Sculpture 2010 05

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May 2010
Vol. 29 No. 4
A publication of the
International Sculpture Center
www.sculpture.org
Shifting Ground:
Nature and Artifice
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From the Chairman

In previous letters, I have mentioned that the ISC embarked on a
strategic planning exercise last summer. I am thrilled to now tell you
a little bit more about the process and the results after some nine
months of work.
Working with a strategic planning consultant, the ISCs staff and
board, together with a number of members and other interested parties, went through an extensive interview process and participated in
various brainstorming sessions to evaluate the ISCs existing vision,
mission, and programming and to envision their future evolution.
For me, one of the most interesting things to come out of this process
was what didnt happen. That is, the process didnt identify any major
new directions for the organization to pursue. Rather, it suggested that
the ISCs organic growth over the past 50 years has taken it in exactly
the right directions, successfully fulfilling our vision and mission, and
that our strategic planning should focus on how to do what we are
already doingonly better.
Over the coming months, the ISC is likely to develop and publish
new vision and value statements, perhaps we will even tweak our mission statement. But strategic planning discussions have suggested that
we should focus on five primary goals to maintain our focus without
duplicating the efforts of other organizations. These are: serve as an
authoritative voice advancing contemporary sculpture in the U.S. and
around the world; be the leading Internet access to key information on
contemporary sculpture; build relationships with our core constituents,
including artists, institutions, and patrons; develop the capacity to
generate revenue to support our strategic goals and annual operating
plans; and build the ISCs governance capacities to ensure a vibrant
and steady future.
We are already well on our way to determining how these goals
should be effected through development, membership, Internet, conference and events, and publishing efforts. Priorities have been set,
and ISC staff and board members are committed to investing prudently
in the future of the organization. Some of the early work will be difficult to seethink development efforts, increasing membership, and
planning for the expansion of our Web, conference and events, and
publishing programsbut these efforts over the next 1224 months
will put us in a position to undertake a major redesign and expansion
of our Web site and Internet offerings in 2012 and to expand our publishing program in 2013 and beyond.
All of us who work or volunteer for the International Sculpture Center
are excited about the organizations history, but as the ISC turns 50,
we are increasingly driven by what we know the organization is yet to
become.
We thank all of youour members, subscribers, donors, and friends
for all that you continue to do to drive the success of the ISC as we
look forward to the next 50 years.
Josh Kanter
Chairman, ISC Board of Directors
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ISC Board of Directors

Chairman: Josh Kanter, Salt Lake City, UT
Chakaia Booker, New York, NY
Robert Edwards, Naples, FL
Bill FitzGibbons, San Antonio, TX
David Handley, Australia
Paul Hubbard, Philadelphia, PA
Ree Kaneko, Omaha, NE
Gertrud Kohler-Aeschlimann, Switzerland
Marc LeBaron, Lincoln, NE
Patricia Meadows, Dallas, TX
George W. Neubert, Brownville, NE
Albert Paley, Rochester, NY
Walter Schatz, Nashville, TN
STRETCH, Kansas City, MO
Steinunn Thorarinsdottir, Iceland
Boaz Vaadia, New York, NY
Chairmen Emeriti: Robert Duncan, Lincoln, NE
John Henry, Chattanooga, TN
Peter Hobart, Italy
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
William Tucker
sculpture
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May 2010
Vol. 29 No. 4
A publication of the
International Sculpture Center
71
40
Departments
Features
14 Itinerary
24
Struggling For Centimeters: A Conversation with Christiane Lhr by Paula Llull
32
The Site Generates the Sculpture: A Conversation with Haesim Kim by John K. Grande
20 Chianti Sculpture Park by Laura Tansini

22 Commissions
36
Yoshihiro Suda: Carving Out a Distinctive Place by Janet Koplos
40
Joana Vasconcelos: From Cutlery to Corao by Regina Frank
Reviews
48
Kathy Bruce: Ritual Renewal by Ellen Pearlman
66
Washington, DC: Louise Bourgeois
52
Roberley Bell: Inside Out by Ivy Cooper
68
Washington, DC and Harrisonburg,
56
Federica Marangonis Luminous Signs by Viana Conti
Virginia: Dalya Luttwak

69
Wilmington, Delaware: Ron Longsdorf
69
Hudson and New York, New York: John

Cleater and Ana Golici
70
36
New York: Candice Breitz
71
New York: Wolfgang Laib
72
New York: Mika Tajima
73
New York: Ryo Toyonaga
73
Pittsburgh: Maria Grazia Rosin
74
Providence, Rhode Island: Arnie Zimmerman
75
Seattle: Debra Baxter
76
Montreal: Jannick Deslauriers
and Tiago Montepegado
77
Vancouver: Reece Terris
77
Leeds: Keith Arnatt
78
London: Radical Nature
80
Book Review: Kenneth Snelson: Forces Made

Visible
32
On the Cover: Christiane Lhr, (foreground)
Klettenfcher, 2003, burrs, 16 x 28 x25 cm.;
(background) Lwenzahnkissen, 2008, dandelion seeds, 8 x 22 x 22 cm. View of exhibition
at the Pilar i Joan Mir a Mallorca Foundation,
Palma, Spain. Photograph: Barbara Vidal.
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Sculpture May 2010
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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
Conference and Events Manager Dawn Molignano
Office Manager Denise Jester
Membership Coordinator Lauren Hallden-Abberton
Membership Associate Emily Fest
Web and Portfolio Manager Frank Del Valle
Conferences and Events Associate Valerie Friedman
Executive Assistant Kara Kaczmarzyk
Administrative Associate Eva Calder Powel
ISC Headquarters
19 Fairgrounds Road, Suite B
Hamilton, New Jersey 08619
Phone: 609.689.1051, fax 609.689.1061
E-mail: isc@sculpture.org
_________
SCULPTURE MAGAZINE
Editor Glenn Harper
Managing Editor Twylene Moyer
Editorial Assistant Elizabeth Lynch
Design Eileen Schramm visual communication
Advertising Sales Manager Brenden OHanlon
Contributing Editors Maria Carolina Baulo (Buenos
Aires), Roger Boyce (Christchurch), Susan Canning (New
York), Marty Carlock (Boston), Jan Garden Castro (New
York), Collette Chattopadhyay (Los Angeles), Ina Cole
(London), Ana Finel Honigman (Berlin), John K. Grande
(Montreal), Kay Itoi (Tokyo), Matthew Kangas (Seattle),
Zoe Kosmidou (Athens), Angela Levine (Tel Aviv), Brian
McAvera (Belfast), Robert C. Morgan (New York), Robert
Preece (Rotterdam), Brooke Kamin Rapaport (New
York), Ken Scarlett (Melbourne), Peter Selz (Berkeley),
Sarah Tanguy (Washington), Laura Tansini (Rome)
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: ____________
gharper@sculpture.org
Sculpture On-Line on the International
Sculpture Center Web site:
www.sculpture.org
Advertising information
E-mail <advertising@sculpture.org>
______________
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.
Major Donors ($50,000+)

Fletcher Benton
Rob Fisher
John Henry
Richard Hunt
Johnson Art and Education
Foundation
J. Seward Johnson, Jr.
Robert Mangold
Fred & Lena Meijer
I.A. OShaughnessy Foundation
Arnaldo Pomodoro
Russ RuBert
Jon & Mary Shirley Foundation
James Surls
William Tucker
Bernar Venet
The ISC Board of Directors gratefully acknowledges the generosity of our members
and donors in our Contemporary Sculpture Circle: those who have contributed
$350 and above.
Chairmans Circle ($10,00049,999)

Magdalena Abakanowicz
Stephen De Staebler
John Adduci
Karen & Robert Duncan
Atlantic Foundation
Terry and Robert Edwards
Bill Barrett
Lin Emery
Blue Star Contemporary
Virginio Ferrari
Art Center
Doris & Donald Fisher
Debra Cafaro & Terrance
Gene Flores
Livingston
Viola Frey
William Carlson
Alan Gibbs
Sir Anthony Caro
Neil Goodman
Chelsea College of Art
Michael Gutzwiller
and Design
Richard Heinrich
Dale Chihuly
Daniel A. Henderson
Erik & Michele Christiansen John Hock
Citigroup
Stephen Hokanson
John Cleveland
Jon Isherwood
Clinton Family Fund
Joyce and Seward Johnson
Richard Cohen
Foundation
Don Cooperman
Jun & Ree Kaneko
Woods Davy
Joshua S. Kanter
Kanter Family Foundation

Keeler Foundation
Phillip King
William King
Gertrud & Heinz KohlerAeschlimann
Anne Kohs Associates
Koret Foundation
Marc LeBaron
Toby D. Lewis
Philanthropic Fund
Lincoln Industries
Marlborough Gallery
Denise Milan
David Nash
National Endowment
for the Arts
Alissa Neglia
Manuel Neri
Tom Otterness
Joel Perlman
Pat Renick Gift Fund
Estate of John A. Renna
Salt Lake Art Center
Lincoln Schatz
June & Paul Schorr, III
Judith Shea
Dr. and Mrs. Robert
Slotkin
Kiki Smith
Mark di Suvero
University of the Arts
London
Elizabeth Erdreich White
Nadine Witkin, Estate of
Isaac Witkin
Directors Circle ($5,0009,999)

Sydney & Walda Besthoff
Otto M. Budig Family
Foundation
Leah Chase
Lisa Colburn
Carol Feuerman
Bill FitzGibbons
Linda Fleming
Gagosian Gallery
Gallery Kasahara
The James J. and Joan A.

