Lim Dong-Laks Geometry of Light by Robert C. Morgan
50 Edge Is Important: A Conversation with Anthony Caro by Jon Isherwood
26
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July/August 2013
Vol. 32 No. 6
A publication of the
International Sculpture Center
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Sculpture July/August 2013 5
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S CUL PT URE MAGAZ I NE
Editor Glenn Harper
Managing Editor Twylene Moyer
Editorial Assistants Elena Goukassian, Amanda Hickok
Design Eileen Schramm visual communication
Advertising Sales Manager Brenden OHanlon
Contributing Editors Maria Carolina Baulo (Buenos
Aires), Roger Boyce (Christchurch), Susan Canning (New
York), Marty Carlock (Boston), Jan Garden Castro (New
York), Collette Chattopadhyay (Los Angeles), Ina Cole
(London), Ana Finel Honigman (Berlin), John K. Grande
(Montreal), Kay Itoi (Tokyo), Matthew Kangas (Seattle),
Zoe Kosmidou (Athens), Angela Levine (Tel Aviv), Brian
McAvera (Belfast), Robert C. Morgan (New York), Robert
Preece (Rotterdam), Brooke Kamin Rapaport (New
York), Ken Scarlett (Melbourne), Peter Selz (Berkeley),
Sarah Tanguy (Washington), Laura Tansini (Rome)
Each issue of Sculpture is indexed in The Art Index and
the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA).
isc
Benefactors Circle ($100,000+)
Atlantic Foundation
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Phone: 202.234.0555, fax 202.234.2663
E-mail: gharper@sculpture.org
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E-mail <advertising@sculpture.org>
I NT E RNAT I ONAL SCUL PT URE CE NT E R CONT E MPORARY SCUL PT URE CI RCL E
The International Sculpture Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization
that provides programming and services supported by contributions, grants,
sponsorships, and memberships.
The ISC Board of Trustees gratefully acknowledges the generosity of our
members and donors in our Contemporary Sculpture Circle: those who have
contributed $350 and above.
I NT E RNAT I ONAL S CUL PT URE CE NT E R
Executive Director Johannah Hutchison
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ISC Headquarters
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Major Donors ($50,00099,999)
Anonymous Foundation
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About the ISC
The International Sculpture Center is a member-supported, nonprofit organization
founded in 1960 to champion the creation and understanding of sculpture and its
unique and vital contribution to society. The mission of the ISC is to expand public
understanding and appreciation of sculpture internationally, demonstrate the power
of sculpture to educate and effect social change, engage artists and arts profession-
als in a dialogue to advance the art form, and promote a supportive environment for
sculpture and sculptors. The ISC values: our constituentsSculptors, Institutions, and
Patrons; dialogueas the catalyst to innovation and understanding; education
as fundamental to personal, professional, and societal growth; and communityas
a place for encouragement and opportunity.
Membership
ISC membership includes subscriptions to Sculpture and Insider; access to
International Sculpture Conferences; free registration in Portfolio, the ISCs on-
line sculpture registry; and discounts on publications, supplies, and services.
International Sculpture Conferences
The ISCs International Sculpture Conferences gather sculpture enthusiasts from all
over the world to network and dialogue about technical, aesthetic, and professional
issues.
Sculpture Magazine
Published 10 times per year, Sculpture is dedicated to all forms of contemporary
sculpture. The members edition includes the Insider newsletter, which contains timely
information on professional opportunities for sculptors, as well as a list of recent public
art commissions and announcements of members accomplishments.
www.sculpture.org
The ISCs award-winning Web site <www.sculpture.org> is the most comprehensive
resource for information on sculpture. It features Portfolio, an on-line slide registry
and referral system providing detailed information about artists and their work to
buyers and exhibitors; the Sculpture Parks and Gardens Directory, with listings of
over 250 outdoor sculpture destinations; Opportunities, a membership service with
commissions, jobs, and other professional listings; plus the ISC newsletter and
extensive information about the world of sculpture.
Education Programs and Special Events
ISC programs include the Outstanding Sculpture Educator Award, the Outstanding
Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Awards, and the Lifetime
Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture and gala. Other special events
include opportunities for viewing art and for meeting colleagues in the field.
Directors Circle ($5,0009,999)
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________________
Its our mission to help artists get commissions.
It is in fact why we created The Art Commission. To bring together those who create and those
who commission. Our robust database of artists and images is easy to
search and flterfor special projects or beautiful inspiration.
Art lovers and design professionals alike contact artists directly.
We never take a commission.
www.artcommission.com
Michael Hayden, The Rapids, aluminum, holographic mirror, and LED atrium sculpture.
U.S. Bank Tower Building, Sacramento, CA. Commissioned by David S. Taylor Interests, Inc. Photo: Kristina Lucas.
inspiration realized
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ELLSWORTH KELLY
PANEL PAINTINGS 20042009
June 22September 22, 2013
Ellsworth Kelly, Yellow Relief over Red, 2004. Oil on canvas, two joined panels, 80 x 83 x 2 3/4 in.
Private collection. Photo: Jerry L. Thompson, courtesy the artist Ellsworth Kelly
1600 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC
www.phillipscollection.org
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||co| |o|, .3, .o:,
While Heins work seems to belong
to the Minimalist continuum, his
geometrically refined objects and
installations go against the grain,
setting up an incongruous dialogue
with the viewer. Moving walls, mir-
rored theaters, shaking cubes, gravity-
defying kinetic sculptures, and mod-
ified functional constructions rede-
fine indoor and outdoor space while
perplexing even the most willing par-
ticipants. A Smile For You abruptly
slows the antics, offering a mellower
take on interactivity. A Zen calm
permeates these new and recent
installations, all connected by a medi-
tative inquiry into the nature of
happiness and success. What do we
want out of life? Are socially dictated
ambitions counterproductive? The
answers range from the universal to
the personal, taking their cue from
| cm |||| |e|e |||| ncu, a diaris-
tic installation documenting Heins
recovery from art world fatigue.
Unpredictability still reigns, but view-
ers have nothing to fear from these
gentle provocations other than
insight.
Tel: + 46 (0)8 736 42 48
Web site
<www.bonnierskonsthall.se>
Brooklyn Museum
3|cc||,n
The Bruce High Quality Foundation
||co| e|em|e| .., .o:,
The Bruce High Quality Foundation
has big ambitions: to invest the
experience of public space with won-
der, to resurrect art history from the
bowels of despair, and to impreg-
nate the institutions of art with the
joy of mans desiring. Like Jeremy
Deller, the anonymous members of
the collective (named for a fictional
artist who supposedly perished in
9/11) have cultivated an irreverent
approach to the creation and dis-
play of art, with the goal of democ-
ratizing traditional relationships
between artist and public, alternat-
ing deadly serious concerns (war,
economic disparity, inequality) with
satirical and silly agit-prop. ||e c|
||e |eco, a send-up of |||| c| ||e
||.|n |eco, chronicles a zombie-led
revival of the art world, while the
unaccredited Bruce High Quality
Foundation University offers a free
education in metaphor manipula-
tion. Behind it all (again like Deller)
lies a commitment to unmitigated
joy: in people, shenanigans, creative
expression, and Play-Doh. This retro-
spective gathers 50 works in a cele-
bratory Ode to Joy, including a re-
interpretation of Gricaults iconic
|c|| c| ||e |eooc and |o|||:
:o||o|e c:||e (|c.e;, a full-body
lesson in art appreciation.
Tel: 718.638.5000
Web site
<www.brooklynmuseum.org>
deCordova Sculpture Park
and Museum
||n:c|n, |cc:|oe||
Tony Feher
||co| e|em|e| :,, .o:,
Fehers works challenge conventions
through apparent ordinariness.
Mining the worlds limitless supply
of consumer detritus, he selects his
humble components with care and
attention, turning the generic and
ubiquitous into the specific and
unique. In his eyes, everything has
potential; his job is to find the
trick in materials, that indescribable
something that allows me to exploit
an object for my own purposesa
little something that sets it off. This
survey of 60 sculptures reveals the
unusual optimism behind his pro-
ject, which embraces fragility, tran-
sience, and emotion. Instead of
social critique, he offers moments
of solace in which order and beauty
replace chaos and ugliness. Teasing
out character and inimitable formal
possibilities in what the rest of
us dismiss as valueless, these highly
personal works celebrate the power
of creativity and the ability to see
itinerary
Top left: Jeppe Hein, Smoking Bench.
Above: The Bruce High Quality
Foundation, The Gate. Left: Tony
Feher, Just So.
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differently, beyond accepted norms
and definitions.
Tel: 781.259.8355
Web site <www.decordova.org>
Denver Art Museum
|en.e|
Nick Cave
||co| e|em|e| .., .o:,
Mad, humorous, grotesque, glam-
orous, and unexpected, Caves sound-
suits recontextualize scavenged
detritus into visionary and wearable
sculptures that fill a ritual and
mythical void in contemporary cul-
ture. As reminiscent of African and
religious ceremonial garb as they are
of haute couture, these works
contain a richly layered mlange of
concepts, techniques, and traditions,
expressed through a wide array of
materialsfrom handmade fabrics,
beads, and sequins to bottle caps,
rusted iron, twigs, leaves, and hair.
Sojourn includes more than 20
new soundsuits, but its real interest
lies in a significant departure for
Cavelarge-scale sculptures and
installations. Following his last group
of soundsuits, these works focus
on animal imagery, conjuring the
strength and power of ancient
totems while restoring a sense of our
connection to, and responsibility for,
the earth. In addition to the sculp-
tures, which include a monumental
passageway constructed from thou-
sands of buttons, Sojourn features
several new films.
Tel: 720.865.5000
Web site
<www.denverartmuseum.org>
Doris C. Freedman Plaza
|eu 'c||
Thomas Schtte
||co| /oo| .,, .o:,
Schttes installations, sculptures,
architectural models, paintings, and
drawings challenge the fundamental
premises of contemporary life. His
work presents a strange hybrid, join-
ing different modes of visual expres-
sion while creating contradictory and
illusory worlds, without ever losing
sight of the sociopolitical status
quo. Perhaps best known for his rad-
ically simplified and exaggerated
models, his emotionally potent fig-
ural sculptures take a different tack,
exploring isolation, vulnerability,
and hopelessness with bitter humor.
His new outdoor work, |n||eo
|nem|e, captures the strains and
conflicts of individual and global
relations. Two separate pairs of
male figures, balancing on tripartite
peg legs and bound together for no
discernable reason, embody physical,
psychological, and sculptural
tension. Deformations of logic and
form abound in these strange, trun-
cated characters whose swaddled
torsos and exaggerated expressions
offer little interpretative guidance.
Tel: 212.980.4575
Web site
<www.publicartfund.org>
Haus der Kunst
|on|:|
Haegue Yang
||co| e|em|e| .., .o:,
Working with non-traditional mate-
rials such as customized Venetian
blinds and sensory devices, including
lights, infrared heaters, scent emit-
ters, and fans, Yang (who repre-
sented the Republic of Korea in the
2009 Venice Biennale) constructs
Above: Nick Cave, Untitled. Top right:
Thomas Schtte, United Enemies.
Right: Haegue Yang, Accommodating
the Epic DispersionOn Non-cathar-
tic Volume of Dispersion.
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14 Sculpture 32.6
nuanced installations that collapse
the space between the concrete
and the ephemeral. Her recent work
explores real and metaphorical rela-
tionships between material sur-
roundings and emotional responses,
attempting to give form and mean-
ing to experiences beyond conven-
tional order. Despite their rigorous
and minimal abstraction, these
micro- environments do not negate
narrative; instead, as Yang says,
they allow a narrative to be achieved
without constituting its own limits.
Her new commission re-imagines the
museums Middle Hall as a freely
accessible public plaza, shifting the
boundaries between inside and out,
open and closed.
Tel: + 49 89 21127-113
Web site <www.hausderkunst.de>
Hirshhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden
Hc||n|cn, |t
Over, Under, Next
||co| e|em|e| 3, .o:,
Over, Under, Next surveys an era
(1913present) in which the embrace
of non-art materials continually
expanded the definition and scope
of art. Artists from virtually every
major movement of the past cen-
turyCubism, Dada, and Surrealism
through Abstract Expressionism, Pop,
and post-Modernismcontributed
to the revolution that brought col-
lage and assemblage to power. From
Dubuffets raw accretions of iron
slag, tar, and cement to Nick Caves
glitzy, sequined Easter costume and
Doris Salcedos second-hand furni-
ture, the line-up of unorthodox and
incongruous materials includes but-
terfly wings, glass shards, crumpled
car parts, jigsaw puzzle pieces,
clothing, colored sand, cabbage- eat-
ing snails, and found images and
sounds. Remaining themselves while
taking on new identities, these
found and appropriated elements
generate endless chains of meaning,
unfolding a narrative archaeology
that binds art to the flow of every-
day life.
Tel: 202.633.1000
Web site
<http://hirshhorn.si.edu>
Louvre
|c||
Michelangelo Pistoletto
||co| e|em|e| ., .o:,
Pistolettos international reputation
continues to grow thanks in large
part to a younger generation of
artists inspired by his participatory
practices and democratic approach
to artparticularly his interdiscipli-
nary laboratory, Cittadellarte, which
fosters intellectual, political, and
social dialogues that put subversion
to positive use. Year 1: Earthly
Paradise, the result of a residency
at the Louvre, offers the most com-
plete synthesis yet of the principles
behind the humanist faith that
has driven his work from Arte Povera
through |e |||o |c|co|ethe
work of art as a secular place for
meditation, where man with his
capacity for imagination is the only
true value. Within the museums
encyclopedic collectionsPistoletto
has intervened in various galleries
and parts of the building complex
the multidimensionality of space and
time come to the fore, with mirror-
clad intimations of boundless space
(and the minds boundless capabili-
ties) conjoining past (the Louvres
artifacts) and future (|e |||o
|c|co|e symbol) in a visionary, and
optimistic, unity.
Tel: + 33 (0)1 40 20 57 60
Web site <www.louvre.fr>
Madison Square Park
|eu 'c||
Mad. Sq. Art: Orly Genger
||co| e|em|e| 3, .o:,
Genger transforms high-strength
nylon rope into monolithic sculp-
tures that hold obdurate mass and
organic softness in an elemental
tension. Looped and knotted by
hand, these elaborate works evoke
the intimate crafts of knitting and
crocheting but expand them to epic
proportionsit takes more than
Top left: Ann Hamilton with Kathryn
Clark, palimpsest, from Over, Under,
Next. Above: Michelangelo Pisto-
letto, LEtrusco. Left: Orly Genger,
Red, Yellow and Blue.
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delicate hand movements to wrestle
industrial rope into position. The
final, impenetrable forms provoke a
visceral response, prompting viewers
to reconsider their relationship to
space and its obstruction. |eo, 'e||cu
cno 3|oe, a new installation whose
total length of rope would stretch
to nearly 20 times the length of
Manhattan, is her largest and most
ambitious to date. Created from
repurposed material collected up and
down the Eastern seaboard, three
separate, undulating forms take a
gibe at Minimalisms masculine
pretensions. Though these interactive
structures pose challenges, no one
will be afraid to explore the hidden
depths of their primary- colored
spaces.
Tel: 212.538.6667
Web site
<www.madisonsquarepark.org>
Metropolitan Museum of Art
|eu 'c||
Ken Price
||co| e|em|e| .., .o:,
Prices glazed and painted clay works
not only transformed traditional
ceramics, they also expanded rigid
definitions of sculpture. Among the
first generation of iconoclastic Los
Angeles artists to gain international
stature, he denied any distinction
between or hierarchical separation
of art and craft. Like his Bauhaus
heroes, he sought to bring the values
of the handcrafted into the modern
age. The evolution of his work
from the slumps, rocks, geometrics,
cups, eggs, and mounds to the
bulging, rippling, late voluptuaries
reflects different approaches to that
50-year mission. This retrospective
(the first devoted to Prices work in
20 years) reveals a life devoted to
consummate craftsmanship, unor-
thodox technical exploration, and
seductive formal wit.
Tel: 212.535.7710
Web site <www.metmuseum.org>
Munich
A Space Called Public
||co| e|em|e| ,o, .o:,
Last year, in a boldly unconventional
move, the City of Munich asked
Elmgreen & Dragset to curate a nine-
month temporary art project. A
Space Called Public / Hoffentlich
ffentlich, features works by more
than a dozen artists (including a
reprisal of || |e.e| cc |c|e |c c,
c||,, the duos powerless gesture
of protest) that collectively aim
to open up discussion about public
space. At the heart of the endeavor
is !|| |||n|| |on|:|, Stephen Hall
and Li Li Rens full-scale replica of
the empty London landmark (located
in the Wittelsbacherplatz). Hall,
who is best known for his work with
minority groups exploring the uses
and misuses of public space, delib-
erately set out to disturb the his-
toric order, a strategy followed by
most of Elmgreen & Dragsets selec-
tionsnot least the winner of the
Munich plinth competition. Alexan-
der Laners :|cne| Hc|nen (3e||e|
||.|n; transforms the vacant lot
inside and above the pedestal into
a two-story living space, complete
with fenced-in garden and roof ter-
race. Available for a nominal fee,
this rental unit provides a rare bit of
affordable real estate in one of the
citys priciest areas. Other partici-
pants, whose projects appear in vari-
ous locations around the city cen-
ter, include Ivn Argote, Han Chong,
Funda, Martin Kippenberger, Ragnar
Kjartansson, Henrik Olesen, Kirsten
Pieroth, Ed Ruscha, David Shrigley,
Tatiana Trouv, and Peter Weibel.
Performative, interactive, idea- and
sound-based projects, as well as
other non-monumental statements,
will take place throughout the
summer, accompanied by a series
of public programs.
