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April 2012 Vol. 31 No. 3 A publication of the International Sculpture Center www.sculpture.org

April 2012 Vol. 31 No. 3 A publication of the International Sculpture Center

Nina Levy New Realisms

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From the Chairman

ISC Board of Trustees Chairman: Marc LeBaron, Lincoln, NE

I would like to begin by recognizing Olga Hirshhorn, the recipient of the International Sculpture Center’s 2012 Patron Award. On February 3, in Naples, Florida, we honored this remarkable woman, who has devoted her life to the appreciation and preservation of art and represents the best qualities of an arts patron. Hirshhorn, who winters in Naples, and whose late husband Joseph H. Hirshhorn was the founding donor of the museum now bearing the Hirshhorn name in Washington, is an avid collector. She continues to be an active and valued member of the art community. In business, companies are most successful when they collaborate, increasing productivity, inspiring innovation, and ultimately growing much faster. The same applies to any organization, and our ISConnects program is a classic example of how collaboration impacts success. An exciting collaborative effort pairing the ISC and other arts organizations, ISConnects programming explores unique perspectives on contemporary sculpture. Together, the ISC and its partner organizations offer intimate and accessible programs that address cutting-edge, timely trends in sculpture through lively and insightful discourse. ISConnects has been successful because it offers interesting events that address a broad range of issues impacting sculpture and that appeal to a range of audiences. These programs unlock the potential of the ISC to be a catalyst for advancing contemporary sculpture. Between September and December 2011, approximately 260 people attended ISConnects panel discussions, exhibition tours, and artist lectures. Organizations such as the Museum of Arts and Design, Grounds For Sculpture, Moore College of Art and Design, and Princeton University have partnered with the ISC to develop innovative programs that appeal to a wide range of audiences. These programs have produced tremendous results. Audiences enjoyed the smaller-scale events, which allowed more interaction with panelists, speakers, and artists and provided networking opportunities. ISConnects programs feature emerging and established artists, journalists and authors, academics and arts administrators. ISC award winners and other individuals with unique viewpoints on sculpture have also participated. Our 2012 programs promise to be even more successful. There will be new events at each of the 2011 locations, and additional programs at the National Academy Museum and School in New York City, the Kaneko and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Advance registration for ISConnects programs is required, and tickets can be purchased on-line at . Programs like ISConnects are just some of the ways in which the ISC is striving to champion the creation and understanding of sculpture and its unique, vital contribution to society. —Marc LeBaron Chairman, ISC Board of Trustees

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Chakaia Booker, New York, NY Robert Edwards, Naples, FL Bill FitzGibbons, San Antonio, TX Ralfonso Gschwend, Switzerland Paul Hubbard, Philadelphia, PA Ree Kaneko, Omaha, NE Gertrud Kohler-Aeschlimann, Switzerland Creighton Michael, Mt. Kisco, NY Prescott Muir, Salt Lake City, UT George W. Neubert, Brownville, NE F. Douglass Schatz, Potsdam, NY Steinunn Thorarinsdottir, Iceland 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 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 Gio’ Pomodoro Robert Rauschenberg George Rickey George Segal Kenneth Snelson Frank Stella William Tucker

Sculpture 31.3

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sculpture April 2012 Vol. 31 No. 3 A publication of the International Sculpture Center

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Departments

Features

16 Itinerary

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22 Commissions

Nina Levy: Compelling Discomfort by Jan Riley

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Li Wei: Pursuing Figuration in the 21st Century by Jonathan Goodman

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Brilliant Rubbish: A Conversation with Robert Cherry by Roger Boyce

Reviews

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Simple Simply Isn’t: A Conversation with Peter Shelton by Marlena Doktorczyk-Donohue

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Boise, Idaho: Mike Rathbun

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Making Art Visible for Everyone: A Conversation with Athena Tacha by Heleni Polichronatou

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West Hollywood: Andrea Zittel

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Antipodean Treasure: Connells Bay Sculpture Park by Robin Woodward

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Hudson, New York: La Wilson

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New York: Marisa Merz

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New York: Yukata Sone

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Queens, New York: James O. Clark and

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Forrest Myers 73

Utica, New York: Jongsun Lee

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Marfa, Texas: Bettina Landgrebe

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Ottawa: Jinny Yu

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Berlin: Wilhelm Mundt

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Jerusalem: Micha Ullman

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London: Shirazeh Houshiary

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Santiago and Buenos Aires: Sofia Donovan

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Hong Kong: Art Hong Kong 11

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On the Cover: Nina Levy, Boy With Fist, 2011. Archival digital C-print, 24 x 18 in. Photograph: Courtesy the artist and Salamatina Gallery.

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isc I N T E R N AT I O N A L S C U L P T U R E C E N T E R Executive Director Johannah Hutchison Office Manager Denise Jester Executive Assistant Alyssa Brubaker Membership Manager Julie Hain Web Manager Karin Jervert Grant Writer/Development Coordinator Kara Kaczmarzyk Conference and Events Coordinator Samantha Rauscher Membership Associate Emily Fest Administrative Associate Jeannette Darr ISC Headquarters 19 Fairgrounds Road, Suite B Hamilton, New Jersey 08619 Phone: 609.689.1051, fax 609.689.1061 E-mail: [email protected] _________

SCULPTURE MAGAZINE Editor Glenn Harper Managing Editor Twylene Moyer Editorial Assistants Elena Goukassian, Joshua Parkey Design Eileen Schramm visual communication Advertising Sales Manager Brenden O’Hanlon 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)

Address all editorial correspondence to: Sculpture 1633 Connecticut Avenue NW, 4th Floor Washington, DC 20009 Phone: 202.234.0555, fax 202.234.2663 E-mail: [email protected] ____________ Sculpture On-Line on the International Sculpture Center Web site: www.sculpture.org Advertising information E-mail _____________

Each issue of Sculpture is indexed in The Art Index and the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA).

I N T E R N AT I O N A L S C U L P T U R E C E N T E R C O N T E M P O R A R Y S C U L P T U R E C I R C L E The International Sculpture Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that provides programming and services supported by contributions, grants, sponsorships, and memberships.

Benefactor’s Circle ($100,000+) Atlantic Foundation Karen & Robert Duncan John Henry J. Seward Johnson, Jr. Johnson Art & Education Foundation Joshua S. Kanter Kanter Family Foundation Gertrud & Heinz Kohler-Aeschlimann Marc LeBaron Lincoln Industries National Endowment for the Arts Mary O’Shaughnessy I.A. O’Shaughnessy Foundation Estate of John A. Renna Jon & Mary Shirley Foundation Dr. & Mrs. Robert Slotkin Bernar Venet Major Donors ($50,000–99,999) Chakaia Booker Fletcher Benton Erik & Michele Christiansen Rob Fisher Richard Hunt Robert Mangold Fred & Lena Meijer Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park New Jersey State Council on the Arts Pew Charitable Trust Arnaldo Pomodoro Walter Schatz William Tucker Nadine Witkin, Estate of Isaac Witkin Mary & John Young

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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.

Chairman’s Circle ($10,000–49,999) Magdalena Abakanowicz Anonymous Foundation Janet Blocker Blue Star Contemporary Art Center Debra Cafaro & Terrance Livingston Chelsea College of Art & Design Sir Anthony Caro Clinton Family Fund Richard Cohen Don Cooperman David Diamond Jarvis & Constance Doctorow Family Foundation Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Terry & Robert Edwards Lin Emery Fred Eychaner Carole Feuerman Doris & Donald Fisher Bill FitzGibbons Alan Gibbs David Handley Richard Heinrich Daniel A. Henderson Michelle Hobart Peter C. Hobart Joyce & Seward Johnson Foundation KANEKO Ree & Jun Kaneko Mary Ann Keeler Keeler Foundation Phillip King William King Anne Kohs Associates Cynthia Madden Leitner/Museum of Outdoor Arts

Toby D. Lewis Philanthropic Fund Marlene & Sandy Louchheim Marlborough Gallery Patricia Meadows Creighton Michael Barrie Mowatt Manuel Neri New Jersey Cultural Trust Ralph O’Connor Frances & Albert Paley Patricia Renick Pat Renick Gift Fund Henry Richardson Melody Sawyer Richardson Russ Rubert Salt Lake Art Center Carol L. Sarosik & Shelley Padnos June & Paul Schorr, III Judith Shea Armando Silva Kenneth & Katherine Snelson STRETCH Mark di Suvero Takahisa Suzuki Aylin Tahincioglu Steinunn Thorarinsdottir Tishman Speyer Brian Tune University of the Arts London Boaz Vaadia Robert E. Vogele Georgia Welles Elizabeth Erdreich White

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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 professionals in a dialogue to advance the art form, and promote a supportive environment for sculpture and sculptors. The ISC values: our constituents— Sculptors, Institutions, and Patrons; dialogue—as the catalyst to innovation and understanding; education—as fundamental to personal, professional, and societal growth; and community—as 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 ISC’s on-line sculpture registry; and discounts on publications, supplies, and services. International Sculpture Conferences The ISC’s International Sculpture Conferences gather sculpture enthusiasts from all over the world to network and dialogue about technical, aesthetic, and professional issues.

www.sculpture.org The ISC’s award-winning Web site 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.

This program is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

This issue is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Director’s Circle ($5,000–9,999) Ana & Gui Affonso Ralf Gschwend Patty & Jay Baker Naples Museum Haunch of Venison of Art Michael Johnson Sydney & Walda Besthoff Tony Karman Otto M. Budig Family Foundation Gallery Kasahara Lisa Colburn Susan Lloyd Ric Collier Martin Margulies FreedmanArt Merchandise Mart Grounds For Sculpture Properties Patron’s Circle ($2,500–4,999) Elizabeth Catlett Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery Moore College of Art & Design

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.

Jill & Paul Meister Gerard Meulensteen National Gallery, London Kristen Nordahl Brian Ohno Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen Dennis Oppenheim Bill Roy

Doug Schatz Mary Ellen Scherl Sculpture Community/ sculpture.net Sebastián Eve & Fred Simon Lisa & Tom Smith Duane Stranahan, Jr. Roselyn Swig

Museum of Arts & Design Princeton University Art Museum Kiki Smith

Tate Julian Taub Laura Thorne Harry T. Wilks Isaac Witkin Riva Yares Gallery

Elisabeth Swanson Doris & Peter Tilles Philipp von Matt

Friend’s Circle ($1,000–2,499) Dean Arkfeld Doris H. Arkin Verina Baxter Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond Learsy Giancarlo Calicchia Cause Contemporary Gallery The Columbus Museum Henry Davis Guerra de la Paz Terry Dintenfass, Inc. James Geier Agnes Gund Dr. LaRue Harding Ed Hardy Habit/Hardy LLC

Olga Hirshhorn Paul Hubbard Paul Klein Phlyssa Koshland Gary Kulak Nanci Lanni Chuck Levy Jim & Karen Linder Steve Maloney Robert E. Meyerhoff & Rheda Becker Millennium Park, Inc. Lowell Miller David Mirvish Prescott Muir

Professional Circle ($350–999) 555 International Inc.•Ruth Abernethy•Linda Ackley-Eaker•D. James Adams• John Adduci•Osman Akan•Mine Akin•Elizabeth Aralia•Michelle Armitage• Art Valley•Uluhan Atac•Gordon B Auchincloss•Michael Aurbach•Helena Bacardi-Kiely•Sarah Barnhart-Fields•Brooke Barrie•Jerry Ross Barrish•Carlos Basanta•Fatma Basoglu-Takiiil•Bruce Beasley•Joseph Becherer•Edward Benavente•Joshua Bederson•Joseph Benevenia•Patricia Bengtson Jones• Constance Bergfors•Evan Berghan•Ronald Berman•Roger Berry•Henri Bertrand•Cindy Billingsley•Denice Bizot•Rita Blitt•Christian Bolt•Marina Bonomi•Gilbert V. Boro•Louise Bourgeois•Linda Bowden•Judith Britain• Walter Bruszewski•Gil Bruvel•Hal Buckner•Ruth M. Burink•H. Edward Burke•Maureen Burns-Bowie•Keith Bush•Mary Pat Byrne•Pattie Byron•Imel Sierra Cabrera•Kati Casida•David Caudill•Jan Chenoweth•Won Jung Choi• Asherah Cinnamon•John Clement•Jonathan Clowes•Robert Clyatt•Marco Cochrane•Lynda Cole•Austin Collins•Randy Cooper•J. Laurence Costin• Fuller Cowles & Constance Mayeron•Robert Crowel•Amir Daghigh•Sukhdev Dail•Tomasz Danilewicz•Arianne Dar•Erich Davis•Martin Dawe•Paul A. Deans•Arabella Decker•Angel Delgado•G.S. Demirok•Bruce Dempsey•Albert Dicruttalo•Anthony DiFrancesco•Karen Dimit•Konstantin Dimopoulos• Marylyn Dintenfass•Deborah Adams Doering•Yvonne Ga Domenge•Dorit Dornier•Jim Doubleday•Philip S. Drill•Laura Evans Durant•Herb Eaton• Charles Eisemann•Ward Elicker•Jorge Elizondo•Elaine Ellis•Bob Emser• Robert Erskine•Helen Escobedo•John W. Evans•Philip John Evett•Isabelle Faucher•Johann Feilacher•Zhang Feng•Helaman Ferguson•Pattie Porter Firestone•Talley Fisher•True Fisher•Dustine Folwarczny•Basil C. Frank•Mary Annella Frank•Gayle & Margaret Franzen•Dan Freeman•Jason Frizzell• James Gallucci•Eliseo Garcia•Ron Gard•Ronald Garrigues•Beatriz Gerenstein•Shohini Ghosh•James S. Gibson•Jacqueline Gilmore•Helgi

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Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Naples Illustrated John P. & Anne Nelson George Neubert Sassona Norton Ralph O’Connor Steven Oliver Tom Otterness Enid J. Packard Raul Perez Polich Tallix Art Foundry Roger Smith Hotel Ky & Jane Rohman Greg & Laura Schnackel

Gislason•Joe Gitterman•Edmund Glass•Glenn Green Galleries & Sculpture Garden•DeWitt Godfrey•Roger Golden•Yuebin Gong•Gordon Huether Studio•Thomas Gottsleben•Todd Graham•Peter Gray•Francis Greenburger• Sarah Greiche•Gabriele Poehlmann Grundig•Barbara Grygutis•Simon Gudgeon•Thomas Guss•Roger Halligan•Wataru Hamasaka•Phyllis B. Hammond•Mike Hansel•Jens Ingvard Hansen•Bob Haozous•Jacob J. Harmeling•Susan Harrison•Barbara Hashimoto•Sally Hepler•Kenneth Herlihy•David B. Hickman•Joyce Hilliou•Kathryn Hixson•Bernard Hosey• Jack Howard-Potter•Brad Howe•Jon Barlow Hudson•Robert Huff•Ken Huston•Yoshitada Ihara•Eve Ingalls•Lucy Irvine•J. Johnson Gallery•James Madison University•Jivko Jeliazkov•Julia Jitkoff•Andrew Jordan•Johanna Jordan•Wolfram Kalt•Kent Karlsson•Ray Katz•Cornelia Kavanagh•Jan Keating•Robert E. Kelly•Lita Kelmenson•Orest Keywan•Hitoshi Kimura• Gloria Kisch•Stephen Kishel•Bernard Klevickas•Jacqueline Kohos•Adriana Korkos•Krasl Art Center•Jon Krawczyk•Dave & Vicki Krecek•KUBO•Lynn E. La Count•Dale Lamphere•Alexis Laurent•Henry Lautz•Won Lee•Michael Le Grand•Evan Lewis•John R. Light•Ken Light•Robert Lindsay•Marvin Lipofsky• Robert Longhurst•Sharon Loper•Charles Loving•Jeff Lowe•Helen Lykes• Lynden Sculpture Garden•Noriaki Maeda•Mike Major•Andrea Malaer• Jane Manus•Lenville Maxwell•Edward Mayer•Claire McArdle•William McBride•Isabel McCall•Jeniffer McCandless•Joseph McDonnell•Ceci Cole McInturff•Sam McKinney•Darcy Meeker•Ron Mehlman•Saul Melman• Gina Michaels•Carol Mickett & Robert Stackhouse•Ruth Aizuss MigdalBrown•Brian Monaghan•Norman Mooney•Richard Moore, III•Jean-Pierre Morin•Aiko Morioka•DeeDee Morrison•Keld Moseholm•Serge Mozhnevsky• W.W. Mueller•Anna Murch•Robert Murphy•Morley Myers•Arnold Nadler• Marina Nash•Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park•Nature’s Circles•John

Sculpt Nouveau Storm King Art Center Thai Metal Crafters The Todd & Betiana Simon Foundation Tmima Tootsie Roll Industries UBS Financial Services Edward Ulhir Steve Vail Fine Arts Hans Van De Bovenkamp LTD Ursula von Rydingsvard Alex Wagman

Nicolai•James Nickel•Donald Noon•Joseph O’Connell•Thomas O’Hara• Michelle O’Michael•Thomas Ostenberg•Frank Ozereko•Palmyra Sculpture Centre•Scott Palsce•Ralph H. Paquin•Gertrud Parker•Ronald Parks• Tarunkumar Patel•Mark Patterson•Jolanta Pawlak•Carol Peligian•Beverly Pepper•Cathy & Troy Perry•Anne & Doug Peterson•Dirk Peterson•Terrance Plowright•Daniel Postellon•Bev Precious•Jonathan Quick•Semion Rabinkov• Morton Rachofsky•Kimberly Radochia•Marcia Raff•Vicky Randall•Jeannette Rein•Chase Revel•Anthony Ricci•Ellie Riley•Robert Webb Sculpture Garden/Creative Arts Guild•Kevin Robb•Andrew Rogers•Salvatore Romano• Carol Ross•Susan Ferrari Rowley•James B. Sagui•Olou Komlan Samuel• Nathan Sawaya•Tom Scarff•Peter Schifrin•Mark Schlachter•Andy Scott• John Searles•Joseph H. Seipel•Art Self•Carlos Setien•Mary Shaffer• Patrick Shannon•Kambiz Sharif•Scott Sherk•Jerry Shore•Debra Silver• Daniel Sinclair•Vanessa L. Smith•Yvette Kaiser Smith•Susan Smith-Trees• Stan Smokler•Frances Sniffen•Sam Spiczka•John Stallings•Robert St. Croix•Eric Stein•Linda Stein•Eric Stephenson•Michael Stearns•Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas•Jozef Sumichrast•David Sywalski•Tash Taskale•Cordell Taylor• Timothy Taylor•Richard Taylor•Peter Terry•Ana Thiel•Marta Thoma•Peter Tilley•Stephen Tirone•Cliff Tisdell•Rein Triefeldt•John Valpocelli•Jon Vander Bloomen•Vasko Vassilev•Martine Vaugel•Philip Vaughan•Kathy Venter• Ales Vesely•Jill Viney•Bruce Voyce•Ed Walker•Martha Walker•Sydney Waller•Blake Ward•Mark Warwick•James Watts•Jim Wheeler•Andrew White•Michael Whiting•Philip Wicklander•John Wiederspan•Madeline Wiener•W.K. Kellogg Foundation•Wesley Wofford•Jean Wolff•Dr. Barnaby Wright•Joan Wynn•Cigdem Yapanar•Riva Yares•Albert Young•Larry Young•Genrich Zafir•Steve Zaluski•Peter Zandbergen•Gavin Zeigler•Glenn Zweygardt

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New from ISC Press

The New Earthwork: Art, Action, Agency

Edited by Twylene Moyer and Glenn Harper

Available Now

For more than 40 years, sculptors have been at the forefront of environmental and ecological/social innovation, making works that treat the earth as creative partner rather than resource and raw material. The new earthwork, which is currently at the leading edge of sculptural practice, means art for the future of humanity and the planet; it means a new approach to aesthetics and the role of art in our lives; it means a sustainable and vital artistic practice that not only solves problems but dares to ask questions and seek answers across disciplinary boundaries. Introduction by Lucy Lippard, articles on artists Buster Simpson, Mark Dion, Alan Sonfist, Agnes Denes, Lorna Jordan, Maya Lin, Natalie Jeremijenko, and many more.