Gardner Foundation
Michael D. Hall
David Handley
Peter C. Hobart
Mary Ann Keeler
Cynthia Madden Leitner/
Museum of Outdoor Arts
Susan Lloyd
Marlene & William
Louchheim
Patricia Meadows
Merchandise Mart
Properties
Peter Moore
National Gallery, London
Ralph S. OConnor
Mary OShaughnessy
Frances & Albert Paley
Barry Parker
Patricia Renick
Henry Richardson
Melody Sawyer Richardson

Riva Yares Gallery
Wendy Ross
Walter Schatz
Sculpture Community/
Sculpture.net
Sebastin
Katherine and
Kenneth Snelson
Duane Stranahan, Jr.
STRETCH
Takahisa Suzuki
Tate
Steinunn Thorarinsdottir
Laura Thorne
Boaz Vaadia
Robert E. Vogele
Harry T. Wilks
Isaac Witkin
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About the ISC

The International Sculpture Center, a member-supported, nonprofit organization
founded in 1960, advances the creation and understanding of sculpture and its
unique, vital contribution to society. The ISC seeks to expand public understanding
and appreciation of sculpture internationally, demonstrate the power of sculpture
to educate, 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. Members include sculptors, collectors, patrons, educators, and museum professionalsanyone with an interest in and commitment
to the field of sculpture.
Membership
ISC membership includes subscriptions to Sculpture and Insider; access to
International Sculpture Conferences; free registration in Portfolio, the ISCs
on-line sculpture registry; and discounts on publications, supplies, and services.
International Sculpture Conferences
The ISCs International Sculpture Conferences gather sculpture enthusiasts
from all over the world to network and dialogue about technical, aesthetic,
and professional issues.
Sculpture Magazine
Published 10 times per year, Sculpture is dedicated to all forms of contemporary
sculpture. The members edition includes the Insider newsletter, which contains
timely information on professional opportunities for sculptors, as well as a list
of recent public art commissions and announcements of members accomplishments.
www.sculpture.org
The ISCs award-winning Web site <www.sculpture.org> is the most comprehensive
resource for information on sculpture. It features Portfolio, an on-line slide
registry and referral system providing detailed information about artists and their
work to buyers and exhibitors; the Sculpture Parks and Gardens Directory, with
listings of over 250 outdoor sculpture destinations; Opportunities, a membership
service with commissions, jobs, and other professional listings; plus the ISC
newsletter and extensive information about the world of sculpture.
Education Programs and Special Events
ISC programs include the Outstanding Sculpture Educator Award, the Outstanding
Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Awards, and the Lifetime
Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture and gala. Other special events
include opportunities for viewing art and for meeting colleagues in the field.
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.
Patrons Circle ($2,5004,999)

Henry Buhl
Federated Department
Frederik Meijer Gardens &
Elizabeth Catlett
Stores Foundation
Sculpture Park
Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery Francis Ford Coppola Presents Ghirardelli Chocolates
Essex Fine Art
Grounds for Sculpture
Agnes Gund & Daniel Shapiro Museum of Glass

Nanci Lanni
Edward Tufte
McFadden Winery
Geraldine Warner
Marsha & Robin Williams
Friends Circle ($1,0002,499)

Bishop & Mrs. Claude
Alexander
Neil Bardack
Verina Baxter
Bruce Beasley
Joseph Becherer
Tom Bollinger & Kim Nikolaev
Chakaia Booker
Paige Bradley
Sylvia Brown
Elizabeth Burstein
Chihuly Studio
Paula Cooper Gallery
Cornish College of the Arts
James Cottrell
Les & Ginger Crane
Charles Cross
Rick & Dana Davis
Richard & Valerie Deutsch
James Dubin
Bob Emser
Forrest Gee
James Geier
Piero Giadrossi
Helyn Goldenberg
Christina Gospondnetich
Paul & Dedrea Gray
Richard Green
Francis Greenburger
Ralf Gschwend
Dr. LaRue Harding
Ed Hardy Habit/Hardy LLC
Michelle Hobart
Vicki Hopton
Iowa West Foundation
George Johnson
Philip & Paula Kirkeby
Howard Kirschbaum
Stephen & Frankie Knapp
Phlyssa Koshland
Alvin & Judith Kraus
Gary Kulak
Professional Circle ($350999)

555 International Inc.Ruth AbernethyLinda Ackley-EakerAcklie
Charitable FoundationMine AkinElizabeth AraliaMichelle Armitage
Uluhan AtacMichael AurbachJacqueline AvantHelena Bacardi-Kiely
Brooke BarrieJerry Ross BarrishEdward BenaventeJoshua Bederson
Joseph BeneveniaPatricia Bengtson JonesHelen BensoConstance
BergforsRoger BerryHenri BertrandCharles BienvenuCindy Billingsley
Rebecca & Robert BlattbergRita BlittChristian BoltRudolf BoneKurtis
BomarGilbert V. BoroJames Bud BottomsLouise BourgeoisJudith
BritainSteven S. BrownCharles BrummellGil BruvelHal BucknerH.
Edward BurkeMaureen Burns-BowieKeith BushMary Pat ByrnePattie
ByronJohn CarlsonKati CasidaMary Ann Ellis CasselDavid CaudillJohn
ChallengerAsherah CinnamonJohn ClementJonathan ClowesMarco
CochraneAustin CollinsRon CooperWlodzimierz CzupinkaSukhdev
DailArianne DarJohn B. DavidsonMartin DaweArabella DeckerG.S.
DemirokBruce DempseyPatrick DiamondAlbert DicruttaloPeter
DiepenbrockAnthony DiFrancescoKaren DimitLaury Dizengremel
Katherine DonnellyDorit DornierJim DoubledayPhilip S. DrillKathryn
D. DuncanThomas J. DwyerWard ElickerElaine EllisRobert Erskine
Helen EscobedoJohn EvansPhilip John EvettZhang FengHelaman
FergusonJosephine FergusonHeather FerrellTalley FisherTrue Fisher
Dustine FolwarcznyBasil C. FrankMary Annella FrankGayle & Margaret
FranzenJames GallucciRon GardDenise & Gary GardnerRonald
John & Deborah Lahey

Jon Lash
Eric & Audrey Lester
Daryl Lillie
Peter Lundberg
Steve Maloney
Lewis Manilow
Martin Margulies
Robert E. McKenzie & Theresia
Wolf-McKenzie
Jill & Paul Meister
Kenneth Merlau
Jon Miller
Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chicago
Alan Osborne
Raymond Nasher
Sassona Norton
Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van
Bruggen
Steven Oliver
Angelina Pacaldo
William Padnos & Mary
Pannier
Philip Palmedo
Justin Peyser
Meinhard Pfanner, art
connection international
Playboy Enterprises, Inc
Cynthia Polsky
Allen Ralston
Mel & Leta Ramos
Carl & Toni Randolph
Andre Rice
Benjamin & Donna Rosen
Milton Rosenberg
Saul Rosenzweig
Aden Ross
Carmella Saraceno
Noah Savett
Jean & Raymond V. J. Schrag
Marc Selwyn
GarriguesShohini GhoshJames S. GibsonJohn GillGordon Huether