Web site
<www.aspacecalledpublic.de>
Museo National Centro de Arte
Reina Sofia
|co||o
Mitsuo Miura
||co| e|em|e| ., .o:,
Miuras interventions infuse their
host spaces with subtle additions
of geometric form and well-defined
color that make almost impercepti-
ble, highly stylized references to
nature. |mc|neo |emc||e, his inti-
mate new work for the Palacio de
Cristal, activates the transparency
of the structure through the most
minimal of means, linking indoors
and out in a hybrid realm of possi-
bility, an imaginary zone of uncer-
Left: Ken Price, Pastel. Above:
Mitsuo Miura, Memorias imagi-
nadas. Right: David Shrigley,
Bubblesplatz, from A Space Called
Public / Hoffentlich ffentlich.
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16 Sculpture 32.6
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tain existence that can only be com-
pleted mentally.
Tel: + 34 91 774 10 00
Web site
<www.museoreinasofia.es>
Museum of Contemporary Art
|c /ne|e
Urs Fischer
||co| /oo| :), .o:,
A maker in the truest sense of the
word, Fischer turns everything he
touches into an unexpected vignette
of transformed existence. As Jerry
Saltz describes it, Fischer specializes
in making jaws drop. Characterized
by an open and fluid approach to
materials and a disregard for practi-
cal limitationsglass, wood, and
aluminum meet raw clay, melting
wax, and rotting vegetableshis
work describes a state of constant
flux, dominated by the passing of
time. In his ongoing quest to engi-
neer new worlds of morbid glamour,
he has built houses of bread, exca-
vated gallery floors, animated pup-
pets, and dissected objects to reveal
the secret mechanisms of percep-
tion. This retrospective, the artists
first, shows how he narrows the gap
between the banal and the fantasti-
cal, turning even the most prosaic
settings into mesmerizing environ-
ments of suspended time and inter-
nal dynamics.
Tel: 213.621.1749
Web site <www.moca.org>
Museum Ludwig
|c|n
Kathryn Andrews
||co| /oo| .,, .o:,
Andrews finds inspiration in L.A.s
jumble of cultures, values, and
styles. Her exactingly finished sculp-
tures, which navigate the histories
of Pop, Minimalism, Light and Space,
and the readymade, create what
she calls unhappy marriages
carefully orchestrated juxtapositions
of mismatched materials and incom-
patible concepts. Exquisite chrome-
plated objects (everything from
steel bars and tubing to security win-
dows and cages) partner with
cheap store-bought commodities
and rented movie props in contra-
dictory visual scenarios that poke
fun at estimations of worth. Just
where art falls in this system of val-
uation remains unclear, its status
dependent on presentation and the
company it keeps, though the fre-
quent appearance of mocking clown
costumes offers a clue.
Tel: + 49 221 221 26165
Web site
<www.museum-ludwig.de>
Nasher Sculpture Center
|c||c
Katharina Grosse
||co| e|em|e| :, .o:,
Taking inspiration from frescos, plein-
air painting, Abstract Expressionism,
and urban graffiti, Grosse explores
how painting can appear in
spacein the dimensional realm
of sculpture and architecture. Her
installations of bright acrylic paint
sprayed onto walls, ceilings, floors,
piles of dirt, furnishings, and sculpted
Styrofoam and fiberglass construc-
tions give color palpable, unruly,
and monumental form. These two
new works continue her exploration
of swirling, sometimes vertiginous
explosions of saturated energy, will-
fully skewing the rigid stability of
Top left: Urs Fischer, Untitled. Above:
Kathryn Andrews, Bowman. Left:
Katharina Grosse, One Floor Up More
Highly.
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rectilinear space and undermining
structural rules while establishing
bold new perspectives that constantly
offer more to discover.
Tel: 214.242.5100
Web site
<www.nashersculpturecenter.org>
Rice University Art Gallery
|co|cn
Soo Sunny Park
||co| /oo| ,o, .o:,
|nuc.en ||||, Parks new installa-
tion, continues her investigation
into the ephemeral qualities of light
and how those transient effects
alter perceptions of architectural
space. Made from shaped sections
of chain-link fencing fitted with
thousands of iridescent Plexiglas
crystals, her suspended, undulating
structure unweaves optics. A
changing spectrum of colorfrom
yellow to magenta to deep purple
allows us to see beyond the things
revealed by light to the phenome-
non itself.
Tel: 713.348.6069
Web site <www.ricegallery.org>
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
|eu 'c||
James Turrell
||co| e|em|e| .,, .o:,
Since the 1960s, Turrell has devoted
his career to diverse manifestations
of an immaterial medium, working
toward a unique, space-defining
form of light art. His first New York
museum exhibition since 1980
reveals the breadth of his explora-
tions into perception, color, and
space, with a special focus on the
role of site-specificity in his work. A
major new project, /|en |e|n, dra-
matically reimagines the Guggen-
heim Rotunda as a Skyspace akin to
Roden Cratera temple to the sun
that manifests the air and light ani-
mating Frank Lloyd Wrights magnif-
icent void. Reorienting the experi-
ence of the space from above to
below, this embodied light reveals
and refers to nothing beyond itself
as it interacts with color and space
to create an enveloping atmosphere
that has to be felt with the eyes.
In addition to this tour de force, the
museum is also presenting a com-
prehensive selection of Turrells work,
and a second part of the show, fea-
turing more than a dozen installa-
tions that allow visitors to test the
limits of their perception, study
the play of illusion, and witness the
shape-shifting power of light, is on
view at the Museum of Fine Arts
Houston through August 22 <www.
mfah.org>.
Tel: 212.423.3500
Web site <www.guggenheim.org>
Walker Art Center
||nnecc||
Abraham Cruzvillegas
||co| e|em|e| .., .o:,
Cruzvillegass thought-provoking
arrangements of disparate, appar-
ently unrelated objects employ
everything from feathers and studio
props to bowling balls, candles,
leaves, and other everyday finds. The
volatile energy that pervades his
work re- creates the life of Mexico
Citys streets, flirting with popular
culture, television, music, advertising,
and flea markets. This show features
recent installments in his long-
running project, /o|c:cn||o::|cn,
as well as an important body of
sculpture first exhibited at the 2003
Venice Biennale, a series of recent
installations, and a source-material
archive room. As Cruzvillegas
explains it, /o|c:cn||o::|cn, or
self-construction, operates as a meta-
phor for individual identity and the
unfinished, changing character of
place. Privileging improvisation and
alternate economic systems that
value craft, the handmade, and
strategies of making do, his work
demonstrates an empowering
notion of survival economics and
solidarity in the face of globalized
power.
Tel: 612.375.7600
Web site <www.walkerart.org>
Above: James Turrell, rendering
of Aten Reign. Top right: Soo Sunny
Park, Unwoven Light. Right:
Abraham Cruzvillegas, Autocon-
struccin.
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Putt AttAku
Spaceball
Ponta Delgada (Azores), Portugal
Its no secret that our dependence on plastics has gotten out
of hand. Although weve known for years that entire islands of
garbage have been growing in the worlds oceanic gyres, their pres-
ence has had very little impact on our daily behaviorthe Great
Pacific Garbage Patch seldom springs to mind when we buy bottled
water. Last summer, those bottles featured prominently in Phil
Allards Spaceball, a large wire ball stuffed with plastic waste
found in and around Ponta Delgada. Rolled around town by Allard
and fellow street artists from the Walk & Talk Azores public art fes-
tival, the plastic tumbleweed toured the city, pushed along streets
and alleys and occasionally even into traffic.
Drivers were frustrated, pedestrians asked questions, and
tourists had astonished looks on their faces, Allard recalls, but
the best reactions came from local fishermen. All too familiar
with the detritus that accumulates around the islanddeposited
on shore by currents from the European mainlandthe fishermen
plunged into stories about the strange things theyve caught over
the years, the changing ecology of marine life, and how the
effects of accumulated waste seep through the entire food chain,
all the way to our plates. They also found Allards choice of
fishing net to wrap the plastic ball very fitting.
At the end of its journey, a slightly beat-up Spaceball retired to
a local music and arts venue, where it was filled with lights and
left as an outdoor sculpture. Allards playful intervention cleverly
raised awareness of an important environmental concern. While
rolling around the city, Spaceball blocked sidewalks, caused traffic
jams, and served as a general nuisance to anyone in its path.
For a brief moment, the daily routines of Ponta Delgadas residents
were affected by plastic waste. Perhaps theyll remember that frus-
tration next time they think about buying bottled water. Allard
should consider taking Spaceball on a world tour.
HH
M-blem: the train project
Manchester, U.K.
The artist duo HeHe (Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen) first stum-
bled on the Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture, a hidden and aban-
doned railway belt in Paris, in 2002. Intrigued by the discovery,
they set out to reclaim the tracks and revive a largely forgotten
mode of transportation, personal rail travel. Since then, they
have designed and built personal rail vehicles for unused train
tracks in Istanbul, New York, and most recently, Manchester.
As part of last summers Abandon Normal Devices Festival, the
pair offered rides on their solar-powered M-blem: the train
project, which ran on the tracks of the old Manchester-Liverpool
line, the worlds first inter-city passenger railroad. HeHe used the
historic Manchester Liverpool Road rail station as its point
of departure and sold M-blem tickets at the original ticket desk.
Spanning almost 200 years of local history, the design of the M-
blem vehicle was inspired by A.B. Claytons painting of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railways inaugural journey in 1830
and included the original Greater Manchester Transport logo, in
use from the 1970s until 2011.
The antithesis of high-speed travel, HeHes rail vehicles are
part of a venerable, if forgotten, history. In the 1930s, engineers
were already exploring the possibilities of personal rail travel,
but the rising dominance of the car defeated their efforts, and rail
technologies were tossed aside. Over the years, multiple attempts
to revive autonomous rail cars have failed, and very few such
systems remain today.
HeHe calls train projects such as M-blem reverse cultural engi-
neering. As Hansen puts it, she and Evans like to find a point
of departure in the past to project something into the present.
18 Sculpture 32.6
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commissions commissions
Phil Allard, Spaceball, 2012. Plastic waste, wire, fishing net, and zip ties,
6 ft. diameter. 2 views of project in Ponta Delgada, Portugal.
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While championing personal rail travel, HeHe also succeeds in
nudging railways back into broader use. After all, like roads, they
were built to accommodate vehicles of all kinds.
HAns kAtttwouA
World in a Shell
Various locations
Part community center, part self-sustaining, futuristic mobile
habitat, Hans Kalliwodas World in a Shell is finally ready after
four years of research and development. Created with the help of
engineers from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands,
Kalliwodas 180-square-meter tent is weather-resistant and com-
pletely self-sufficient, with water recycling capability, solar panels,
and wind turbines. The small kitchen, bedroom, toilet, plug-and-
play interior with digital interface, and everything else can be
folded up and packed away into a single shipping crate.
A marvel of green engineering and technological minimalism,
World in a Shell, which premiered last year in Rotterdam, will
spend the next few years touring nomadic communities in and
around 11 UNESCO World Heritage sites, from Greenland to the
Solomon Islands. The first stop will be Botswanas Kalahari Desert
from October 2013 through spring 2014. In this first segment of the
journey, called While the Gods Are Absent, Kalliwoda and com-
pany will collaborate with the local San (Bushmen) on a coming-
of-age interdisciplinary media projectessentially staged in a
swap-shop situation with local people. This will include theater
performances, cinema screenings, workshops, and sleepovers
hosted inside the tent space.
The main goal of the World in a Shell project is intercultural
exchange through the telling and collecting of stories. Kalliwoda
chose to visit nomadic societies because they have proven to be
the most sustainable cultures on this planet and carry the treasure
of tacit knowledge with them. He hopes that the travels of World
in a Shell will facilitate a better understanding of sustainable living.
Elena Goukassian
Above: HeHe, M-blem: the train project, 2012. Mixed media, 2 views of project
in Manchester. Right and detail: Hans Kalliwoda, World in a Shell, 2012. Cor-
rugated steel and mixed media, 18 x 10 x 10 meters. Rendering of project
in the Kalahari Desert and interior view.
Juries are convened each month to select works for Commissions. Information on recently completed commissions, along with high-resolution
digital images (300 dpi at 4 x 5 in. minimum), should be sent to: Commissions, Sculpture, 1633 Connecticut Avenue NW, 4th Floor, Washington,
DC 20009. E-mail <elena@sculpture.org>.
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Lucy + Jorge Ortas work is situated at the intersection of performance art and object-
making, where symbol conflates with tool and relational aesthetics merges with physical
forms. Their earliest concerns continue into the present, with additional issues layered
over initial areas of investigation, resulting in a rich harmonic practice that addresses
the conditions that define our existencethe availability of food and clean water, the
sustainability of the biosphere, and the extension of basic human rights across the
globe. Lucy recently wrote, How can art practice pave a new role, faced with the growing
problems in this world? How can it erase the contradictions between formal aesthetics
and social function? How can works of art empower and nurture constructive dia-
logue? What contribution can we as artists make to human and environmental sustain-
ability?
1
One powerful attempt to answer these queries can be seen in the Ortas ongoing
project, 70 x 7 The Meal, a central work that has been staged numerous times over the
past 15 years in more than 30 villages, towns, and cities around the world. Each separate
act, as the iterations are called, provides a forum for the examination of a specific
issue that relates to the health of our planet and its inhabitants.
BY GINGER GREGG DUGGAN AND
JUDITH HOOS FOX
Opposite: OrtaWaterStorage Unit, 200508.
Steel structure, glass, copper tubes, projector,
felt blankets, jerry can, water drum, first aid kits,
glass carafe, plastic tube, taps, bucket, bottles,
and flasks, 210 x 150 x 80 cm. Above: 70 x 7 The
Meal act XXXII, 2011. Table set for 300, with silk-
screened table runner, Royal Limoges porcelain
plates, helium-filled balloons, seeds, and mes-
sages, view of work at MAXXI, Rome.
Art at
the Table
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In conceiving 70 x 7 The Meal, the Ortas
looked to Padre Rafael Garca Herreros
(190992), who initiated a series of benefit
banquets in Bogot in an effort to rebuild
one of the most impoverished parts of the
city. The meals were called El Minuto de
Dios, and their purpose was to raise funds
for an ambitious urban development pro-
gram. Schools, a theater, community gar-
dens, homes, small factories, a university,
even a museum of contemporary art were
built as a result.
By calling their iteration of the commu-
nity banquet 70 x 7 The Meal, the Ortas
reference the biblical concept of ad infini-
tum, which is, of course, a phrase loaded
with possible interpretationsthe number
of guests involved, the number of subse-
quent meals that can be held, the effects
of the conversations that occur at these
gatherings. An early 70 x 7 The Meal, act
IV, was staged in 2000 in Dieuze, France.
Half a kilometer of tables snaked through
the small rural town of 3,000 inhabitants,
and half the population gathered to share
food and exchange ideas about the future
of their community.
On October 5, 2013, Philadelphia will
be the site of Studio Ortas 70 x 7 The Meal
act XXXIV. In celebration of its 30th year,
Mural Arts, the incredibly successful pri-
vate/public partnership that has distin-
guished Philadelphia through its large-
scale public art program, has invited Lucy
+ Jorge Orta to design and stage the 34th
rendition of The Meal as the culmination
of its What We Sow initiative. Jane Gol-
den, the inspirational director of the pro-
22 Sculpture 32.6
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Above: AmazoniaAepyornis, Gallimimus, Allo-
saurus, Pelaeomastodon (detail), 200910. 4 Royal
Limoges porcelain fossil casts, enamel drawings,
wood, and lacquered glass, table plinth: 100 x 100
x 110 cm. Left: AmazoniaMadre de DiosFluvial
Intervention Unit, 2010. Dug-out pirogue, mirror,
lacquered glass, steel frame, reconditioned wood,
life rings, and toy animals, 160 x 150 x 550 cm.
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gram, writes: We see in what we do the
potential to create innovative works that
connect artists with communities in mean-
ingful ways, many of which lie outside the
traditional role of mural-making. We want
to mine all kinds of visual opportunities to
promote positive social change and on-the-
ground neighborhood transformation.
2
The match between the Ortas meals
and Mural Arts ambitions is perfect. After
two visits to Philadelphia spent scouting
sites, the Ortas have a sense of possible
locations. The citys wide boulevards, hand-
some bridges, and riverside parkways offer
many options for this event, their largest
to date. They intend to locate The Meal
on the grounds of Independence National
Historical Park. This open expanse spanning
nine city blocks and anchored by Indepen-
dence Hall and the Liberty Bell Pavilion
(National Park Service properties) could
host nearly 1,000 guests. (More informa-
tion is available at <http://muralarts.org/
whatwesow>.)
As a result of their research trips, the
Ortas decided to focus on heirloom species
in contrast to commercial hybrids, specifi-
cally the seeds of foods, vegetables, and
flowers that have been passed down for
at least 50 years. The questions about
conservation, invasive species, and factory
farming raised by this investigation will
provide the theme for the meal and inspire
the design of the plates, table runners,
chefs and servers aprons, and other accou-
trementsformal elements that serve as
the armature for interactions among par-
ticipants. The issues addressed in Philadel-
phias act XXXIV tie directly into Amazonia,
the Ortas recent body of work developed
after a 2009 journey down the length of
the Amazon with scientists, botanists, and
anthropologists. By bringing together urban
gardening groups, farmers associations,
and Slow Food proponents, Mural Arts is
adding many voices to an ongoing discus-
sion.
Studio Ortas work with and around food
is not alone in the world of contemporary
art. In the early 1990s, Rirkrit Tiravanija
began to cook Thai dishes in galleries and
museums. These activities were about de-
objectifying art, shifting the attention to
process and away from product. The meals
that he later began to stage in closed spaces
were about what happened between artist
and guests. In 1998, Lee Mingwei launched
The Dining Project. After-hours in the Whit-
ney Museum, he prepared meals to suit
the preferences of dinner partners selected
by lottery. Food as a means of establishing
intimacy was the subject of this project.
