The Critic Sees - Jasper Johns, 1961. Glass, metal, and plaster.
(Source: cavetocanvas)
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Posts tagged "sculpture"
August 18th 2011
October 18th 2011
Donald Judd, 1928-1994, was an American minimalist sculpture, although he didn’t like the term “minimalist,” preferring to refer to his work as “the simple expression of complex thought.” Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it. He used humble construction materials, such as metal, plywood, concrete and plexiglass - by using these materials, he was rejecting the tradition of artistic expression and craftsmanship. By encouraging concentration on the volume and presence of the structure and the space around it, Judd’s work draws attention to the relationship between object, viewer and environment.
Click through on the image for a link to the Tate Modern’s Donald Judd page.
(via arttobehistory)
October 19th 2011
: I’d like to think that I’m more sophisticated than most, especially...
I’d like to think that I’m more sophisticated than most, especially when it comes to art. I can “get it,” or at least a large part of it, whether it’s a burlesque show, graffiti, or a blockbuster at the Met. But I was stumped when I saw the sculptures by Matthew Barney on display now at Barbara Gladstone. They’re metal and plastic forms cast from craters and cars during a staging of Barney’s opera DJED in Detroit earlier this year. That performance was inspired by Normal Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings, which is set in Egypt. It makes for rich, referential baggage, bit doesn’t seem relevant to the objects at hand. My first thought when I entered the gallery, and I’m not proud of it, was, “This is ugly.”
The forms have an indelible physical presence. The low, dark mounds of copper and lead in the main gallery are unrecognizable as metals, powerfully earth-like. You almost expect them to give off a smell. The pieces with cast car parts in them look as if they’re the remains of an explosion, and bring to mind the material devastation of the wars we’re involved in now overseas. (Maybe Barney can read “The Naked and the Dead” next.) But the artworks still slipped out of reach. One of the smaller pieces (Secret Name, above) inspired special panic. What was it? The friend I was with, a painter-turned-architect, explained it as a composition of opposing spirits, with the low, wax-like form setting off the higher dark volume behind. But I wanted the piece to be more representational. I sensed that the work was substantial, and knew that I was missing it.
Bah, Matthew Barney sort of bores me. I dig this commentary though.
October 30th 2011
: Fluxus was not really about art objects so much as it was about...
Fluxus was not really about art objects so much as it was about provocations. The artists in the movement, which drew from theater, dada and conceptual art, were overturning centuries-old conventions about artmaking, and conventions about other things too. And, in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, when they hit their stride, just about everything was being overturned. So I was curious to see how the NYU’s Gray Art Gallery would mount their exhibitFluxus and the Essential Questions of Life. As you’d expect, the works aren’t monumental. There are a lot of texts (pamphlets, posters, stamps, postcards), a lot of found objects (bottles, boxes, timepieces, a white dress shirt), and a lot of small, personal, hand-crafted objects.
Most appealing are the Fluxkits, little boxes that provided all the pieces needed, as well as bare-bone instructions, to perform one proscribed Fluxus action. They’re a riff on do-it-yourself art kits, and also the facility with which just about everything in our culture — even the most ephemeral ideas — can be packaged, marketed, and sold. The exhibit includes Fluxkits called A Flux Corsage (a package of seeds), A Box of Smile (a mirror-lined pillbox),Sacramental Fluxkit (vials of holy water), and Zen for Film (an infinity loop of entirely clear 35mm film). The finest one is A Flux Suicide Kit by Ben Vautier, which contains a razor blade, a rope, a shard of glass, and other potentially dangerous but largely innocuous household objects. It’s funny, chilling and elegant.
November 06th 2011
Went to see this today. Very intense. I don’t know that I can say I really liked it. I can definitely say it was a good thought.
November 13th 2011
In windswept, granite-paved plazas throughout the world, metal...
In windswept, granite-paved plazas throughout the world, metal sculptures by Alexander Calder preside like benevolent monsters. It’s a shame that these works possess so little of the charm that the sculptor’s smaller pieces have. That charm overpowers at the new exhibit at Pace on 57th Street, Calder 1941. The galleries are filled with pieces Calder completed that year, all with the signature wire arms and spinning medallions, but each one scaled more intimately than Calder’s outdoor works. The smallest are the size of water pitchers, and the largest just taller than a man. Each one is light in form and in spirit. Visiting the gallery was like walking through a garden.
These pieces, particularly the tabletop ones, have a toy-like quality that makes one want to get close to them. The guard issued three separate warnings to my friend and I, who were only looking, and seemed especially harried, as if he’d been overextended since the exhibit opened. What’s the appeal of these small pieces? From every angle, the sculptures have a different aspect, so that it’s almost criminal to show them in photographs. As one circles them, the experience is cinematic more than sculptural. And, from every angle, the pieces are strongly graphic. The thin wire and flat metal shapes look as if they have been drawn in the air, and their delicate asymmetries gives them a hand-drawn feeling. These sculptures are gracious, engaging three-dimensional drawings.
Everything was Calder and nothing hurt.
(via nalinamoses)
November 18th 2011
Wright Curve - Ellsworth Kelly, 1996
From the Guggenheim:
Wright Curve, a steel sculpture designed for permanent installation in the Guggenheim’s Peter B. Lewis Theater, is named after the museum’s architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Its affinity with the palette and geometry of the auditorium shows the artist’s interest in encouraging site-specific experiences of his painting and sculpture. For Kelly, the transition between the two mediums is fluid: “sculpture for me is something I’ve brought off the wall.”
November 22nd 2011
: The oversized postcard announcing the new Robert Graham show at David...
The oversized postcard announcing the new Robert Graham show at David Zwirner showed a woman sleeping on a mattress in a big, cloudy white box. Receiving it was like getting a dream in the mail. The sculpture on the card is one of seventeen early works from 1963-1973 on…
November 29th 2011
Wedge of Chastity - Marcel Duchamp, 1954-63
From the National Galleries of Scotland:
The original version of ‘Wedge of Chastity’ was made in 1954, from plaster and dental plastic, so that the work looks like a tooth set in gum. Eight bronze casts were made in 1963; this cast was made especially for Duchamp. The piece has erotic connotations, as there are ‘male’ and ‘female’ parts which fit snugly together. Duchamp originally made the piece as a gift for his wife Teeny. He later explained: ‘It was my wedding present to her… We usually take it with us, like a wedding ring.’