StudioThomas GottslebenTodd GrahamGabriele Poehlmann Grundig
Rose Ann GrundmanBarbara GrygutisSimon GudgeonNohra Haime
Calvin HallWataru HamasakaBob HaozousPortia HarcusJacob J.
HarmelingSusan HarrisonChristie HefnerSally HeplerKenneth Herlihy
David B. HickmanJoyce HilliouAnthony HirschelDar HornRuth Horwich
Bernard HoseyJill HotchkissJack Howard-PotterBrad HowePaul
HubbardRobert HuffYoshitada IharaEve IngallsRoy Soren Jespersen
Julia JitkoffJohanna JordanYvette Kaiser SmithWolfram KaltKent
KarlssonTerrence KarpowiczRay KatzCornelia KavanaghRobert E. Kelly
Lita KelmensonColin KerriganSilya KieseGloria KischStephen Kishel
Bernard KlevickasJeffrey KraftKUBOTodji KurtzmanLynn E. La Count
Jennifer LaemleinDale LamphereEllen LanyonKarl LautmanHenry
LautzWon LeeMichael Le GrandLevin & Schreder, Ltd.Evan Lewis
John R. LightKen LightRobert LindsayRobert LonghurstSharon Loper
Charles LovingJeff LoweNoriaki MaedaLenville MaxwellJeniffer
McCandlessJoseph McDonnellCeci Cole McInturffDarcy MeekerRon
MehlmanJames MeyerCreighton MichaelGina MichaelsRuth Aizuss
Migdal-BrownLowell MillerBrian MonaghanNorman MooneyAiko
MoriokaBrad MortonKeld MoseholmSerge MozhnevskyW.W. Mueller
Anna MurchRobert MurphyMorley MyersArnold NadlerMarina Nash
Nathan Manilow Sculpture ParkIsobel NealJohn & Anne elsonGeorge
Stephen Shapiro
Alan Shepp
Marvin & Sondra Smalley
Thomas Smith
Storm King Art Center
Julian Taub
The Todd and Betiana Simon
Foundation
Tootsie Roll Industries
William Traver Gallery
UBS Art
De Wain & Kiana Valentine
Allan & Judith Voigt
Ursula Von Rydingsvard
Alex Wagman
Michael Windfelt
John E. Young
NeubertJohn NicolaiEleanor NickelJames NickelBrenda NoelDonald

NoonJoseph OConnellThomas OHaraMichelle OMichaelJames
ONealScott PalsceGertrud ParkerJames T. ParkerRonald Parks
Romona PayneVernon PeasenellCarol PeligianBeverly PepperRobert
PerlessAnne & Doug PetersonDirk PetersonDaniel PostellonBev
PreciousJonathan QuickMadeline Murphy RabbMorton Rachofsky
Marcia RaffVicky RandallJeannette ReinWellington ReiterEllie Riley
Kevin RobbSalvatore RomanoAnn RorimerHarvey SadowJames B.
SaguiOlou Komlan SamuelNathan SawayaTom ScarffMarilyn Schanze
Mark SchcachterPeter SchifrinAndy ScottJoseph H. SeipelJerry Shore
Imel SierraDebra SilverJerry SimmsWilliam SimpsonSusan SmithTreesStan SmoklerSam SpiczkaJohn StallingsEric SteinLinda Stein
Eric StephensonMichael SternsJohn StewartPasha StinsonElizabeth
Strong-CuevasTash TaskaleCordell TaylorTimothy TaylorPeter Terry
Ana ThielStephen TironeCliff TisdellRein TriefeldtThomas Tuttle
Leonidas TzavarasEdward UhlirVasko VassilevMartine VaugelPhilip
VaughanAles VeselyJill VineyJames WakeLeonard WalkerMartha
WalkerBlake WardMark WarwickDavid WeinbergGeorgia Welles
Philip WicklanderRaymond WicklanderJohn WiederspanMadeline
WienerW.K. Kellogg FoundationWesley WoffordJean WolffDr. Barnaby
WrightCigdem YapanarRiva YaresLarry YoungSteve ZaluskiGavin
Zeigler
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itinerary
Above: U-Ram Choe, Urbanus Female Larva. Top right: Raqs Media Collective,
Unusually Adrift From the Shoreline. Right: Ghada Amer, Le Salon Courb,
from Keep Your Seat.
of will and longing that sustains life

and encourages unexpected intimacies across vast distances.
Tel: + 44 (0) 191 478 1810
Web site <www.balticmill.com>
Frist Center for the Visual Arts
Nashville
U-Ram Choe
Through May 16, 2010
Made of delicately curved sections
of wrought metal, Choes motordriven kinetic sculptures expand
and contract to suggest the motions
of plants and single-celled aquatic
creatures. Their intricate workmanship and graceful movements
breathe life into the merely mechanical, creating strange, alien beings
whose potential existence in reality
is reinforced by Latin names and
detailed pseudo-scientific descriptions of habitat and behavior (each
one classified in the best taxonomic
tradition). Evoking new developments in genetic engineering, prosthetic technologies, and robotics,
these disturbing works propose
species that, while constructed of
inorganic materials and powered by

electricity, mimic the behavior and
appetites of living beings. In this
meditation on the origins of life, its
evolution, and its possible future,
the charm of automata rapidly gives
way to the chilling reality that science today is less concerned with the
unintended consequences of manipulating nature than with expanding
the boundaries of life.
Tel: 615.244.3340
Web site <www.fristcenter.org>
Galleria Civica dArte Moderna e
Contemporanea
Turin
Keep Your Seat: Stai al tuo posto
Keep Your Seat investigates the
sometimes cozy, sometimes hostile
relations between contemporary art
and design (with all their historical
and sociological implications) by

focusing on the simple chair. The
question of sitting (who, on what,
and where) takes on metaphorical
dimensions in sculptures that
explore presence, absence, and solitude, as physical place gives way to
sites of other realities, other possibilities. Works by Christoph Bchel,
Marisa Merz, Tony Oursler, Simon
Starling, Adolf Vallazza, Vedovamassei, and Chen Zhen, along with
seating by 26 international designers, redefine the act of sitting and
its humble support structure
as revealing commentaries on the
human, reflecting the interconnections between thought and form.
Tel: + 39 011 4429518
Web site <www.gamtorino.it>
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CHOE: DAVID PLAKKE, COURTESY BITFORMS GALLERY, NY / RAQS MEDIA COLLECTIVE: WENYING
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art

Gateshead, U.K.
Raqs Media Collective
Through June 20, 2010
Formed in 1992, New Delhi-based
Raqs (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica
Narula, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta)
started as a way for its founders to
pursue documentary film-making,
but their reach expanded into a larger sphere at Documenta 11 (2002).
Since then, the collective has created
highly compelling installations that
still make use of film while engaging
in progressively more complex and
poetic conversations between video
or still images and text, sound, software, performance, sculpture, and
found objects. These works display
a sustained ambivalence toward
modernity and refuse most of its
organizing principles, including progress and development. The Things
That Happen When Falling in Love,
the trios new project, explores ways
of life that die in one locale and are
reborn elsewhere. Inspired by
archival images of giant shipbuilding
cranes on a voyage to India from the
River Tyne, it reveals a global web
Sculpture 29.4
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MONTASTRUC MAMMOTH: THE BRITISH MUSEUM / CIVITALI: COURTESY ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM, BOSTON / HORN: JOHN KENNARD, RONI HORN, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND HAUSER & WIRTH
sculpture
Henry Moore Institute

Leeds, U.K.
Ice Age Sculpture
When does sculpture begin?
Arguably in the Ice Age. Though Ice
Age sculpture has long been overshadowed by its more famous twodimensional counterpart, the cave
paintings at Lascaux, Niax, and
Altamira, it is equally evocative, mysterious, and finely executed.
Discovered in southwestern France,
the 13 bone, antler, ivory, and stone
objects featured in this intimate
show date the three-dimensional
impulse to around 16,000 years ago.
The nomadic hunting peoples responsible for these ingeniously small figurines used stone implements to
carve and engrave with great skill.
Some works achieve remarkable
realism in their subjectsmostly
women and animals; others sketch,
abstract, or caricature form. The

stylistic range in these few survivors
indicates a rich visual culture, one
perhaps as varied, diverse in function, and full of individual choice
as our own.
Tel: + 44 (0) 113 246 7467
Web site
<www.henry-moore.ac.uk>
Institute of Contemporary Art
Boston
Roni Horn
From Icelands hot springs to the
murky Thames, Horn draws inspiration from the elements. For more
than 30 years, she has created work
of concentrated visual power and
intellectual rigor that connects the
world around us with our interior
landscapes. Gender, identity, androgyny, and the complex relationship
between object and subject find their
Left: The Montastruc mammoth, from