In 2005, Fritz Haeg began his series of
Edible Estates, which transform suburban
lawns into productive organic vegetable
gardens, sources of food rather than con-
sumers of fertilizers and pesticides. J. Mor-
gan Puetts wood-fired feasts featuring
artists as celebrity chefs lure art cogno-
scenti to a remote stylized paradise in rural
Pennsylvania. Each of these disparate pro-
jects, as well as others treating food pro-
duction and consumption, holds at its
center a distinct impetus.
3
The Ortas have used food to raise issues
about availability since the beginning of
their career. The waste in European mar-
kets drew them to Les Halles in 1997 to
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Life LineSurvival Kit, 200809. Steel frame, lami-
nated Lambda photograph, fabrics, webbing, floats,
flasks, and jerry can whistle, 150 x 80 x 15 cm.
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collect the food discarded at the end of
the day and transform it into preserves.
They built apparati for the collection and
preparation of food. They created sculp-
tures out of food crates filled with photo-
graphic images of the foodstuffs they once
held, sign and signifier once again one
and the same. Issues that are very timely
and topical in 2013local consumer
waste, Slow Food, and the inequalities of
global food distributionwere already the
Ortas subject matter.
Their concern with food then expanded
into an investigation of waterits purifi-
cation and distribution. References to water
and food recur in the iconography of their
Antarctica project (200612). Some of the
Drop Parachutes, hanging constructions
that infer the delivery of emergency sup-
plies to devastated populations, are dedi-
cated to water, with canteens, cups, buckets,
floats, and other water-related parapher-
nalia hanging from umbrella-like para-
chute forms. Those festooned with pots
and pans and cooking utensils talk about
the necessity of food for global survival.
We see these same objects and themes in
the wall-mounted Life Line constructions
in which water taps call out both need
and source.
24 Sculpture 32.6
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Above: OrtaWaterFluvial Intervention Unit, 2005. Canoe, steel structure, water network, gloves, buckets,
crates, water drums, water tanks, flasks, copper pipes and taps, audio MP3, speakers, and OrtaWater bottles,
260 x 150 x 120 cm. Below: OrtaWaterM.I.U. Urban Intervention Unit, 2005. Piaggio Ape 50, steel struc-
ture, OrtaWater life jackets, silk-screen print, buckets, and copper taps, Piaggio: 253 x 161 x 126 cm.
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Milk, an essential daily source of nutri-
tion and emblem of life, is also of great
significance to the Ortas work. They have
been studying milk containers, noting that
without the right kind of container, this
necessity cannot reach its destination. Here,
packaging is about survival rather than
branding. In 2010 and 2011, in collabora-
tion with Royal DSM, dairy farmers in India,
and the Baliehof farm in Jabeeke, Belgium,
Lucy and Jorge created a series of life-size
milk containers, including 20 different con-
figurations from around the world, all in
cast aluminum, with one suite gleaming
white, the other metallic silver. These ele-
gant and ghostly forms can be read as Pla-
tonic renderings of this essential liquid.
Milk brings us to one of the Ortas largest
projects. An hour outside of Paris, along
the Grand Morin River, they are bringing
an abandoned region back to life with the
founding of Les Moulins, a nonprofit research
center for interdisciplinary workshops and
residencies to promote the creation and
presentation of experimental in-situ art-
works. Two historic paper mills have now
been added to this complex, but it began
in 2000 with a dairy, La Laiterie. As in their
artwork, emblem and issue conjoin here,
the dairy as a place of gestation and pro-
duction of essential ingredients. The Ortas
have created a place where art and ideas
are spawned and nurtured. As with so much
of their work, an ideawhether a meal or
a milk cartonbegins small and through
collective or communal experience, can
become a catalyst for change.
Notes
1
Lucy Orta, Operational Aesthetics: The Work of Lucy + Jorge Orta (London:
University of the Arts, Professional Platform 2011), p. 5.
2
Quoted in Journeys South, exhibition catalogue, City of Philadelphia
Mural Arts Program, 2011, p. 7.
3
For example, the works featured in Feast: Radical Hospitality in
Contemporary Art, an exhibition at Chicagos Smart Museum, February
16June 10, 2012.
Ginger Gregg Duggan and Judith Hoos Fox,
c
2
(curatorsquared), develop exhibitions of
cross-media contemporary design and art.
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Above: OrtaWaterPurification Station, 2005. Row-
boat, drinking water purification system, steel struc-
ture, water tanks, jerry cans, canteens, pipes, MP3
audio player, speakers, and OrtaWater bottles, instal-
lation view. Left: OrtaWaterAntarctica Fluvial Inter-
vention Unit, 200508. Rowboat, steel structure,
neon, light box, bivouacs, fabrics, projectors, tubing,
warning light, copper pipes and taps, plasma bottles,
and national flags, 250 x 250 x 120 cm.
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ANTE TIMMERMANS
Drawing Mindmaps
A Conversation with
Make a Molehill out of a Mountain (of work),
2012. Shelves, desk, chair, stacks of paper, fold-
ers, side table, time clock, time card holder,
time cards, and 10 neon lamps, detail of instal-
lation at Manifesta 9. K
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Olga Stefan: Your work originates with drawing and then takes different forms. For
instance, your project at Manifesta included drawings, an installation of paper-stacked
metal shelves surrounding a desk (where you worked as a petty bureaucrat stamping
and filing), and assemblage sculptures made of various 19th-century office equipment.
What led you to the medium of drawing?
Ante Timmermans: I started to draw because, for me, its the most direct link between
thinking and visualizing your thoughts.
OS: Is it like writing for you?
AT: Before you try to translate your thoughts, you have images in your head. I try to use
symbols or signs or images or drawings and put them on paper. At the beginning, I tried
to make individual drawings, small drawings. The more I did, the more I made them one
symbol or one image; then these lines
became like mindmaps, like associations,
connections in my head, and they came
out on paper. With drawing, there are no
technical requirements, all you need is
paper and a pencil. Its the most primal
communicationa kid can draw, its the
first way to communicate.
OS: Your sculptures, videos, and installa-
tions also make use of your drawing vocab-
ulary and allude directly to the lines of a
drawing. How do you feel about space
and the integration of space into the two-
dimensional plane? How would you like
viewers to experience space in your work?
AT: I never wanted to limit myself to one
plane, so, for me, everything is more like
a mindmap. I use video and sculpture like
I use drawing. There is a direct link between
my mindmap and an architectural map.
From the beginning, my drawings were
very spatial. People would ask me, When
will you make this drawing into a sculp-
ture? But my drawings are not sketches,
they are autonomous works of art. So,
I started to think that I should make new,
three-dimensional works, not drawings on
paper. Another aspect of my work is that
the sculptures are like spaces from my
mind; you can walk through them, experi-
28 Sculpture 32.6
Installation view of ANTE POST ANTE,
201213, at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen. S
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BY OLGA STEFAN
Ante Timmermans, a Belgian artist based in Zurich, is best known for his contemporary approach to drawing
in which the two-dimensional transforms into a three-dimensional universe. The spare, simple techniques
that define his drawings also characterize his sculptures and installations, which frequently employ obsolete
technologies. An avid (and skeptical) observer of todays world, Timmermans takes up issues such as labor
and leisure, the city (and its plight) as a metaphor for the creative process, and the function of language. His
recent exhibition at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, ANTE POST ANTE, which featured drawing, sculpture,
installation, and video, followed up on the well-received Make a Molehill out of a Mountain (of work), a per-
formative installation for Manifesta 9 in the administrative offices of the Waterschei, a former coalmine
in Genk, Belgium. This work perfectly encapsulates the absurd humor that Timmermans can tease out of
sometimes grim situations. As the press release for his solo show WERK STATT WERK, another iteration of
the dynamics between workplace/studio work and work instead of work, explains, The idea that for 65
years, during which the mine was in operation, thousands of miners were fighting a daily battle against a
mountain, resulting (visually) in a molehill of coal-waste, recalls the work of Sisyphus and forms the basis of
the installation.
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ence themthey are like walking through my mindmap. I also
like the idea of zooming in and zooming out.
OS: What is the relationship between your use of space and the
issues that you treat in your workrepetition, bureaucracy, mono-
tony of labor, alienation through meaningless tasks, and the dullness
of the everyday?
AT: In the beginning, my work was about absurdity and everyday
boredom. I was in a pattern of making these drawings on my way
to and from work, and its quite logical that I felt as though the
space I was creating reflected how people moved in this routine
way. I was also interested in examining how we influence space
and how space influences usnot only physically, but also men-
tally. Another thing that interests me is how the work can influence
your experience of it, for instance, how the installation influences
how you feel in the exhibition. One thing is about my observa-
tion of how space functions, and the other thing is about how
you can influence other people. I was really trying to create a way
for people to slow down. At a time when people just go in and
out of exhibitions, and everything is quick, efficient, and rushed,
I tried to bring them to a stop, arrest them a bit, and not give
everything away too quickly. People have to look slowly, step-by-
step, and not think that they understand everything immediately.
OS: Many of the drawings have a claustrophobic feel to them: the
space is very constricted and limited. Do you want viewers to feel
this claustrophobia? Are you communicating something through
your rendering of space?
AT: There is a lot of stuff in my work, and people should not feel
too comfortable. They should be a bit confused. I dont want to
offer a single, overview solution. Its about losing yourself. Its
not about me trying to understand this boring life and trying to
create this world. Its not about offering answers, but revealing
the questions.
OS: Many symbols repeat throughout your work and are re-con-
textualized to create new associations and maybe new meanings.
Your work is also very humorousits not only about seriousness.
I find it very funny when you include images of mules or people
transforming into these animals of burden. You also take recog-
nizable signs, like official stamps and the infinity symbol, and
integrate them into different contexts to create new compositions.
What are you getting at with this repetition and transformation
of signs?
AT: Im not the first one who has used the mule as a symbol for
carrying the burden of the world on your shoulders. Now, Im
using fireworks as a symbol of absurdityshooting money into
the air for nothing, just for entertainment.
OS: Among other elements, Making a Molehill out of a Mountain
(of work) featured your performance as a bureaucrat whose task
is to perforate paper, file it neatly, and then use the paper holes
to build a small mound. Some visitors saw you at work and thought
that it was an interactive performance. What happened, and how
did you feel about it?
AT: Im not such a fan of interactive work. I have a strange feeling
about the fact that nowadays everything must be interactive and
participatory. In a way, I really hate it. I want to offer ways to make
people aware. The strange thing is that in this entertainment
society, this Coca-Cola-ization society, people really need to
participate; everything should be fun, and art should be some-
thing like looking at fireworks. But this is not something I want. I
think of Johan Huizinga and his book Homo Ludens. People dont
like to work anymore, and the time will come when they wont
have to, but we have all this leisure time and very few people
know what to do with it because so many have lost their creativity.
Heres a utopian idea: create a parallel city where theres enough
time to make social contact, to talk, to play. Now, its like cre-
ativity is just entertainment.
OS: Creativity is just another form of consuming. It is indeed
entertainment. You mention that it wasnt your intent to enter-
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fict | fact | fiction | factory | FICTIORY | factitious | fictitious, 2011. Mixed media,
300 x 500 x 300 cm.
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tain at Manifesta, that you were really there to work. How do
you account for the lack of understanding, and why do you think
that people wanted to interact?
AT: My performance was work. I was clearly not there to entertain,
and it was really not my intent to be interactive. I wasnt walking
around with a donkey head. I was just sitting there, activating
the installation. People didnt know that I was the artist. I would
turn around to archive the paper, and people would start playing
around with my tools. And the absurd thing was that Tomaz
Furlan, whose work was clearly interactive, was right next to me.
OS: So, viewers are not receiving the message about what is inter-
active and what isnt, what theyre allowed to touch, and where
they can participate and where not. They dont know what to do
anymore. They no longer understand their role vis--vis the artwork.
AT: Yes, absolutely, but I also think that, in this particular example,
its about anxiety and fear. They were like little kids with my
installation; it was like entertainment, meaningless entertain-
ment: Haha, let me try stamping this paper, let me take this
with me.
OS: They were just repeating an action without thinking about its
significancethey thought that they should repeat something
to have an experience, but didnt stop to think what this action
could actually imply.
AT: Yes, but not everyone. There were other people who looked
at me, recognized the gestures that I was making from their own
everyday lives, and were amused. I had an interesting talk with
a civil servant who recognized the bureaucratic absurdity. But
70 percent of visitors go to an exhibition like they would go to
Disneyland, and I dont know how to feel about this. I should
be happy that theyre there. The Belgian Minister of Culture
stated that his goal was to make art more accessible. I dont
believe in that.
OS: This brings us to an interesting point, because many writers,
including Claire Bishop, have criticized how art has been instru-
mentalized to justify public funding and how it increasingly has
to prove that it has a social application and can play a transfor-
mative role. How do you feel about the transformative powers of art?
AT: I make these small manifestos, but I would never stand on a
soapbox and yell my message to everyone through a megaphone.
Again, I believe in a more subtle treatment. I dont want to make
offensive statements, but slowly try to make people realize what
Im speaking about.
OS: Have you had personal experience of the alienating and
dehumanizing labor that you reference? Your work reminds me
of Gogols writings. Have you been in those types of situations?
AT: For me, labor is inspiration. When I finished my studies, I had
to work. I also worked in a factory as a student. It can be dehu-
manizing, but I also see that it sometimes brings people together.
I couldnt do it anymore, though I should be careful what I say
because I might have to one day. Its madboredom, routine. I
taught for a while, which took all my energy. I would prefer to work
in a factory than to teach art students and give all my creativity
to other people and not have any left for myself. Labor is also a
way to control people, so labor inspires me to think in different
ways.
OS: Do you see a difference between the manual labor associated
with blue-collar jobs and artistic labor?
AT: For myself, yes, but I dont want to imply that I feel there is a
difference in quality of life, or quality of work, like a hierarchy.
Everyone has to find their way of living and working on some-
thing that they think theyre good at. I have the same respect for
a good artist or a good electrician and the same disrespect for a
bad artist or a bad electrician. The work itself is similar in scope.
I really like good mechanical work, or the technical drawings of
a good technician, or a good building. There are a lot of similari-
ties between a good builder and a good artist. I dont see major
differences between these categories.
OS: Do you believe in technological progress?
AT: We believe that we are more and more important, but we
are here just like animals to reproduce ourselves. We turn into
animals of burden ourselves. We believe that we are heroes, we
30 Sculpture 32.6
Claustrophobia (physical | mental | social), 2012. Wire, metal plates, wood
plate, and model trees, dimensions variable.
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are changing the world, we are making progress,
but I dont believe it.
OS: Malraux wrote about art replacing religion in
society. How do you feel about that?
AT: Im still working that out. I feel that art combats
the absurdity of life. At least thats what Im doing
through my work.
OS: You have been on a path of success recently, with
higher visibility shows in more prestigious spaces. How
does that impact your working conditions, labor prac-
tices, and work/life balance?
AT: I dont see this as success, and its not changing
my work/life situation today, tomorrow, or in three
weeks. Even if I had to work in a factory, I would con-
tinue to make my artwork like I did in the beginning,
drawing on the train. Of course, as an artist, its great
when you can make for yourself and for a public.
To have more communication with a larger and more
interesting public makes my artistic development richer:
it gives me more content to work with, offers access
to more interesting curators. Also, I have a studio now,
and I dont have to use my kitchen table.
OS: That affects your labor practices, doesnt it?
AT: Yes, thats true. Its a confirmation that my work
is interesting and that I should continue, that its not
relevant only to me anymore.
Olga Stefan is a writer and curator based in Zrich.
Above: WERK STATT WERK #1, 2012. Mixed media, approx. 190 x
90 x 700 cm. Left: funfactory, 2012. Mixed media, detail of instal-
lation.
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BY PAULA LLULL,
TRANSLATED BY TATIANA FLORES
Luca
Vallejo
A Conversation with
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Luca Vallejo began her career as an art
historian. The subject of her research,
Giorgione, foreshadowed the path of her
later artistic trajectory, which follows a
deep interest in symbolism and late Renais-
sance and Baroque color. Despite having
talent for the plastic arts since childhood
(her first sculpture was a skull) and being
told by a professor at the London School
of Arts that she was an artist and not a
historian, Vallejo did not make the change
until several years ago, when she had her
first solo show in Mallorca, Spain.
She began her career with cut-out pho-
tographs and pierced canvases in which the
interplay of light and shadow creates a
dramatic quality that has since become
characteristic of her work. In the search to
create volume from two-dimensional media,
she then took another step and began
sculpting the canvas by making wrinkles
and cuts while maintaining a certain hori-
zontality in the cloth that allowed it to be
viewed as a painting. Her most recent works
have evolved yet again. The linen support
has now become fully sculptural and volu-
metric, with nooks and crannies that give
the impression of randomly draped cloth.
Viewers often cannot help touching, wanting
to experience fully an intrinsic materiality
whose symbolic nature embraces important
emotional overtones.
In each phase of her work, and as an
indissoluble part of her development, Vallejo
has been perfecting a meticulous approach
to pure color and texture inspired by Old
Master technique. For her, the preparation
of the canvas and the mixture of the pig-
ments are as important as the final result,
and she trusts that the viewer is conscious
of this. Though frequent visits to the Prado
Museum (Vallejo resides in Madrid) are a
continuing source of inspiration, her works
are profoundly contemporary in their psy-
chological and conceptual focus.
Paula Llull: Even in your earliest works, your
materials carry a specific weight. You use
two-dimensional supports like photographs
or canvases that you then cut to make into
sculptures. You also use the interplay of
light and shadow to achieve a three-dimen-
sionality that yields, in some cases, very
poetic and suggestive scenographic results.
Opposite: Absence I, 2012. Oil on canvas and wood, 210 x 40 x 30 cm. Above: Nebu (detail), 2012.
Gold on canvas, 176 x 220 cm.
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Does your search involve only an analysis of formal possi-
bilities or is there a subjectivity beyond the process?
Luca Vallejo: I am very attracted to the idea of taking
something two-dimensional and giving it three dimen-
sions. It is a constant struggle against gravity. However,
my work also has a very personal component because
my anxieties and fears appear in all of my pieces.