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Member Price $24.95 Non-Member Price $29.95 Available Now At http://sculpture.gostorego.com/ new-earth-works.html ________________

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itinerary

Above: Elmgreen and Dragset, It’s Never Too Late to Say Sorry. Top right: Rachel Owens, Inveterate Composition for Clare. Right: Alina Szapocznikow, Tumors personified. Bottom right: Carlos Bunga, installation view of Hammer Project.

Coolsingel Rotterdam Elmgreen and Dragset Through May 28, 2012 Last year, Elmgreen and Dragset transformed Rotterdam’s former submarine wharf (an industrial cavern rivaling Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall) into an apocalyptic vision of urban decay blurring the line between art and real life. It’s Never Too Late to Say Sorry, their project in the public square of the Coolsingel, continues to target social conventions and behavior. Installed in front of City Hall and other bastions of officialdom, the sculpture consists of a carefully designed display case containing a polished stainless steel megaphone. Every day at noon, a man opens the case, takes out the megaphone, and bellows, “It’s never too late to say sorry.” Perhaps a “power-

less gesture” akin to the Powerless Structures with which the duo first achieved notoriety, this staged activist gesture offers at least the hope that someone will step up and highjack the proceedings, turning the faux soapbox into a genuine Speakers’ Corner. ___ Web site __________________

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Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza New York Rachel Owens Through May 31, 2012 Given its location—Manhattan’s historic “Gateway to the UN”— Owens’s Inveterate Composition for Clare can’t help but stage a protest. Composed of disassembled parts from two replica military Hummers

ELMGREEN & DRAGSET: JANNES LINDERS / OWENS: LISA CORSON / SZAPOCZNIKOW: © THE ESTATE OF ALINA SZAPOCZNIKOW/PIOTR STANISLAWSKI/ADAGP, PARIS, COURTESY ZACHETA NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WARSAW, AND AGENCJA MEDIUM SP. Z O.O. / BUNGA: BRIAN FORREST

welded together into a monumental, formless crash of a composition, the sculpture captures the violent energies that fuel humanity’s pathological need for strife. But this self-contained pile of rubble alludes to more than one type of discord. Covered with metallic icy-white paint, it also evokes a stranded iceberg. The haunting whale songs emanating from its speakers provide a different beat for the drums of war, raising a universal cry of environmental distress barely tempered by optimism. Web site Hammer Museum Los Angeles Alina Szapocznikow Through April 29, 2012 Carlos Bunga Through April 22, 2012 Szapocznikow began her career in the postwar period as a traditional figurative sculptor, but she turned to radical experimentation in the 1960s, pursuing a new language to express changed conditions. Her reconception of sculpture has left behind a legacy of provocative objects—at once sexualized, visceral, humorous, and political—that sit uneasily at the intersection of Surrealism, Nouveau Réalisme, and Pop Art. Tinted polyester resin casts of lips and breasts transformed into lamps and ashtrays, spongy polyurethane forms embedded with casts of bellies or live grass, and resin sculptures that incorporate found photographs remain as biting and original today as when they were made. This exhibition features extensive archival materials, as well as more than 100 works, including drawings and photographs, that introduce a unique vision to a wider audience. In Bunga’s architecturally scaled installations, mass-produced materials such as cardboard, packing tape, and house paint coalesce in improvised structures that recall tempo-

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Top left: Jeremy Deller, The Battle of Orgreave. Left: Michael Kienzer, Haltung Vol. 8. Above: Jesús Rafael Soto, Blue Penetrable, from “Supra-

DELLER: MARTIN JENKINSON, © JEREMY DELLER, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND ARTANGEL / KIENZER: TOM KLENGEL / SOTO: IWAN BAAN, © 2012 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NY/ADAGP, PARIS

sensorial.”

rary shelters or life-size models. With their cheap materials and rapid construction values, these works give the lie to the illusion of permanence that propels human undertaking. Everything is subject to decay and destruction, from buildings and memorials to ideologies and shared values—as underscored by his recent series of sand and cardboard models of imaginary monuments (shown at the XIV Carrara Biennale last year). Bunga’s Hammer Project features a new work made on site, as well as a selection of drawings, paintings, sculptures, and videos. Tel: 310.443.7000 Web site

Hayward Gallery London Jeremy Deller Through May 13, 2012 Deller believes that “there’s enough stuff in the world.” Just as he rejects objects (unless they’re repurposed with a redeeming social function), preferring to explore ideas through collaborative endeavors, he also resists the whole mystique of the artist. Inevitably some critics question whether he is an artist at all, but leaving that pointless debate aside, there is no denying that his “theater of therapy,” as one Guardian reader calls it, makes people think—often about things that they’d rather avoid. This mid-career retrospective collects a grab bag of free-ranging works that have helped to rewrite the rules of art. From The Battle of Orgreave— a restaging of the 1984 showdown

between police and striking miners, with the participation of those very same Yorkshire policemen and miners—to social action parades and the public discussions spawned by It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq—a cross-country tour of the U.S. with an Iraqi man, a U.S. solider, and a car blown up by a Baghdad bomb—Deller demonstrates that politically engaged art can be nuanced, open-ended, and far from preachy. The show also features a new, get-under-the-skin, 3-D film of bats rising from their Texas cave (a follow-up to his London bat house project competition) and a unique section called “My Failures,” a gallery of never-realized ideas—many of them brave and thought-provoking, such as a proposed statue of David Kelly appearing to jump from the Fourth Plinth. Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7960 4200 Web site Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Washington, DC Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color and Space Through May 13, 2012 “Suprasensorial”—the term comes from Hélio Oiticica—rewrites the history of the Light and Space movement, recognizing the pivotal

role played by Latin American artists. A decade before Light and Space emerged in late-’60s California, Lucio Fontana, Julio Le Parc, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Oiticica (in collaboration with Neville D’Almeida) were creating environments of light and color that challenged traditional notions of art as static experience. More than just stunning perceptual investigations, their large-scale, multimedia works fused formal and social concerns, bringing the work of art down from its Olympian heights and into the physical world of the viewer. In the five rarely seen installations featured here, participation is open to all, requiring no special knowledge—just the ordinary ability to see, think, feel, and respond in the face of transformative optical effects that lead to experiences beyond the aesthetic. Tel: 202.633.1000 Web site Kunsthaus Graz Graz, Austria Michael Kienzer Through May 6, 2012 Kienzer attempts to transform and disrupt acquired viewing habits. Vaguely familiar but altered beyond easy recognition, his sculptures place viewers in unusual circumstances that upend everyday knowledge and replace it with a strange comic logic. This show revolves around a large-scale work that covers the space with traces of possible trajectories,

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protest is co-opted and absorbed?”— add up to a virulent critique of a passive and discredited culture. Tel: + 423 235 03 00 Web site

tions; gunpowder drawings fusing maritime routes with Islamic botanical motifs; and Fragile, an 18-meterlong porcelain and gunpowder mural. Part historical and part personal pilgrimage, “Saraab” traces new paths through the complex web of conceptual and material ties that bind two equally great, but radically divergent traditions. Tel: + 974.4402.8855 Web site

Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art Doha, Qatar Cai Guo-Qiang Through May 26, 2012 “Saraab,” the title of Cai’s first solo show in the Middle East, means “mirage” in Arabic. Inspired by the longstanding ties between China and the Arab world (dating back to the ancient maritime Silk Road), this exhibition of more than 50 works explores the seafaring culture of the Gulf and the Islamic history of Cai’s hometown of Quanzhou. More than an acknowledgement of the ephemeral and illusory effects that characterize some of his best-known works, the title also alludes to the difficulties of cultural, temporal, and geographic translation, a seemingly unobtainable goal in this fractured world. Sixteen new commissions include Homecoming, a winding path through 60 rocks taken from Quanzhou and carved with Arabic inscrip-

MAXXI Rome Re-Cycle: Strategies of Architecture, City, and Planet Through April 29, 2012 This exhibition takes the environmental and economic benefits of recycling as a given, shifting focus to its catalytic potency as a generator of creative innovation. Rome is a strangely perfect host city for such a show: Italian architects and designers (unlike their counterparts in changeobsessed cultures) can rarely build from scratch and have little choice but to retool and reshape a protected (and often resented) architectural legacy—recycled materials and sites are much more than a niche practice here. With a range of realized and unrealized projects from around the world, from early Frank Gehry and Venturi Scott Brown efforts through the High Line by James Corner and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Elisabetta Terragni’s pedestrian passage at the

Top left: Bojan Šarcˇevic´, The BreathTaker is the Breath-Taker (Film C). Left: Cai Guo-Qiang, Fragile (detail of work in progress). Above: Fernando and Humberto Campana, Maloca, from “Re-Cycle.”

imaginary routes followed by an outof-control line or ball. Adapted to fit this new scenario, works from the last 10 years display a degree of relativity unusual in objects. Miniature then large, elusive then concrete, sculptural reality becomes mutable and directly subject to the presence of the observer. Tel: + 43 316/8017 9200 Web site _______________ Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein Vaduz, Liechtenstein Bojan Šarcˇevic´ Through May 6, 2012 Šarcˇevic´’s installations and sculptures question the capability of art to contribute anything essential to contemporary Western society. Alternating between political engagement and aesthetic retrenchment, he tries out

a variety of approaches, forms, and sizes. Whether minimally spare or ravishingly lush, miniature or massive, his work creates spaces of atmospheric density, on the cusp between fullness and emptiness, materiality and dissolution, allusion and precision. But even the lightest and most ethereal of these creations comes with an existential edge: Šarcˇevic´ is also the creator of a wilderness survival guide written in a Borataccented phonetic English and the presenter of a report on Balkan-E.U. geopolitical relations masquerading as an exhibition catalogue. This show features 15 pieces from the last four years, including At Present, whose nine points—from “Are we living in the most conformist phase in modern history?” to “Why is it that nowadays any possibility of social

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ŠARCˇEVIC´: COURTESY KUNSTMUSEUM LIECHTENSTEIN / CAI: COURTESY CAI STUDIO / CAMPANA: SEBASTIANO LUCIANO, COURTESY FONDAZIONE MAXXI

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Top left: raumlaborberlin, Officina Roma, from “Re-Cycle.” Center:

RAUMLABORBERLIN: INVENTORI DI MONDI, COURTESY FONDAZIONE MAXXI / HUNDLEY: JOSHUA WHITE, © ELLIOTT HUNDLEY, COURTESY REGEN PROJECTS, LOS ANGELES, AND ANDREA ROSEN GALLERY, NY / SIERRA: INGVAR HÎNI RAGNARSSON, COURTESY REYKJAVIK ART MUSEUM / SMITH: MELISSA CHRISTY, © KIKI SMITH, COURTESY THE PACE GALLERY

Elliott Hundley, swarming over. Bottom: Santiago Sierra, NO. Right: Kiki Smith, Harmonies II.

of live actors, he transfers key dramatic moments and imagery to two- and three-dimensional assemblages, intricately composed of paint, photographs, and organic and found materials (ranging from bamboo, goat hooves, and pine cones to pins, magnifying lenses, and gold leaf). Abstracted distillations of emotion and action, his freestanding compositions take center stage in a fully imagined fictive world that reflects and magnifies enduring human dilemmas and conflicts. Here, he brings contemporary life to Euripedes’s The Bacchae, a saga of familial betrayal and divine vengeance, fraught with ecstatic pleasure, violence, and remorse. Tel: 214.242.5100 Web site

Museo Storico del Trentino, Miniwiz’s Taipei EcoARK pavilion, and the otherworldly soundscape realized by Pierpaolo Perra and Alberto Antioco Loche at an abandoned quarry in Sardinia, “Re-Cycle” demonstrates the endless potential offered by the abandoned, the decaying, and the outdated. Two site-specific interventions by recycling masters Fernando and Humberto Campana and raumlaborberlin transform leftovers, debris, and recovered materials into sculptural constructions that point the

way to new syntheses of art and design, architecture, and landscape. Tel: + 39 (0) 6 39967350 Web site Nasher Sculpture Center Dallas Elliott Hundley Through April 22, 2012 Hundley draws on classical mythology, art history, and current events to create epic, theatrical environments. Beginning with photoshoots

Reykjavik Art Museum Reykjavik Santiago Sierra Through April 15, 2012 Sierra’s radical and poetic statements focus on economic and power relations, especially repetitive routines and the exchange value of labor. Though critics accuse him of abusing misery, his socially engaged works shed a blinding light on accepted “norms” of inequality and entitlement. He has disassembled a truck piece by piece only to reassemble it in a gallery, invited visitors to Hannover’s Kestner Gesellschaft to re-enact a Hitler-era work program and spread 400 tons of mud, paid prostitutes with heroin in exchange for having lines tattooed on their

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Neuberger Museum of Art Purchase, New York Kiki Smith Through May 6, 2012 Best known for her depictions of the human form—in anatomical fragments as well as full figures—Smith has explored a broad range of subject matter, from religion, folklore, and mythology to natural science, art history, and feminism. Whether realized as room-sized installations or miniatures, her meditations on the human condition display a mastery of materials and their expressive potential: bronze, beeswax, hair, and papier mâché become alternately intimate, visceral, poignant, or fragile invocations of the physical, philosophical, and social issues of our times. “Visionary Sugar” features new multimedia work, including gilded sculptures and reliefs,

drawings, and tapestries that expansively engage the natural world, the spirit, and the cosmos, offering a singular vision of an earthly paradise. Tel: 914.251.6100 Web site

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Uprising.

backs while sitting in a line, and hired laborers to push enormous cement blocks in Sisyphean futility and sit in cardboard boxes during stifling heat. This show presents the first complete showing of his films and video documentation, as well as the latest incarnation of his NO global tour project. The monumental sculptural denial—“just say no” turned anti-establishment—has a habit of showing up in the most politically embarrassing locations, rejecting complacency while issuing an uncompromising fuck you to hegemonic power structures. Tel: + 354 590 1200 Web site

Suyama Space Seattle Rick Araluce and Steve Peters Through April 13, 2012 A visual and sonic tour de force, Uprising pays homage to the functional bones of building systems. Like Rogers and Piano’s Centre Pompi-

dou, this collaborative installation makes the invisible visible, freeing infrastructure from its shadowy confines; but here the focus is on artistry not function. An elaborate network of cast-iron plumbing pipes takes center stage, emerging from the recesses of floor, walls, and ceil-

ing in a surprisingly compelling reminder of the care that craftsmen once lavished on mundane, hidden details (as opposed to PVC and goop). But these apparent relics are more than artifacts; in fact, they are fakes—meticulously crafted trompe l’oeil facsimiles crafted from wood, plastic, foam, and paint. Fascinated by the evocative beauty of old construction, defunct technology, and disappearing rituals of life, Araluce painstakingly conjures the past, increasingly incorporating sound. Here, Peters provides an evocative acoustic atmosphere with filtered sounds swooshing through the pipes in a chorus of abstract echoes. Tel: 206.256.0809 Web site

COURTESY SUYAMA SPACE, SEATTLE, WA

Rick Araluce and Steve Peters,

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_____________

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commissions walls but left “the staircase…conspicuously empty. It was a perfect blank canvas to begin exploring various ideas that referenced the architecture but also had porcelain, dimensions variable. [their] own distinct narrative.” Taking its name from the Latin for “sycamore of the library,” Platanus bibliotechalis climbs the atrium-like space of the stair, its branches sprawling across the skylight and appearing to penetrate the walls. “The idea of the ghosts of ancient indigenous species emerging and disappearing through the walls seemed to fit the spirit of the space,” Wiseman explains. The ghostly white sycamore tree serves as a reminder of Los Angeles County’s long-lost natural landscape. At the same time, it provides a link between the library and the surrounding West Hollywood Park. In fact, Wiseman used bark chips from nearby sycamores to stamp the porcelain that he later fired and used for the trunk of his sculpture. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Platanus bibliotechalis lies in its approach to materials. Very rarely does a sculptor create a permanent installation using porcelain, whose fragility denies longevity. Wiseman says that the dichotomy between permanence and longevity plays an important conceptual role throughout the work, playing out through “the delicacy of the leaf clusters, lyrical branches, and seed pods in contrast to massive limbs and trunk, the contrast in scale from minute to massive, the contrast of concrete presence and ephemeral gestures.” All this results in an ethereal, almost otherworldly, vision that introduces a ghost of nature into the built environment. David Wiseman, Platanus biblio-

techalis, 2011. Plaster, bronze, and

David Wiseman Platanus bibliotechalis West Hollywood, CA When officials from the City of West Hollywood approached David Wiseman to design a permanent installation for a new library, he noticed that the architects had created relief designs for the ceilings and

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One of five commissioned projects installed in the San Francisco International Airport’s newly remodeled Terminal 2 last spring, Kendall Buster’s Topograph consists of two “conversant forms” hanging from the ceiling and flanking a bridge-like passage above the departures lobby. True to their name, the forms create a kind of landscape through which travelers pass while walking across the bridge. Buster was particularly interested in having viewers “walk between fragments of a kind of ephemeral landscape…a fragmented topography map.” Buster considered the viewer’s experience from all vantage points while also bearing in mind the hustle and bustle of the airport. “My first thoughts were about a form that would participate in what I saw as rapidly and sequentially changing positions of viewer to object,” she explains. “As one moves in relation to the work, whether looking from above into the sculpture or from below, the planes seem to pivot.” As the viewer moves, the forms change, “suggesting clouds dispersing or shifting landscapes.” Buster’s signature semi-transparent scrims stretched over steel tubing create forms that “operate like an apparition,” allowing light to seep through and complementing the architecture of the space. “I have always liked the notion that fragments of the wall or ceiling simply peeled away and transformed into the sculpture,” she remarks. “I was interested in responding to what was a beautifully open, light-filled space.” Buster has a rare ability to create organic fusions of opposites—in the case of Topograph, of the built and natural environments. She notes that the installation can be seen as landscape and architecture, a topographical map and a built environment. In the same vein, she sets up other oppositions by making bold gestures with light and seemingly ephemeral forms and pairing geometrically defined elements with the dynamic nature of the overall forms. Whether walking under or between its forms, hurried travelers are sure to slow down while passing through Topograph’s constantly fluctuating landscape.