Ice Age Sculpture. Above: Matteo
Civitali, Virgin and Child, from Modeling Devotion. Below: Roni Horn, Paired
Gold Mats, for Ross and Felix.
equivalent resonances in water, ice,

volatile geology, and the fluctuations
of weather. Materialsused with virtuosity and sensitivitydisplay the
same fluidity, taking on metaphorical
qualities and primal potency. This retrospective brings together sculptures
(including works in copper and gold,
as well as the ethereal cast-glass
landscape masses), large-scale installations, photography, drawings, and
books, all demonstrating Horns
unwavering commitment to reconciling materials and personal experience and to tracing the ever-mutable
states of being in the world.
Tel: 617.478.3100
Web site <www.icaboston.org>
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Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Boston
Modeling Devotion: Terracotta
Sculpture of the Italian Renaissance
The conduit of fluid gestures, terra
cotta is traditionally associated with
the sculptural sketch, a record of
artists thinking with their hands. But
sculptors in 15th-century Italy also
used painted and glazed clay as the
basis for altarpieces, architectural
ornamentation, and life-sized works
as valued as their counterparts in
bronze or marble. Exploiting the
immediacy of their material, artists
such as Matteo Civitali, the underrated Giovanni de Fondulis, and
Niccol dellArca created figurative
groups of great, even extreme, emotional power, whipping an expressively forceful realism into devotional
fervor. This show features 15 newly
restored works, including Giovanni de
Fonduliss fraught Deposition and
more soothing glazed works by the
della Robbia family. For those interested in process, conservation
reports detail modeling techniques
and working secrets.
Tel: 617.566.1401
Web site
<www.gardnermuseum.org>
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Carthusian monastery of Champmol, was equally innovative: the 56

mourners seem to pass through
the arcades of a real cloister, which
doubles as a subterranean
support for the recumbent figures of
the duke and duchess. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see
38 of the surviving mourners (several
were destroyed or stolen during the
French Revolution), as well as related
Burgundian sculpture and architectural elements.
Tel: 212.535.7710
Web site <www.metmuseum.org>
The Menil Collection

Houston
Maurizio Cattelan
Through August 15, 2010
Cattelan practices a varied, at times
unnerving, but always imaginative
and witty kind of art. Meteor-stricken
popes, hanging children, suicidal
squirrels, tricycle-riding alter-egos,
and sneering donkeys are just some
of the star players in his theater of
the absurd. In this personal eulogy
of folly, nothing is sacred, authority
exists to be flouted, and insubordination is a god-given right. Clever
and mocking, his controversial
sculptures explore the space between
what he calls softness and perversity,
waging a sarcastic assault on every
conceivable kind of power structure
and institution. Like Dada and
Surrealism, Cattelans uncanny juxtapositions uproot presumed under-
Top: Maurizio Cattelan, All. Above:

Thomas Schtte, Groer Respekt.
Right: Jean de la Huerta and Antoine
Le Moiturier, Mourner from the tomb
of John the Fearless, 2nd Duke of
Burgundy.
standings of the world. For him,

even the banal is absurd. This show
features recent large-scale works
that range in tone from the melancholic (a suspended taxidermy
horse with its head buried in the
wall) to the contentious and decidedly irreverent (a series of saluting
arms titled Ave Maria); it also
includes several new Texas-inspired
works demonstrating Cattelans
belief that reality is far more provocative than my art.
Tel: 713.525.9400
Web site <www.menil.org>
Metropolitan Museum of Art

New York
The Mourners
For more than 25 years (144370),
sculptors Jean de la Huerta and
Antoine Le Moiturier labored on a
grand and complex commission: four
dozen alabaster mourning figures,
among other elements, for the
tomb of John the Fearless (d. 1419),
the second Duke of Burgundy, and
his wife, Margaret of Bavaria. Their
astonishingly realistic and highly
individualized mourners (whose
emotions range from melancholy
to desolation) preserve the lavish
funeral rites of one of richest men
in medieval France. The tomb
itself, originally in the choir of the
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte

Reina Sofia
Madrid
Thomas Schtte
Schttes installations, sculptures,
architectural models, paintings,
and drawings (all covering a broad
range of styles and materials) challenge the fundamental premises
of contemporary life. His work presents a strange hybrid, joining different modes of visual expression
while creating contradictory and
illusory worlds, without ever losing
sight of the socio-political status
quo. Perhaps best known for his radically simplified and exaggerated
models (Model for a Hotel topped
Trafalgar Squares Fourth Plinth in
2008), his emotionally potent figural sculptures, including the
Women and the Zombies, take a
different tack, exploring human isolation, vulnerability, and hopelessness with bitter humor. As the title,
Hindsight, might suggest, this 30year retrospective focuses on how
Schtte himself has looked back,
mining both his own earlier work
and the sculpture of previous eras
in order to infuse familiar genres
with unconventional materials and
meanings.
Tel: + 34 91 774 10 00
Web site
<www.museoreinasofia.es>
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sculpture
CATTELAN: COURTESY KUNSTHAUS BREGENZ, BREGENZ, AUSTRIA / SCHTTE: JOAQUN CORTS/ROMN LORES, COURTESY MUSEO NACIONAL CENTRO DE ARTE REINA SOFIA, MADRID / MOURNER: FRANCOIS JAY, MUSEE DES BEAUX-ARTS DE DIJON
itinerary
Sculpture 29.4
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Above: Adam Silverman and Nader Tehrani, Boolean Valley. Top right:
Marina Abramovic, Nude with Skeleton. Right: Jimmie Durham, detail of
BOOLEAN: COURTESY MOCA LA / ABRAMOVIC: 2009 MARINA ABRAMOVIC, COURTESY MARINA ABRAMOVIC ARCHIVE AND SEAN KELLY GALLERY, NY / DURHAM: LA LOBERA
installation for Domin Canbal.
Museum of Modern Art

New York
Marina Abramovic
A pioneer in performance and an
influential figure across artistic specializations, Abramovic uses her
own body as the subject, object, and
medium of dynamic sculptures,
exploring the physical and mental
limits of her being through works
that require her to withstand discomfort, exhaustion, and pain in the
quest for artistic, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual transformation.
This retrospective traces her prolific
career with 50 works spanning three
decades, from her early interventions
and sound pieces to video works,
installations, photographs, solo performances, and collaborations with
Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen).
Regularly staged re-performances by
trained interpreters (the first ever)
transmit a sense of the artists presence, conveying a physical immediacy impossible to capture in recorded
documentation. In addition,
Abramovic offers daily performances
of her new work, The Artist Is Present,
in which she silently sits at a table
during museum hours. While visitors
are invited to complete the tableau
by taking a seat across from her,

dont expect an active exchange.
You may sit as long as you like, but
the artist will remain mute.
Tel: 212.708.9400
Web site <www.moma.org>
Nasher Sculpture Center
Dallas
Boolean Valley
Earth meets mathematics in Boolean
Valley, a collaborative project
between potter Adam Silverman
and architect Nader Tehrani. In this
room-sized installation, 400 sliced
clay forms, derived from the basic
vocabulary of the potters wheel,
compose the topographical highs
and lows of a sculptural landscape.
Tehrani, who uses advanced software and parametric modeling to
design some of todays most innovative buildings with Office dA,
applied exacting Boolean logic to
Silvermans imprecise mediumthe
result is a field or valley of variable and individually distinguishable units. Among the various oppositions (or zeros and ones) set
in play is the contrast embodied
by two primary glaze ingredients:
cobalt, a mineral whose vibrant
blue has been prized by artists for

at least 5,000 years, and silicon carbide, the invisible source material
for semi-conductors. Just as Boolean
logic calibrates the geometry of
intersecting objects, this cross-disciplinary terrain maps collisions of
minds and methodologies, of accidents and unpredictable reactions,
all possible catalysts for imaginative
new worlds.
Tel: 214.242.5100
Web site <www.
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nashersculpturecenter.org>
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PAC Murcia
Murcia, Spain
Domin Canbal
Through December 2010
In this unusual show, which re-creates the practical continuities and
discontinuities of the real world,
seven successive artists explore