Absence I, for example, my most recent sculptural piece,
sums up my fear of the void, of absence and nothingness.
PL: The technique, materials, and theatricality of your
recent works recall Baroque art, and you have men-
tioned a feeling of strong identification with the mate-
riality in Zurbarns works.
LV: It is no coincidence that the Baroque inspires me
the void and anxiety over the passage of time were
recurring themes in that period. Baroque art not only
appeals to me aesthetically, I also identify completely
with its symbolism, its fear of the void, its fascination
with the passage of time, with death. I once read
that Baroque vanitas paintings denounced the rela-
tivity of knowledge and of the human race to the pas-
sage of time and death, and that is a constant in my
work. It is subconscious, but it is always there.
One of my previous exhibitions expressed the idea
of the vanitas through the fragility of spider webs. Two
of the works were titled Fragilidad (Fragility) and Hold
Time, which was about enclosing time in a display case.
I cut out canvases, pierced them, and encapsulated
them in a vitrineit was about the fear of time passing.
34 Sculpture 32.6
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Above: Nebu, 2012. Gold on canvas, 176 x 220 cm. Below: Corruption, 2012. Gold on canvas, 80 x 70 cm.
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Another work, Motherhood, transmitted my fears about giving
birthI had problems with my first pregnancy and almost died
and my obsession with shadows. And now, though my work has
evolved, I am again trying to sculpt the void, just in a different way.
This is how you could sum up my work. I use canvases, elements
that are completely two-dimensional, and by folding them, I attempt
to challenge the weight of the cloth itself and sculpt the void. For
that, I am inspired by antique sculptures, by the pleats in clothing.
PL: Do you want the viewer to be aware of the process behind
your works?
LV: Yes, the process of creation forms an integral part of the con-
cept. The materials themselves are very important. I use the same
techniques and materials that artists used hundreds of years ago.
I seek purity of color, just like the Pre-Raphaelites in their search
for origins. There are no synthetic materials in my works. I am
a purist in terms of technique, so it is like a return to roots. I use
pure linen, natural varnishes and pigments. I prepare the grounds
and the same colors, without blends, which allows me to make
unique shades. I even prepare golds in the traditional manner,
using clay bole.
In this respect, I identify with the Pre-Raphaelites. I believe that
they also lived in an era of significant technological change, which
prompts a nostalgic look to the past. Nevertheless, I want to make
clear that, despite this search for origins in my technique, I have
no intention of copying the Old Masters. I am inspired by the past,
but I produce contemporary results. Their methods are my path
for giving volume to the void. I am not artisanal in my approach;
I would define myself as a purist. An important part of the concept
behind my work resides in the purity of the materials. At this
moment, I am working on craquelure. It is another way of con-
fronting modernity and its yearning for perfection, bringing imper-
fections to light.
PL: Why do you use painting techniques to achieve sculptural results?
LV: It wouldnt have much point for me if I used materials that
were already three-dimensional. I challenge myself to give volume
to the void without resorting to solid materials, to confront gravity
and fight against a collapsible materialcanvasto give it rigidity.
Doing so is much more mysterious. I like that my work causes
people to reflect and that things are not as expected. Viewers
always want to touch my work.
PL: Do you have any influences in modern or contemporary art?
LV: There are things that Ive taken away from the work of sever-
al artists. From Lucio Fontana, his concetto spaziale. From Louise
Bourgeois, her strength and how she presents her internal life,
fears, and feelings. And from Anish Kapoor, the use of natural
pigments.
Paula Llull is a curator and writer living in Australia.
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Arneae I, 2010. Oil on canvas and motor, 70 x 30 x 30 cm. 2 views of work, stationary and in motion.
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Sometimes an artists use of materials is in itself political, as
in the case of Nnenna Okore. Born in Australia and raised in
Nsukka, a town in southeastern Nigeria, she explores a range
of artistic materials and influences, creating installations and
sculptures made of clay and found as well as handmade paper.
Her striking forms emphasize the art-making process and
craftsmanship, while her reuse of materials subtly pits extrav-
agant wealth (and waste) against creative adaptation of avail-
able materials by the less fortunate.
After studying painting at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka,
Okore pursued advanced studies in sculpture at the University
of Iowa. Over the past decade, she has had a number of solo
exhibitions in Nigeria, at the October Gallery in London, and
at a variety of university galleries across the United States. Her
works have also appeared in a wide range of group exhibitions,
including the 2006 Dakar Biennale in Senegal, the Joburg Art
Fair in South Africa, and the So Paulo Biennial in Brazil in
2010, as well as a variety of art spaces in France, India, Mexico,
and Taiwan.
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Political
by Nature
Opposite: Echi Di Ime (The Unknown), 2011.
Clay and burlap, 91 x 91 x 5 cm. This page:
Wild seeds, 2007. Clay, rope, and leather, 90
x 28 x 21 in.
BY ROBERT PREECE
A Conversation with
Nnenna
Okore
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Robert Preece: You use a rather rich range of materials in your work. How did this come
about?
Nnenna Okore: My materials, which include paper, wool, sticks, and clay, are familiar,
reusable objects from my immediate surroundings. When I work with a material, I set
out to showcase its range of possibilities and textures and its new identity or meaning.
From a very tender age, I had a strong sensibility toward materials. Growing up in
Nigeria really helped to develop my consciousness because I was exposed to a richly tactile,
colorful, and vibrant atmosphere. For most people living in my vicinity, dilapidated adobe
houses with zinc roofing, firewood piled up against broken structures, or people clad in
ragged clothes were commonplace. But, for me, these scenes were bewildering and
captivating. For some reason, I have always been drawn to what others might consider
crude and unsightly settings. I was also enamored of the hilly and rugged Nsukka terrain,
which possesses the most jarring vegetative landscapes. I am trapped in these memories,
and my use of materials is a means to reflect my past and present experiences.
RP: Would you describe your approach to art-making as intellectual, or is there an emo-
tional aspect as well?
NO: There is certainly an intellectual side to my approach, especially when discussing
my work formally or conceptually. However, I believe that my processes are much more
rooted in emotions and habits derived from everyday experiences. I am not fixated on a
desired visual outcome; I engage deeply, almost spiritually, with my materials and
processeslistening to them, hearing their voices, and following their leads.
RP: What do you think about when you are working?
NO: I think along these linesnatural synthesis, movement, schism, familiar, abstract,
ephemeral, ethereal, bodily, earthy, fluid, enigmatic, and figural. A lot goes through my
mind. But what I dont think about is how the work should look in the end. It is very
important that I let go of total control and let the piece form freely.
RP: How did you develop your craftsmanship?
NO: Even with all my formal training, it goes without saying that my skills and broad
understanding of crafts would not be as pronounced without the experience of growing
up in my childhood environment. The exposure to people performing everyday tasks
taught me a lot about basic skills, inventiveness, and problem-solving.
RP: Do you always make your own work? Isnt there pressure to outsource certain tasks
as the demand for exhibiting your artwork grows?
NO: For the most part, I have worked single-handedly, with the exception of Twisted
Ambience (2009), which was completed with the help of an intern, and Lifeforce (2011),
which was a collaboration with undergraduate students during my residency at Skidmore
College. Of course, I have thought about
outsourcing, but I have struggled with
doing it, given that my processes rely so
heavily on instinct and intuition. Still, it is
imminent, and I look forward to seeing
how my works evolve when other minds
and hands are involved.
RP: After living in the U.S. for 10 years
now, how do you see your work changing?
Do any of your pieces reveal a bi-national
identity through the selection of materials
or forms?
NO: Thats a very good question. Before I
moved to the U.S., my artistic approach
and concepts were grounded in a cultural,
political, and socioeconomic focus. I paid
attention to issues and questions about
cultural norms and idiosyncrasies associ-
ated with consumption and inventive recy-
cling in Nigeria. Living in the West has
allowed me to sever myself culturally, and
perhaps emotionally, from my earlier per-
ceptions and convictions. Increasingly, I
have expanded my interest to include ideas
about materiality and ephemerality. I am
interested in understanding the role
of materials and forms in shaping and
defining our ecological landscape.
I cant easily claim to have developed a
bi-national identity since relocating to
America, though I should point out that
the experience of living in two completely
distinct worlds has broadened my visual
38 Sculpture 32.6
Egwu Ukwu (Graceful hip dance), 2009. Clay
and burlap, 30 x 65 x 7 in.
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sensitivity and aesthetic interests, steering me toward creating art with a more universal appeal.
RP: To what extent do you see your work, with its re-use of materials, as political? Are you stylisti-
cally, abstractly, referring to gaps between the consumption of the rich and the reuse of cast-offs
by the poor in Nigeria?
NO: I dont ever set out with the intention of making political statements. Nonetheless, I am aware
that there are political undertones. Sometimes I use Igbo titles to introduce some metaphors into
my work and reflect on issues concerning poverty, social class, status, and wealth.
RP: Do you consider your subtle approach to be more effective than an in-your-face strategy? Is the
visual experience more of a discovery than an immediately obvious identification? I first looked at
your work with no accompanying text, but I did know that you had a piece in a sociopolitical African
art show at the Middlebury College Museum of Art in Vermont. This created an interesting tension.
NO: Frankly, I am all for the discovery experience rather than putting it out there in your face. I am
not suggesting that my approach is superior to those whose works spell political, but my goal,
first and foremost, is to engage the viewer visually and provoke questions. My titles illustrate this;
they challenge people to dig deeper in order to understand the essence of my work. Even then, I am
not unsatisfied if they dont. What matters most to me is the experience gained from my workhow
viewers perceive it and what language it speaks to them. Irrespective of my intentions, the works will
always engage viewers on many different levelsformally, conceptually, experientially, or abstractly.
RP: Could you describe the process behind Lifeforce?
NO: Lifeforce began with unrolling several hundred yards of burlap, followed by carefully teasing,
fraying, and shredding the material. This took several days. What I found most interesting about
the experience was how reminiscent it was of those times during my teenage years when I spent
long hours with other family members shredding tubers of boiled cassava on metal graters to pro-
duce enough food to last for months.
Above and detail: Putting Together Things That Fell Apart, 2009. Newspapers, sticks, clay, and rope, 72 x
84 x 48 in.
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The process of deconstructing the burlap in the company of others also felt very
comforting and communal. After the fraying, the burlap was placed in a large bath of
burgundy red dye, as were newspapers and magazines that had already been shredded
and blended with the left-over burlap fibers. While the dye baths were left to sit for a
few days, I twisted strips of newspapers and magazine pages together to create hun-
dreds of long paper ropes, which were also dyed. The drying process was the final and
most challenging part. Everything took days to dry because of poor weather. After almost
a week, the dried pieces were moved into the gallery and installed.
RP: Do you intentionally use recognizable materials and forms, things that have specific
associations and are familiar to Nigerians or people extending across Nigerian political
borders?
NO: My materials, while recognizable to most Nigerians, are not necessarily representa-
tive of forms or values applying to any particular indigenous group. By virtue of its multiple
functions, paper serves people in different ways and is appreciated for different reasons.
For instance, among the educated elites, it is a symbol of knowledge, written expression,
and pride. For the poor and less educated, the contrary is truepaper is valued mostly
for its recyclable or utilitarian importance, especially during hard times.
RP: Does America sometimes freak you out with its consumerism and throwaway men-
tality?
NO: Without question. I was shocked when I first arrived. Coming from a modest African
background, I had never experienced so much abundance and indiscriminate wasteful-
ness all at the same time. This might explain why my earlier works were so heavily
focused on issues of wasteful consumption and recycling.
RP: Do you see your work as relating to nature and, if so, how?
NO: To a large extent, I do see my work as having some connection to nature or embodying
the essence of nature. In my opinion, nature is a manifestation of uncontrollable phe-
nomena. It supports a cycle of life that is dynamic and inexplicable. When I think of
nature, I think of growth, aging, death, decay, and regeneration. These characteristics
are evident in my processes and forms.
RP: How do you go about making your handmade paper? How did you get involved
in it?
NO: My paper-making process is peculiar
in that it doesnt employ the traditional
materials used by most artists. I have
adopted a combinative approach in which
different materials, including found paper,
jute fiber, dye, coffee, and lint, are pulped
and reconstituted to produce rich, bodily
surfaces. I cultivated a strong interest in
the use of handmade paper in graduate
school. I found its versatility and visual
quality intriguing. Its fascinating how dif-
ferent kinds of fibers of uncommon quali-
ties can be churned together and flat-
tened out to produce stunning biomor-
phic propertiesthat was simply mind-
blowing.
RP: Where do you collect your found
paper?
NO: Everywherein recycling centers, resi-
dential areas, recycling bins, libraries,
from neighborsjust name the place, and
I will be there.
RP: How did your training at the academy
in Nigeria differ from art school in the
U.S.?
NO: During my year at Nsukka, the art
school was known for its loyalty to Uli
art traditions, combined with modern art
practices. Most instructors inculcated stu-
dents with the same thematic and stylis-
tic principles that they had learned decades
before, thereby producing a whole gener-
ation of young artists with an unoriginal
aesthetic and visual language. I think that
theres a world of difference between the
pedagogical approaches of Nigerian schools
and American onesmany art majors
studying in the U.S. are empowered to
find and use their own artistic voices based
on personal interests, convictions, and
experiences.
RP: I read that El Anatsui was an impor-
tant influence on your artistic development.
Could you explain how?
NO: El, who was my professor, had an
enormous ability to inspire. During my
student years when I struggled with my
creative path and traditional artistic prac-
tice, he showed me how to rely on my
instinct and derive inspiration from my
physical and social environment. I learned
40 Sculpture 32.6
Omalicha (Intense beauty), 2009. Clay and
burlap, 40 x 60 x 8 in.
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from him to use my mind, imagination,
and experiences as the medium for cre-
ativity. I have taken these life lessons and
run with them ever since.
RP: What would you describe as your other
artistic influences?
NO: I have many influences, but I am
enamored of Arte Povera. The juxtaposi-
tion of different mundane and unusual
objects, the synthesis of the natural and
scientific, and the experiential atmosphere
strongly appeal to my visual aesthetic and
philosophy. I admire the impetus of the
artists from this movement; they pushed
materiality and the concept of imperma-
nence to the limit.
RP: Has being an artist been an easy choice
for you? Do you think it is more difficult
for women in Nigeria, as opposed to men,
to make this career choice?
NO: My choice was passion-driven, and
therefore fairly stress-free. It is generally
difficult to sustain an artistic career in
Nigeria, and more so for women. One of the main challenges for female artists in par-
ticular is a lack of moral or financial support. Unlike many aspiring female artists, I
received and continue to receive tremendous support from family and friends. Believe
me, it has made all the difference. I will be spending a year back in Nigeria, as a
Fulbright scholar, doing some teaching as well as getting rejuvenated, reconnected,
and inspired.
Robert Preece is a Contributing Editor of Sculpture and publisher of artdesigncafe.com.
Lifeforce, 2011. Burlap, paper, dye, latex paint,
and acrylic, 504 x 408 x 120 in. 2 views of
installation at Schick Art Gallery, Skidmore
College, NY.
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A Conversation with
Eileen MacDonagh
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Cathedral, 2012. Styrofoam and papier-
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BY JOHN K. GRANDE
Born in County Sligo, Eileen MacDonagh studied art at the Institute of
Technology, Sligo and Limerick School of Art. In 1982, she attended an
International Sculpture Conference in San Francisco, where she was
first introduced to the idea of sculpture symposia. Since then, she has
participated in symposia all over the world, including Japan, India,
Austria, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Luxembourg. She joined the
Sculptors Society of Ireland (now Visual Artists Ireland) in 1980 and pro-
moted the idea of the symposium, organizing events around the coun-
try. She has won many awards over the course of her career, including a
travel award to the Scottish Sculpture Workshop and another to Japan,
where she lived and worked for a year. Since her first commission for
Dublin Castle in 1989, MacDonagh has completed numerous commis-
sions around Ireland, the most notable being a 50-ton, 10-meter-high
steel sculpture at Tallaght Cross. Her recent solo exhibitions have included
shows of the stone works for which she is best known at Le Centre
Culturel Irlandais in Paris (2008) and VISUAL in Carlow (2012).
John K. Grande: Stone is intrinsic to Irish
culture. Its everywhere, as ruins, walls,
buildings, and natural rock, and its influ-
ence on the cultural imagination is perva-
sive. And, of course, its the structural ele-
ment of Brownshill Dolmen, a megalithic
tomb near VISUAL.
Eileen MacDonagh: Stone is indeed a big
part of our heritagewe Irish identify with
stoneand I feel that I am part of this,
passing it on. When you work stone, you
begin to realize that it is one of natures
treasures and you want to investigate how
it is formed. What is its makeup? I compare
it to forming a relationship with someone
in whom youre interested: you want to find
out more about them, where they come
from, what makes them tick. Its the same
with stone. You find yourself accumulating
books on geology and rocks. Working with
a material is a self-study. It becomes human.
JG: Some people overwork stone, others
underwork it. You achieve a balance between
the inherent qualities of a particular stone
and what you want to introduce into it.
Sean Scullys abstract paintings carry
echoes of Irelands stone walls, and your
sculptures possess the same memory of
place. It makes them accessible.
EM: I believe that all art communicates on
a variety of levels. When I am working on
a piece of stone, I take it to a point where
it has an intelligence of its own and is ready
to be put out there to communicate on its
own terms.
JG: Lithosphere, your show at VISUAL,
featured an unusual horizontal stone work.
The title, Windows (19952011), perhaps
refers to the repeated openings that you
made. How did you arrive at the form?
EM: I started Windows in Sweden. I had
received a stipend to work in Bohusln
and went there expecting to get off-cuts
from the stone factories. After I remarked
on the incredible blocks of granite that I
saw in the quarry, I was offered a stone
measuring 3.5 meters long, 1.10 meters
high, and 60 centimeters wide. I was
attracted to the beautiful, clean surface
that it had all around, left intact because
of the ease with which it had been quarried.