MARK HANAUER, COURTESY R 20TH CENTURY

Kendall Buster Topograph San Francisco

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BUSTER: BRUCE DAMONTE, COURTESY SAN FRANCISCO ARTS COMMISSION / OGORZELEC: COURTESY THE ARTIST

Ludwika Ogorzelec Breathing Cloud Exeter, U.K. Ludwika Ogorzelec has been developing her “Space Crystallization” series for over 20 years, creating site-specific, temporary, indoor and outdoor installations all over the world. Taking the form of woven nets or webs, these projects represent “a shattering of space into smaller components, ‘crystals’ whose purpose is to achieve a new aesthetic and psychological state that acts on the conscious and subconscious mind of the observer.” Last October, Ogorzelec presented a new incarnation of the space crystallizations at Exeter Castle as part of the exhibition “Before the Crash—Art and Science Collide.” Breathing Cloud stretched a large, suspended net of woven cellophane strings across the castle courtyard, just above the heads of visitors. Like her previous space crystallizations, this work attempted to redefine the very space that it inhabited, transporting viewers away from everyday life and into a mysterious world above them. Ogorzelec has always been taken with the notion of “showing the invisible” in response to what she calls the “subjective world” of human creation. She seeks to combine this intellectual world of the human mind with the natural, scientific, or “objective” world: “I want my sculpture to be like a passing phenomenon springing out of the world of biology, machines, and instruments.” By aestheticizing the convergence of balance and tension, filled and unfilled space, truth and absurdity, her sculptures aim to stimulate human emotions while instilling a sense of wonder. As she noted in an interview with Italian art critic Camilla Boemio, “Science, any investigation of the natural world, teaches humility.” Ogorzelec strives to pass along humility through her work, ultimately, and most importantly, reaching those who enter her world. —Elena Goukassian

Above: Kendall Buster, Topograph, 2011. Powder-coated steel tubing and greenhouse shade cloth, 2 elements, 24 x 24 x 18 ft. and 24 x 24 x 14 ft. Below: Ludwika Ogorzelec, Breathing Cloud, 2011. Mixed media, dimensions variable.

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 . ___________

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COURTESY THE ARTIST AND SALAMATINA GALLERY

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NINA LEVY

COURTESY THE ARTIST AND SALAMATINA GALLERY

BY JAN RILEY

Opposite: Husband and Son, 2006. Polyester resin and oil paint, 76.5 x 17 x 15 in. This page: Shirt Heads, 2009. Polyester and automotive paint, 2 elements, approximately 12 x 11 x 10 in. each.

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The exhibition “Related Forms” acted as a mini-retrospective for Nina Levy, displaying sculptures and photographs from 1999 to 2011. Her controversial figurative works, displayed to great advantage in the long, open space of Salamatina Gallery (unexpectedly set in a former Gap store in an upscale shopping mall in Manhasset, New York), caused a stir among shoppers on their way to David Yurman or Prada. Levy has said of her work, “Ideally you want to make a piece that unravels over time and has multiple readings. I think my starting point has always been about trying to play both sides—to make something beautiful and compelling…but that also has a discomforting subtext.” The works in “Related Forms” were all beautiful and compelling, and amply discomforting. Since the birth of her first son, Archer, in 2003, Levy has taken the dichotomy of parenthood as her subject: “[A baby] is both an extremely irrational, energetic, and uncontrollable person and a lovely, celebrated child. And parents are both charmed and terrified at suddenly becoming wholly responsible for someone other than themselves.” Levy has chosen to deal with this dichotomy by using images of headless adults. In Husband and Son (2006), she has sculpted her husband, Peter, standing easily, but without a head, while Archer sits serenely unconcerned on his shoulders. In Portrait of my Son (2010), Levy sculpted herself holding Ansel. She too is headless, but she carries Ansel, who is fully supported by an ergonomic carrying sling. As the children have grown, the parents have been granted heads—covered by tiny Tshirts. The little sleeves poke up like mismatched ears, and the overall effect is initially comical. The levity fades rapidly, though, as somber features come into view under the sculpted knit fabrics, and it becomes clear that the figures are not only blind and deaf but also in danger of suffocation. Shirt Heads (2009) come most often only as heads, but occasionally they have complete bodies, as in Shirt (2008), which portrays Peter seated and cowled by a tiny T-shirt. Levy’s newest body of work is a photographic series of her sons interacting with large sculpted resin body parts. Boy with Fist (2011), Boy with Body (2011), and Boy with Arms (2011) juxtapose small and fragile human bodies with oversize arms, hands, feet, and

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Left: Portrait of My Son (view from back), 2010. Aquaresin and oil paint,

heads. These pieces continue an earlier photographic series (1999– 2004) in which Levy used herself as the model, altering her body with the addition of sculpted prosthetic parts. She sees this earlier series as a way of investigating self-image. What happens to her image when she adds huge prosthetic lips opened in a fake smile? How does the viewer make sense of the image? How do we make sense of ourselves using only a mirror? The impetus behind the new photographic pieces came from observing her sons as they emulated characters from superhero cartoons, donning articles of clothing (capes, hats) and acting out fantasies of aggression. Levy says that when they posed for the photographs with the prosthetics, they were completely disinterested in both the objects and the process. Physical images of power—huge arms and hands—had little impact on them: “They didn’t seem to wonder where their adult body parts were, and they didn’t seem to yearn for body parts that were different from the ones they had.” She finds it curious that her sons understand adult musculature as a metaphor, and not as something to attain: “They don’t feel disempowered because they don’t have adult physical power.” Levy knows that these photographs are her interpretation of what her sons are thinking about: “They have an entire internal world that I have no access to, and no memory of, since I have never been a little boy.” When I asked how her sons reacted to the full-sized, freestanding sculptures of

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63 x 22 x 18 in. Above: Shirt, 2008. Ultracal and oil paint, 35 x 37 x 33 in.

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COURTESY THE ARTIST AND SALAMATINA GALLERY

Left: Boy with Body, 2011. Archival digital C-print, 24 x 18 in. Right: Eater, 2007–08. Archival digital C-print, 12 x 9 in.

herself and her husband, she told me that Ansel wondered where Mom’s head was but wasn’t concerned beyond simple curiosity and that Archer told her he has a head so he isn’t concerned that she and Peter don’t. While Levy’s works are laden with content, they all begin as visual images, opportunities to explore formal sculptural concerns. The headless image of Peter carrying Archer on his shoulders began when she saw them from the back, Peter’s head disappeared, obscured completely by Archer’s body. Working from this starting point, Levy realized that she needed to solve the problem of how to create Peter’s body without a head. What to do with the shoulders? Should he have a neck? Such formal issues consume her, but she is also aware that any time an artist works figuratively, “the content drives the boat, which is frustrating and galling in equal parts.” For the headless image of herself holding Ansel, Levy factored in emotional issues: “Parenthood forces parents out of the center of their lives. Parents become a backdrop, or a pedestal, supporting the lives they engendered.” In her self-portrait, she transformed

Jan Riley is a writer and curator living in New York and a frequent contributor to Sculpture.

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herself into a plinth, something that came into existence to hold Ansel and winks out of existence when he no longer needs to be held. Levy’s work is not only realistic—it is unflinching and relentless, bringing the hard facts of parenthood home, as implacable as the fact that death comes to all forms of life. What lifts these images from total despair is the beauty of their modeling and the luxurious sensuality of their forms. Joy and wonder can also be found in these works. They were made by hand, and the skill and knowledge it took to create them offer a cause for celebration all on their own.

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Pursuing Figuration in the 21st Century BY JONATHAN GOODMAN

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Installation of work in the group show “En, En…En?,” 2010. Exhibition at Fat Art, Beijing.

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Trap, 2008–09. Painted fiberglass, 90 x 32 x 80 cm.

Despite the presence of an avant-garde since the 1980s, figurative art remains important in China. This is not to say that Chinese culture rejects abstraction; instead, its preference for realist art is based on centuries of traditional painting focused on the landscape, which many scholars regard as its highest achievement. Artists such as Xu Bing, Gu Wenda, and Cai Guo-Qiang who have made their way to the West clearly don’t fit into the figurative paradigm; they are essentially installation and land artists with a marked conceptual bent, whose fame and success seem linked to a particular generation, one that came of age in 1980s Beijing. Many of today’s younger artists, on the other hand, have returned to the figure, and the Beijing sculptor Li Wei is indicative of her generation. Contemporary Chinese interest in figurative art depends on more than tradition. For some, it is a way of representing the suffering of the peasant—as, for example, in the famous sculptural group portraying the rent collection courtyard where a landowner demands money from the poor

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(completed in 1965 in Sichuan province, the work was reprised by artisans under the guidance of Cai for the 1999 Venice Biennale). The sensibility stems from the political drive behind Socialist Realism, in which the worker is glorified as heroic in his ability to deliver the materials and goods necessary to China’s well-being. So politicized an orientation, based on formal academic skills, is now harder to find, although the interest in the human body remains. Indeed, the training of young students in drawing, painting, and sculpture still stems from the Western studio practice of rendering the model, with the exception of classes teaching traditional Chinese painting. Li Wei, whose technical command of figurative sculpture is always sound and often inspired, has some sharp words about whether art can be intrinsically Chinese. Speaking of the idea “that art with Chinese elements must necessarily be Chinese art,” she says, “This idea is stupid, but, even so, many people believe it nowadays.” She goes on to say: “The impact of Western art started a long time ago, and many good

Chinese academic artists have been influenced by Western culture, which is normal. I think that spirit itself can represent people perfectly.” Her return to spiritual terms— she says that “the process of discovery toward truth is the process of spiritual growth”—enables her to universalize the aesthetic impulse. As a result, she can see her figurative training at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts as an exercise geared toward an objective representation of the human form—regardless of culture. Her sculpture, which ranges from dogs in cages to subtle busts of women reconfigured in various installation groupings, from naked hospital patients to everyday heroes, is predicated on the idea that people all over the world share an interest in realism: we inevitably see ourselves when viewing the human figure. Part of Li Wei’s attraction as an artist lies in her willingness to address the figure in no uncertain terms—and on a level that does not limit itself to China, though the portraits are of Chinese people. Li Wei’s commitment to representational art follows her understanding that the path of humanity accommodates a basic hope for the future—even if it is accompanied by an anger at injustice or political repression. Her understanding of society and culture is made more complex—but also more relevant—by her concern for gender issues and themes of freedom. She brings a sharp eye to the conventions that propel Chinese mores and sees the vulnerabilities of her culture in a critical light—hence her series of caged dogs, which addresses the treatment of animals but may be extended allegorically to express deeper concerns about China’s one-party government. One must be careful not to overinterpret and naively politicize imagery that, at least on the surface, looks perfectly innocent, yet, in an e-mail, Li Wei had the following to say of her generation: “We were born during the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the ’80s, the so-called ‘good times.’ But privately, in my thoughts, the best of times has been the worst of times. Now China seems to be open—we can play, enjoy, and so on. However, in the meantime, isn’t it horrible? When people enjoy common

Sculpture 31.3

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Auditory Hallucination I, 2008. Painted fiberglass, 82 x 56 x 93 cm.

entertainment, who is able to see the truth under layers of fog?” The “truth” to which she refers implicitly critiques the empty materialism that has

accompanied the easy affluence of her age group. Because she was “surrounded by luxury and dissipation,” she fell into “a deep despair.” Her generation is not only

trapped by government repression, it is also weakened by dissolute living. The allegory here is elusive, perhaps in part because Li Wei cannot speak out the way she would like. Her criticism, however, is not only of popular culture, but also of herself: “I want to be a sincere artist—even if my honest expression would be misunderstood. But [my dog sculptures] told a vague story. I didn’t define my position; I just put scenes together. I described rather than defined because I have no right to define. I am surrounded by a noisy and disorderly world, and I know very little about it.” Perhaps the language is a bit unclear— Li Wei wrote to me in English—but her frustration and desire to expose herself to, but also remain free of, certain kinds of experience indicate that she, like many artists and intellectuals, is repelled by materialism and conventional culture. Clearly, she refuses to explicitly criticize her government, whose harsh measures against dissenters are well known. But the suppressed truth of the dog sculptures may have greater accuracy than a simple description of their presentation—despite Li Wei’s assertion that she is only describing. It would be naive and even destructive to see her as shirking her duty by refusing to openly criticize the state—a stance that democracy can sustain but not a monolithic government. Indeed, even writing as much would constitute a risky act in China. Li Wei is not just addressing the state; she loves animals and clearly points out mistreatment in her sculptures. Still, Trap (as this project is titled) incorporates graffiti-strewn walls, and walls are the traditional site of dissident writings. The social message is subtle but present. Maybe the best way to approach this project is to see Li Wei’s art as allegory, albeit an allegory whose narrative is ambiguous or mute. The possible readings are many, but they have to fit the work without extrapolating from it in facile fashion. The caged dogs express not only Li Wei’s love of animals, but also her distress at Installation of work in the group show “The Other, the Same,” 2010.

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contemporary Chinese culture, as well as an implicit critique of China’s politics. Though she says that she detests politics, it remains part of her story—even if she is forced to speak in veiled terms. But this is only part of her work. One has the sense that Li Wei is attempting to speak to a higher reality, in her portraits especially, which are exquisite renderings of both spirit and personality in painted fiberglass. The kind of intelligence applied to her busts of women produces a subtle interaction between viewer and sculpture. Of particular interest are the titles, which invest the portraits with a meaning that the sculptures do not immediately communicate. In works such as Gossip, After Lying, and Persecution Mania, the realist style so central to Li Wei’s production takes on a psychological specificity that the busts only hint at as art. Perhaps Li Wei is interested in creating a disconnect

between the realism of her sculptural style and the psychological suggestion of her titles. She has written that the titles come after the portraits are finished, each one reflecting her own psychic state more than that of the model. Li Wei’s achievement is not always easy to follow, in large part because Western art seeks new expression and new form as proofs of creativity, while Chinese artists are not so quick to give up tradition. Realism remains strong in China because artists there have not given up on a shared humanity, which persists despite the troubling rule of an inflexible government. At least for me, it somehow makes sense that the world’s most populous nation would find solace in the persistence of realism—people remain the center of artistic attention. Perhaps Li Wei’s reluctance to attempt abstract sculpture stems from her belief

Installation of work in the group show “It’s Not Sculpture,” 2010. Exhibition at the Linda Gallery, Beijing.

that the human condition is best represented by its own imagery—a human face for a human art practice. While her humanism is not classical in either a Chinese or Western sense, it incorporates classicism as a way of fending off the distemper of repugnant social processes. Her portraits, while clearly of Chinese people, extend far beyond a particular ethnicity. Working from her imagination as well as photographs, Li Wei merges her sensibility with the real. The portraits are haunting, larger-thanlife treatments of women whose integrity is powerfully emotional. Persecution Mania (2007) shows a pensive woman glancing downward; it is clear that she is daydreaming a bit—for what reason, we don’t know. Her pale face is intensely realistic, as is her hair. Given the close attention to detail, we recognize a process whereby the particulars of individual features maintain a dignity of their own devising. In other words, the humanity presented by Li Wei exists in reality, rather than as an imaginative construction. It is important to note that the models themselves possess the dignity that we see in their sculptural likenesses, whose realism reveals vulnerability and, often, melancholy. Persecution Mania may indicate the psychic reality of the woman we see, but this information does not heavily influence our response to her. The model in After Lying (2007) also Installation view of “The Hollow Men,” 2009. Exhibition at the Hanmo Art Gallery, Beijing.

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Sculpture 31.3

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Gossip, 2009. Painted fiberglass, 56 x 46 x 83 cm.

shows a face of unusual emotional complexity; the young woman seems to be suppressing a grin, and she stares resolutely back at the viewer, perhaps after lying. The complexity arising from these enigmatic expressions is at odds with the categorizing effect of the titles. But this intricacy is not a weakness; instead, it points out the fact that Li Wei pictures real people with real sets of problems. The lyricism of these finely modeled and painted sculptures results in a broad appeal, while the specificity of psychological condition shows us that they are distinct individuals, which supports a universal, as opposed to a limited, interpretation. Auditory Hallucination I (2008) presents someone who looks troubled; the woman’s mournful gaze rises above the viewer, who feels compelled to empathize. Li Wei is particularly good at rendering the eyes, which communicate so much in her posed portraits. In this case, we also see the figure’s upper

Jonathan Goodman is a writer living in New York and a frequent contributor to Sculpture.