a single space (the nave of a former
church) over a 12-month period. But
only Jimmie Durham, who initiated
the show back in January, confronted
a blank slate. Each subsequent
artist must operate within the parameters created by those who came
before, in effect cannibalizing and
incorporating preceding interventions into his or her own work.
Inspired by the migration of dominoes from China to Italy and
Europe, and then to the New World,
curator Cuauhtmoc Medina sees
the domino effect of this chaotic,
evolving installation as an expression of the historical processes that
led to the modern world and its terrors. Following Durham and Cristina
Lucas, the Brooklyn-based collective
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Top left: Valentin Carron, Fructis. Left: Serge Spitzer, Bread and Butter with the
ever present Question of How to define the difference between a Baguette and
Croissant. Both from Pergola. Bottom left: Joaqun Torres-Garca, Structure in
Primary Colors. Above: John Armleder, Untitled (Canaletto) FS, from the Biennale
for International Light Art.
Bruce High Quality Foundation takes

over on May 21; with their mission
statement of fostering an alternative to everything, the six Cooper
Union graduates, known for their
implicitly satirical work, are well
suited to this strategy of reaction.
Tel: + 34 915 636 041
Web site <www.pacmurcia.es>
Palais de Tokyo
Paris
Pergola
This high-concept show takes its title
from an incident involving Le Corbusiers Villa Schwob in Switzerland.
Years after its completion in 1916, he
published a photograph of the building in which a white smear betrayed
the presence of retouchingthe
prominent pergola in front of the
villa had disappeared. That erasure
becomes the premise of Pergola,
which obliquely examines a modernity haunted by everything it has
eradicated. Ghosts of the past linger
in the galleries, as the blank spaces
of vanished lives demand restitution.
Featuring Charlotte Posenenskes

large-scale sculptural subversions of
monumentality, Valentin Carrons
installations interrogating archetypal
symbols of place and culture,
Raphal Zarkas investigations of
recurring forms, Serge Spitzers reality models that reveal hidden elements, structures, and systems, and
Laith Al-Amiris oversized portrait of
the loafer thrown by an Iraqi journalist at George W. Bush, this show
gives an afterlife to uprisings and
upheavals, as the forgotten re-manifests itself in unexpected forms.
Tel: +33 1 47 23 54 01
Web site
<www.palaisdetokyo.com>
Ruhr, Germany
Biennale for International Light Art
This first biennial of light art, which
focuses on the relation between public and private, eschews typical
venues in favor of a risky experimental collaboration with the people
of Ruhr, an urban area in North
Rhineland-Westphalia. Residents
in the towns of Bergkamen, Bnen,
Frndenberg, Hamm, Lnen, and
Unna have opened their homes to
light works by approximately 60
international artists, including Christian Boltanski, Monica Bonvicini,
Angela Bulloch, Olafur Eliasson,
Cerith Wyn Evans, Jenny Holzer,
Mischa Kuball, Carsten Nicolai, Bruce
Nauman, Tobias Rehberger, Pipilotti
Rist, and Saburo Teshigawara. To tour

these houses and apartments, biennial visitors must make reservations.
For more light-based fare, Unna also
hosts the Zentrum fr Internationale
Lichtkunst whose collection features
James Turrells site-specific Third
Breath.
Tel: + 49 (0) 2303.25 66-27
Web site
<www.biennale-lichtkunst.de>
San Diego Museum of Art
San Diego
Joaqun Torres-Garca
Though Torres-Garca is best known
for his solidly Modernist paintings
of the 1930s and 40s (geometrically
subdivided compositions with pictographic overtones) and his theoretical writings (influenced by Madame
Blavatsky, Mondrian, Klee, and
Kandinsky), he also created threedimensional works. This show features more than 80 of his wooden
constructions, or maderas, largely
dating from the 1920s to the 40s,
including small-scale boxes, abstracted figures, masks, and assemblages.
For Torres-Garca, the maderas functioned as toolkits; working beyond
the flat plane of the canvas, he was
able to synthesize geometrical and
Constructivist trends into a personal
language of abstraction.
Tel: 619.232.7931
Web site <www.sdmart.org>
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sculpture
CARRON: ANDR MORIN, COURTESY GALERIE EVA PRESENHUBER, ZURICH / SPITZER: ANDR MORIN, COURTESY MAGAZZINO DARTE MODERNA, ROME/GALERIE TSCHUDI, ZUOZ / TORRES-GARCA: COURTESY MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON / ARMLEDER: SABINE SCHIRDEWAHN,
COURTESY GALERIE ANSELM DREHER
sculpture
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SKREBER: FOTOSTUDIO SCHAUB, GALERIE LUIS CAMPAA, KLN/BERLIN AND DIRK SKREBER, VG BILD-KUNST, BONN 2009 / GREEN: COURTESY RENE GREEN, FREE AGENT MEDIA, ELIZABETH DEE GALLERY / HIRSCHHORN: COURTESY GLADSTONE GALLERY, NY / HARRISON:
COURTESY THE ARTIST, MEYER KAINER GALERIE, VIENNA AND GREENE/NAFTALI GALLERY, NY
itinerary
Top left: Dirk Skreber, Reaktor, from

Klnsculptur 5. Left: Rene Green, Green
Stills (video still). Above: Thomas
Hirschhorn, Abstract Resistance.
Right: Rachel Harrison, Al Gore. Both
from Abstract Resistance.
Skulpturen Park Kln

Cologne
Klnskulptur 5
Through April 2011
Klnskulptur 5 expands the scope
of the parks collection with 17 new
outdoor works by emerging and
established artists. Among the additions are temporary loans and new
commissions created especially
for the show. Sculptures by Aaron
Curry, Christina Doll, Alexander Esters,
Katharina Fritsch, Bernd Kastner,
Norbert Kricke, Jonathan Meese, Isa
Melsheimer, Thomas Moecker,
Thomas Rentmeister, Michael Sailstorfer, Jan Philip Scheibe, Dirk
Skreber, Torsten Slama, Alan Sonfist,
Thomas Stimm, and Ina Weber
explore themes of humanity, environment, and evolution. Sometimes
humorous, sometimes critical, they
confront visitors with controversial
perspectives and challenge perceptions of reality through miniature
worlds, children from hell, concrete
giants, and car wrecks. This collection not only showcases some of
the latest trends in contemporary

outdoor sculpture, but also focuses
attention on the foibles and potential sustainability of modern society.
Tel: + 49 (0) 221 33 66 88 60
Web site
<www.skulpturenparkkoeln.de>
Walker Art Center
Minneapolis
Abstract Resistance
Abstract Resistance follows
Foucaults assertion that where
there is power, there is resistance,
but its 38 works from the past halfcentury do not advertise allegiances
or engage in sloganeering. Rather
than creating overt and explicit
messages of social protest, these
artists respond to injustice and violence with deliberate abstractions
that lead to paradox, uncertainty,
discomfort, and empathy; in other
words, they put artistic expression
ahead of political statement, drawing out tensions and ambiguities to
awaken debate beyond surface discussion and rote response. Works
by Lynda Benglis, Rachel Harrison,

Thomas Hirshhorn, Gedi Sibony, and
Cathy Wilkes, among others, do not
conform to a single shared theme;
instead, they unite in challenging
what is expected of art, from the
way it looks to the role that it plays
in society
Tel: 612.375.7600
Web site <www.walkerart.org>
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco
Rene Green
Greens films, writings, installations,
new media and sound works, and
architecture investigate circuits of
relation and exchange over time,
exploring the gaps and shifts in
what survives in public and private
memory, what is imagined and
what is invented, what can be made
and what can only be imagined.
More archival than appropriationist,
her complex and highly formalized
installations examine ideas, historical events, narratives, and cultural
artifacts from a myriad of perspectives: she collects, constructs, and
arranges; viewers examine, sift,
and deconstruct, forming their own