44 Sculpture 32.6
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Windows, 19952011. Gray granite, 352 x 110 x
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Granite is laid down in beds as it forms. In Ireland, stone is laid at an angle. It
is impossible to quarry a regular block without covering the surface in drill
marks. In Sweden, on the other hand, the beds are laid horizontally so that
large blocks can be extracted with a minimum of drilling and without destroying
the surface of the stone. This stone was so big and so perfect that it required a
big statement from me.
JG: The repeating openings humanize the stone. The effect is like the tempering
of a wild landscape through ruins that reveal traces of human existence.
EM: My intervention is so concentrated and precise that there is no confusing
it with the found nature of the stone. The repetition sets up a rhythm and
creates a pattern, which I like. Others consider pattern fussy and kitsch, but
I love it. I remember seeing a really beautiful stone while I was traveling in
India. It was about five meters high and rough, except for a series of small
flowers carved along the entire length of one edge.
JG: And Coredrill Testbed?
EM: This stone was used to test core drills for a company that produced industrial
diamond tips. The bits are tipped with diamond, and they have to be tested
on the toughest stone available. Afterwards the stones are discarded. I got
this one and worked on the patterned surface with the holes and left the rest
of it in its natural, untouched state.
JG: Freckled Stone is made from Finnish stone; its repeating, button-like pat-
terns arise from the formation of the stone.
EM: Baltic Brown, as its called, is used all over the world for tabletops and
counters because of its decorative makeup. It has a remarkable structure in
which crystals of feldspar are formed in varying sizes of perfect circles. I had
this stone for about 10 years, and I thought a lot about how I would work it.
One day, while I was working on another sculpture, it came to me that I should
simply focus on the most evident aspectthe perfect rings. I picked them out,
drew around them with chalk, and dropped the background two or three
millimeters to highlight them. If you ponder a stone
long enough, it will reveal what you should do with it.
JG: Stone Circle (19962011) consists of a circle of stone
pieces, each one polished on top. Were you rephrasing
ancient meeting places with this circle of stones?
EM: It could be a meeting place, but as the title indi-
cates, I am referring back to our ancient heritage of
stone circles and standing stones. This is a modern-
day stone circle. The stones stand in space and define
an area. I worked only one surface, the top of each
piece. Those polished surfaces reflect the sky and the
surrounding light, and the contours resemble land-
scapes, hills, and valleys. What I love about them is
the rough way that they are dressed, with large pieces
scalloped off to neaten them.
JG: Of the smaller works, Buttress seems to leap from
stone to wood to stone. The curved lengths of wood join
each wall stone to its floor stone in a very playful way.
EM: Buttress was from Truss (1992), my first solo
show, which was at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin,
a gallery that encouraged non-commercial experimen-
tal work. I made a series of sculptures using wood and
stone. In this case, wood supports stonean unlikely
arrangement because stone is a much heavier material.
The wood was steamed and bent, and in its completed
form, it quite easily ties the two other elements together.
JG: From Another Constellation is a remarkable instal-
lation. Is the siting of each piece in relation to the
others important?
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Left: Installation view of Lithosphere, 2012, with (left to right) Ogham Stones, Freckled Stone, and Coredrill Testbed. Right: Stone Circle, 19962011. Black
Indian granite, 500 cm. diameter.
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EM: Before placing the finished pieces, I
made small models of them and of the room
in order to figure out where they would go
in the space. The stars are derived from
the icosahedron, a volume with 20 triangles
and 12 vertices. If just one of these triangles
is out, the whole piece becomes skewed
and you cannot rectify it. There is a lot of
measuring involved.
JG: Do you see them as describing a kind
of cosmology?
EM: I call them stars, but they were not
informed by an interest in cosmology. It
was pure form more than anything. I came
across the icosahedron in a book called
Sacred Geometry. Small-scale examples of
the shape have been found in Neolithic
chambers in Scotland. It blows my mind to
think that Stone Age man had an under-
standing of this complex geometric form.
JG: You talked a bit about how granite is
formed. Does the process of its formation
appeal to you?
EM: Granite is an igneous stone born out
of volcanic eruptions. As I am carving, the
punch makes a small red spark as it strikes
the stone. I first noticed this while carving
late at night, when I could see the sparks. I used to think that what I felt when a tiny piece
of stone flew into my glove was a scratch. In fact, it was a little burn. It was a real moment
for me when I realized that to impose your will on this tough stone, you impose fire on
it again.
JG: So, you find the form in the stone and work it, creating a balance between your vision
and natures elements, such as in the two Ogham works and Long Stone?
EM: This is exactly the case. Ogham is an ancient form of Celtic script that used the edges
of regular stone to write a text by means of carved slashes, lines, and markers. My stones
already had a series of drill marks on the edges, left by the splitting of the stone in the
quarry. When people see them, they recall the ancient Ogham stones.
JG: Its almost as though you were releasing the spirit.
EM: Its all there in the stone. Michelangelo said it was releasing the form in the stone,
but he was releasing the form that he had in his mind. I cant explain what it is. Its what
you see in the stone, what finesse you can bring to it, finding its essence and bringing
it out. It is how you leave it in the end.
JG: The community became involved in the making of Cathedral. How did that come about?
EM: More than 300 square meters of papier-mch had to be applied to the polystyrene
forms. I had a team of mostly retired women who came to help me every day for about
four weeks.
JG: The inverted tree forms make for a cathedral-like atmosphere. Forests were the origi-
nal cathedrals, and the scale also approximates sacred space.
EM: I have always wanted to make work on a really large scale, but I never had the oppor-
tunity until VISUAL came along.
JG: The gradation of pale blue color on the surfaces is very fine. And there is an illusion-
istic effect, a rapport with the vertical, which is a recurring theme in Irish art, from the
standing stones to Celtic crosses. Though you generally work with stone, you chose Styro-
foam for this installation.
46 Sculpture 32.6
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Left: Buttress, 1992. Limestone and ash wood, 200 x 107 x 82 cm. Right: Blue Star, 2008. Irish limestone, 150 cm. diameter.
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EM: I tossed it around a lot and wondered
what material I would use. Fiberglass was
an option, but its toxic and messy. It would
be possible to make them in stone, but it
would require an enormous budgetthough
stone trees would be incredible. So, poly-
styrene became the material of choice. Its
cheap, easy to move around, and can be
recycled. I like the idea of elevating throw-
away materials.
JG: One of your largest commissions, at
Tallaght Cross in Dublin, is made of steel
and fairly minimal in appearance. How did
that come about?
EM: It was a case of virtue out of necessity.
When I heard that the new development
was being called Tallaght Cross, I focused
on the motif of a cross. The sculpture Tal-
laght Cross functions as an enormous duct
ventilating three underground parking levels.
At the last minute, the developer decided
to create a civic space. One entire block of
the street was removed, exposing five-by-
three-meter vents that had to be covered.
This is how my first foray into steel came
about.
JG: Your first Land Art piece was for the
symposium that launched Sculpture in
the Parklands at Lough Boora in 2002.
EM: From the outset, the idea was to use
readily available materials from the park
or the nearby Bord na Mna workshops. I
noticed piles of rocks stacked up in various
places, where they had been unearthed in
the course of digging out the lakes and
canal. I asked if I could use them and devel-
oped the idea of a pyramid.
JG: Memories of place, interminglings of
the natural and the cultural, weave
together to give your sculpture a fine bal-
ance.
EM: There is a story behind all of my stones.
They are like a family. I have been gathering
them for so long. They are all brothers and
sisters. Lithosphere at VISUAL marked
the first time that they were all together.
It was their big day out. When I first saw
the amazing gallery space there, I said to
myself, One day, I will fill that place.
John K. Grande is a writer based in Mon-
treal. He recently curated Earth Art
at the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens in
Vancouver, Canada.
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Above: Tallaght Cross, 2008. Stainless steel, 1050 x 950 x 650 cm. Below: Boora Pyramid, 2002.
Unmortared stone, 800 cm. high.
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Korean sculptor Lim Dong-Lak, who divides his time between Busan and Paris, creates
large-scale stainless steel forms that occupy time as well as space and affect the light in
their environs. Last summer, nine of his sculptures (dating from 1996 to 2009) appeared
on the Lido outside Venice. Most of the works were shown on the esplanade that follows
the roadway inland from the beach, though PointHuman+Space (2000), originally
commissioned for the third Gwangju Biennial as a gateway sculpture, was visible from
the docks where the various gondolas and water taxis come and go from Venice.
Seeing an ensemble of Lims sculptures offers a different experience than a single
example. While there is a strong relationship to Minimalism, there is also uniqueness in
Lims use of variations and permutations based on modular forms. In contrast to Donald
Judd, who worked with cubic forms, Lim prefers the disk or ellipse. In this way, he is able
to establish a direct relationship to planar light. Other works, including PointFly (1999),
Gate of Space (2000), and PointFly II (2005), feature hyperbolic shapes and give greater
attention to the optical three-dimensionality of the forms. Rather than being organized
vertically in freestanding modular stacks like PointHuman+Space, these low-lying sculp-
tures are positioned on bases.
On the Lidos grassy esplanade, PointMass (1996) appeared more anthropomorphic
than Lims other works. Two conjoined stainless steel spheres, with a smaller sphere dangling
below them, rest on diagonal inclines produced by two buttressing trapezoids sitting on
a multi-level base. Though it is difficult to avoid the connotation of an Atlas figure, the sculp-
tures anthropomorphic aspect can suddenly transform back into architectonic abstraction.
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Above: 2 views of PointTwo, 2005. Stainless steel, 110 x 208 x 151 cm. Left: PointHuman+Space,
2000. Stainless steel, 180 x 180 x 500 cm.
Geometry of Light
BY ROBERT C. MORGAN
L D-L
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The interlocking forms suggest a representation of power that depends on gravity,
captured in the point of convergence as the spheres are pressed together by the
trapezoids that wedge everything into place. PointMass is the kind of sculp-
ture that requires more than a single look. It contains a mystery less archaic
than refined, an evocation of some ancient excavation or unknown system of
thought that reveals a philosophical meditation on time, space, and light.
Another work from this series, PointMass IV (2009), lacks any obvious like-
ness to its predecessor, though there is perhaps some cadence of structural simi-
larity (formal structure not being the same as visual appearance). PointMass
IV eliminates the complex, stage-like base, and the distended red sphere sits
directly on the ground. The geometry of this piece is entirely elusive and difficult
to decipher. Just as Lim used planar disks and ellipses in his totemic sculptures,
which optically weave back and forth as the disks
become ellipses and the ellipses become disks depend-
ing on the viewers position, so PointMass IV seems
to conflate both the sphere and the oblong ovum into
a single holistic form. Its simple appearance is again
deceiving. There is more contained within this ovum/
sphere than can be grasped with a glance. The symme-
try of PointMass no longer applies, and the force of
gravity is no longer denoted in an obvious way; instead,
PointMass IV reveals a new kind of subtlety in Lims
work, whereby the representation of gravitys power is
less the issue than optical flotation, even as the sculp-
ture rests on the ground. Its presence is truly alien.
Lims concern with light is perhaps why he chooses
to work with stainless steel. In PointTwo (2005), the
faces of the two disks have been ground down to create
a consistent non-reflective surface. There is also a back
and front dichotomy: the work is only symmetrical to
a degree, with a radical break, a kind of fissure as one
ambulates around the forms. This work suggests that
Lims geometry of light results not only from reflection,
but also from variations in the rounded and elliptical
surfaces and their effect on the play of light and shad-
ow. These effects are important to the experience of
his works. Exquisitely sited in the open marine land-
scape of the Lido, they offered a unique experience,
appearing to absorb the remarkable light around them.
Robert C. Morgan is an artist and writer in New York.
Above: PointFly II, 2005. Stainless steel, 205 x 135 x 205 cm. Right: PointMass IV, 2009.
Stainless steel, 200 x 170 x 200 cm. Below: PointMass, 1996. Stainless steel, 475 x 150
x 220 cm.
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EDGE IS IMPORTANT
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ANTHONY CARO
A Conversation with
Clouds, 2012. Steel,
90 x 230.5 x 71 in. J
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BY JON ISHERWOOD
Jon Isherwood: You had two shows open recently, one at the
Museo Correr in Venice (through October 27) and the other at
the Gagosian Gallery in London (through July 27). What can you
tell me about the Venice show?
Anthony Caro: The show runs concurrently with the Venice Biennale.
The museum was a challenge, like Trajans Market in Rome, where I
installed work in 1992. The Correr is a historic locationyou look
out over the Piazza San Marco in the middle of the city. The exhi-
bition space on the second floor is a succession of small rooms,
each one fronting the square; its a jewel.
JI: Did the space affect the choices in the show?
AC: Oh yes. We made a model of the gallery, 1/20th scale, and tried
again and again with different sculptures to see what could work.
In the end, we came up with a survey shownot a retrospective,
but a mixture of works from different dates right up to today.
JI: Is the earliest piece Red Splash (1966)?
AC: The earliest are drawings from 1954, which were done even
before Id started to make abstract work.
JI: The drawings look as though they were influenced by Cubism.
AC: They were. At that time, I was very taken by Picasso. Now, seeing
them again after many years, they have a feel about them of the
52 Sculpture 32.6
Above: Hopscotch, 1962. Aluminum, 217 x 84 x 98.5 in. Below: Red
Splash, 1966. Painted steel, 45.5 x 69 x 41 in.
Earlier this year, I sat down with my longtime friend
Sir Anthony Caro in his London studio. The idea was
simple: Would it be interesting to generate a conver-
sation between two sculptors whose work is very dif-
ferent, but who share many common influences? In
some ways, our discussion was simply an extension
of an ongoing dialogue that has lasted for more than
three decades, ranging across many topics, from stu-
dio practice and artistic process to our shared con-
nection with Bennington College in Vermont.
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abstract works that followed. We included sculptures from the
60s and 70s like Hopscotch (1962) and Garland (1970). Neither
one has been seen much, so it was interesting to include them.
JI: Those early works like Hopscotch and Red Splash seem to have
a sense of illusion, a floating plane and implied perspective. Did
they come out of painting, looking at painting or thinking about
painting in some way?
AC: Hopscotch looks back to Jackson Pollock. I was very influenced
by painting in those days. And that went on for years. When I was
teaching at Bennington (196365), I was making sculpture close
to where Ken Noland lived and worked. Jules Olitski lived three
or four miles away, and he also taught at Bennington. I remem-
ber seeing a painting of his that he gave to Ken. It was a white
canvas, with a fewno more than three or fourtiny spots in
one corner: that was all. He was trying to empty painting out,
asking, Is this possible, is this art? The next thing is, you ask
yourself, Whats the emptiest sculpture I could make? So, I made
Sight (1965). It is a sculpture, just. We relate to each others thinking,
especially when we work in close proximity to one another. And
this sculpture belongs to its time. I cant imagine even wanting
to make such an empty work now, in 2013.
JI: I was thinking about your early works in comparison to the new
pieces that youre showing at Gagosian. I feel that I am being
asked to view or navigate these new sculptures differently.
AC: Youre asking how Im thinking in my work. Thats important,
but once it is established in my mind, I shut off and allow myself
to be led by the materials to hand. Its a dialogue. Ive got to let
the material have its say. I pay attention.
JI: When you are making a sculpture, are there certain points in
the process when you have stand-ins for things? When you might
say, Well, this has to be here to get started, and I know that it
might not be there in the end, but it stands in for something in
the piece?
AC: A stand-in is a way of beginning.
JI: Yes, and does it lead to something else? When you plan some-
thing out or create these organizational prompts, where do they
come from? Do they come from intuition, something youve
experienced, or from someplace else?
AC: They can come from almost anything. When I work with Hans
Spinner in the south of France, we go on expeditions to scrap
yards. When I came across a perfume distillery vat, I felt that I
had to have it. I had no idea how I would use it, but now, a year
later, it has become an element in a sculpture. It has come into
my world.
JI: It seems that you avoid referencing the function of individual
elements in the work.
AC: Oh yes, often because I dont know what the thing is or what
its real purpose was. I didnt know what the perfume vat was; Id
never seen one before. An architect friend, responding to my first
abstract sculptures from the 60s, said to me, Thats not the way
you use an H-beam. I didnt want to know the proper way to use
one. That gave me the freedom to see it as just a shape.
JI: So, not knowing gave you permission to transform it?
AC: I wasnt deliberately divorcing it from its use. And I think
that is true of the collage sculptures that Picasso madehe
didnt pay attention to what the objects in the collage were really
intended for.
JI: Im wondering about the piece in the Gagosian show that has
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Garland, 1970. Painted steel, 55 x 169 x 148 in.
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the big compressor tanks in it. Its interesting that I want to know what they are, but I also know
they are not what they are.
AC: Clouds (2012) was a dare for me. It is clear what the forms are, but it is their volume that is really
important. To put these solid lumps inside a planar, linear sculpture, a spatial sculpture, that was
the gamble.
JI: There seems to be both movement and stationary moments in the 12 Gagosian sculptures.
54 Sculpture 32.6
Above: Venetian, 201112. Steel
and Perspex, 70.06 x 170.06 x 70.5
in. Below: Tempest, 2012. Steel,
63 x 103.125 x 89 in.
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AC: Intervals. Mostly they are going in one direction.
But the last one, Tempest (2012), begins to go in one
direction, then turns back on itself. Its a kind of struggle
within the piece.
JI: So, if somebody said, I dont know how to look at
these, what instructions would you offer for navigation?
AC: I suppose I would say, Walk it.
JI: One of the pieces for Venice, Venetian (201112),
uses Plexiglas, a new material for you.
AC: I like working in steel, its direct. I use steel on its
own, but Im certainly not wedded to it, and Ive often
worked in other materialswood, clay, stone, silver,
even paper. In this case, I wanted something transparent,
something there yet not there. The transparency invites
you to look closer. From a distance, you are aware of
edge rather than surface. As you walk closer, you see
the surface of the glass and you also see through it.