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body, which ends at the middle of the upper arms. At first glance, we assume that the person is indeed suffering from a mental disorder—why else would Li Wei title the sculpture in this way—and our sympathy is extended to someone whose condition requires kindness. In general, the faces we meet in Li Wei’s sculpture exercise our good will; there is so much vulnerability in her portraits. Part of their openness comes from their own energies, and part of the fragility comes from Li Wei herself. A poetic reading of art often suggests an awareness of death: the moment of attention in regard to beauty is intensified by our recognition, whether conscious or not, that our lives are limited in time. We know that Li Wei understands the subtle but compelling relation between death and beauty because she incorporates a certain melancholy into her work, expressed as a caged dog or a woman in distress. It

is wrong to overemphasize the emotional susceptibility of her subjects—that would be sentiment, feeling for its own sake— but nonetheless we see in her finely presented figuration a genuine understanding of human fragility. Betrayed Dignity (2009) depicts a reserved, doll-like figure, who returns the viewer’s gaze and presents her bare breasts in a matter-of-fact fashion. Nudity in these works doesn’t feel like sexualization; instead, it contributes to the poignancy of the image. We do not know how this person has been betrayed, but the idea of betrayal adds to our curiosity. We are inevitably hooked because Li Wei is so adept at constructing the presence of her models. Her technical skill is just about perfect, modulating the fine emotions of her figures without becoming such a tour de force that viewers attend to the technical details alone. Time will tell how Li Wei plans to proceed. While her sculptural practice has been limited to women—in part because, as she told me, women offer a finer sense of expression than men—she is now turning her attention to men. She also continues to portray animals. There seems to be little danger that she will become academic in her pursuits; her sensibility is far too developed to engage in mere description. Yet this may be difficult to see, in large part because the experience of the sculptures is so refined: the subtleties of Li Wei’s art demand committed viewers. Gossip (2009), for instance, offers us a young woman whose equanimity suggests enjoyment at being the subject of other people’s words. Her mute gaze tells us everything—and nothing at all. This combination of reticence and expressiveness lies at the center of Li Wei’s remarkable projects, which reify the world in order to comment on its diversity. Her signature ability, the presentation of quiet feeling, looks as contemporary as anything we now see.

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Brilliant Rubbish A Conversation with

ROBERT CHERRY

Commanding the east window of Robert Cherry’s hillside studio, which he shares with his wife, painter Seraphine Pick, is the air traffic control tower of the Wellington Airport. Beyond, on the far horizon, one may glimpse a stony suburban seashore where the artist and his young son Joseph once beach-combed flotsam—forlorn, sometimes unidentifiable, mostly plastic, odds and ends—which later encrusted a small army of slouching clay stelae. The ungainly tabletop totems that populated Cherry’s 2006 exhibition “I’ve Let You Down and I’ve Let Myself Down” were the first of his works that I’d seen and the beginning of my keen interest in his eccentric and engaging sculptural practice.

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COURTESY {SUITE} GALLERY, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND

BY ROGER BOYCE

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Opposite: Evil vs Good, 2011. Mixed media, 100 x 55 x 8 cm. Above: Weary Sinners, 2009. Modeling clay, glass, and found objects, 30 x 25 x 25 cm. Right: False Confession, 2009. Found

LEFT: COURTESY {SUITE} GALLERY, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND / RIGHT: COURTESY YOUNG BLEAKLEY COLLECTION, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND

objects and spray paint, 20 x 8 x 6 cm.

Roger Boyce: I heard that you recently went on a road trip across the United States, returning to New Zealand with a suitcase full of fake deli window-display food, ersatz salamis and other bogus meats. You’ve pressed those finds into service as component parts for new pieces, which recently appeared in your Wellington show “Sow seeds of kindness to reap a crop of friends.” What’s up with the fake food and the dopey aphoristic show titles? Robert Cherry: Well, that’s a charming bit of art-world chatter, but the real story is that we went to the U.S. in 2008 and to Europe last year, including Berlin. Neither Seraphine nor I had been to Berlin. There’s a lot of art to look at. It starts to affect you in ways, just like watching too many episodes of “The Sopranos” in one sitting. For respite we rode bikes all over East Berlin late at night. We’d roll past butcher shops with arrays of salamis hanging in illuminated windows— very common of course, but by then everything had started to look like art. That got me to thinking about making meat mobiles. When I got home, I ordered some fake meat on-line—salamis and strings of sausages. They came mail order from the States, and hell, they even threw in a free chop. I like them. They look heavy but, since they’re made of lightweight plastic, they turn and float in the slightest breeze. You can spot a segmented string of sausages through the hole of a round salami as the mobile spins. Nice muted colors, too.

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RB: Now, about the titles? RC: I found “Sow seeds of kindness” on one of those cheesy affirmation wall plaques. I like the sentiment. Try a little kindness, overlook the blindness. I mean, I don’t think I’ll be on my deathbed regretting that I didn’t spend more time in the studio. More likely I’ll think that I should have spent more time with friends and loved ones. Really, it’s nothing more than a nonsense title for a show of nonsense works—a little less defeatist than my previous exhibition titles, such as “I’ve Let You Down and I’ve Let Myself Down” or “When’s it all going to Stop?” The titles are more about the process of making art than the artworks themselves. RB: You’ve just trotted out the term “mobile” to describe some of the works in your last show. You do realize that as soon as you do that you’ve let a very “big dog” into the room, namely Alexander Calder. Calder invented the mobile and created what, for the most part, were lyrical, abstract, threedimensional statements. Your mobiles feature identifiable (arguably figurative) components. RC: You can’t make a mobile without it referring to Calder, can’t present a readymade without Duchamp, can’t use a big black brush without nodding to Franz Kline or Rolf Harris. All those guys have taken a big slice of the pie. I’m moving crumbs around at the bottom of the pan. It was simply seeing the hanging salamis that made me think of mobiles. My mobiles do feature identifiable objects, namely salamis, but I was hoping they could also be seen as something lyrically abstract if you didn’t look too hard—a ready-made object forced out of formal context by its otherwise unlikely lyric potential. RB: For reasons not altogether clear to me, Marcel Broodthaers and Dieter Roth come to mind when I think of your work. Why is that? RC: I work differently than artists who have been to art school. I wish I had gone, but that’s another story. As a result, I don’t think that my practice is as consciously weighted with what has come before. I am not as acutely

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Left: Paralysed, 2011. Mixed media, 130 x 60 x 8 cm. Above: Surgeon’s Drunken Hand, 2010. Mixed

aware of references to other artists—as readily conscious of visual sampling from or dialogue with my predecessors. I look at the world more than I do the art world. I read fiction—rarely do I read about art. I look at the pictures, though. Roth, of course, has used sausages in his work, he’s German after all. They both use food. I think that both Broodthaers and Roth use humor in their work although they’re altogether heavier than I am. Their humor is darker by a ridiculously long chalk. Roth goes from one thing to another—

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one avant-garde idea to the next—only to state, at the end of the process, that it is “meaningless, garbage, and shit.” I do Roth one better; I start out thinking, at the beginning of my process, that my ideas are rubbish. My thinking process goes something like this: rubbish, quite clever, brilliant, nothing special, rubbish. RB: My summoning of Roth has more to do with his material and intellectual restlessness than his occasional employment of sausages. You’ve demonstrated little allegiance to any particular type of material or conceptual position. Your latest exhibition alone has a dauntingly democratic array of found materials. An abbreviated list includes a corn-straw broom, Chianti bottle, fly swatter, gorse thorns, pickled onions, and bongo drum. RC: It was a bit of a mix. Those objects are mainly from two “rack” works. For example, I started Surgeon’s Drunken Hand with a kitchen rack and plastic spoon and went on to fill the remaining hooks (leaving one empty) with categorically unrelated objects such as the Chianti bottle, plastic chain, and fly swatter. I tried a few different combinations until I got just the right balance of color and form. Color and form, how quaintly old fashioned, eh? The second piece, Paralysed, was constructed around a tool-hanging rack. That time, I started with a broom, then found some old used wooden tool handles (screwdriver, chisel, and axe) and attached them to incongruous and unrelated objects such as carwash sponges and salamis. For the bongo drum, I positioned what turned out to be a sonic insect repellant on the stretched-skin top. The plastic insecticide thingy had two recessed circles, like eyes.

LEFT: COURTESY {SUITE} GALLERY, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND

media, installation view.

Sculpture 31.3

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LEFT: COURTESY {SUITE} GALLERY, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND / RIGHT: COURTESY MALCOM BROW COLLECTION, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND

Above and detail: Long Story, Not Worth It, 2011. Mixed media, scale model figure 1.8 cm. Right: Owl, 2011. Found objects, 44 x 22 x 22 cm.

The combination of the two objects conjured up an owl. I called it, surprisingly enough, Owl. RB: I find it as economical as Picasso’s bicycle-part Head of a Bull, but funnier. RC: And yes, I have made heaps of stylistic and media change-ups over the years—mostly due to happenstance. For example, a series of watercolors came about because I was given a watercolor set for my 40th birthday. Since I had no idea how to go about making a conventionally good watercolor, I got some interesting, but unorthodox, results. I haven’t done any in a while but keep promising my dealer that I’ll produce more. RB: What about your famous, or was it infamous, Muscle Car Minimalism period? RC: Oh yeah, the muscle car thing—that was a while ago (1999, to be exact), but I still get asked about it a lot. I was interested in the similarity between Modernist hard-edged abstraction and muscle car stripes. Both sub-genres operate from conceits of power and transcendence but arrive from totally different ends of the cultural spectrum. The first exhibition of this work was called “Westie Modernism Eastern Thought,” a title lifted from a John McLaughlin show called “Western Modernism Eastern Thought.” RB: “Westie” being a Kiwi euphemism for… RC: West Auckland—bogan, redneck. Anyway, the show was mounted for a single day at the Victory Snooker Saloon in Wellington. The exhibition—with the work standing on snooker tables—caused an unexpected stir and got a lot of publicity. The New Zealand Listener named it Wellington exhibition of the year. I was interviewed on TV and sold out the show. One collector wanted to buy the entire exhibition. I still get offers. But, in the end, I produced only one

Roger Boyce is an artist and writer living in Christchurch.

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other show of them. I thought the concept a bit of a one-liner and lost interest. I know some artists are accused of sabotaging themselves by changing-up the minute people show an interest in their work. I’d like to think that I am not one of them. In fact, I see how you could run with a brand as an artist and, more than likely, do rather well. But that’s not me either.

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Simple Simply Isn’t Peter Shelton A Conversation with

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uheader, 1995–2009. Mixed media, 78 x 28.5 x 28 in.

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ROBERT WEDEMEYER, COURTESY L.A. LOUVER, VENICE, CA

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BY MARLENA DOKTORCZYK-DONOHUE

Whether realistic fabrications from a consummate draftsman (“thingsgetwet”) or abstract blobs (cloudsandclunkers), Shelton’s works perform hard-to-articulate spatial, perceptual, and emotive actions upon us. Though this is hardly new, Shelton’s knack is to yoke proprioception directly to eccentric content— meaning and allusion are experiential not rhetorical. In his work, we don’t contemplate the precarious balance between appendage and gravity—we feel the weird profundity of this simple fact and its existential implications for all earthbound life and endeavor. Jean Arp-ish pods that can look simian, pipes that resemble a small colon, or realistic bronze boots that make us acutely aware of a corpus in absentia—Shelton never illustrates the body, never overtly references its endeavors, fears, or psychological dimensions. Instead, his works enliven an awareness of certain actions and properties: fast, slow, approach, retreat, growth, contraction, mass, void, inside, outside, visible, occluded. He considers these physical states to be the essence of quotidian experience, full of emotive, existential punch; he also claims no interest in literally addressing them. What he seems to be after is the creation of visual conditions/objects in which perception and allusion happen at once. After undergraduate studies in medieval literature, anthropology, theater, and pre-med biology, Shelton retreated to the woods to “be still,” to do simple things with his hands (he mastered industrial welding) and forget all that he’d learned. He eventually got an MFA from UCLA, taught at major universities, absorbed Mondrian and Nauman, Turrell, and Merleau-Ponty, and came up with a life and art practice full of feisty mistrust for all unexamined standards. Shelton’s creations hover between animal and mineral, full abstraction and vague representation, invoking machines and juicy viscera, logic and madness while firing synapses in both the left and right sides of the brain. redouroboros, 2004–05. Mixed media, 70 x 50 x 42 in.

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COURTESY L.A. LOUVER, VENICE, CA

Everything about Peter Shelton (pristine studio, stunning preparatory drawings, conversation sprinkled with Latin terms) suggests a combination of obsessive technician and daring poet willing to risk it all for an idea. (A case in point, his controversial 2009 commission for the Los Angeles Police Department [LAPD] headquarters.) In his studio, massive shapes in various stages of completion envelop and dwarf the visitor; even unfinished, their physical impact is immediate and kinesthetic. Dramatic, dynamic activation of the viewer’s body and ambient space marks a clear focus that began with Shelton’s earliest ruminations about the boundaries of architecture. He is less willing to pin down meaning.

Sculpture 31.3

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COURTESY L.A. LOUVER, VENICE, CA

don’t work linearly, evolving from project and situation to the next project and situation—ideas continue to circulate. Sixtyslippers came 15 years after its ideas first showed up in majorjointshangersandsquat; and majorjointshangersandsquat is a several powersof-ten telescoped view outward from the incredibly focused and realistic detail of “thingsgetwet.” MDD: By “powers of ten” do you mean that you start from the minutia of an idea or a close-in scale and then years later look at the same idea or object in expanded conceptual and physical dimensions? PS: It never goes in any predictable arc. I think that comes from my pre-med studies, from a general curiosity, and from the fact that I hate rules. MDD: What rules were or are you reacting to? PS: I did grad work during the transition from Abstract Expressionism to the high formalism of Greenberg, followed by Minimalism. Any conventional figurative work was banned; drawing was anathema. Making overly large things that went into space was suspect because of forbidden, so-called theatricality. You could include nothing in “real” art that drew from other disciplines, like architecture or the stage. Marlena Doktorczyk-Donohue: What were some of your early influences? Peter Shelton: The general mosh pit of the 1960s and ’70s—Dick Barnes, psychedelia, mysticism, Buddhism, anti-war stuff. MDD: How have you managed to make such varied work from fairly basic shapes? PS: I don’t think the lexicon or the results are simple or basic. I get a huge diversity within shapes, across works, and in the feelings generated. The whole concept of what I do gets dislodged when you consider the work in total. For 10 years, I was doing largely interactive environmental work. I thought of shapes as protoarchitectures, as large organisms with an almost alimentary processional. My kind of figuration snuck in through this architectural approach and my pre-med studies. MDD: I meant apparently simple, not conceptually simple. PS: A lot of my early work started off nominally geometric, but even then, I would sneak in references to the body without showing a body, which was a kind of subversive connection. Desire, memory, humor, and menace are powerful psychic qualities that I don’t avoid, but I wanted any narrative to be understood as much in the body as in the mind. MDD: Would you concede that you create zany correlates of the body that maneuver between the abstract and the figurative? PS: This whole figurative versus abstract stuff comes from faulty thinking after World War II, suggesting that Modernism was fundamentally a battle between representation and abstraction. I don’t see it as one leading to the other or exceeding the other. It comes down to achieving some core expression, and the “hows” of getting there follow from that. MDD: Do you mean that idea trumps process? PS: Nothing is that simple. I mean that it’s inaccurate to see my work as growing linearly from abstract to real or simple to complex, or the reverse. Unlike many of my formalist predecessors, I

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Left: redbuttons, 1987–2010. Mixed media, 26 x 44 x 26 in. Below: godshole, 2003. Mixed media, 60 x 30 x 60 in.

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MDD: And this registers in your work how? PS: I have gone out of my way to engage the body and use architectural space. Drawing has been very important in leading me to the skin-and-bones schematic understructure of my work. MDD: Did you have an epiphany that allowed you to cast off all the grad school dogma? PS: I realized that I wanted to make stuff that embodied physicality instead of just depicting it, or illustrating it, or merely pointing to it. What possible reason could there be for “referencing” physicality? That is an oxymoron, as I see it. MDD: Can you elaborate? PS: I can go to school and learn to make a perfect foreshortened arm—in fact, I can. But that is not the act or experience of foreshortening, which is the feeling one has of contraction as the opposite of stretching. I want to create conditions in my work that produce those experiences in three dimensions as senses in your body. MDD: Then the ’70s caught up with you in the activation of perception and space stressed in Minimalism. PS: Yes, that almost scientific vibe you get in an Andre, a Judd, or a Stella. But there, it’s almost like form could be put on autopilot and the work would make itself. The final import of that work is the elegance of some formal algorithm. Of course, Judd was interested in the nature of form and color, but that stuff was intentionally self-referential and what I call “germ free.” MDD: Do you feel that a slightly messier, less germ-free approach is linked to Los Angeles? PS: Here in L.A., there were hybrid and spatially extensive works that completely mixed up forms and experience. So, “messier”? Yes, please. The formal virtues of, say, Kienholz and Nauman are quite underrated, but their choices are no less precise than those of Judd. MDD: You keep mentioning balance between technique and

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mood, maybe because you come from both literary and scientific entry points. PS: For me, the impact of Nauman or Kienholz is less based on formal continuity and consistency than on a very discernable narrative tone in their work. I wanted to make work that used an awareness of the body and careful process to push you out into general questions through form—sort of like inviting you to contemplate your navel, turning you inside out and dropping you out of the other end. MDD: Should we get the elephant out of the room and talk about the LAPD headquarters commission from 2009? PS: “Justice,” “power,” and “protection” are words that have a reality attached to them, and that reality is part of policing. They are also constructs or symbols. In both of these contexts, they mean different things to different people—ask a wealthy white guy in Malibu what justice or protection is, and he has one idea; ask a kid from South Central, and you get another. I wanted to create a physical experience not so literally related to those concepts. MDD: But why monkeys and quasi-porcine shapes? PS: I got to thinking about animals and what they stand for, how their shapes and symbols mean this or that in various cultures through time. Childhood memories of animals get mixed in, and a concept’s born that keeps evolving as you invent and solve formal issues. I expect and hope everyone will have a different take. Do I expect a frontal attack from educated people? No. But I have been at this long enough to know that can be part of it. MDD: As tough as the LAPD project might have been, your façade for the Indianapolis Public Library is just plain stunning. PS: thinmanlittlebird is a two-part work installed on a 1917 Greek Revival building designed by Philadelphia-based French architect Paul Cret. It’s a pretty building, and it had two exterior pedestals that were left un-appointed by Cret. MDD: You’ve played with the pedestal idea in other works.

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Above: godspipes, 1997–98. Mixed media, 189 elements, dimensions variable. Right: romandrain, 1993. Bronze, water, copper, and pump, 58.5 x 23

BOTTOM: TONY CUNHA / BOTH: COURTESY L.A. LOUVER, VENICE, CA

x 34.5 in.