(frequently contradictory) opinions.
This exhibition, her largest U.S. show
in 15 years, features two large-scale
installationsEndless Dreams
and Water Between (2009), commissioned by the National Maritime
Museum in Greenwich, U.K., and
United Space of Conditioned
Becoming (2007), as well as related
time-based projects, readings from
her texts, and outdoor projections
of video works.
Tel: 415.978.2787
Web site <www.ybca.org>
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Chianti Sculpture Park

by Laura Tansini
Pievasciata is a small village of

no more than 200 inhabitants,
located 12 kilometers from
Siena in Chianti country. Home
to a fine 12th-century church,
the town also hosts a more contemporary attraction, Piero
Giadrossis Parco Sculture del
Chianti. At the Chianti Sculpture Park, which is not really a
park in the sense of a designed,
manicured landscape, the
sculptures are spread out and

hidden in a forest that is still as
wild as it was when Giadrossi
bought the land. The exploration of this untamed woodland makes the search for art
particularly fascinating.
Giadrossis adventure with
Pievasciata and sculpture began
in 1990, and it is still in progress. His sculpture park features
not only the 27 works placed in
the woods, but also two art galleries (La Fornace and My
Way), a wine-bar, and a visitor
center with a coffee shop and
bookstore where visitors can
pause, relax with a light lunch,
and browse a selection of
books. A new 250-seat outdoor
amphitheater (a sculpture in its
own right) hosts concerts as

well as theater and dance performances. The Giadrossis also
welcome visitors into their
home, which is another art
gallery. The interior of the
house and the view from the
living room offer not-to-bemissed experiences.
Visitors may ask to be accompanied during their tour of the
grounds, but I recommend a
more solitary encounter with
the sculptures. Contemplating
nature and art is a very private
experience: explanations may
enrich our knowledge, but
sometimes they can smother, or
at least interfere with, emotional responses. Visitors will find
all the information that they
need (about sculptures, artists,
and local fauna and flora) in the
catalogue at the visitor center.
Many visits to the Chianti
Sculpture Park begin at The
Blue Bridge, by Danish artist
Below and detail: Ursula Reuter Christiansen, The Blue Bridge. Glass and
iron, 2 x 4 meters.
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Ursula Reuter Christiansen,

which is positioned to frame
a view of Siena in the distance.
The continuous dance of light
through blue glass against blue
sky slowly shifts our perceptions, reminding us that art is
magic and that we are entering
its realm.
Passing beyond the bridge,
we enter the wood, where we
encounter a thoughtful, reclining figure by South Korean
artist Hae Won Kim. Lying on
the grass, surrounded by bushes, Island invites us to proceed
along our journey into
unknown territory. Energy, a
vortex of shining glass by Greek
artist Costas Varotsos, offers just
what we need to continue our
unpredictable adventure.
Mauro Berrettinis archaic altartype object, Suspended Stone,
lies half hidden in the wood. Its
white marble reminds us that
we are not far away from the
Carrara quarries, adding a new
element for our conversation
with this region.
American artist Jaya
Schuerchs Harmonic Divergence could be read as a
reminder to respect nature, not
violate it. Its siting underscores
the fact that the works in the
Chianti Sculpture Park are not
randomly placed. Each artist
visited the park to choose a
space and then created a sitespecific work that integrates
itself into its surroundings and
invites us to be a part of that
synthesis of nature and culture.
The dialogue between art and
nature continues with the marble Coin de bois blanc, by
French artist Nicolas Bertoux,
and the glass and marble
Falling Leaf, by Egyptian artist
Yasmina Heidar. Visitors should
not miss the opportunity to
step into The Time Trap, by
Columbian artist Pilar Aldana.
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COURTESY CHIANTI SCULPTURE PARK
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COURTESY CHIANTI SCULPTURE PARK
sculpture
This granite refuge provides

a place to pause and reflect.
At this point, we have reached
the center of the wood, where
Anita Glestas Dialogue helps us
on our way, offering assistance
in crossing an intervening gully.
Two sections of green and white
marble can each be reached
by a short step. Having jumped
across Glestas work, we really
feel a part of the woods. Suddenly, a mysterious, gigantic
skeleton comes into view. We
do not know what it is, but we
feel that we have entered the
presence of some archaic relic
from another time; Turkish
artist Kemal Tufans The Keel
resembles the skeleton of an
extinct animal or the remains
of a sunken vessel.
To return to the present, we
need to enter the Labyrinth, by
English artist Jeff Saward, and
I will not reveal what awaits in
the center. More surprises
lie beyond this work, including
Roberto Cipollones Chianti,
which reminds us that a land is
defined not only by its flora and
fauna, but also by its culture
and people. The work is made
with seven iron rings taken from
wooden wine barrels. Hung
from the trees, the rings support
peasant tools that move gently
in the wind and produce a belllike sound that accompanies
us on our walk toward Federica
Marangonis Rainbow Crash.
This glass, neon, iron, and concrete work suddenly brightens
the woodland shadows, changing intensity and color as we
move around it.
This article is not long enough
to introduce every sculpture, but
the others are no less interesting.
There is a remarkable variety
in Giadrossis selection of artists:
participants in his project have
come from South Korea, Australia, Colombia, Zimbabwe,
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Above: Nicolas Bertoux, Coin de bois

blanc. Carrara marble, 5 x 8 meters.
Right: Yasmina Heidar, Falling Leaf.
Glass and Portoro marble, 2 x .3 x
1.85 meters. Below: Kemal Tufan,
The Keel. Volcanic lava, 8 meters long.
Argentina, Europe, and the U.S.

Regardless of cultural background, every one of these artists
has grasped the spirit of the land
and found his or her place. Here,
at the Chianti Sculpture Park,
they speak together in their different languages.
More information about
the Chianti Sculpture Park
can be found at <www.
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chiantisculpturepark.it>.
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commissions
Matthew Geller
Open Channel Flow
Houston, TX
Top and above: Matthew Geller, Open Channel Flow, 2009. Steel, water, beacons, and hand pump, 60
x 45 x 33 ft.
The Living
Living Light
Seoul, Korea
Living Light, David Benjamin and Soo-in
Yangs futuristic shelter in a Seoul park,
glows and blinks according to both data
about air quality and collective interest in
the environment. Benjamin and Yang, who
trained as architects and now work as The
Living and teach at Columbia University,
envision intelligent building envelopes
in urban environments that communicateimportant social, cultural, and environmental issues. Sited in Peace Park,
adjacent to the World Cup Stadium, Living
Light shelters walkers, joggers, and soccer
fans. Its pavilion mimics the outline of
Seoul in an irregular, gently curved acrylic
dome. The elevated structure is partitioned
into 27 LED-illuminated segments corresponding to city neighborhoods and supported by a series of sporadically placed
vertical steel beams that Benjamin and
Yang designed for maximum support and
unexpected asymmetry.
Living Light flashes according to up-tothe-minute data produced by Seouls airquality sensors, which measure the levels
of PM-10, particulate matter smaller than
10 micrometers that can settle in the
lungs. Each segment of the dome is connected to the sensor closest to its corresponding neighborhood, and the program
compares individual neighborhood particulate levels to each other as well as to previous years data. As the artists explain, there
are two programs every night: Each neighborhood illuminatesif its current air quality is better than its air quality last year. In
addition, every 15 minutes, the panels go
dark and then illuminate in order of current
best air quality to worst. Another program
initiates when a citizen texts a zip code to
the Living Light hotlinewithin three seconds, [they receive] a text message[with]
the current level of PM-10 and whether this
level is higher or lower than last year
[Simultaneously], the corresponding panel
blinks to let other[s] know about the collective interest in air quality. Viewers are
22
sculpture
DIANA KINGSLEY
Matthew Gellers interactive Open

Channel Flow, a cooling, whimsical fountain, straddles a fence between Houstons
Sabine Water Pump Station and Buffalo
Bayou Park. The tangle of brightly painted
water pipes echoes what Geller calls the
mysterious-looking pipe structuresall
painted the same aqua color visible at
the fenced-off pump station and other
utility areas around the city. His work
was commissioned by the Houston Arts
Alliance for the City of Houston Art
Collection to heighten awareness about
the importance of the fresh water supply.
Geller, who created most of the piece
from recycled pipes donated by the
Houston Public Works and Engineering
Department, chose the site because
he wanted to create a work that would
be partly accessible and partly not. On
the closed, pump station side of the fence,
Open Channel Flow includes a 60-foothigh spire that emits two beacons of light;
a long faucet ending in a showerhead
reaches out into the park. There, visitors
can access a drain and a pump that triggers a 30- to 120-second gush of water.
Geller says that the top of the work towers above the trees so it can be seen at
a distance from the roadThe blue and
amber beacons flash whenever water
flows through the showerhead and can
be seen as far away as downtown.
Open Channel Flow draws attention to
the pump station, while its height and
lighting locate the recreation area as a
lively destination. The high-traffic area
attracts skateboarders and joggers, who
visit to get a respite from the heat, families for whom its like a 5- or 10-minute
stop at a water park, and other curious
passersby. Gellers aim was to activate
this overlooked area by connecting a wide
range of people, and he hopes that his
fountain will nurture engagement among
strangers sharing the same space.
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Top left and detail: The Living, Living Light, 2009. Steel, acrylic, and LED lighting, 6 x 6 x 3 meters. Top right and detail: Joe OConnell and Blessing Hancock,
SEED[pop!], 2009. Aluminized mylar, vacuum pumps, steel, plywood, plastic tubing, solar panel, motor, and popcorn, 12 x 10 x 10 ft.
informed, entertained, and engaged by