The edge is important. It is the clue to the reality of
the transparent material. Whether the edge is polished
or not becomes a big issue. Color is an issue, too. When
you start making it, you cant try out with the really
transparent stuff; its too fragile. So, you work with
substitutes like plywood or MDF. But since that stuff
is not transparent, you have to take it on trust. Its like
an architect working on a drawing on paper, which
finally gets transferred into three dimensions and
actual materials.
JI: The Plexiglas in Venetian is blood red. Its deep and
moody. Were you trying to evoke strong emotions with
this color choice?
AC: In this case, the color does carry an emotional
charge. But it simply seemed the right color for that
sculpture. The sample pieces you choose from are no
bigger than 2.5 inches, so you hope and you guess, and
if its wrong, you try again. Again, its working like an
architect: from his drawing, he thinks he knows just
what its going to look like, but its never exactly what
he expected. Mostly I believe that its best to be hands-
on, but not in quite the same way as the old sculptor
working in clay.
JI: I remember once being with Ken Noland at Ben-
nington, and he said, Lets go look at something
Ive been fascinated by. He took me down to a nearby
river and said, Now look in the water, just look in
the water. When I said, It doesnt look like there
are many fish, he responded, No, no, just look into
the water. And I realized what he was saying: Dont
look for objects. Dont look for a thing, just look.
Some of your works, including the Trojan War series
(199599) and Chapel of Light (2008), have very
strong figurative references. It seems, however, that
figuration has left your recent work, has moved
away, but the emotional context is still there. Is that
possible?
AC: Its all emotional, either apparent on the surface or deep down. I dont
feel that Im finished with narrative, though its not my main thing.
JI: Does figuration allow for a greater reflection on humanity because we
recognize the object represented?
AC: The content of the work of art is the artist and his character and how he
works with his materials. We want the work to be right, and yet we dont
want to get totally into the form of the thing. The subject matter is the handle,
what we can grasp. Im re-reading a life of Tolstoy right now.
Throughout his life, Tolstoy was see-sawing: at one moment, Art for arts
sake, and the next, Reality! Human life! We are all in this quandary: one
moment were inside our world of shapes and objects, and the next were
wondering whether thats enough. Yet maybe thats where the truth is hid-
den. I dont make art about the current political or economic problems con-
fronting us. I think art is about human nature. When I am confronted with
Czannes apples, they are just as realperhaps even more realthan the
apples I am about to eat now.
Jon Isherwood is a sculptor and professor at Bennington College in Vermont.
Death of Hector, from the Trojan War series, 1994. Stoneware, pinewood, and steel, 66 x
48 x 53 in.
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_______________ ____________ _____________ ________________
_____________
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__________ ________
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_________________
_______________________
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__________
________
Registration
Open Now!
Keynote Speaker Janet Echelman
Events will include:
Panel discussions and keynote speakers at Florida International University
Iron Pour with the Iron Maidens
Gallery Hops, private tours, and special events in downtown
Miami and South Beach right before Art Basel Miami
Visit http://www.sculpture.org/miami2013
For more information and to register for the symposium:
Contact events@sculpture.org Or USA 609.689.1051 x. 302
Questions:
Sponsored in part by:
Florida International University, Patricia and Phillip
Frost Art Museum, New Jersey State Council on
the Arts/Department of State, A Partner Agency of
the National Endowment for the Arts
Scan this code
on your smartphone
to learn more about the
2013 Miami Symposium!
photo credit: Joe Shlabotnikon flikr.com
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__________________
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ISConnects: Questions, Collaborations, Conversations
ISConnects is an exciting collaborative effort between the International Sculpture
Center and organizations around the globe to create events that explore questions
and unique perspectives on sculpture in the contemporary art world.
For event and registration information please visit www.sculpture.org/ISConnects/,
contact the ISC Events Department at 609-689-1051, ext 302 or email
events@sculpture.org.
The International Sculpture Center presents
JUNE 18
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OCT 17
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Princeton, NJ
Details coming soon
Hamilton, NJ
Details coming soon
Des Moines, IA
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________________
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Edited by Twylene Moyer and Glenn Harper
For more than 40 years, sculptors have been at the forefront of
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___________
68 Sculpture 32.6
8oMt
William Kentridge
MAXXI
Much has been written about Wil-
liam Kentridges epic installation,
|e |e|oc| c| |me, which was pro-
duced for Documenta XIII. After
Kassel, the piece was reconfigured
and moved to MAXXI, Romes still
relatively new Museum of the Art
of the 21st Century. Composed of
a myriad of elementssome famil-
iar from Kentridges previous work,
others designed specifically for
|e|oc|the work is a masterpiece
in both concept and execution.
Light, shadow, video projections,
movement, sound, music, narration,
sculpture, and audience participation
blend together seamlessly. Given
|e |e|oc|s overwhelmingly experi-
ential character, it is astonishing
that published criticism has focused
so narrowly on the content of the
video. The intellectual and emotional
punch of Kentridges creation is
housed in three-dimensionality and
cannot be delivered through filmic
narrative alone.
This fact is literally apparent. View-
ers enter a darkened room, whose
walls act as projection screens.
What MAXXIs press release calls a
pulsing Leonardesque machine
a large, segmented, kinetic sculp-
tureoccupies the center. Speakers
resembling megaphones are scat-
tered throughout the space, along
with rudimentary wooden chairs.
When I saw the piece shortly after
it opened, tape markers on the floor
indicated chair placement, but visi-
tors had already moved them around
to their liking. The one I chose to
occupy was positioned directly below
one of the speakers, which gave
the distinct impression that I was
sporting a dunce cap.
|e |e|oc|s three-dimensional
nature is figuratively apparent as
well. Without sculptures and sculp-
tural props, the video imagery
would be devoid of metaphor.
Whether considering the relentlessly
ticking metronomes in the opening
frames or a sequence in which
Kentridge helps a woman to walk
over what appear to be the same
reviews
William Kentridge, The Refusal of
Time, 2012. 5-channel projections
with megaphones and a breathing
machine (elephant), installation
view.
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wooden chairs occupying the physi-
cal space of the installation, the
third dimension holds the key to the
fourth. As people move around the
room, it becomes obvious that real-
life silhouettes are merging with
projections and that the objects in
the room are proscribing everyones
movements.
A project on this scale required
a team of theorists, physicists, com-
posers, visual artists, and technicians
to assist Kentridge in its production
(a complete list can be found on
MAXXIs Web site). Particularly note-
worthy is the contribution that
artist/collaborators Sabine Theunis-
sen and Jonas Lundquist made
to the sculptural design. The central
kinetic sculpture, constructed by
Lundquist, dominates the space with
its mass and repetitive wooshing
sound. Made of polished wood, the
beautifully crafted structure res-
onates with the 19th-century pneu-
matic clocks and scientific instru-
ments projected on the walls. From
one view, it seems to be functioning
like some sort of early modern hos-
pital respirator; from another, it
looks like an automatic loom weav-
ing invisible skeins; and from yet
another, it resembles a view camera
undergoing constant perspectival
adjustment. Kentridge refers to
this breathing machine as an ele-
phant. It pulses as the heart and
lungs of his installation, its refusal
to stop acting a counterpoint to
the apparent linearity of time. As the
elephant in the room, it insists
that we become aware of everything
around it.
It is likely that |e |e|oc| c| |me
will travel to yet another venue.
Remember to view it not merely as
a movie to be watched but as a
sculptural installation with which
to engage.
/|||n|c |c|,mcu|:
los AWsttts
Cheryl Ekstrom and JD Hansen
Leslie Sacks Fine Art
California sculptors Cheryl Ekstrom
and JD Hansen are both drawn
to the difficult subject of war and its
aftermath. Their new series, Post
War Dance, seeks to find a symbol-
ism capable of depicting the most
draining of human and animal expe-
riences in a heroic sculptural for-
mat. Large-scale, abstracted human
figures frequently accompanied
by mythological creatures seem to
emerge as if from a long, dark period
of deprivation. Recognizing the
sobriety of the subject, the artists
choose to celebrate life, despite
reminders of death.
Reminiscent of archaizing sculp-
tures from many different cultures
and eras, Ekstrom and Hansens
massive compositions are rendered
with 21st-century vision and tech-
nology, and much sweat and tears.
Their arduous process, often under-
taken on ladders or bent knees,
began with welding an armature for
each sculpture, then modeling clay
over the structures. The final works
were cast, piece by piece, using the
lost-wax method. Lastly, they were
covered in a silver nitrate patina
and a top coating of titanium and
buffed with steel wool.
The five life-size pieces were
installed outside on concrete plinths.
Two thin figures angled toward
each other to read as a vignette,
almost a discrete installation. By
itself, each work is very delicate and
could easily be overwhelmed by the
scale of trees and buildings.
Installing the sculptures as a group
gave them the necessary visual
mass. The largest piece, placed in
the middle, provided a center of
gravity and sense of stability. A com-
position with a horizontal orienta-
tion, located immediately to the left
of center, allowed the eye to con-
tinue scanning until it encountered
the tall, strong, totemic form at the
end.
Top and above: 2 views of William
Kentridge, The Refusal of Time, 2012.
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70 Sculpture 32.6
T
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Huge creatures and their riders
shed their embattled armor to
reveal textured scars. The physical
evidence of what they have endured
makes them even more regal and
alive. As a metaphor for life, the fig-
ures represent putting personal
desires aside, doing what is needed,
and surviving, despite extreme pain
and loss, marked with indelible
reminders of the ordeal. In this series,
Ekstrom and Hansen acknowledge
that lifes true worth comes from
the struggle, pain, and energy
of those who are passionately con-
cerned with doing what is right and
needed, no matter what the cost.
|c|e||c tc|cc
los AWsttts
Blue McRight
Samuel Freeman Gallery
Blue McRights recent exhibition,
Quench, featured a semi-installa-
tional aggregation of nearly 50 indi-
vidual pieces. These objects emerge
from a loosely linked set of concepts
involving nature, personal experi-
ence, and environmental reality,
following Deleuze and Guattaris
notion of rhizomatic thinking. As
a result of how McRight hooks up,
mutates, and disrupts her connec-
tions of images with concepts, her
pieces become maps of transient
ideas. The works consist of elements
associated with plants, animals,
and the circulation of water; their
conceptual basis resides in the issue
of water scarcity.
One group of sculptures is made
from tubes and hoses originally
used for scuba diving or gardening.
Cut into segments, the lengths are
then bound, folded, or bunched
together by bandaging them with
heavy thread and elastic fabric. The
extremities of the hoses terminate
in watering devices such as vintage
sprinklers, faucets, and brass noz-
zles. A second group of objects uses
fabric-wrapped plastic animal
forms, sections of trees, and branch-
es surmounted by functional
objects related to water. Both groups
recall roots or segments of
plants.
McRights works resemble a variety
of delivery systems that transport
and disseminate liquid. Existing in
an interrelated state of flux, each
piece combines biological and
mechanical, natural and artificial,
the real and the abstract. The forms
are gestural, urgent, and often
humorous. Any number of associa-
tions can be madecocoons, crea-
tures, plantsanything in need
of the animating flow of blood or
water. Displayed on rectangular ped-
estals, McRights menagerie reveals
a multitude of sinister, kitschy, and
elegant variations. From a distance,
the sculptures look like tangled
roots; up close, they take on individ-
ualized character. Although packed
together and related by size and
color, these works are too detailed
and gestural to merge into a field
or single organism.
One of the larger sculptures in
the show, He|| H||e|, is a con-
frontational piece reminiscent of a
medieval alchemical symbolan
upside-down tree crowned with
a rusted, archaic water pump. The
dark, dry root surfaces are tipped
and studded with numerous thorn-
like nozzles. Its a fools device that
promises water but pumps dry air.
It embodies drought, aridity, and an
inconsolable longing for moisture.
McRight brings her experience as
a diver into the construction of her
work; she thinks of these aggrega-
tions as colonies or reefs. Like reefs,
her sculptures compile accreted
parts, each addition expanding and
enhancing the whole. The basic con-
stituents bear a meaning that is
emphasized and accentuated within
each reconfiguration. The work
is richly imaginative, crossing back
and forth between the realms
of the grotesque and the beautiful.
Although McRight intends to make
Above: JD Hansen and Cheryl Ek-
strom, Centaur, 2012. Bronze, 86 x
72 x 36 in. Right: Blue McRight, Well
Wisher, 2012. Mixed media, 50 x
43 x 29 in.
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a point, shes never didactic. In
Quench, she has elegantly and
economically abstracted the politi-
cal issue of diminishing resources,
turning it into a powerfully authen-
tic and personal statement.
|c|||een H|||ne,
los AWsttts
Jason Meadows
Marc Foxx
Now hitting mid- career and mid-
stride, Jason Meadows is a sculptors
sculptor who often invokes the lexi-
con of 20th-century Modernism
with his skilled choreography of vol-
umes and materials while emphati-
cally embracing a postmodern love
of cultural pastiche. Never one to
work on automatic, Meadows (one
of the generation of L.A. sculptors
who studied under Charles Ray
at UCLAs graduate program in the
1990s) spaces his shows several years
apart; his recent exhibition fea-
tured three large sculptures and a
wall-mounted piece. Despite
the small number of works, the show
felt quite sprawling and even exhila-
rating in its scale and breadth.
|e |c, /||e| presents two open
metallic cylinders set at an angle to
each other on top of a rectangular
base; adorned with bands of purple
and yellow, they suggest toxic waste
canisters or allegories of Fat Man and
Little Boy, the atomic bombs that the
U.S. dropped on Japan to end World
War II. A circular disk with a keyhole
cut out of its base suggests a lock
being turned to unleash a new post-
nuclear age, a scenario reinforced
by the title. Intriguingly, the two
drums also suggest the giant rotat-
ing klieg lights set out on Holly-
wood Boulevard at night to mark
movie premieres: a very different
L.A. reference, and a hint of flashy
showmanship underlying the brusque
faade of the work.
|o||:e |ecoe is more formally
unnerving, though also more light-
hearted in its allusions to comic
book superheroes. Set atop a tilting
black base, its angular accretion
of folded metal sheets and shards
resembles a confluence of billowing
capes, some of them painted in car-
toony, primary colors. Hugely ener-
getic despite its mass, it shifts
abruptly from different angles; you
cant figure out if its flying apart
or coming together. Walk around it
and you see glimpses of Chamber-
lains crushed autos, as well as Judd
and Marvel Comicsa promiscuous
conflation of fine art and pop cul-
ture references. The wall piece,
||mm, t|,||c|o ||||, with its brightly
colored geometries on folded alu-
minum, is similarly playful in its cul-
tural interbreeding.
ec c| |c.e, the star of the show,
engages the art worlds most inde-
structible, and notorious, super-
hero: Damien Hirst. What looks at
first like an angular sleeve suspended
in a large open rectangle reveals
itself as a re-imagining of Hirsts
floating shark, reminding viewers of
their own fierce mortality. But just
as Woody Allen used a dead shark as
a metaphor for a failed relationship
in /nn|e |c||, the embalmed-yet-
unrelenting shark of Hirsts conjuring
has other, self-aware readings. Set
inside a steel and aluminum vitrine
in slabs of pastel green, with blue,
red, and yellow strips, some of
them perforated to recall Ben-Day
dots, Meadowss rendition seems
to frame Hirst amid deconstructed
shards of Lichtenstein and Mon-
drian. Forging ever forward in its
paradoxical dynamic stasis, this
fractured shark reanimates shreds of
Modernist authority and grafts them
together with postmodern glee.
At once intimidating and amusing,
Meadowss creature is an aesthetic
Frankenstein, feasting voraciously
on its own history while posing
heroically for viewers, despite its
self- conscious, fragmentary, and
ultimately open- ended state.
6ec|e |e||co
WAsMt Ws1oW, 0t
Joan Danziger
Katzen Arts Center at American
University
The two-story atrium of the Katzen
Arts Center, aggressively bisected
by a large staircase that leads to the
upper galleries, has always been
a challenge for exhibiting painters
and sculptors. Its robust architectural
presence can make even the most
daring artistic statement appear
timid. Yet every once in a while, an
artist manages to find an effective
way of responding to its imposing
sculptural volume and unpre-
dictable angles: recent examples
include Sam Gilliams draped pieces
hung from the curved walls and
ceiling (2011) and Emilie Brzezinskis
monumental wood sculptures, whose
rough tree-like shapes appeared
alive against the spaces stark planes
(2012).
In both of these cases, the work
stood its ground because of dramatic
scale or contrasting form and medi-
um. What was interesting about Joan
Danzigers recent show, Inside the
Underworld, was that it succeeded
through deceptively unthreatening,
rather smallish-looking animal forms.
The Washington sculptor has long
been known for her phantasmagori-
cal object-stories composed of eccen-
tric combinations of human and ani-
mal species, some large, yet many
more rendered on a much more inti-
mate, tabletop scale. This time
around, she presented a body of
work that she has been developing
for the last few yearsclose to 70
exquisitely crafted beetles.
Jason Meadows, Justice League, 2011. Powder-coated aluminum, steel, and
hardware, 103 x 78 x 74 in.
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As one walked into the Katzen
foyer and then climbed its bold
staircase, these objectsindividually,
they evoke oversize jewels fash-
ioned through an alchemical mar-
riage of wire and shards of glass
became ever more present and
inescapable, despite their unimpos-
ing size. They were everywhere, like
an infestation: crawling along walls,
climbing all the way to the ceiling,
and lying on the floor. Skeletal wire-
beetles could be found next to others
whose metal armatures were
almost entirely covered by shiny glass.
There were also humbler-looking
ash beetles, some of them rather
plain, others painted with carniva-
lesque zest; horned beetles and
winged beetles; and woodland and
warrior beetlesas if an entire
imaginary encyclopedia had burst
open into the museum interior.
Danziger has spoken of this series
of sculptures as a continuation of her
life-long interest in between-states,
whether physical or psychological.