PS: I had spent a lot of my career avoiding the pedestal because it’s a whole extra formal element in which I had no interest, and pedestals remove a work from immediate space, putting it back up behind a proscenium or stage. MDD: But as is your way, rather than avoid an issue, you take it on. PS: That’s true. The LAPD commission started with existing pedestals. In a Lannan Foundation installation years before, I launched a very tall figure off one pedestal and floated a contrasting horizontal figure over a second one. At the Cret building, I wanted to respect the whole Beaux-Arts tradition but also move the sculpture forward to a current moment in art. On one pedestal, thinman plays with the Greek ideal of human form, more a gangly vine gesture in bronze than a Hellenic god. littlebird cantilevers over the twin pedestal, a small cast sparrow sitting on an 11-foot diameter torus. The Neoclassical style uses polyhedrons, cubes, cones, and spheres. I saw the torus as an updated Platonic form. The doughnut shape is everywhere—cells, galaxies—so I imagined this hovering universe of knowledge. MDD: Can a public art audience handle the degree of ambiguity expected by gallery-goers? PS: Each venue has its imperatives. Art is not always courteous, but public projects are always courteous; sometimes they commemorate. You have a mandate, an art committee or commission that dispenses money. There’s usually some narrative you’re asked to address. Some people call public commissions “functional art” because they fulfill certain explicit social functions, like regional semiotics or history telling. Ideally, for me, making or conceiving art is not driven by a function or a meaning. MDD: But you actively throw your glove in to do public projects.

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Above and detail: thinmanlittlebird, 2009. Cast bronze, 2 elements: 44 x 4 x 4 ft. and 5.25 x 11 x 11 ft. Work installed at the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library, IN. Left: churchsnake-

PS: I do it because the upside is that in public space many people can have an experiential reaction. For what I want to investigate, that is really attractive. MDD: Could you say something about the atypically illustrative “thingsgetwet” series, which was shown in your recent career overview at L.A. Louver? PS: It’s a series of realistic, oddly mysterious everyday objects cast in bronze with copper and designed to have little channels delivering water. But it’s not atypical—I have always worked with verisimilitude when an idea asked for it. The project came from a cancelled commission at Dartmouth College’s Hood Museum that was to be a fountain mixing everyday objects, medical models, domestic and religious artifacts, architectural references, and engineered water pumps. I had this idea that all of the objects, as well as the whole high-versus-low culture thing, would be enlivened, abstracted, soothed, eroded, and equivocated by being bathed in water. MDD: What happened to the project? PS: The commission fell through, but I resolved to make

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TOP: COURTESY THE ARTIST AND L.A. LOUVER, VENICE, CA / BOTTOM: JAY K. MCNALLY, COURTESY L.A. LOUVER, VENICE, CA

bedbone, 1993. Bronze, copper, pumps, and water, 87 x 77 x 38 in.

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Above: breadwaterwall, 1993. Bronze, copper, water, wood, and pump, 51 x 62.5 x 18 in. Below: oldwetbrick-

RIGHT, TOP AND BOTTOM: JAY K. MCNALLY, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND L.A. LOUVER, VENICE, CA

house, 1993. Bronze, copper, pumps, and water, 36 x 42 x 42 in.

a series of individual water works. While most of the elements were made from scratch, I wanted to have the impression that they were found. The very realistically crafted objects in “thingsgetwet” may seem anomalous, but they have a kind of relational syntax and become small organisms in themselves. The powerhouse is a model of an 18thcentury steam plant that initially supplied steam, then electricity, to the Miami County courthouse in Troy, Ohio, where I was born. It was originally going to sit atop a casting of a small wooden sleigh fashioned for my grandmother by my great-grandfather. I wanted a beautiful remnant of my ScotsIrish and Mennonite blacksmith past, so I paired the powerhouse with something feminine from my family. That sort of collision of sensibilities recurs for me, where one pole is made vivid by its opposite—you find this as well in trunknutsWHITEHEADfloater. MDD: So, is this autobiographical? PS: It is not autobiographical per se, but I wanted things close to my experience. MDD: I still see the body referenced here.

Marlena Doktorczyk-Donohue is a writer based in Los Angeles.

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PS: The model of Chartres Cathedral in churchsnakebedbone is the ultimate body analogue, with its Gothic skeleton and stained glass skin. Similarly, the frame of the bed is the skeleton to the mattress and the snake on top is the most primal alimentary canal. MDD: What are you engaged in now? PS: At the moment, I am preoccupied with some works related to smoke and what I have been calling “inyandoutys,” which are iterations of simple convex and concave surfaces.

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Making Art Visible Athena Tacha

A Conversation with

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Athena Tacha, in collaboration with EDAW and AGA, Muhammad Ali Plaza, 2002–09, Louisville, KY, featuring Dancing Steps amphitheater and Star Fountain.

RICHARD E. SPEAR

BY HELENI POLICHRONATOU

for Everyone

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Athena Tacha was born in Greece and received MA degrees in sculpture (Athens) and art history (Oberlin College) and a PhD in aesthetics (Sorbonne). Since 1970, she has done large-scale outdoor sculpture and conceptual/photographic art and has executed more than 40 large commissions for public sites throughout the United States. Tacha’s work is represented in many museums, and she has exhibited widely. Atlanta’s High Museum hosted a large retrospective in 1989, and a 40-year retrospective recently finished a tour of Greece. This interview took place when “Athena Tacha: From the Public to the Private” (organized by the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, and co-sponsored by the J.F. Costopoulos Foundation and the Municipal Art Gallery-G.I. Katsigras Museum of Larissa) was on view at the Athens School of Fine Arts, its third venue. Tacha also contributed a site-specific installation to the recent inaugural show of the Onassis Cultural Center in Athens, “Polyglossia (30 Expatriate Greek Artists from America and Europe).”

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Left and below: Athena’s Web, 2010. White fiberglass plasterboard tape, installation at the State

Heleni Polichronatou: You were invited to participate in the inaugural exhibition of the new Onassis Cultural Center by its curator, Marilena Karra. How did your temporary installation come about? Athena Tacha: Marilena, who was looking for new work by expatriate Greek artists, found my Web site and decided to invite me, without knowing that my retrospective was traveling through Greece in 2010. I went to see the huge space, still unfinished in October 2010; and back at home, I made a model of the area that was assigned to me, a corner facing one of the six massive columns that support the room’s 16-foot-high ceiling. (It would take a Sampson to embrace such columns.) Marilena and the architects wanted me to do one of my “tape sculptures,” a series that I began in Ohio museums in the late ’70s (in 1982, I did one in Pittsburgh, initiating the Mattress Factory’s series of installations by visiting artists). For those early works, I selected white plasterboard tape, a low-cost architectural material,

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to connect vertical and horizontal features of each building in a variety of ways, transforming their spaces. HP: How does the Onassis piece differ from the earlier ones? AT: I had already made a tape installation for my retrospective at the Contemporary Art Museum in Thessaloniki, and trying to find local material, I discovered a white woven fiberglass tape that is sticky on one side. When I used it at the Larissa Municipal Gallery (the second venue), I primarily exploited its self-adhesiveness. At the Onassis show, I explored it further. I decided to use the huge column as the anchor for my work, wrapping 40 pieces of tape around it and then stretching them across the corner, as if the column were a fisherman gathering his nets. So, the title for the work, Pull, came to mind. From every point of attachment at the top of the walls, the tapes were then arranged in an irregular flow, like rivulets of water, expanding downwards into a cataract. The flowing tape areas were entirely improvised, like free-hand drawing with brush and ink on paper. HP: How would you explain the meaning of this work? AT: The tape “field” on the walls could be seen as foaming waves, quantum fluctuations, or even sensuous organic forms— and, of course, viewers could find other associations in it. But, for me, Pull (elxis, in Greek) can be conceived as the attraction of opposites on many different levels: massive column versus ethereal material; rectilinear ceiling strips versus spirals on the column and curlicues on the walls; clarity versus ambiguity or shifting complexity; fixed versus open-ended, multivalent forms; and “order” versus chaos—ultimately, the work communicated a tug of war between contrary systems or forces. HP: Turning to outdoor sculpture, the area of work for which you are best known, what is your most recent public commission? AT: This past decade has been my most productive, perhaps because I quit teaching. I executed seven large public commissions,

RICHARD E. SPEAR

Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki.

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Pull, 2011. White fiberglass plasterboard tape, 15 x 22 x 15 ft. Work installed at the Onassis

TOP: RICHARD E. SPEAR / BOTTOM: COURTESY THE ARTIST

Cultural Center, Athens.

all but one in collaboration with architects, engineers, and landscape architects, and three of them consist of several distinct works. The largest, a five-acre commercial development in Friendship Heights, Maryland (on the border with Washington, DC), was started in 2002 and completed in 2009. I designed the pavement of a large oval plaza with planters and Light Obelisk Fountain, which extends from the corner of two main avenues to a new Bloomingdale’s store. For the shopping arcade on one side of the plaza, I created an animated RGB ceiling called Light Riggings; and at the other end, I designed a 35-foot-high, animated LED, open-steel tower, WWW-Tower (named for the initials of the three avenues around the development, Wisconsin, Western, and Willard, and alluding to the Web). The 25-foot-high black metal obelisk floating over the fountain also consists of animated LEDs, ascending and descending along its four sides: two sides (blue and green) descend with changing water-like patterns, and the other two (yellow and red) ascend, constantly narrating a 12-minute text on “Water as Life.” Actually, the idea of communication underlies all the parts of this commission. HP: What about other recent commissions? AT: Many of the sites were related to transportation, and the dominant materials were LEDs and water. At DC’s new Morgan Boulevard Metro station, I designed a small plaza with curving color paths and planters and blinking sign posts. STOP & GO was named in honor of Garrett Augustus Morgan, the inventor of the first mechanical traffic crossing sign. And in Bethesda, Maryland, I designed a 300-foot-long ceiling for the pedestrian bridge linking a four-story parking garage to the Strathmore Music Center. The LED color animation of Hearts Beat proceeds in two irregular rows, side by side, with the colors moving sometimes in the direction of the pedestrians on the overpass,

and at other times perpendicularly, in synch with the flow of traffic under the bridge. The animation program is based on the heartbeat of a woman (about 70 pulses/minute) and a man (60 pulses/minute)—my heart and my husband’s, but it could be based on the heartbeats of any passing pedestrians. HP: It seems that transportation facilities are natural sites for you, since time, movement, and rhythm are central to your work. AT: That could not be more true. Those themes really came together in another commission from the middle of this past decade—Riding With Sarah And Wayne, a mile-long piece commissioned for the new Light Rail in Newark, New Jersey. There, I turned the pavement between the rails into a musical staff with black granite slabs as notes, inspired by the scores of melodies sung or written by Newark jazz stars Sarah Vaughan and Wayne Shorter. The lyrics are sandblasted in granite along the platforms of the Center and Broad

RiverCloud, 2010. White fiberglass plasterboard tape, installation at the Municipal Art GalleryG.I. Katsigras Museum, Larissa, Greece.

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Street stations, to be read by people waiting for the train. I had wanted the music to be broadcast in the stations every time a train arrived, but that exceeded the budget—which is always the problem with public art. HP: Why did you devote so much of your career to work in public spaces? AT: I believe in making art visible to everybody—not only the intellectual elite (museum visitors) or the rich collectors who can afford to buy it. The social upheavals of the late 1960s made me feel that I would be an irresponsible human being if I did not put art in the public domain. I also opted to make my sculpture as an environment—not a standing object—so that it could be experienced kinesthetically as well as visually (with the body moving through its space) and could serve a function, like landscape architecture. This way, I could also address issues about the environment—both natural and urban. HP: In your 1972 “A Call to Artists for Social Action,” you invited artists to resist the corruption of their work by the gallery world. What was the response? AT: A number of younger artists at the time felt as I did and, encouraged by a new National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) program, we turned to the solution of proposing art for public spaces (called “site-specific” art after the mid1970s), with the aim of improving the urban environment and raising people’s consciousness about art. When I made my first public projects in 1975–76, some with NEA grants, only one state—Hawaii—had percent-for-art legislation, along with a few cities, including Philadelphia, Miami, and Seattle. However, the federal government’s General Services Administration (GSA) had also started a program to commission artworks for new federal buildings (I won one of the first major commissions, for Norfolk, Virginia). Since then, almost every state, city, and county in the country has created some type of public art legislation, which has encouraged this major artistic movement—the first movement since Dadaism to operate outside the gallery world. HP: Your Franklin Town Park was one of the first public parks created as a work of art. The conversion of large urban spaces into works of art has become a key trend today, part of a broader intention to create a relationship between art and everyday life. Would you like to comment on this issue? AT: I was perhaps the first artist to conceive of a park as a Gesamtkustwerk, using its land, plantings, and even utilitarian features as materials (instead of clay, marble, or bronze). I did that in a proposal for the Charles River Step Sculptures for Boston’s waterfront (January 1974) and in a proposal for the Sawyer Point Recreation Park in Cincinnati, Ohio (1977). I realized the same concepts in my “vest-pocket” Tide Park (Smithtown, Long Island, 1976–77)

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Bloomingdale’s Plaza, 2002–09, Friendship Heights, MD. Public space with Light Obelisk Fountain, animated LEDs, black aluminum, black granite, and water, 30 x 30 ft.; and Light Riggings, animated RGB ceiling.

and in Connections at Franklin Town Park, an entire block in central Philadelphia (1981–92). Such parks are not to be confused with “sculpture gardens,” which are really outdoor sculpture museums. HP: Since the ’70s, artists have made a concerted effort to reintegrate nature into the built landscape. They incorporate plants, rocks, and water into public sculpture and participate in the rehabilitation of urban areas destroyed by industrial development. What do you think needs to happen between communities and artists to make a successful public art program of this kind? AT: Modern cities are a real visual and ecological disaster, particularly in their industrial and suburban sprawl (the entire area of Attica has become a suburb of Athens, which has spread as cancerously as Los Angeles). A number of idealists, like myself, have tried to propose solutions for improvement, but even in the case of supportive government administrations, art is never given enough funding to make a dent in the ugliness. In the West, few cities outside of Europe—Chicago and Vancouver come to mind—have a great architectural tradition or contemporary identity with which to foster good public art. HP: The evolution of public art gave birth to new concepts and new content, and younger artists took into consideration local cultural, social, political, and economic conditions. Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc clashed with the aesthetic perception of its viewers. In your opinion, should artists create in accordance with public expectations? Should public art develop its own criteria for suitability, quality, and taste that might be different from those of the atelier?

RICHARD E. SPEAR

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Connections, 1981–92. Planted stone terracing, rock clusters, trees,

JIM FENNEL

and paths, work located in Franklin Town Park, Philadelphia.

AT: Serra is a great sculptor, but he does not (or did not then) have a public consciousness. The Tilted Arc affair destroyed the future of permanent public art in the U.S. After that, administrations became scared to commit funding for permanent projects, and most of them turned to temporary projects. I personally believe that a good artist committed to public art must have a different attitude and develop a different artistic vocabulary from the studio and gallery artist. I do not mean that artistic visions and values should be diluted by general opinion. The commissioning institution and the artist must inform, educate, and consult the community to a great extent, but the general public should never dictate the art (too much “listening” to the community can be destructive). The artist, who has spent an entire lifetime studying how to make art and developing a personal vision, must ultimately create the public artwork. Even communal art, like the medieval cathedrals, had a leading mind, an architect or a sculptor who conceived and directed the project. HP: Some new cities have demonstrated strong growth in all forms of art. For example, artists were involved in the urban design of Villeneuve d’Ascq, France, showing that public space can be conceived as a living space through the power of art in relation to architecture, residents’ needs, and aesthetic quality. What do you see as the future for artists in urban planning? AT: I have seen only a few views of Villeneuve d’Ascq, but I definitely think that artists should be involved in urban design projects, as well as in architectural and

landscape complexes. This can only improve the urban fabric and ultimately, ideally, the quality of people’s lives. Even though I am a loner working in my studios with assistants, I have often collaborated with architects. Since 2000, I have worked exclusively with architectural or engineering firms as an artistic consultant and designer of specific parts of their projects. HP: What work of yours in a public place do you prefer and why? AT: I have a lot of favorites, but I’ll name two. Green Acres (1985–87) is a multimedia, environmental sculpture for the courtyard of the Department of Environmental Protection of the State of New Jersey in Trenton. It combines sculptural “step formations” that serve as seats, a green pavement of slate and granite slabs with sandblasted photographs of the endangered landscapes and species of New Jersey, planters with live plants specified by me, and red volcanic rock clusters—bringing together my sculptural, social, environmental, photographic, and conceptual interests. My more recent favorite is the Muhammad Ali Plaza (2002–09) in Louisville, Kentucky, where the great boxer was born. In collaboration with the landscape architecture firm EDAW, I designed a glass waterfall at the top, the Dancing Steps amphitheater and pavement of the middle level, and in the center, the Star Fountain with a seven-minute program of animated LEDs lighting 48 glass columns that spiral inside a star-shaped basin. You can see a video of the light dance of Star Fountain on YouTube. HP: What are you working on now? AT: I have been invited to do a large outdoor installation at Grounds For Sculpture, which will stay up for a year, and I hope it can be executed by 2013. On a smaller scale, I have started on an extensive cycle of digital photo-works about the cyclical interaction between humans and nature, using my photographs of the fantastic stone landscape of Petra, which I visited again last spring. Like all of my art, these works are about our environment, on Earth and in the universe. Heleni Polichronatou’s PhD thesis for the Athens School of Fine Arts was Large Scale Artwork in Public Space: From the ’60s to the 21st Century (2007).

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ANTIPODEAN TREASURE Connells Bay Sculpture Park BY ROBIN WOODWARD

Opposite: Aerial view of Connells Bay Sculpture Park, with Cathryn Monro, Rise, 2001. Bronze, concrete, and water, 98 x 594 x 470 cm. This page: Chris Booth, Slip, 2003. Basalt, greywacke, and stainless steel, 50 x 750 x 750 cm.