Benjamin and Yangs urban environmentalism.
LEFT: COURTESY THE LIVING / RIGHT: COURTESY THE ARTISTS
Joe OConnell and Blessing

Hancock
SEED[pop!]
Tucson, AZ
Mobile and interactive, Joe OConnell and
Blessing Hancocks SEED[pop!] solar popcorn popper was commissioned by the
Arizona Research Institute for Solar Energy
to complement the University of Arizonas
entry for the 2009 Solar Decathlon, a biennial, three-week event on the National Mall
in Washington, DC, in which 20 student
teams compete to build attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered houses. After a
call to artists, OConnell and Hancock, who
have worked together for about two years,
were chosen to design this charming and
functional addition to the Arizona
dwelling, named SEED[pod] (Solar Energy
Efficient Dwelling).
OConnell has experience working in public art and alternative energy through his
company Creative Machines, which designs
and builds interactive museum exhibitions;
Hancocks background is in sculpture and
landscape architecture. They develop their
concepts by defining a feeling that they want
to conveyin this case, fun. They say that
the environmental component is appreciated once the initial draw is made.
The poppers decorative and functional
components are clearly articulated: Two
or three reflectors concentrate sunlight into
the bottom of an elevated pot that holds
popcorn. A little solar-powered stirring
motor on top keeps the kernels moving
Once popped, the popcorn travels down a
clear tube and lands in a steel serving dish.
We wanted that long descent to add drama
to the experience. Each of the three mirrors

has its own set of spherical casters, allowing it to be moved around to track the sun
throughout the day. Although OConnell
and Hancock say that it isnt necessary to
operate SEED[pop!] in order to appreciate
it, many people [do]adjusting the vacuum behind the mirrors, orienting the mirrors to focus sunlight in the popper, helping
load the kernels, and eating the popcorn.
The work debuted at the University of
Arizona in 2009, then traveled to Washington for the Solar Decathlon. It is currently on view at Biosphere 2, in Oracle,
Arizona. The artists say, The entire experience makes you feel that solar isnt just for
the Birkenstock and bike-to-work crowd
its real power.
Elizabeth Lynch
Juries are convened each month to select works for Commissions. Information on recently
completed commissions, along with quality 35mm slides/transparencies or high-resolution digital
images (300 dpi at 4 x 5 in. minimum) and an SASE for return of slides, should be sent to:
Commissions, Sculpture, 1633 Connecticut Avenue NW, 4th Floor, Washington, DC 20009.
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Below: Groe Samenwolke, 2004.

Thistle seeds and hair net, 135 x 219
x 192 cm. Work installed at Fattoria
di Celle, Pistoia, Italy. Right: View
of exhibition at the Pilar i Joan Mir
a Mallorca Foundation, Palma, Spain.
All works 2009. Plant seeds and dog
LEFT: SALVATORE MAZZA / RIGHT: BARBARA VIDAL
hair, 940 x 548 x 3.58 cm.
STRUGGLING FOR CENTIMETERS

sculpture
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sculpture
A Conversation with
Christiane Lhr
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BY PAULA LLULL
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The organic element in Christiane Lhrs

sculptures first captures the viewers attention. All of her constructions are made of
seeds, stalks, and horse and dog hair, stuck
to each other or directly nailed to the wall
or support pedestal. Photographs can barely
convey the minuteness and fragility of her
sculptures. But when visitors have the opportunity to walk around Lhrs shows, where
the location of every single piece is calculated to the millimeter, architecture suddenly comes center-stage, radically altering
perceptions of these delicate objects and
their surroundings.
BARBARA VIDAL
Paula Llull: Could you explain the process that led

you to use these unusual materials?
Christiane Lhr: As a student in the 80s, I tried out
lots of materials to understand their behavior, and I
began to include organic materials in my work at that
time. It was an obvious thing. These substances have
been an everyday material for me since I got a horse
at the age of 18. During my studies, I discovered Land
Art, conceptual art, Minimalism, and Arte Povera
and was totally enthusiastic about this new artistic
approach to the world. The novel use of uncommon
materials and the decision to work outside, in nature
or in an urban context, encouraged me to continue.
The context of having a horse gave me a lot of opportunities to test and become aware of material, space,
and time. Even tasks like cleaning the stable, gathering
dung, and distributing straw felt like sculptural acts
to me. I discovered burrs, pulling them out of the mane
of my horse, as elements to create three-dimensional
works. This was how I began to focus on organic materials. The fascination has never subsided: the deeper
I delve into the world of botanical construction, the
more nuance and meaning I find in it.
PL: Can you explain your creative process? Does chance
play a role, or are you rather methodical?
CL: I think that my working process flows between
chance and method. It also depends on the motivation behind a worksometimes I have a plan for a
sculpture or an installation, thinking about a particular space; other times, the idea for a work comes from
View of exhibition at the Pilar i Joan Mir a Mallorca Foundation. Both works 2007. Blossoms, 47.5 x 2.54 x 2.53 cm.
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Top: Klettenkissen and Kleines Klettenkissen, 2009. Plant seeds and dog hair, 14 x 13.5 x 3.5 cm. and 7.5 x 7.5 x 3 cm. Above: View of exhibition at the Pilar
BARBARA VIDAL
i Joan Mir a Mallorca Foundation. All works 2009. Plant seeds and dog hair, 917 x 516 x 28 cm.
an inner motivation. Finding material can create new ideas and

cause new formsor not finding something that I need. Though
I have places where I know I can find certain plants, sometimes
the plant that I want for a big installation is not growing at the
time. Who knows why? I cannot count on naturethere are
always surprises.
Another inspiration is the experience of other places. After being
in India, for example, I was longing to work with the floor or
ground, because thats where life happens. I began to put sculp-
tures on the floor and to create low platforms to substitute for

the ground.
Ive also been doing small architectural sculptures of plant and
grass stalks for a long time. I give them trials, testing out the single stalks, the tension or the distance between the single elements
to make a form. Experimenting plays a role in each work, and for
each experiment, it takes time to understand if it succeeds or not.
PL: You live between Cologne (Germany) and Prato (Italy), cities
with significant differences in climate and environment. How do
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you benefit from this diversity as far as your process of working and collecting
materials?
CL: I find the combination really felicitous. I can enjoy German seriousness
much more when it alternates with la dolce vita. There is a certain atmosphere
in the air that makes the work concentrated and disciplined. The Rhineland,
where Cologne is situated, has many extraordinary museums and art spaces,
and its easy to travel to Berlin or to other cities and countries, which I do quite
often. In Italy, I enjoy the daily life very much, and its wonderfully stimulating
to be surrounded by old Italian art and architecture. Fortunately I can work
anywhere, having long experience with changing place. To have two homes
is like a gift; it would be a loss to give up one. In general, to be in motion all
the time keeps me awake and prevents me from getting stuck in a fixed situation. It also gives me the opportunity to profit from different situations of
botanical growth. Nature in Italy is opulent, and in both countries, I have lots
of places where I observe my plants, always growing wild.
PL: When one meets your sculptures, the words that first come to mind are
nature and fragility. But going deeper into your work, one can see beyond
those conceptsfor instance, how you experiment with space. Even the distribution of the works in the galleries seems to be part of the artistic process.
CL: I think, in the end, that it is more interesting how