Like her signature anthropomorphic
objects, her beetles address desires
and fears that resist easy categoriza-
tion. Her interest in this zoological
sub-family derives from the human
tendency to revere and disdain bee-
tles, to see them as both beautiful
and repulsive, pesky things that you
can step on and squash, but that
can also survive even the most in-
hospitable of environments. Just as
important is her fascination with
their immense variety. Granted, her
sculpted beetles are never faithful
reproductions of natural specimens,
but most of her creations begin with
close analysis and study of actual
examples as recorded in photographs
or scientific illustrations.
This tension between the real and
the imaginary is reflected not only
in the diverse media, materials, and
techniques that Danziger uses, but
also in the names that she gives to
her creatures. They are as individual
in designation as in form: a slender
gray |e|m|| next to a wire-mesh
/cm||e; a boldly faceted tcn||o:|
|.|| next to a round-bellied, shiny
:c||e| |||,each one represents its
own fantastical transformation of a
living being.
One could consider Danzigers fan-
ciful beetles within a history of zoo-
logical representation. The Katzen
Center indeed became a Honoe|
|cmme| of sorts during the course
of her show, a cabinet containing
curiosities born of the imagination,
a place that invited wonder and cel-
ebrated artistic, as well as natural,
diversity.
/ne|c 6ec||e.|c||ne
A1tAW1A
Ruth Laxson
Museum of Contemporary Art
of Georgia
An endless fascination with language
defines Ruth Laxsons work. She
combines mathematical equations,
musical annotation, graphic symbols,
and text to create a unique syntax.
Hip Young Owl, her recent retro-
spective, traced the evolution of
this language through sculptures,
paintings, etchings, prints, artist
books, and mail art spanning more
than 50 years. Laxsons sculptures
modeled after mailboxes, lecterns,
and other familiar sites of written
communication, grounded the exhi-
bition.
Dating from the 1990s to the pre-
sent, the sculptures, which serve
as receptacles for Laxsons mail art
and artists books, are crafted out
of wood, metal, and canvas covered
with paint and text. They work
simultaneously as books and build-
ings; each side functions like a page
while also providing a blank wall
for Laxsons unique brand of graffiti.
Through this duality, Laxson captures
the different ways that language is
conveyed and received, as well as
its emotive properties.
Different styles of text indicate a
variety of voices and emotions.
Printed block text conveys a mea-
sured, dignified voice, while scribbles
and doodles indicate experimen-
tation. Chalk-white handwriting is
more playful and thoughtful in
regard to the twists of language, toy-
ing with two-letter words until they
morph into sing-song or add up like
math equations. A scratchy hand-
written scrawl in black, on the
other hand, is plaintive and impas-
sioned like the writing in a diary or
a prisoners marks on a jail cell.
Who asked to be born??? They
didnt believe in abortion rights but
they did believe in war! reads the
scrawl on one side of an untitled
mailbox from the 1990s. The sense
Above: Joan Danziger, installation
view of Inside the Underworld:
Beetle Magic, 2012. Right: Ruth
Laxson, Untitled (mail box), mid-
1990s. Metal, paint, pencil, and
wood (with mail), 54.75 x 13 x 8.5 in.
sculpture
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of anger felt in this passage contin-
ues in the structural components of
the sculptureincluding a punctur-
ing axe-shapewhile an American
flag rendered in black and white
with red glitter stripes droops from
the top of the sculpture as if express-
ing resignation. The piece reads as a
gesture of protest against American
warmongering, but it is also self-
reflexive. One side of the mailbox is
filled with printed block text mus-
ings, including the speech of the
place weaves tales in all the cor-
ners, that observe Laxsons use of
script and insert a poetic interpreta-
tion of her actions. The artist chan-
nels her feelings into sculpture,
using its multi-dimensional qualities
to chart layers of thought and track
her own acts of expression.
The block text continues in this
vein, at one point asking, [are
these] vessels, receptacles of mean-
ing? The question is answered
by another sculpture, |eco ||e |c||
(1996). Here, the lengthened torso
and legs of the mailbox give a
spaceship-like appearance. A red flag
affixed to the top proclaims To: The
dry electron universe, indicating
that the entire mailbox and its con-
tentsseveral canisters, boxes, and
books created by Laxsonare
intended as a complete package to
be launched into space, like an
interstellar time capsule. Indeed,
each of these sculptures functions
like a time capsule of emotion, cap-
turing the wide-ranging feelings
that characterize a moment.
||||, |cme
8os1oW
Murray Dewart
Boston Sculptors Gallery
In 6oc|o|cn c| ||e /cu, a small,
serene bronze with an architectural
presence, two tiny towers flank
a patterned, rectilinear center. The
tops of the towers screw on and off;
you can put things in them, provided
you roll them up, like your wedding
vows, your will, or even a recipe,
as long as it is precious. Its an effec-
tive exercise in interactive sculp-
ture.
The bronze was featured in Murray
Dewarts recent show One Bright
Morning, at Boston Sculptors, which
included another, this time humor-
ous, interactive piece. ||nne| 3e||, in
brass and bronze, is just thata
great big spoon next to a huge cylin-
der. You clang the two together, and
they make a delightful sound. I
know because I did it repeatedly, and
it really worked up an appetite. Its a
hanging piece, long and elegant, and
could go indoors or out. It makes you
laugh.
Dewart is a founder of Boston
Sculptors, which at the time of
his solo show was preparing to cele-
brate its 20th anniversary with a
major exhibition at Bostons Chris-
tian Science Plaza. On view through
October 31, 2013, Convergence
includes four of Dewarts trademark
gates. Some of his gates are func-
tional, i.e., you can pass through
them, while others are metaphorical.
The two in the Boston Sculptors show
were in the latter category. He want-
ed them to convey both the
momentum of ritual pilgrimage and
the stasis of a meditative mandala,
remarking, There is a part of me
always traveling toward Jerusalem
in a way I cannot explain.
As all this might indicate, Dewart
is both well educatedhes Harvard
class of 1970 and has a huge gate
in the courtyard of Harvards Leverett
Houseand religious. Though he is
inevitably associated with his large
outdoor gates, this show also
included intimate works, bronze wall
texts among them, with references
from Jung to Buddhism, to a line
from Emily Dickinson: In the name
of the bee and the butterfly and the
breeze, Amen. The texts inscribed
on the ash and copper walking
sticks ranged from Jung to a pur-
ported quotation from the Oracle
of Delphi. The better versed you are
in world culture, the more Dewart
gives you to think about. Fortun-
ately, the sheer beauty and crafts-
manship of his work means that
even if you know next to nothing
about Jung, there is still plenty to
admire.
3cu c| 3o|n|n 6c|o, one of the
two big gates in the show, looked
misplaced indoors, especially in the
cramped quarters of the current
Boston Sculptors Gallery in South
Boston. Fashioned of granite, bronze,
and copper, it makes the most of its
gorgeous materials. The granite pil-
lars at either end form a rugged con-
trast to the smooth elegance of
the metals. Dewarts admiration for
bronze borders on the reverent. He
cites its near-imperishability, that it
can lie at the bottom of the sea for
thousands of years and emerge
in a recognizable form. Our own exis-
tence is so brief, he remarks, that,
for a sculptor, there is a deep longing
Left: Ruth Laxson, installation view
of Hip Young Owl, 2013. Below:
Murray Dewart, installation view
with Golden Bow and One Bright
Morning, 2012.
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74 Sculpture 32.6
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for something that will be in the
world long after the artist is gone.
Dewart is branching out in his use
of materials. tc|c|c, a miniature
gate form, is his first piece in cast
glass, but not, he says, his last. The
blue-green glass is seductive, and the
result is so lovely that it looks almost
edible. Like Dewarts other miniature
gates, tc|c|c comes across as a pri-
vate shrine, the antithesis of the pub-
lic art-scale pieces.
Dewart calls himself a Psalmist in
sculpture, not necessarily because
of the poetry of his works, but
because of their visual economy.
Although he says, I want the work
to have a gesture, a figurative com-
ponent, there is no obvious figura-
tive element in it, just a response
implied from the viewer. e|||n |c|
||ee c| ||e 6|ec| |cn||.|n |c,
c| |c,, for instance, is a series
of oversize bronze utensils, probably
too big to use. I love to cook,
he says. I paid half of my Harvard
tuition one year through cooking.
Cooking is the same kind of process
as sculpture. Its driven by hunger.
t|||||ne em|n
6Asst soW, Ntw osK
Roy Staab
Garrison Institute
Roy Staabs recent large-scale,
ephemeral sculpture H|ee| c| |me,
created in May 2012, is made up
of hundreds of drilled and pegged,
intersecting bamboo poles harvest-
ed from the Garrison Institutes 100-
acre woodland. Bamboo is consid-
ered an invasive species in New
York. By cutting the bamboo to make
his work, Staab helped to slow the
rapid growth of this beautiful plant,
continuing the ecological component
of his work; his water-based, tidal
sculptures, for instance, often
employ unwanted invasives such
as phragmite reeds.
The Garrison Institute sits along
the Hudson River, 60 miles north
of New York City. Housed in a former
Capuchin monastery, it functions as
a retreat for Buddhist meditation and
a center for conferences and work-
shops addressing social and environ-
mental concerns. To reflect on the
history of the site as well as its cur-
rent focus, Staab chose to leave the
interior sphere of his sculpture empty
as a space for contemplation. Two
rings outline the central oval. The
inner ring is supported by tall bam-
boo stalks with their leaves remain-
ing at the top. The fluttering motion
of the leaves gives an uplifting move-
ment when they catch the wind. The
bamboo poles of the outer ring are
cut flat and laid horizontally, which
helps to secure the structure. These
bamboo lines create a pattern of
triangular spokes inside the wheel,
similar to the aureole of light rays
around figures in early medieval reli-
gious art. The adjoined bamboo rings
form a narrow walking path where
the grass has been worn down with
use. The repeated footsteps of visitors
echo the shape on the ground and
provide another type of delineation.
The mowed interior permits the
entire form to be visible and encour-
ages people to enter. The work can
also be seen from a high terrace
adjacent to the buildings entrance.
This view frames the river and clari-
fies how Staab took advantage
of both the vista and the open land
between the building and the
Hudson.
Staab spent three weeks in resi-
dence at the Garrison Institute to
design H|ee| c| |me. This process is
integral to the conception and cre-
ation of his work, as he slowly walks
the land to become familiar with
topography, ground formation, and
sight lines. Once he chose the loca-
tion and began working, he used an
established diagonal footpath as his
boundary on the northern edge. The
work also relates to a symmetrical
pair of stone steps coming down to
the site from the overlook above. The
Institutes imposing brick building at
one end and a large rock formation
at the other create a valley that
shields the work from the wind. The
contour of the land is slightly undu-
lating, but the work itself is perfectly
evencreated with a laser level in
the dark of night.
Though Staab intends all of his
ephemeral works to decompose,
bamboo is sturdier than his preferred
reeds and grasses, which may last
only a week or a few months at best.
H|ee| c| |me has already withstood
several stormsHurricane Sandy
and Blizzard Nemo both blew
through with gale force. This resilient
bamboo work remains standing
strong, though it is slightly worn and
brittle now, its original bright green
transformed to yellow and gray. Like
all of nature, it speaks of growth and
decay. Continual changes of weather
and the toll of time will eventually
cause its demise. Until then, we can
admire Staabs affinity for making
art in and with the forces of nature.
/m, |||cn
Ntw osK
Jim Osman
Lesley Heller Workspace
In a very smart show, Jim Osman
has taken the cast-offs of his earlier
projects in wood and stacked them
together to create frontally oriented,
open sculptures. The seemingly off-
Roy Staab, Wheel of Time, 2012.
Bamboo, 18 x 37.25 x 59 ft.
sculpture
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hand manner in which he fashions
his square or rectangular construc-
tions belies their sophistication.
Given as they are to an agreeably
rough presentation, it would
be easy to see his works as entirely
improvisatory; close inspection, how-
ever, reveals a sharp formal intelli-
gence at work. Osman looks for
ways to tweak or skew the formal
plane that faces us, using paper to
add color to structural components
that range from small blocks to
planks of wood. In consequence, he
foregrounds the detritus of the stu-
dio and street in order to construct
complex, intelligently designed
assemblages. Both the tabletop
sculptures and the one big piece in
the show allude to David Smiths
Cubi series without succumbing
to his influence.
The work clearly develops from an
additive process. tcmc (2013), a
comparatively epic work among the
smaller sculptures, consists of
an open square with a rectangle on
top, delineated by long planks and
blocks of wood colored by paint or
laminated paper. Its seemingly ad
hoc, of-the-moment energies make
it pleasingly improvisatory; the
viewer is encouraged to stand facing
either side of the open spaces
(its sides are of lesser interest). The
depth of tcmc shows us that
Osman is careful to build a work
whose implications draw us into a
genuinely three-dimensional space.
Our practical knowledge of the
sculpture enables us to follow him
in his explorations of the oe||
of what is essentially a forthright,
frontal plane. This is where Osmans
work differs from Smiths: the Cubi
sequence demonstrates a nearly
painterly, two-dimensional reality.
By making historically aware high
culture from throwaway materials,
Osman presents a contrast that
feels very contemporary even as he
looks back on sculptural tradition.
The smaller works achieve their
effects in similar ways. |c:| :
(2012), composed of gouache on
paper and wood, offers two open,
vertically aligned rectangles, the
empty space of the larger one
invaded by a piece of rounded wood
with its bark intact. The other open
rectangle is created by the angles of
its green-painted frame. The empha-
sis is again on frontality, but not
completelytwo pieces of wood,
which also act as simple pedestals,
hold up |c:| :s configuration, lift-
ing it up and adding depth. |c|e|
|c:| (2012) is also constructed as
a frontal arrangement of wood with
some depth to it; a short branch,
still with its bark on, forms the right
vertical and likely inspired the title.
The other vertical consists of four
small, stacked blocks of wood, two
of them papered. A torn piece of
dark-blue paper, with a white rec-
tangle outlined in its center, occu-
pies the middle of the composition.
Again offhand proficiency yields
to prolonged looking. Osmans sen-
sibility asserts formalism by means
of a backhanded compliment, and
the results are compelling.
|cnc||cn 6ccomcn
Ntw osK
Wang Xieda
James Cohan Gallery
Based on the title of Wang Xiedas
first New York solo show, one might
expect a focus on figurative or nar-
rative content. Describing a gram-
matical construction, Subject Verb
Object seems to imply the depiction
of subjects engaged in actions that
further involve objects. Wangs
works, however, do not encourage a
quick, literal interpretation. Visually
(at least to Western eyes), the sculp-
tures of the Shanghai-based artist
appear non-objective. They are expe-
rienced abstractly at first, and it is
only after discovering Wangs source
of inspiration that the exhibition title
begins to resonate.
Cast in bronze or paper pulp, the
sculptures embrace biomorphic
forms that nevertheless follow the
rules of geometric organization. In
Wangs work, a curvilinear form still
hints at the grid. Overall, his works
reveal a sensibility evocative of
Western Modernism. His affinity for
clarity and fine linear movement,
as well as his ability to imbue his
works with a sense of weightless-
Above: Jim Osman, Stack 1, 2012.
Gouache, paper, and wood, 9 x 9
x 7.5 in. Right: Wang Xieda, Sages
Sayings 026, 2006. Bronze, 37 x
33.5 x 11.75 in.
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ness, connect him to a range of well-
known predecessors. Giacomettis
surfaces, Arps potent simplification,
and the considered balance in the
sculptures of David Smith plausibly
stand behind Wangs work. The sub-
stantial group of works gathered in
his American debut made clear that
his stylistic choices are consistent.
His voice is confident and convinc-
ingly conscious of its cultural her-
itage.
Despite the fact that Wangs work
fits visually into a Western context,
its objective is very much rooted
in Chinese culture. He has spent the
past 20 years studying the history
of the Chinese written language. The
works of his so-called Sages Say-
ings series are inspired by Chinese
calligraphy of the fourth century,
when the brush was introduced as a
writing tool. Brushed calligraphy
added a new form of expressive indi-
viduality to the existing repertoire of
characters carved in wood, bamboo,
or stone, and the Sages Sayings
bronzes are derived from these
ancient forms. By translating calli-
graphic forms into sculpture, Wang
creates a fascinating link between
ancient and contemporary Chinese
culture.
In this show, his bronzes occupied
a long, U-shaped pedestal that
spanned almost the entire main
exhibition space. Accentuating the
elegantly elongated forms, the
installation allowed for a two-fold
experience. Works could be consid-
ered separately or in sequence, one
after the other, which related the
act of viewing to the act of reading.
Subject Verb Object also featured
several recent sculptures made from
rattan and paper pulp. At times sus-
pended in mid-air, these compara-
tively ethereal white works were pri-
marily defined through interplays of
light and shadow, while the bronzes
focused instead on form. Overall,
Wangs work is characterized by
nuanced distribution of mass, as well
as contemplation of positive and neg-
ative space, dark and light, and bio-
morphic and geometric principles.
These are, of course, some of the
most important and longstanding
fundamentals in art, but Wang suc-
ceeds in reinterpreting them to cre-
ate works that generate a sense of
timelessness and permanence.
|e|cn|e 3o|mcnn
QuttWs, Ntw osK
Civic Action
Noguchi Museum and Socrates
Sculpture Park
Civic Action, though much smaller
in scope, celebrated the same spirit
of activism and social engagement
on view at Documenta XIII in Kassel,
Germany, and Manifesta 9 in Genk,
Belgium, last summer. Countering
the art worlds obsession with com-
modity and status, all three shows
presented an alternative vision of
current practice based in collectivity
and community.
Organized by independent curator
Amy Smith-Stewart, the two parts of
Civic Action took place over the
course of a year. The first part, at the
Noguchi Museum, consisted of draw-
ings, installations, and models that
presented the collaborative brain-
storming of artists, architects, writ-
ers, historians, urban planners, scien-
tists, and ecologists in response
to the rezoning, residential construc-
tion, and environmental disruptions
brought on by development in this
area of Queens. Socrates Sculpture
Park hosted part two, which featured
installations by the four artists
involved in the collaborative discus-
sions. Ranging from reflective step-
ping stones tracing an underground
river and a bamboo and steel staging
space for serving food and presenting
community activities to a wooden
bench along the East River and a tree
with its own office space, these
pieces were intent on demonstrating
the validity of creative collaboration
and socially engaged sculpture.