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The city of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest population base, sports four first-class sculpture parks within a 50-kilometer radius of its Central Business District. Of these, Connells Bay Sculpture Park is unique in presenting a microcosm of the country’s large-scale sculpture.1 Nestled into a private bay at the eastern end of Waiheke Island (a short ferry ride from downtown Auckland) within a landscape of native bush, Connells Bay Sculpture Park showcases New Zealand’s premier sculptors of the last two decades. The park was established in 1998 by John and Jo Gow. Initially, they purchased sculpture to enhance the setting for three colonial-era cottages along the shoreline. However, the concept of a sculpture park developed, and the Gows have purchased and commissioned more than 26 large-scale permanent works and five temporary installations. In this evolution, Connells Bay has followed a typical pattern—while the collection began with purchased works, it continued to grow through commissioned pieces. This mature stage has brought with it some of the park’s most distinctive sculpture, since commissioned works tend to have a specific reference to place, space, or site. In the strictest sense, “site-specific” refers to a work that belongs integrally to its site, a work that would be diminished or lose its meaning if placed elsewhere. But the term also identifies works commissioned or designed for a particular site. Tilted Arc is, without doubt, the most renowned example of a site-specific work. At Connells Bay, Fatu Feu’u’s Guardian of the Planting (1999) is unambiguously site-specific. Carved into the giant stump of an ancient macrocarpa tree that had been forked by lightning, Guardian of the Planting is rooted to the land in that specific spot; it simply cannot be placed anywhere else.

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In addition to such site-specific sculpture, Connells Bay also features site-responsive works. These works do more than simply reference site or place; they have a complementary relationship to the land. For instance, in Chris Booth’s Slip (2003–04), five baskets of stones address soil erosion. In tandem with restorative planting of the hillside, Booth covered and nurtured the terrain by cloaking it in one of his “earth blankets.” Regan Gentry’s Skeleton Trees (2009) similarly addresses the needs of the environment. These art-trees, which Gentry created by manipulating No. 8 fencing wire (the basic material of old farm fences in New Zealand), use an ordinarily destructive intervention to restore vegetation. Nic Moon’s temporary installation, Out of the Ashes (2007), responded to the same issue. To protect native seedlings, Moon provided each one with a shelter shaped as either a traditional Maori cloak or a colonial crinoline. Throughout New Zealand’s colonial history, the indigenous vegetation of Aotearoa has been systematically cleared to

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develop farmland. Moon’s dual-purpose work supplements John and Jo Gow’s program of planting native trees at Connells Bay. Her work also critiques the sculpture park’s development activities in which vegetation is cleared to make way for art. The Gows have embraced a variety of works that challenge the concept of a sculpture park and comment on their own activities at Connells Bay. Multimedia artist Gaye Jurisich made another critique while providing a lively, colorful addition to the environment. Her temporary installation The Long Lei (2006) added a sculpture to the sculpture park and a flowerbed to the garden, and its artificiality commented on the practice of domestic and civic landscaping. As a temporary installation, The Long Lei celebrated the conservation movement; after an eight-month summer season, the work was removed, leaving no trace. Characteristically, the sculpture at Connells Bay is informed by reference to place, relating to the geographical, social, and

Regan Gentry, Skeleton Trees, 2009. No. 8 fencing wire, galvanized pipe, and concrete, 480 x 320 x 32 cm.

cultural history of the area. Peter Nicholls’s river of life, Tomo (2005), which threads its way through a stand of mature kanuka, is inscribed with the names of the four families that first claimed Connells Bay for Europe. Named for the pot or sink holes that characterize the geography of karst country, Tomo twists and turns, a red ribbon of timber that traces the patterns of the underground limestone landscape and its streams. Some of the local references embodied in a sculpture can be fortuitous. For example, David McCracken’s 18 meters of weatherripened Cor-ten steel, The Best Laid Plans Go West (2009), acquired additional meaning during its installation. The sculpture barrels out of the hillside on an east/west axis, its title quoting a line of McCracken’s poetry that plays on the alignment of the sculpture and alludes to the artist’s earlier,

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Peter Nicholls, Tomo, 2005. Wood and galvanized steel, 480 cm. long.

unsuccessful attempt to hydro-inflate a giant Cor-ten steel balloon for the sculpture park. The title became increasingly serendipitous as the piece went through a number of iterations. Plagued by delays caused by inclement weather and the complex logistics of shipping and trucking 10 tons of steel to the secluded site, time and again, the Gows and McCracken watched their best laid plans go west. Jeff Thomson’s corrugated iron Three Cows Looking Out to Sea (1991/2001) recalls the agricultural and human history of Connells Bay. The first of the three individual pieces was purchased to graze at the Gows’ rural property north of Auckland. After moving to the more extensive pasture of Connells Bay, the solitary bovine looked lonely so the Gows commissioned a pair of companions. David McCracken, The Best Laid Plans Go West, 2009. Cor-ten steel, 240 x 1800 x 800 cm.

the colonial history of New Zealand and the local settlement at Connells Bay. The 7.9-meter-high tower of higgledy-piggledy steel-frame house outlines is painted in red and white, the traditional colors of New Zealand’s corrugated iron and weatherboard homes. The work specifically references the three 19th-century cottages tucked away along the water’s edge at Connells Bay.2 Dawson’s work emphasizes

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Thomson embedded the cows in their environment through his careful choice of site. On a hillside overlooking the bay, one of the heifers is resting, another is grazing, and the third looks up as if disturbed by activity down on the water. Historically, everything at Connells Bay, including livestock, arrived by sea. Neil Dawson’s Other People’s Houses (2004) makes a formal statement about

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Graham Bennett, Reasons to Return, 2006. 725 x 795 cm., with 1000 cm. footprint.

that these houses are interventions in the natural environment (and it is always “other people’s houses” that blight the landscape. Social history also informs two important kinetic works, Phil Price’s Dancer (2003) and Graham Bennett’s Reasons to Return (2006).

The leisurely, almost languid Dancer adopts the yellow of the daffodil fields planted around the farm’s cowshed in the 19th century. The three open-mesh radar dishes that slowly swirl and twirl with the air currents in Bennett’s Reasons to Return are

rather like latitudinal and longitudinal navigational devices. More than just a generic reference to the universal call of home, the work alludes to the extreme measures taken by early European settlers living at Connells Bay—at the end of a day’s work, they are known to have rowed some 25 kilometers to the Coromandel Peninsula for an evening of companionship, rowing home at daybreak for the morning’s milking. While Reasons to Return may have the appearance of a constantly active signaling system, it is an artistic interpretation of a functional device. Other works at Connells Bay, however, retain a utilitarian purpose. Crossing over wetlands, Virginia King’s Oioi Bridge (2002) links two distinct areas of the sculpture park, low-lying coastal land and grassy hillcountry.3 Built of flexible ribs and planks, this kinetic art-bridge rattles and rolls as visitors walk over it, generating a stream of vibrations and clatterings.4 With water trickling down through overflow channels, Cathryn Monro’s Rise (2001) appears to be a dam, a functional piece of environmental engineering. At the top is a small lake, which explains the purpose of the dam. Or does it? Monro clearly references the artificial lake, but she did not build a dam. Instead, her work critiques this intervention in the landscape, one necessitated by the creation of the sculpture park. The landscaped lake also serves as a site for sculpture—David McCracken’s Reeds (2001), which has since been removed for restoration, was the earliest example. Julia Oram’s Bung (2007) also takes to the water. A giant bath plug apparently floating in the ocean, Bung resonates with the rising tide of concern about climate change, while adding a touch of whimsy to the Connells Bay collection. The Gows continue to be personally involved with the sculpture park. In addition to working closely with artists, John and Jo Gow personally accompany visitors on tours of the park. Enjoying financial Phil Price, Dancer, 2003. Carbon fiber and fiberglass, 600 x 400 x 400 cm.

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security through assured patronage, consistency in management, and a continuity of vision, their initiative affords great opportunities for fine-tuning. Thus, the collection at Connells Bay has evolved in a nuanced relationship to its location, while exemplifying the diverse themes, forms, materials, and techniques that characterize large-scale sculpture in New Zealand. The land, its cultivation and conservation, has long been at the heart of New Zealand art. At Connells Bay, such themes abound, interpreted through works that range from artificial flowers and living plants to cast, figurative sculpture and abstract steel works. Materials are equally diverse. The corrugated iron of Thomson’s cows and the No. 8 fencing wire of Gentry’s Skeleton Trees are the building blocks of rural communities throughout the country. The concrete and

steel of the construction industry give form to the work of Monro and Bennett. Jurisich threads mass-produced plastic flowers in The Long Lei, contrasting with Price’s use of high-tech carbon fiber in Dancer and Angel (2004). Fatu Feu’u uses timber; Booth, local stone; Bob Stewart encourages visitors to stroke and polish the surface of his precious pounamu The Dark One (2002).5 Connells Bay Sculpture Park boasts a veritable history of modern New Zealand

sculpture, nestled in an idyllic seaside setting of coastal lowlands and rolling hillsides clothed in native flora. Traditionally, the Maori regard foliage as the cloak of the land. At Connells Bay, the cloak is adorned with contemporary sculptures that respond to the environment and reference the geographical, social, and cultural history of the place. Robin Woodward is a senior lecturer in art history at the University of Auckland.

Notes 1 Auckland also hosts the boutique “sculptor’s sculpture park” Zealandia, the home and studio of Terry Stringer, one of New Zealand’s finest creators of figurative bronze works. Nearby, Brick Bay Sculpture Trail is the country’s most extensive commercial outdoor gallery of large-scale sculpture. Further to the west, in Kaipara, The Farm has gained world-wide recognition for its collection of work by local and international artists. 2 Of the three houses, one is home to the Gows, another provides a residence for artists. The third is available as accommodation for visitors who wish to stay at the sculpture park. 3 Oioi grass is a coastal, swamp grass that grows in the low-lying wetlands of Connells Bay. 4 There are three acoustic works at Connells Bay, King’s Oioi Bridge, Phil Dadson’s Tenantennae (2005), and Konstantin Dimopoulos’s Kete (2004), which whis-

Virginia King, Oioi Bridge, 2002. Aluminum, stainless

tles in the wind.

steel wire, and silver coins, 120 x 700 x 260 cm.

5 Pounamu, also known as greenstone, is a nephrite jade found on the South Island.

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AMALIE ROTHSCHILD Exhibitions AMALIE ROTHSCHILD: A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW Towson University Center for the Arts Gallery Osler and Cross Campus Drives Towson, Maryland April 19 – June 16, 2012 www.towson.edu/artscalendar

AMALIE ROTHSCHILD ’34: VESTMENTS Maryland Institute College of Art Brown Center Rosenberg Gallery 1301 W. Mount Royal Ave. Baltimore, Maryland April 11 – April 25, 2012 www.mica.edu/AmalieRothschild

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Birth of a Mermaid, 1996

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reviews

B o i s e , I da h o

NATHAN SNYDER, COURTESY THE BOISE ART MUSEUM

Mike Rathbun Boise Art Museum

The muscular arc of Mike Rathbun’s The Situation He Found Himself In became visible as soon as one entered the foyer of the Boise Art Museum. Even from a distance, this soaring tour de force made momentum visible. The tilted elliptical ring, 73 feet across its longer axis and held aloft by X-shaped supports, ascended through a spacious gallery and seemed to burst through the wall and out into the Sculpture Court before boomerang-

ing back into the building through an adjacent room. The Situation He Found Himself In was constructed of sustainable Pacific Northwest lumber, which Rathbun has employed almost exclusively over the many years of his career. Pacific Albus, a poplar hybrid (and “green” timber) harvested at the east end of the Columbia Gorge (not far from Rathbun’s home in Portland) formed the pale core of the ellipse. The 14 struts hoisting it into the air were built from Douglas fir, the region’s emblematic workhorse wood.

Mike Rathbun, The Situation He Found Himself In (detail), 2011. Pacific Albus, Douglas fir, cedar, and hardware, 73 ft. diameter.

boat and solo-sailed it across Lake Michigan for his MFA thesis project.) The intensity of the on-site building process is intrinsic to Rathbun’s work. He says that the making of the sculpture is the true artwork, while the final manifestation is simply the record of the journey—a solid, threedimensional composite of the concepts, energy, and physical effort that went into the construction.

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Rathbun conceived a project so huge that there was no choice but to assemble it in situ, a methodology that introduced an element of risk and demanded working out, with exquisite precision, the conceptual mathematics of construction. Before arriving in Boise, preparations included the ripping of 1,400 slats to accommodate the bend of the ellipse. The Situation He Found Himself In was erected, with near-miraculous efficiency and speed, by a team of 10 people working 12-hour days for two weeks. (The same team aided Rathbun in 1995, when he built a

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clergyman. A story from Rathbun’s youth illustrates one potential interpretation. As a teenager, he was a runner and dreamed of competing in the Olympics. But he started smoking, and the “situation he found himself in” pitted worthy ambition against human weakness. Rathbun states, “I am trying to find epiphanies. These are moments when for reasons that I cannot explain, I seem to be connected to something outside of myself…I experience a moment of clarity; clarity about what, I don’t know…Perhaps it is what C.S. Lewis calls a desire for heaven.” With tools in hand and using unassuming materials, Rathbun-the-carpenter becomes Rathbun-the-artist, momentarily arresting transcendence in a work of art. —Linda Tesner W e st H o l ly wo o d

Above and detail: Mike Rathbun, The Situation He Found Himself In, 2011. Pacific Albus, Douglas fir, cedar, and hardware, 73 ft. diameter.

There is an honesty to his exposed nails and screws, the intentional gaps in the sheathing, the remnant scribbles on the wood. At BAM, especially at the points where the sculpture seemed to puncture interior and exterior, one could peer through to the core and see how it was constructed. Raw and unfinished, the wood changed over the course of the show—particularly the outdoor section—further emphasiz-

ing the impermanence of the work: at the end of the installation, the sculpture was dismantled and recycled. Rathbun’s earlier works incorporated symbolic representations, like boats, aircraft, thorns, and chains. The Boise work, in contrast, relied on abstract formal qualities to convey its theme, which Rathbun calls “heroic/pathetic irony”—by which he means the tension between the

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sacred and profane, between lofty aspiration and mundane drudgery. The skeletal fir supports were readily anthropomorphized: with feet planted firmly on the ground and arms raised, they appeared under-buttressed for their burden. It was as if the sculpture were a metaphor for the vicissitudes of life. The title was appropriated from a conversation between Rathbun and his brother Russell, a Lutheran

With postmodern savvy, Andrea Zittel’s new works study frontierism as a phenomenon whose legacy continues to reverberate within the American imagination. Her recent exhibition featured examples from two distinct bodies of work. One, a room-scaled installation, extends traditional definitions of sculpture as an object that re-presents the real in mimetic fashion. The second presents a phenomenally rich, ongoing body of work that celebrates traditional women’s work as art. Absent from this exhibition were the A-Z Living Units that brought Zittel recognition in the early 1970s. These works offered conceptual solutions to the high costs and small spaces of living quarters in cities like L.A. and New York. Over the years, Zittel has created an array of different series, all named A-Z works, referencing her initials. Winking at the consumer culture practice of branding products, in the mid-’90s, she began to probe

NATHAN SNYDER, COURTESY THE BOISE ART MUSEUM

Andrea Zittel Regen Projects

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BRIAN FORREST, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND REGEN PROJECTS, LOS ANGELES

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the correlation between commercial product recognition and artworks. In this vein, she evolved her A-Z Escape Vehicles of 1996, the A-Z compartment units of 2001, and the ongoing A-Z Personal Uniforms. The room-scaled diorama that opened the show granted a vision of the Western ranch property where Zittel currently works. With its sweeping spaciousness, it is seminally different from the compact Living Units of earlier years. Viewers see a miniaturized sculpted likeness of a spacious, rocky terrain as though glimpsed from the window of an airplane. Resembling the landscape around Joshua Tree and other desert communities in California and Nevada, the ranch-style compound features a cluster of buildings— miniature replicas of the artist’s studio, home, and guesthouse—that reveal the human presence. This sculptural mirage rises on the crest of a metal grid that details the land’s undulations. The mirage is modeled with a blindingly white plaster of Paris that manages to convey the brightness of desert sunlight. Zittel’s new work signals a shift in her study of human habitations. Here,

the intensity and struggle of daily existence is underscored in ways that refract her earlier wrangles with that theme. The emphasis shifts from the metropolis of greater Los Angeles to a nature compromised by human activity—the homestead exists in a region of abandoned military installations and nuclear test sites. On one hand, Zittel’s work explores the implicit optimism in the restorative power of nature that seems to have been a premise for some Land and Space artists of the ’70s. Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, for example, proposed the power of nature to restore itself over time if left to its own cycles of regeneration. By contrast, Zittel’s massive installation

alludes to the concept of paradise lost, leaving viewers to ponder humanity’s relationship to the earth and nature’s potential for renewal. The ethos of personal survival is writ large in Zittel’s other major body of work presented here, A-Z Uniforms, which champions traditional women’s handcrafts, ranging from sewing techniques to knitting, crocheting, and finger felting. This series, which began in 2003 (with an anticipated conclusion in 2013), advocates the artistic prowess of women’s traditional arts, as manifest in a room dazzlingly filled with handmade clothes. Showcased are appliqué jumpers, knit, crocheted, and felted sweaters, coats, and

dresses. With their sophistication of color, pattern, and form, these works convincingly argue for the erasure of distinctions between art and craft. One-of-a-kind garments that easily waltz toe-to-toe with designer fashions, they allude to the seasonal cycle, the importance of annual celebrations, and to time that travels beyond the clocking of productivity. Here, the indelible impact of individuality is affirmed in the face of industrial replication, confirming craft as art that reaches beyond mere decoration to define those things that make life personally sacred and rarified. —Collette Chattopadhyay

Above: Andrea Zittel, A-Z Personal Uniforms Fall/Winter 2003—Spring/ Summer 2013, 2003–13. Mixed media, installation view. Right: Andrea Zittel, Lay of My Land #1, 2011. Steel, Hydrocal, burlap, sand, stone, and latex paint, 290.2 x 363.6 x 70.8 in.