Socrates Sculpture Park proved an
apt site for these reclamation art pro-
jects: 25 years ago, its parcel of land
was nothing more than an over-
looked industrial dumping ground in
a poor section of Queens. Trans-
formed, over many years, by Mark di
Suvero, other artists, and community
leaders, it has grown into an impor-
tant local resource, with a public
park, outdoor museum, and artist
residency. A large upscale condo-
Above: Rirkrit Tiravanija, Bike Share,
2011. Below: Natalie Jeremijenko,
Grid Xing, 2011. Both from Civic
Action.
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minium project now casts a tall
shadow over the park, and gentrifi-
cation and urban development
threaten to completely change the
surrounding community.
Each of the four artists involved
in the Civic Action initiative
Natalie Jeremijenko, Rirkrit Tiravan-
ija, George Trakas, and Mary Miss
has a long history of engaging
urban development and environ-
mental concerns through public art.
While all four made site-specific,
participatory projects, the installa-
tions were for the most part more
interesting as creative concepts
than immersive experiences of art
and activism that could engage both
the heart and the eye.
Jeremijenkos projects seemed
overly ambitious. Her largest instal-
lationa tall scaffold of plants
growing in Tyvek Agbagsproposed
self-sustaining, vertical farming for
city windows and fire escapes. Unfor-
tunately, the piece did not fare well
in the summer heat, necessitating
an intervention in which some
parched and bedraggled plants
received emergency triage in a near-
by garden. The whole piece inadver-
tently became a cautionary adver-
tisement for global warming.
Jeremijenkos other contributions,
such as the office in a tree and
a salamander crossing, complete
with posted signs and a surveillance
camera, encouraged viewers
to see the world from a zoomorphic
perspective but were so understated
that they could almost be over-
looked. Tiravanijas triangular plat-
form for cooking Thai dishes and
hosting other activities (including
performances, readings, and even
yoga) had more practical applica-
tions for park visitors and no doubt
an afterlife once the exhibition
closed.
Trakas and Miss most effectively
joined environmental activism with
engaging sculpture installations to
complement the surrounding park.
Trakass on|cn |c|n|, a wooden
bench that traced the shoreline, pro-
vided viewers with personal perches
from which to assess the impact
of development along the East River.
Miss used solar-powered posts and
glass orbs to map out the path of
Sunswick Creek, which once flowed
from the East River through the
Socrates property and into Queens.
The meandering pattern of the
spheres suggested stones along a
river; combined with an audio guide
and documentary photographs, the
path excavated an urban archaeology
that allowed for both the rediscovery
of this place and an awareness of its
threatened future.
ocn tcnn|n
0sMAwA, 0W1Ast o
Gerald Beaulieu
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery
There is a god of maize in the British
Museum, an artifact that represents
an enduring Central American myth
from the Popol Vuh in which corn
becomes the main ingredient in the
creation of the first people. By 1000
AD, corn had become the staple food
throughout the Americas, and it
arguably remains so today.
Gerald Beaulieus recent show
offered another vision of this food
source. Visitors could walk through
a fabricated field of glistening, black-
ened cornstalks that would have
affronted the ancients on many lev-
els. Senses were assaulted not only
by the visual disconnect, but also by
the oily smell of tar wafting from the
coated constructions. The accompa-
nying catalogue essay by curator Gil
McElroy explains that the exhibition
title, Raw & Cooked, establishes
a comparison between sustainable
ecosystems and unfettered technolo-
gy in the service of corporate agen-
dasa particularly resonant concern
in Oshawa at the moment.
In an amazing confluence of local
and global concerns, Beaulieus
three installations confronted three
environmental issues that affect his
tiny home of Prince Edward Island
and ultimately the entire planet. By
chance, his show (booked long in
advance) coincided with the city of
Oshawas battle to preserve an envi-
ronmentally sensitive piece of land
fronting Lake Ontario, where there
are plans to construct an ethanol
plant. While the city is adamantly
opposed to the project, the federal
government has remained silent.
Though Beaulieus interest in the per-
ils of messing with Mother Nature
relates more to threats facing his
own part of the country, his Oshawa
cornfield resonated with a firestorm
of local controversy.
Poignant and cautionary, ||e|o was
accompanied by 3|oe ||||cn 3cn|cm,
a 54-inch-tall rooster. Hormoned-up,
the bird was covered in painted and
shaped syringes, their calibration
standing in for the barbs on actual
feathers. A silicone comb and glass
eyes completed the illusion.
A third installation explored a far-
reaching environmental concern
in a context specific to Beaulieus
island home. In a separate gallery,
viewers stood beneath an enormous
school of jellyfish, their terrible
beauty created from plastic bags and
those bits of detritus that circle
the globe and wash up on shore. |||||
commented on the proliferation
of certain ocean creatures at the
expense of others, as well as the
waste materials that travel across
the oceans. The creation of this
work was clearly a repetitive, labori-
ous undertaking, one that required
a commitment equal to the
strength of its polemica neces-
sary polemic that attacks the darker
side of human endeavor.
|c|c|e| |coe|
AWcouvts
Attila Richard Lukacs
Winsor Gallery
Known for realist paintings of virile,
eroticized figures during the 80s and
90s, Attila Richard Lukacs has since
moved on to a psychological realm
of submerged illusions and maze-like
puzzles. Classical and mythological
evocations are layered throughout
his recent body of work: fountains,
urns, and columns merge with
impressions of the dead, Valhalla,
and the guardian sphinx. The figura-
tive has not been completely dele-
gated to the trash, however; instead,
Gerald Beaulieu, installation view
with Blue Ribbon Bantam, 2011,
plastic syringes and mixed media,
137 cm. high; and Field, 2008, wood,
aluminum, and tar, 183 cm. high.
sculpture
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78 Sculpture 32.6
it slips into the works as traces of
male nudes, cartoon-like creatures,
and opaque transparencies.
In 2011, Lukacs produced a large-
scale sculptural installation consist-
ing of an expansive plot of lattice,
sticks, wood, organic materials, fluo-
rescent lights, and oozing black tar. If
3|c:| cno H|||e |cc| (acquired by
the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia) feels
like the collected detritus of an alley-
way, it is not by chance. Bitumen,
|cc| material of choice, was not
only a favorite medium of 19th-cen-
tury painters such as Delacroix and
Gricault, it also forms the asphalt
lining our streets.
3|c:| cno H|||e |cc| highlights
the role of sculpture within Lukacss
visual and narrative universe. In com-
parison, the three-dimensional works
in his recent exhibition, Infernal
Beings, felt somewhat out of con-
text. |e||\, a sawhorse accessorized
with a dangling disco-ball, broken
wooden appendages, a curving
impediment of a tail, a comb of a
rake, and a tree branch, was relegat-
ed to the corner of the gallery where
it played the role of suppressed id
rather than taking its true place as
centerpiece. Many of Lukacss sculp-
tures recycle past works into new
forms and compositions. |e||\ had to
undergo an additional and unfore-
seen adjustment, a sort of hair-trim-
ming, to find its way out of the stu-
dio and into the gallery. And while
Lukacs has suggested that this jour-
ney into abstraction is a means to
discover where the figure will again
come to sit within the canvas, |e||\
emerged as the true figure within
the Infernal Beings narrative,
a return to form, a building block
around which a larger dialogue orbits.
Two other sculpturesone an unti-
tled, mixed-media piece made of pink
building blocks and the other an
assemblage of wooden slabs drizzled
with what looks like bitumen (titled
|c|:e| |o:|cm cno tc|| /no|e 6c
0o| 0ne |||| cno 6e| |ec||,
||on|)speak to Lukacss reworking
of art historical and contemporary
materials. His oeuvre was once
likened to the works of Goya and
Rembrandt for dramatic subject mat-
ter and method, and he may still be
seen as injecting art history into the
present day. What emerges is a type
of readymade romantic wherein
creative and intellectual curiosity is
pushed into an entirely new vision.
|cne.c |cn|,
8utWos At sts
Adriana Varejo
Museo de Arte Latinoamericano
de Buenos Aires
Adriana Varejo is one of Brazils
most important contemporary
artists. Histories at the Margins,
her recent survey exhibition, fea-
tured her entire universe of
thoughts and concerns, including
paintings, installations, sculptures,
photographs, drawings, and objects.
Curator Adriano Pedrosa, another
Brazilian, emphasized Varejos par-
ticular viewpoint regarding the
expansion and transformation of
cultural identity through colonial-
ism, with special attention to
Chinese, Portuguese, and Brazilian
history, local folklore, spiritual tradi-
tions, and gender issues.
Pedrosa designed a chronological
sequence that alternated between
individual installations and galleries
showing multiple works. Viewers
couldnt miss how Varejo consistent-
ly refers to the body as a territory
to explore, and not always under the
best circumstances. She uses this
obsession with the human body to
establish a parallel with the domina-
tion exercised by some cultures over
others, including Latin American
countries. Some of her most impres-
sive works, such as |\|||c,cc oc |c|
c| |n:|o|c, ||noc :cm co|cc |no
cc, |cc oe |cc |cmem ||, and
||c|c :cm mc||:c, reveal the body
fragmented into pieces, a universe
of corruption, flagellation, and abuse
that goes way beyond any literal
interpretation. Paint becomes three-
dimensional as she tears it from
the walls, transforming it into a flesh-
and-blood, ripped-apart carcass.
Varejos conceptual project relies
on an impressive use of materials.
She captures our attention immedi-
ately with bright colors and exquisite
textures. But these elements are far
from innocent. As Pedrosa explains,
Varejo implicates the history of art,
specifically the Baroque, in colonial-
ist strategies, and she uses easily rec-
ognizable cultural products such as
Left: Attila Richard Lukacs, Marcel
Duchamp and Carl Andre Go Out One
Night and Get Really Drunk, 2012.
Mixed media and paint on wood, 31
x 34 x 95 in. Above: Adriana Varejo,
Lngua com padro sinuoso, 1998.
Oil on canvas and aluminum, 200
x 170 x 57 cm.
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tiles to make her case. Bottles,
ceramics, furniture, aluminum, wood,
resin, photographs, fiberglass, colo-
nial artifacts, and images produced
by European travelers, architectural
geometry combined with geometri-
cal abstraction, landscapes,
seascapes, and maps are just some
of the resources that come together
to form a powerful message.
|c||c tc|c||nc 3co|c
loWboW
Damien Hirst
Tate Modern
When I walked into Tate Modern for
Damien Hirsts retrospective, I was
very positive and full of expectations,
but I left with contradictory
thoughtsnot about Hirsts work per
se, but about the value of an antho-
logical exhibition devoted to his
work. In his sculptures and paintings,
Hirst achieves high formal perfection,
a special kind of beauty that repre-
sents the most important experience
of lifedeath. For this reason, his
work can be difficult to take in: even
though there can be beauty in hor-
ror, no one wants to think seriously
and straightforwardly about this
painful subject.
Hirst deals with the fact of mortali-
ty, and he does so by going straight
to the point. We perceive that, for
him, life has no purpose, death no
redemption. His idea of death does-
nt include a god balancing despair
with a transcendent reason. In
Hirsts nihilistic view, there is no sense
of causality or explanation behind
the human condition. The meaning
of the walk is the walk itself.
Hirst does not invite participation
or interaction with his works; we are
mere spectators, and our feelings
may be compared to the conjoined
repulsion and empathy we experi-
ence in front of death. It is shocking
to face death, even if it is the only
certainty we have in life. We might
refuse to think about it, but Hirst
forces us to face it in its physical real-
ity. His work is not shocking, it is nat-
ural. And he doesnt need to confront
us with a dead body. I was as dis-
turbed by |e /:o||eo |nc|||||, |c
|:ce (a large, sealed, double vitrine
containing a desk, chair, ashtray, and
packet of cigarettes) this time as I
was when I first saw it more than 20
years ago. I did not have the same
deep response to a second, smaller
version of |e ||,|:c| |mc||||||, c|
|ec|| |n ||e ||no c| cmecne ||.|n
(1991), the infamous shark suspend-
ed in formaldehyde. The original car-
ries a message of hopelessness and
sad, useless aggression. The newer
work does not communicate
real emotion; we realize that it is a
clone with a theatrical message.
It is different when Hirst forces
us to stop, share his thoughts, and
become part of them. / |cocno
'ec| is extremely powerful, bewitch-
ing, repulsive, cruel, and aggressive.
After 22 years, this graphic .cn||c
display containing a cows head, flies,
and other elements is still surprising:
it represents destiny. Any one of
Hirsts works (of this caliber) gives us
the final word. It is useless to move
on to the next one. When Lucian
Freud saw / |cocno 'ec| (com-
pleted in 1990 and exhibited in the
warehouse group show Gambler),
he said to Hirst, I think you started
with the final act, my dear.
|c|c|eo ||emen| u|n|n |n ||e
cme |||e:||cn |c| ||e |o|ce c|
|noe||cno|n76 fish displayed in
two vitrinescommunicates an
acceptance of death smoothed by a
bit of fun and humor, which only
makes it more cruel and desperate.
The fish look funny with their round,
wide-open eyes, and we are permit-
ted to think that they dont know
they are deadmaybe because they
are suspended in a liquid, which was
their natural element.
The show also included |n cno 0o|
c| |c.e, which consists of two rooms.
One is full of live, fluttering butter-
flies feeding on fruit and drinking
from pot plants under the supervi-
sion of an entomologist who checks
if they are living their one-day lives
as comfortably as possible. The sec-
ond is hung with sweet, pastel-
colored canvases stuck with dead
butterflies. You cannot help but think
back to / |cocno 'ec|. I cannot
say which one teaches the harsher
lesson.
In the gallery-sized ||c|mc:,, with
its white-on-white vitrines filled with
prettily packaged drugs , everything
is beautiful, and friendly. There is the
promise of help, a cozy comfort that
feeds our hope for eternity. With its
stark contrast to Hirsts other motifs,
this work must be seen in isolation:
no animals in formaldehyde, no fly-
ing butterflies, no dot paintings, no
ashtrays with rotting cigarette stubs.
Hirsts work needs to be experi-
enced in sections. Although he has
devoted his career to an exploration
of life and death, his various modes
of creating simply do not communi-
cate with each other. A retrospective
is a very bad choice. The problem
with this well-curated and selective
exhibitionwe have to thank Ann
Gallagher for the many works she did
not includestemmed from the fact
that people cannot be seriously
shocked more than once or twice an
hour. Hirsts work is so perfect, so
beautiful, dramatic, and desperate
that it has to be taken in small doses.
|co|c cn|n|
Damien Hirst, The Acquired Inability
to Escape, 1991. Glass, steel, silicone
rubber, Formica, MDF, chair, ashtray,
lighter, and cigarettes, 2.13 x 3.05 x
2.13 meters.
sculpture
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isc PEOPLE, PLACES, AND EVENTS
I SCONNECTS
In 2011, the ISC launched ISConnects, an innovative program
developed to reach new audiences and increase collaboration
with cultural institutions around the globe. Panel discussions,
exhibition tours, and artist lectures kicked off the program in 2011
in Philadelphia, New York, and New Jersey. Last years ISConnects
series grew geographically, and we held events in New York City,
Omaha, Grand Rapids, and Hamilton, New Jersey. As a result of
the programmatic success, many established and emerging arts
organizations worldwide have expressed interest in hosting
events in 2013 and beyond.
ISConnects explores unique perspectives on contemporary sculp-
ture through a variety of accessible programs that encourage engag-
ing and lively discourse. Post-program surveys show that this objec-
tive is being met. Audience engagement at last years events was
high, with more than 80% of attendees responding that the event
surpassed their expectations. A full 86% would recommend
ISConnects to others and would attend another event themselves.
Attendees expressed excitement and satisfaction, offering comments
such as, I appreciated this program being available. We drove
up from Kansas City specifically for it, and I learned so much and
appreciated the sculptors so much more having listened to [them]
provide background information and personal perspective.
In addition to engaging audiences with timely and interesting
topics and speakers, the program is also succeeding in introduc-
ing the ISC to new audiences. Approximately 75% of all 2012
attendees were not current ISC membersa significant increase
from the programs first yearand events welcomed attendees
from 14 U.S. States and Mexico. Many have gone on to attend
other ISC programs and have become ISC members and
Sculpture magazine subscribers. The ISC will continue to reach
out to new groups and geographies in 2013, with an increased
emphasis on art educators, who often bring groups of students
to ISConnects events in their area.
ISConnects succeeds in providing dynamic programs to a wide
range of audiences and does so at an incredibly low price to atten-
deesevent admissions have ranged from no cost to $15, and
most include access to museums and exhibitions, as well as cock-
tail receptions. With continued support from the Johnson Art and
Education Foundation, the program will continue to offer accessi-
ble avenues to explore topics that address the unique and shared
interests of those concerned with contemporary sculpture.
For more information about upcoming ISConnects events, visit
<www.sculpture.org/isconnects>.
Michael Jones McKean, The Rainbow Project, at the Bemis Center, Omaha, NE.
Left: Reception at Grounds For Sculpture. Center: Audience at Frederk Meijer ISConnects. Right: Nancy Grossman greets an audience member at NAM.
sculpture
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_____________________________________________
____________________________________________
_______________
www. t hi nks cul pt ur e. com
For estimates and project inquiries
contact Becky at beckyault@thinksculpture.com
or Tracy at execassist@thinksculpture.com
Tradi ng hours: 8:00 am to 4:30 pm
a.r.t. research enterpri ses
T HE F I NE AR T F OUNDRY
717.290.1303
For more projects in stainless steel & bronze, check out our website www.thinksculpture.com
Judy Sutton Moore
Bi l l Moor e
sculpture
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