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H u d s o n , N e w Yo r k

La Wilson John Davis Gallery

Now in her mid-80s, Ohio-based, primarily self-taught La Wilson has long made resonant, even transgressive-feeling assemblage works. Her signature form is the box, which she uses to hold compositions made up of everyday objects, very much like a conventional frame provides a border for a painting’s pictorial space. For years, she has scoured flea markets in search of antique

standing of box-assemblage sculpture begins and ends with Joseph Cornell or self-conscious Surrealist provocation. With Wilson’s work, a winking, postmodern sense of irony about the appropriated and recontextualized can fall flat; her creations are surreal, abstract, or po-mo only by accident or by unintentional affinity, not by design. In her assemblages, which exude an air of mystery and playfulness, she takes such humble items as pencils, dominoes, flat-head nails,

The old wooden boxes become integral elements of each work and often set the overall tone, from subtly subversive to eloquent. In her recent works, Wilson takes a more pared-down approach, using fewer kinds of elements in her compositions. Thus, the ephemeral-feeling Étude (2010) consists of just a group of felt piano hammers placed inside a small, shallow box, like the delicate, color-streaked shoots of an exotic tropical plant. In Night Light (2010), a single, large black die with

school-cafeteria tray. Each element evokes a heightened sense of awareness in its airless, timeless little chamber. Wilson has studied Buddhism for many years, and its meditative spirit can be felt in her work, as can a sense of spontaneity. About the odds and ends that are her raw materials, the mostly reclusive artist told me a few years ago: “I just try to find a home for them…The thing is to go in and find relationships [between them] that I never imagined or heard of or thought about. I just love that feeling of them coming together.” —Edward M. Gómez N e w Yo r k

La Wilson, Holy Wisdom, 2010. Mixed media, 13.5 x 19 x 3.25 in. open.

packing boxes, the kinds of containers that once held sewing notions or hardware. Over the years, Wilson has gained a cult following among fellow artists working in collage and assemblage. Because her work is more funkyabstract than literary-romantic, it has never really sunk into the consciousness of viewers whose under-

embroidery thread, hair clips, typewriter keys, and small hand tools and, through simple gestures like slicing them in half or placing them in unusual positions, transforms their character and meaning. In Wilson’s hands, a clothespin can become as elegant as a diamond brooch or as sinister as a dagger. She uses antique metal type or letter-press type forms, often stuffing a box full of textureyielding objects, such as bullet casings, beads, or folding yardsticks.

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white dots stands on its own little shelf in a vertically oriented box with thick, time-weathered walls; a larger compartment below is packed full of black-stained upright sticks. Holy Wisdom (2010), an open, hinged box, reveals faded, red-and-yellow letter blocks, a green folding ruler, a blue-painted stone, a wooden spool, and rolls of white string, each type of object contained in a separate compartment like oddly gathered items on a

Marisa Merz, one of Arte Povera’s band of stellar sculptors (and the widow of Mario Merz, who also belonged to the group), looks to the attractions of industrial materials. She has had a long career, her first solo show occurring in 1967 at Gallery Gian Enzo Sperone in Turin. Merz is recognized for her idiosyncratic use of copper wire, clay, and wax—materials in keeping with Arte Povera’s preference for humble substances. For this show, she presented two works made with metal sheeting: Sedia, a smallish sculpture reminiscent of an armchair, and two painted columns hanging from the ceiling—both from the larger group Untitled (Living Sculpture) (1966), a title that makes a strong identification with the Arte Povera philosophy of connecting art and life. In the unpainted “chair,” silver sheets, folded innumerable times, create form. The two columns present painted surfaces; Merz’s use of red, green, and yellow becomes that much more striking when the hues are offset by the silver of the unpainted metal. Beyond the rough honesty and simple materials, which are effective in their own right, lies the prob-

COURTESY JOHN DAVIS GALLERY

Marisa Merz Barbara Gladstone Gallery

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Left: Marisa Merz, Sedia, 1966. Wood

N e w Yo r k

and aluminum, 31.5 x 19.75 x 19.75

Yutaka Sone David Zwirner

in. Below: Marisa Merz, installation view of “Living Sculpture,” 2011.

BOTTOM: DAVID REGEN / BOTH: © MARISA MERZ, COURTESY GLADSTONE GALLERY, NY

lem of showing work such as Merz’s in a prestigious commercial space. The Arte Povera movement was committed to a radicalized notion of sculpture. How can such a stance be reconciled with the concept of a commercial gallery, no matter how sympathetic it may be to the art? Without belaboring the argument, it seems fair to say that the white cube aestheticizes even art whose homely use of cheap metal militates against a superficial appreciation. The gap between the artworks and their exhibition space should be acknowledged, for if we remain unaware of the discrepancy, we cannot do justice to art whose impulse has been guided by life experience and a radical sense of justice. The two painted columns offer a rough-and-tumble beauty that is seductive in its straightforwardness. They are strongly vertical and maintain a dialogue with each other; the metal pieces hang haphazardly in open space, so that viewers can make their way around the entirety of the work. Merz presents a compelling lyricism based on the integrity of her craft, which acts as an alternative to gimmickry—ideological or material—of any sort. The forms articulate an anti-art, an aesthetic that rejects the slick in favor of an uncouth attractiveness. In one column, a purely silver component sticks out, while other parts are messily painted—as if the innate appeal of color were strong enough to exist on its own (which indeed it does). Merz’s art shows us that the humility of industrial materials can survive any place of exhibition with real grace. Even if we don’t know where to show—or market—these sculptures, we can appreciate their awkward attractiveness. —Jonathan Goodman

“Island,” the title of Japanese sculptor Yutaka Sone’s recent show, seemed to refer to the remarkable Little Manhattan (2007–09), a marble sculpture of New York City’s most famous borough. Weighing in at 2.5 tons, but relatively modest in size, the piece offers buildings, piers, bridges, and even the paths of Central Park. Not every structure is reproduced, of course, though the amount of detail is mind-boggling in its accuracy: Sone worked from photos and took a few helicopter rides in his quest for specificity. Little Manhattan certainly works as a sculpture and generates interesting questions about scale and truth to circumstances. For example, why does such close imitation catch our equally close interest? Sometimes models of reality become more interesting than the reality itself, and Sone deftly underscores the similarities—as well as the differences—between copy and original. Little Manhattan stands out as a work whose verisimilitude reiterates the physical reality of Manhattan, still the center of the arts in America, and reminds us that our penchant for the duplicate, even if the knockoff is obvious, has become a strong art interest in its own right. Its exquisite articulation amounts to a tour de force, in which information is both accurate and imagined, leaving viewers to consider for themselves detail and overall impression. The second gallery housed an environment consisting of individual sculptures: marble flowers and trees, accompanied by sculpted rays of light; several banana trees composed of rattan, metal armatures, and paint; and a large traveler’s palm tree consisting of rattan and steel. The marble sculptures were placed more or less equidistantly from the trees, which encircled the

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room. Sone, who makes the marble pieces with the help of artisans from southern China, appears to be making another statement about the relation of the imaginary to the real. Yet these sculptures are more stylized than Little Manhattan—for example, Light in between Trees No. 3 (Tree Trunk) (2010), which presents a cut tree trunk complete with growth rings next to a starburst

radiating out toward the viewer. Intensely artificial in its expressiveness, the piece is also accurate— at least in regard to the tree trunk. The effect of the light, of course, is more faux than accurate. With the palm and banana trees, Sone is at pains to be accurate within reason. In Tropical Composition/ Traveler’s Palm No. 1 (2011), fringes of unpainted rattan mimic dead

Above: Yukata Sone, installation view of “Island,” 2011. Below: Yukata Sone, Little Manhattan, 2007–09. Marble, 21.75 x 104.375 x 33.5 in.

leaves. The work possesses a strong frontality in its flatness of form, consisting of a triangle on top of a steel trunk. Like Sone’s marble Rafflesia Flower (2010), a parasitic plant discovered in the Indonesian rain forest, the accuracy of the palm tree is more an argument for aesthetic pleasure than scientific knowledge. Still, these works remain striking as examples of truthtelling, even if they do not aspire to trompe l’oeil perfection. Sone’s objects, the six banana plants included, remain in the viewer’s mind because they so effortlessly straddle the line between truth and appearances. —Jonathan Goodman Q u e e n s , N e w Yo r k

James O. Clark and Forrest Myers Regina Rex

Western, particularly American, artists will never cease in their quest to find the aesthetic in common objects, to be inventive with found and discarded materials. James O. Clark and Forrest Myers, whose works recently featured in “Luminous Flux,” have spent their careers creating sculptural objects from discarded plastic, metal, and wooden detritus and cast-off technology. Entering a darkened space, viewers were immersed in an atmosphere of glowing lights and deep sounds. The illumination came from two sources: a transparent pendant hanging by a fiber-optic tube from the ceiling in Clark’s The Future is Now (2011) and a video projecting an array of primary colors gradually

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transitioning through the spectrum in Myers’s four short videos (Split Decision, Snow, Two Million Colors and Their Opposite, and The Image After [1989–2011]). Myers, who is also known for his inventive furniture designs, installed a couch of assembled found materials in the middle of the gallery so that viewers could watch in comfort. It was no surprise that the show’s high aesthetic was created with the humblest of means: Clark and Myers both came of age with Rauschenberg’s combines, and they draw on the ’80s aesthetic of repurposing salvaged materials, giving them another life. Delving into his uncanny laboratory of wonders, Clark used a transparent plastic bag for his suspended sculpture, tied it in a knot, and filled it with water. Stretched by the weight of the water and illuminated by the refracted light, this plastic “junk” sculpture transforms into a precious object. Myers relies on flat-screen technology, showing constellations of rectangles reminiscent of test patterns on TV screens as they shift in slow gradation from the coolest to the warmest hue of each primary color. His couch serves as a link between technology and DIY skill. It looks like the last thing one might want to sit on—old metal springs jammed carelessly together with apparent randomness stick out as if to threaten skirts and trousers—yet it offered surprisingly comfortable seating. In the juxtaposition of couch and screen, Myers makes an interesting comment on the stereotypical American “living room,” with a wink to his early influences—jazz and Calder. Clark and Myers continue to test the boundaries of high- and lowtech, bringing the ever-inventive minds of “fixers,” handymen, and masters of all trades into the realm of art. They use recycled and discarded materials whenever possible and give them a second life in order

COURTESY DAVID ZWIRNER, NY

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Left: Installation view of “Luminous Flux,” with (left to right) Forrest Myers, Split Decision, 2011, computer program on LED, 4.5 min.; Forrest Myers, Couch Potato, 2011, steel spring wire; and Jim Clark, The Future is Now, 2011, water, polyethene plastic, acrylic, and fiber optics. Below: Jongsun Lee, Knot, Unknot, And Again Not, 2011. Performance.

to challenge mainstream and technology-dependent art production. Their work demonstrates that there is still a place for quiet, thoughtful, artistic understatement. Clark and Myers seduce us through an aesthetic that shows a level of refinement and execution consistent with artists who have spent a lifetime perfecting their craft. —Yulia Tikhonova

work incorporates sculpture, performance, sound, and collaboration. Knot, Unknot, And Again Not, a performance/installation, was held in a former hardware store, now a vast open space of bare wood beams and polished oak floors, with a small bar and restaurant tucked to one side. Between the towering support beams, Lee arranged 18 low circular tables piled with hundreds

of rice bowls grouped according to shape and hue. The palm-sized bowls, face up for filling, emanated a rough but luminous surface. The petite artist, dressed in a sunny yellow dress with a scalloped hem, rested supine on the floor with her head concealed under the largest, most central table. Rising mechanically, her slim figure came to life and began to skip, lope, and shuffle

barefoot toward and away from a large man playing a saxophone. Urgent sounds and gestures from the artist and aggressive notes from the sax sounded a dialogue around the empty bowls. Striding, Lee began to weave in and out of the crowd. Was she in control or lost? Craning to see over the heads of the after-work crowd of smartly dressed young professionals, a new stage was revealed on the screens of photo-snapping smart phones, ubiquitous in the audience. Taking advantage of the live video streaming on the phones, one could follow the artist’s path as flashes of yellow dress began to weave a virtual path from phone to phone, punctuated by glimpses of her physical body. The 15-minute performance evoked anxiety and bewilderment and finally

Utica, New York

Jongsun Lee Sculpture Space

During her two-month residency at Sculpture Space, Jongsun Lee, a peripatetic artist and social sculptor, produced thousands of handshaped rice bowls in the studio by day and presented several interactive performances off site in the evening. After achieving commercial success as a traditional figure sculptor, she renounced her material achievements for a less predictable life on the road as a visual poet—a role that acknowledges her years of hardship as a child in South Korea. Oscillating between attraction and repulsion, between traditional Asian motifs and Western themes, Lee’s

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prompted contemplation of how to respond as a witness to a brave act. Lee sees her performance as bringing “the viewer a little closer to the ambivalent heart of humanity’s inexorable social drama.” Lee’s studio is in New York City, but international residencies fuel her minimal and improvisational style. She responds to the social context of each new place, and in Utica, she worked with sax player and growling singer Michael Patrei and his band, The Swordfish Trombones, whom she met at a local coffee house open mic night. Her second Utica performance, Catch, was choreographed with Sculpture Space studio manager, Scott Hartmann, who performed the ritual filling and spilling of a yellow metal bucket of rice hanging from an overhead beam 25 feet above the ground. At the end, the audience gathered in lines as Lee handed out small bags of rice—a memento for us, but also a gesture that many around the world would consider life-sustaining. —Gina Murtagh

M a r fa , T e x a s

Bettina Landgrebe Chinati Foundation

Beaten with a Hammer, a multimedia installation by Bettina Landgrebe, offered a poignant and powerful elegy for the nearly 1,000 women who have been brutally tortured and murdered in the borderlands around Juárez, Mexico, since 1993. Part of the Chinati Foundation’s Open House Weekend, the installation appeared at the unlikely venue of Big Bend Coffee Roasters. Consisting of 576 white plaster-like models of human hearts, 476 of which were suspended from the ceiling by thin red filaments, Beaten with a Hammer formed a cloud-like shape whose individual elements only became recognizable on close inspection. A woman’s name, age, year of death, and cause of death were hand-printed in red paint on each heart. The voice of reader Amira de la Garza quietly filled the room with a somber, almost musical recitation of the disturbing facts: “Carmen Patricia Ramirez Sanchez, 34, 2005, Shot to Death.

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Tomasa Chavarria Rangel, 54, 2005, Beaten with a Hammer. Maria Eugenia Mendoza Arias, 28, 1998, Strangled, Sex Murder, Head Wound...” Landgrebe, who is the lead conservator at the Chinati Foundation, heard about the murders when she first visited Marfa in 1995. The senseless brutality of the crimes continued to haunt her. In 2007, she came across The Killing Fields, Diana Washington Valdez’s book about the murders, and the idea for the installation began to materialize. Ninetynine percent of the murders are unsolved. Landgrebe is deeply disturbed by the fact that the perpetrators know that they can get away with it, that there will be no consequences. She says, “Women of all ages are raped and murdered, including infants and women in their 80s. Any and every woman can be targeted.” Although the subject is grim, the installation was visually light, ghostlike, and ethereal. Landgrebe wanted “it to be beautiful, for those women.” Over the last two years,

after work and on weekends, she made the 576 cast hearts. The 476 inscribed hearts represent women who were murdered between 1993 and 2006 and whose identities are known. Landgrebe says that “the name is important. It’s who we are, our identity, our relation to our family and our friends.” In the installation, 100 hearts remained blank. Arranged in a circle on the floor, they represented those women who have not been identified or whose remains have not been found. The degree of violence inflicted on these women exceeds what was typical of sex crimes in Mexico before 1993; some sociologists believe it to be a symptom of the societal dysfunction caused by powerful drug dealers and their cohorts, which now pervades every aspect of the border culture. As viewers turned from the constellation of hearts to head out the door, they faced south, where, as Landgrebe says, “just across the river, you can see Juárez, where women face a daily struggle to live, work, and fight for existence.” —Martha Hughes

RIGHT: BARRY B. DOYLE / BOTH: COURTESY THE ARTIST

Bettina Landgrebe, Beaten with a Hammer, 2011. Cellulose-based plaster-like material, red archival felt-tip pen, and red filament, 3.25 x 3.25 x 4.5 in.

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ANDREA CAMPBELL, COURTESY PATRICK MIKHAIL GALLERY AND THE ARTIST

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O t tawa

Right: Jinny Yu, (left) Stroke, 2011, oil

Jinny Yu Patrick Mikhail Gallery

on aluminum, 138 x 24 in.; (right) Bent, 2011, oil on aluminum, 24 x

Nominally a painter, Jinny Yu explored materiality in her “Latest from New York” exhibition, which included sculpted aluminum and oil pieces. She sees herself at the interstices of identity—of Korean birth, living in Ottawa, practicing in New York, Italy, Montreal, and elsewhere. Her work also operates in liminalities—between installation, sculpture, painting, gesture, and illusion. The seven works in the show mark conversations across these intermediate states, and while they make art historical references, they maintain a safe distance from the “specific objects” of the past. Yu’s intermediations can be taken at face value now that the confines of Modernist media categories have been thoroughly undone. Painting, Wiped, on Wall (2011) is an installation framed by ivory-black pigment. The reflective aluminum square is felt as a presence and as a void when contrasted by the paint— the scale, painterly textures, and sitespecificity evoke Lawrence Weiner’s A “36 X 36” REMOVAL TO THE LATHING OR SUPPORT WALL OF PLASTER OR WALLBOARD FROM A WALL (1968). Many of Yu’s works play with the notion of what is optically close, but physically distant, and in this instance, the aluminum square on the wall seems sunken within it. The rumpled forms of Precarious (2011) stumble into space while grazing wall and floor—with this sculpted physicality, the thin, abstract, vertical marks read as a trompe l’oeil finish, suggesting the directional grain of “brushed” stainless steel. Yu’s marks suggest industrial applications of oil for the protection and finish of metals. The folds of this piece reveal a uniform, white back—a “readymade” artifact of her industrial support that reads more as “painted” than the shimmering front. Crumpled (2011), a small piece, features the

17.5 in. Below: Jinny Yu, Precarious, 2011. Oil on aluminum, 57 x 24 in.

sculpted forms of this white field. The wall-hung Bent (2011) accomplishes a similar dialogue between material and illusion, but here, Yu’s marks seems more organic and intentional— still, her purposeful gestures bring full circle the accidental “Abstract Expressionist” drips and other patterns on Donald Judd’s galvanized boxes. Yu’s metallic sheen adds another layer of complexity—the colors of reflected light sometimes have physical presence, they seem to be “of” the work and far more concrete than their condition as situational phenomena. The rumpled, floor-toceiling Stroke (2011) also possesses this effect, the long thin metal in dialogue with Roy Lichtenstein’s “brushstroke” paintings from the mid-1960s as well as Matthew Ritchie’s cut metal pieces from recent years. The piece with the greatest presence in this exhibition was a wallsized work (with a nod to Richard Serra) consisting of black oil paint applied to a thin aluminum support. Painting (2011) is a conceptual title, a label of emphasis or priority for a work that is self-evidently painted but that has an unconventional, almost immaterial ground. Most pronounced here, but true of all Yu’s works, her systematic touch-marks create a different kind of modeling, one in which any illusionistic spaces seem consequential, “sculpted” by the materiality of paint and the optically engaged “empty” spaces. —William V. Ganis Berlin

Wilhelm Mundt Buchmann Galerie

Wilhelm Mundt’s boulder-shaped sculptures are immediate, yet they seem to be all about process and duration. They are also physically

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Left: Wilhelm Mundt, installation view of “From Trash to Treasure,” 2011. Below: Micha Ullman, Map, 2002. Iron and red sand, table: 110 x 78 x 85 cm., chair: 45 x 45 x 85 cm.

forgotten, no longer central to the making of the object, their use diminishes. They are silt-like remnants—the embalmed memories— of the thing’s making—or less poetically, they are refuse dumped in landfills, giving form to an artificial topography that is reshaping the planet. Mundt’s “Trashstones” are rare in their keen juxtaposition of high and low: they maintain an intellectual sophistication while also being simply mesmerizing, beautiful, and fun. The power of a Trashstone lies in its statement and presence, both of which are ecological in nature. —Charissa Terranova polished and perfect. Mundt has been making these brightly colored “Trashstones,” as he calls them, since 1989. A stone in an intense shade of yellow bears the number 493, testament to the artist’s stickto-it-iveness and inveterate fascination with packed, covered, painted, and polished detritus. Though they seem of another world, as if tumbled down from the cosmos to cool in our mortal realm, there is an array of familiar stuff inside these craggy forms: garbage, studio debris, found objects, and personal information, all of which gets sealed within the rumpling surface skin of the rock. Mundt bundles motley collections of objects, then covers them with a fabric made out of glass fiber. He treats the surface with polyester gel and hardeners, then repeatedly sands and smoothes it, leaving the result to dry for many hours. Once dried, he sands it again and then waxes it, creating a top layer that is somewhere between an oozing plastic topography and the hood of a Corvette. Weatherproofed

by the glossy resin surface, a Trashstone might sit outside in a wide, open field, the lunar figure to a planar ground. Mundt’s “Trashstones” are something like time capsules, except that their hard carapaces will never be cracked, and memories of the past will remain entombed inside the rock in perpetuity. A row of them sitting on the floor of the gallery might suggest colorful space junk. Here, a green Trashstone the size of a small car was followed by an orange, then a yellow, a black, a white, and a small blue one, all aligned below a black and white photograph of a meteor. The autobiographical component did not get lost in the extraterrestrial feel of this installation; instead, it expanded to become meme-like. Mundt is everyman: his garbage is our garbage, the world’s garbage. The shift from useful to useless parallels the shift from personal to impersonal. Scrappaper notes with ideas, materials, and measurements give shape to the formless Trashstone. Inside,

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Micha Ullman The Israel Museum

This impressive retrospective brought together 40 of Micha Ullman’s sculptures selected from different periods in his 50-year career. It also featured works on paper, as well as documentation of his many sitespecific works, including Library, the underground cell with empty shelves that he dug out in Berlin’s Bebelplatz, the site of the 1933 Nazi book

burning. Like its sister-piece Equinox, on the grounds of the Israel Museum, Library offers continually fluctuating viewpoints, set in motion by its shifting cosmic elements, shadows, and reflections. Human-scale, floor-bound objects in Minimalist geometric shapes and works featuring only sand dominated the exhibition. The objects consisted of rusted iron plates, angled so that layers of red sand covering their upper surfaces were just held in check. The juxtaposition of these dissonant materials, one hard and cold, the other soft and elusive, and the tension between them, may be viewed as indicative of Ullman’s attitude toward the world beyond art, that dialogue and give-and-take are possible between people having different or conflicting views. These constructions, arranged in descending order of size, formed a single work based on the archetypal image of a house. Midnight, a stable form, was followed by Day, an upside-down house, both from 1988. Fragmented pieces of furniture came next, some half-buried in the floor, giving the ambivalent impression of either a sinking building or a structure rising from ruins. Casting one’s mind back to recent ecological disasters, this scenario assumed a certain topicality. Place, a video from 1975 documenting a performance by Ullman,

TOP: COURTESY BUCHMANN GALERIE, BERLIN / BOTTOM: SIMA SAYAG: COURTESY THE ISRAEL MUSEUM, JERUSALEM

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Left: Micha Ullman, Wedding (detail), 2011. Sand-throwing installation. Below: Shirazeh Houshiary, Lacuna (Wall Piece), 2011. Cast stainless

TOP: AVRAHAM HAI, COURTESY DORON SEBBAG ART COLLECTION, ORS LTD. / BOTTOM: COURTESY THE ARTIST AND LISSON GALLERY

steel, 80 x 220 x 80 cm.

then a young lecturer at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy, attests to his early fascination with sand. It shows him, brush in hand, sweeping particles into hills and depressions—a gestural activity directly associated with the sand tables that he would produce 20 years later. The other prominent feature of this show, the tables mostly take the form of raised containers filled with layers of red sand, their surfaces marked with ridges, paths, and pits. In one case, the markings resemble the negative imprint of a fish, in others, eating utensils. In Map—the Hebrew word means a tablecloth as well as a land map—a chair was drawn up to a table where four holes for glasses had been cut into the sand. The imagery seemed to allude to domestic life, but also, perhaps, to political discourse around a table. Ullman’s distinctive sand-throwing technique reached new heights with Wedding, an installation that he created only days before the opening, when 100 guests, volunteer art students, were invited to attend a pseudo-wedding ceremony. Once they were seated, Ullman threw clouds of red sand across the floor. The space was then vacated with minimum disturbance. What remained was a carpet of sand smeared with footprints and marks of furniture—and, in the area where

the wedding canopy had been raised, shards of the glass traditionally broken at Jewish weddings. The result was a huge, abstract “painting” containing memory traces of this event, but with other scary connotations. —Angela Levine London

Shirazeh Houshiary Lisson Gallery

Shirazeh Houshiary’s “No Boundary Condition” presented itself as an exhibition of paradoxes—paintings that felt three-dimensional, manmade objects that felt organic, chaotic sculptural compositions that somehow seemed simple. Works such as Lacuna (2011) created a feeling not unlike an erupting storm, multiple spiraling forms crashing into one another, tumulus forms reminiscent of conflicting turbulent airflows. Yet, despite this turbulence, the piece gave off an odd sense of calm. The curvature of the cast

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stainless steel followed an organic flow and, in combination with the dominant matte-green color, evoked the feeling of standing in a meadow with a gentle breeze. The two floor pieces Stretch (2011) and Tear (2011) created their own contradictory environment, but in a very different way. Their elegant, flowing forms consisted of a large number of small, anodized aluminum cuboids. Positioned diagonally opposite each other, the two works felt connected but still distinctly separate, the warm magenta of Stretch twinkling under the lights in contrast to the duller blue of Tear. Despite their construction from such simple building blocks, both works resolved into complex, sinuously contoured organic figures, the convex shape of Stretch suggesting a feminine form, complimented and opposed by the more masculine Tear. Though linked, the pair were distinctly different, separate.

Houshiary manages to moderate between these opposing forces, creating beauty from banality, harmony out of discord, and balance from instability. The five-meter-high String Quintet, presented in the garden area, was by far the most impressive piece of the exhibition. Intertwining strings of polished stainless steel spiraled skywards, drawing the viewer’s gaze with them. Again, Houshiary presented a fantastic contradiction— the flowing metallic forms feeling more organic than industrial. Floating into the sky, delicate, fragile, and ephemeral, they seemed almost weightless. Like the elements of Lacuna, String Quintet’s intertwining forms seemed to visualize a turbulent airflow, a chaotic swirl like a powerful tornado—the imagery emphasized by strong spotlights illuminating the work from below as darkness fell around it. The calm of early evening further accentuated the inherent contradictions: calm born of chaos, simplicity born of complicated interrelations, and organic beauty born of industrial materials and processes. Therein lies the greatest contradiction of Houshiary’s work. Despite the complexity and disorder, there is an elegance, beauty, and tranquility that leaves the viewer in a calm

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Left: Shirazeh Houshiary, Tear, 2011. Anodized aluminum, 123.5 x 37 x 69 cm. Right: Sofia Donovan, Sticky Trap, 2011. Ceramic, 28 x 32 x 47 cm. Below: Sofia Donovan, De Los Pelos, 2011. Ceramic and copper wire, 48 x 63 x 20 cm.

S a n t i ag o a n d B u e n o s Aires

Sofia Donovan Stuart Contemporary and Federico Towpyha Arte Contemporaneo

Sofia Donovan, a multifaceted young Argentine-born artist living in Chile, works in photography, video, painting, and sculpture. In her recent work, she has developed an interesting play between form and content, using ceramic to create amazing sculptures that carry a powerful physical presence. Donovan’s works investigate the human body and its representation. Over the last couple of years, her search has emphasized the mediated body in its daily environment. A good example, according to the artist, is the body’s role in medicine. Donovan questions whether the body still functions as a vehicle for experience and relations with other people or if it has been reduced to a mere object.

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Contemporary art cries out for an audience with an educated eye, demanding intellectual activity. Defying all limits of good taste or decorum and incorporating new themes, materials, forms, and techniques, it creates infinite ways for the viewer to learn. And when the

proposal not only introduces new and revolutionary ideas, but also arouses passions and emotions, art trespasses the boundaries of beauty and contemplation to become challenge. Donovan’s sculptures generate an immediate attraction or repulsion, many times because of

LEFT: COURTESY THE ARTIST AND LISSON GALLERY

state of awe rather than confusion. There is a clear beauty—an organic, minimalistic aesthetic—within these works, but also a fantastic depth, a sense of intrigue, and perhaps even wonder. These paradoxical works prove themselves not only a feast for the eyes but a surprisingly rewarding experience for the soul as well. —John Routledge

Over the last two years, Donovan’s road has led her to imposing biomorphic glazed ceramic sculptures that highlight the constant tension between the anthropomorphic and metaphorical worlds generated by the body’s formal and material aspects. These works set up an interesting dialogue. Bodily shapes and textures interact with materials totally strange to the body itself, creating moments of doubt and ambiguity—a fundamental concept in Donovan’s work—that suggest or insinuate intimate queries. Nothing is obvious; the viewer’s fantasy and intellect construct the sense, and even form, of these works. Most people see organs or phallic forms, but the sexuality is more nuanced, with suggestive curves, “ins and outs,” concave and convex, feminine and masculine, and full and empty pairings. Most of this effect is caused by the addition of unexpected materials into the ceramic universe; we must dig into the details to understand the whole story. Industrial materials come in and out, playing alter ego to the natural clay. Donovan’s artifice generates a symbolic structure that surrounds everything and gives the work another dimension. The interaction of opposite forces is a constant in her work, creating an atmosphere that seduces the mind. With a nod to Carl Jung, Donovan says, “I’m deeply concerned about these pieces as objects of seduction, I want them to question an unknown area in the relationship of biology and technique, to [probe] through the human body to regions less common, awakening sensitive experiences full of humor and symbolic content in the spectator.”

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the erotic feelings they may trigger. Yet the sculptures suggest more than they reveal. Our subjective fantasies are responsible for making Donovan’s insinuations stand out in a concrete way. Color, form, size, and texture all cooperate to create an immediate reference to the human body, but even that idea is produced in the mind of the spectator. The most important key lies in the irrational response—profoundly visceral and intimate—of the viewer’s body, which allows the mind to enjoy what the senses capture. —María Carolina Baulo H o n g Ko n g

TOP: COURTESY THE ARTIST AND TANYA BONAKDAR GALLERY, NY / BOTTOM: GEORGE R. WALDREN IV, COURTESY THE ARTIST, HAUSER & WIRTH, AND ART HONG KONG

Art Hong Kong 11 Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre

If there was one word to describe the fourth edition of Art Hong Kong (also known as Art HK 11), it would be “buzzing.” The hum of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai could practically be felt next door at the Grand Hyatt and down into the subway tunnels. Nearly 64,000 visitors came from across the globe to discover the newest offerings from 260 contemporary galleries hailing from 38 countries. Sculpture played a unique role in shaping the landscape of Art Hong Kong by acting as congregation posts (Takashi Murakami’s Superflat Flowers, recently shown in the halls of Versailles) and geographic markers (Jeff Koons’s brightly striped collaboration with BMW at the center of the main hall). Some of the most respected and recognizable names in the realm of contemporary art supplied the sculptural highlights of Art HK 11. The entrance to the fair was difficult to miss with Paul McCarthy’s threestory Daddies Tomato Ketchup Inflatable, presented by London/Zürichbased Hauser & Wirth. With tonguein-cheek details including gold labels at the neck and body, the cartoon boldness of this mammoth bottle

keenly reminded viewers of its absurdity as a valuable object. The condiment itself recalls McCarthy’s earlier practice as a performance artist. Olafur Eliasson’s Your plural view (2011), a sculpture resembling a solar-paneled telescope, refracted shards of light throughout the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery booth. The Icelandic artist’s most recent manifestation of optical phenomena consisted of three conjoined geometric elements, mirrored on the inside, then mounted on an iron stand. The booth also featured studies and wallmounted spectrums, along with two hanging, hexagonal, coloredglass mobiles that radiated vivid shades of pinks, blues, and yellows. Cheim & Read presented three sculptures by Lynda Benglis that were among the most visually imposing and compelling sights of the fair. Chicago Caryatid, Tempest (Juliet), and Silver Wraith warped the legacies of ancient, patriarchal mythologies into hardened surfaces of stainless steel and gold leaf, tempered by soft, flowing movements. The gallery juxtaposed Benglis’s heroic sculpture on the exterior of its space with the piercing, intimate dreams of Louise Bourgeois tucked inside the booth.

so perhaps the best is still to come for this young contemporary fair that has earned its place on the global contemporary arts calendar. —Shana Beth Mason

Above: Olafur Eliasson, Your plural view, 2011. Mirror, stainless steel, and aluminum, 182 x 188 x 208 cm. Right: Paul McCarthy, Daddies Tomato Ketchup Inflatable, 2007. Inflatable sculpture. Both works from Art Hong Kong 11.

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Outside the convention center, Zhang Huan’s Three Heads Six Arms stood roughly 26 feet high and almost 60 feet wide. Weighing 15 tons, his re-imagined Chinese mythological figure incorporates elements of Tibetan Buddhist statues. The three-headed (one traditional, one a portrait, and one a self-portrait) copper leviathan stretched out its elongated limbs across the 1881 Heritage Grand Piazza (the original site of the Hong Kong Marine Police) in Kowloon. Commissioned by local dealer Edouard Malingue, Huan cited a recent trip to China as inspiration for the work, which is about resurrecting the spirit and metaphorically reversing destruction of Buddhist sculptures on the mainland. Art Hong Kong was recently acquired by the MCH Group (the company that produces both Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach),

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P E O P L E , P L AC E S , A N D E V E N T S 1 Recipients of the 2011 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award: Ryan Aragon, Dustin Boise, Derek Bourcier, Jason CareySheppard, Leah Gadd, Gayle Janzow, Trevor Lalaguna, Camila Nagata, Oscar Peters, David Platter, Trudy Rogers-Denham, Tom Schram, Jeremy Smith, Brittany Watkins, Zane Wilcox. 2 Ryan Aragon and his award winning Phonesynthesis II. 3 Student Award Show opening guests view David Platter’s Charting the Self.

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4 Student Award Show opening attendees.

THE I S C 2 0 1 1 OU T STA N D I N G ST U D E N T AC H I E V E ME NT AWA R D S On October 15, 2011, the recipients of the 2011 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Awards attended an award presentation and exhibition opening at Grounds For Sculpture (GFS) in Hamilton, New Jersey. Johannah Hutchison, Executive Director of the ISC, introduced the winners of the competition with accolades for their accomplishment and praise for their commitment to the field of contemporary sculpture. Her remarks ended with the presentation of award certificates and a cocktail reception in the Domestic Arts Building at GFS, where the winning student work was exhibited. This year, the show will also travel to Chicago. The 2011 student awards competition was a great success, with participation from 190 schools, which nominated a total of 485 students. Nominees hailed from numerous U.S. and international institutions, including schools in Portugal, Romania, Pakistan, Canada, Israel, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, South Africa, and the Netherlands. From this pool of talented nominees, jurors DeWitt Godfrey, artist, educator, and Chair of Fine Arts at Colgate University; Brooke Kamin Rapaport, independent curator and writer; and John Lash, artist and CEO of the Digital Atelier, selected 15 winners and 14 honorable mention recipients. Award recipients receive numerous benefits, including participation in the Fall/Winter exhibition at GFS; publication of their work in Sculpture magazine and on ; a chance to win a residency in Switzerland to study with world-renowned sculptor Heinz Aeschlimann; a one-year ISC membership, including a subscription to Sculpture magazine; an opportunity to participate in the traveling Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture 3 Awards exhibition, hosted by esteemed art

organizations; and an award certificate and recognition letter from the ISC, signed by the Executive Director and Chair of the ISC Board of Trustees. Established in 1994, the Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award was created to recognize young sculptors and encourage their continued commitment to the field of 2 sculpture. Through this initiative, the ISC hopes to encourage use of its many resources to assist students and faculty with their professional development. The program also spotlights participating universities, colleges, and art schools and their undergraduate and graduate sculpture programs. For more details about the 2011 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Awards or to find out about the 2012 competition, visit , e-mail , ___________________ or call 609.689.1051, x305.

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Vol. 31, No. 3 © 2012. Sculpture (ISSN 0889-728X) is published monthly, except February and August, by the International Sculpture Center. Editorial office: 1633 Connecticut Ave. NW, 4th floor, Washington, DC 20009. ISC Membership and Subscription office: 19 Fairgrounds Rd., Suite B, Hamilton, NJ 08619, U.S.A. Tel. 609.689.1051. Fax 609.689.1061. E-mail . _______ Annual membership dues are US $100; subscription only, US $55. (For subscriptions or memberships outside the U.S., Canada, and Mexico add US $20, includes airmail delivery.) Permission is required for any reproduction. Sculpture is not responsible for unsolicited material. Please send an SASE with material requiring return. Opinions expressed and validity of information herein are the responsibility of the author, not the ISC. Advertising in Sculpture is not an indication of endorsement by the ISC, and the ISC disclaims liability for any claims made by advertisers and for images reproduced by advertisers. Periodicals postage paid at Washington, DC, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send change of address to International Sculpture Center, 19 Fairgrounds Rd., Suite B, Hamilton, NJ 08619, U.S.A. U.S. newsstand distribution by CMG, Inc., 250 W. 55th Street, New York, NY 10019, U.S.A. Tel. 866.473.4800. Fax 858.677.3235.

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