an artist does something than what he or she is doing.
In my case, the space where Im invited often gives the
direction for what will be shown and how. Its characteristics will influence my decisions and can motivate
the installation. I also include sculptures made with
materials found in the specific place. For the Palma
exhibition, my most recent solo show, I had the opportunity to work on the island for a month in advance,
and some of the sculptures and drawings were done
with a knowledge of the space at the Mir Foundation. The first astonishing fact about that space is the
quality of the walls, which are made of rough brown
cement. I initially thought that it would be impossible
to show my work there. I was afraid that my small,
fragile sculptures would turn invisible, so I developed
groups of them. The form of the space is like a huge
cube measuring nearly nine meters in each direction.
Working with the height, I planned a horsehair col-
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BARBARA VIDAL
Left: Samenbeutel, 2008. Thistle seeds and hair net, 47 x 26 x 21 cm. Right: Kleines Klettenoval, 2009. Plant seeds and dog hair, 9 x 5 x 5 cm.
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Kleine Ansammlung, 2001. Airborne seeds, 7.5 x 22 x 18 cm.
CL: Yes, the natural elements are means for me to define and
formulate solutions about questions of form and space.
PL: In the mid-90s, you studied with Jannis Kounellis, an important figure in Arte Povera, at the Kunstakademie Dsseldorf. How
did this influence your work at the time, and what have you kept
from those lessons?
CL: Something that always interested me about Kounelliss work
is the friction between hard and soft or lasting and transient.
That was actually the reason why I wanted to work in his class.
Artwork is primarily about the gesture, and Kounellis breaks the
rigidity of hard materials such as rolled steel plate by combining
them with opposing materials like meat, wax, wool, and coal. In
that sense, Ive always thought of his work as being very sensitive, also because it often presents a precarious sense of physical
balance, suggesting the possibility that things could collapse
Lwenzahnkissen, 2009. Dandelion seeds, 18 x 43 x 37 cm.
BURAT, COLOGNE
umn, an installation made of approximately 500 meters of horsehair knotted together. Placed on the floor and reaching up to the
ceiling, it had the task of conveying the height of the space.
PL: Could you explain the relationship of your constructions to
architecture in general?
CL: Architecture has to do a lot with sculpture, obviously. Houses
can be habitable sculptures. Some of my sculptures have architectonic characteristics, mostly the small objects made of plant
stalks fixed on a wooden surface. The volume is constructed by
the bending of the fragile stems. The form follows a geometrical
ground plan, and sometimes the vaults evoke Gothic churches. I
find it very interesting that following the characteristics of a certain material can lead to forms that we know from ancient architecture. The horsehair objects, in which single hairs are wrapped
around each other, develop shapes similar to those of Islamic
ornaments. Obviously ancient and traditional cultures followed
this organic way of construction.
PL: One could say that the treatment of space in your work almost
acquires more relevance than the natural elements.
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Left to right: Kleiner Turm, 1999, ivy seeds, 13 x 10 x 10 cm.; Kleiner Turm, 2009,
ivy seeds, 9.5 x 14 x 14 cm.; Kleiner Hgel, 2004, ivy seeds, 6.5 x 12 x 9 cm.
subtle that connects the artwork with a meaning behind it, going
beyond the material reality. I think that to observe an artwork is
like reading the process, the gesture, that connects the artist
with the world. The work is like a piece of evidence of the action,
one that follows the mental process. But then, the painting or the
sculpture touches another level of perception.
Concerning my works, Im often surprised that a sculpture
reaches this level after having moved the last millimeter following
a formal logic. Then, suddenly, the accumulation of similar elements becomes a unity; many are becoming one, a whole,
which seems to be indivisible. I have to mention sacred architecture
again because it often has the effect of unexplainable harmony.
Durchlssiger Quader, 2006. Tree blossoms, 15 x 24 x 25 cm.
TOP: BARBARA VIDAL / BOTTOM: BURAT, COLOGNE
into another state. His strongest influences on me were the idea

of an art that blows away the boundaries of formal art production
and the freedom with which he uses the history of the world as
his source. Maybe even stronger than his words was the impact
of observing him; I was young and had no idea what it would mean
to dedicate a life to doing art. It was impressive and enlightening
for me to see Kounellis living his work.
PL: As in Kounelliss works, your sculptures form a world of relationships and a contrast of opposites. For example, the fragility
of the materials and the stability of the quasi-architectural shapes
suggest an interrelated world that we could read as a kind of
spirituality derived from the treatment of balance and negative space in your installations. Do you identify your work along
these lines?
CL: It is difficult for me to define the term spirituality. In German,
it has been an overstretched word for a while, but I have an idea
what you mean. I would describe it as the presence of something
30
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BURAT, COLOGNE
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Architecture functions according to the same laws of

order as nature. The seen rules of geometry that we
perceive have their roots in the immaterial process of
construction, something that allows belief to take on
material form in cathedrals and temples. Because I
build my works with found materials, I have always
been interested in architecture.
PL: Despite the organic components that you use,
your sculptures are not ephemeral. You add needles
or a tiny hairnet to hold the lightest elements. Do
you add something to protect the materials themselves?
CL: No, I dont do anything special to conserve the
sculptures. When a work is leaving my studio, it makes
sense to protect it from dust with a glass case whose
proportions I have defined. The vacuum cleaner is my
enemy, as you can imagine. When a work goes into
a collectors house, it keeps its own space and is protected, which is very important. When you give a work
away, you lose control. What will be its new neighbor,
maybe a huge colorful painting? But often I can exhibit
sculptures without protection. In the museum, visitors normally have a sensibility for the material, even
children have a natural respect in front of the works.
But the seed cushions made of airborne seeds are
risky to exhibit without protection. Nobody understands
what this strange stuff could be, and so, knowing that
its forbidden to touch an artwork, people blow
then its a disaster, because the sculpture has a big
hole and I have to repair it.
Speaking about the duration of organic material,
I have had unprotected works in my studio for many
years, and I have not noticed changes in them. I spoke
to a biology professor about this, and he mentioned
herbariums from the Middle Ages that are well preserved. In the Egyptian museum at Torino, I have seen
sacrificial offerings from an Egyptian tomb, plates with
bread and beans. There was also a 4,000-year-old
necklace of flowers, brownish but with its form still
intact. Its astonishing how these fragile substances
can last.
PL: This spring, you will have a solo exhibition at Villa
Menafoglio Litta Panza, in Varese, Giuseppe Panzas
prestigious Italian venue. This exhibition will introduce your work into an outstanding group of artists.
How important is it for you to be part of a collection
that includes such renowned artists as James Turrell,
Lawrence Weiner, and Dan Flavin, among others?
CL: Giuseppe Panza and his wife, Giovanna, who is
equally involved with the collection, saw the Minimalist aspect of my work rather than the part that
has to do with nature. I can see my sculptures in
the context of their collection, and Im excited about
the exhibition, as you can imagine. The space for
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Samenbeutel, 2009. Thistle seeds, hair net, and steel nail, 30 x 24 x 16 cm.
temporary exhibitions is a huge hall, which was the horse stable, attached
to the villa. Its a challenge for me to organize this space with my small-scale
works, which are often not bigger than the palm of my hand. They will
be confronted with, for example, an installation by James Turrell. When
you enter his simple white room and look up, theres a square form on
the ceiling, which is not understandable at first. It has the air of an abstract
painting, but it is the open roof; you see the sky, always changing its aspect.
From Dan Flavin, there is a huge light installation in an extremely long
corridor, installed in 1976. You can press a button and hundreds of colored
neon lights come on at the same moment, but with little time shifts, and
the corridor turns an intense color. I can admire the clearness of the big
gesture in Minimalism, which is capable of occupying an enormous space
with ease and generosity. For me, thats hard to do, so Im struggling for
centimeters.
Paula Llull is a curator and writer living in Spain.
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The Site
Generates
the
Sculpture
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A Conversation with
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Haesim
Kim
BY JOHN K. GRANDE
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Opposite and above: Embodied Nature, 2004. Earth, branches, and pine needles, 70 x 600 x 120 cm.
COURTESY THE ARTIST
Haesim Kim is one of Koreas more adventurous

sculptors. Having studied at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, she went on to the Chelsea College of Art & Design in London in 1999. Kims
involvement with the art/nature group Yatoo
and its earlier manifestation, known as the
Four Seasons, led to some very innovative
sculpture and performance interactions with
nature, many occurring in remote island and
mountain settings. She has also exhibited in
Japan, Germany, and England. Many of Kims
sculptures are interactive, inviting the public
to use them as resting places. Her unusual
blend of performance, interactivity, and sculpture adds a unique social element to environmentally based work.
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John K. Grande: How did you first become

interested in art?
Haesim Kim: When I was growing up, I
often looked at the moon and thought
a lot about the movement of heavenly
bodies. When I started making art, I was
looking for a way to show my concern with
time. I found that nature was the area for
my work. The pieces that I made in the
early Four Seasons workshops at Yatoo
around or soon after 1986 revealed a sense
of space. For example, The Progress (1987)
was composed of white lines that followed
the shadows on a tree trunk. The drawing
is related to the progress of time: the
distance between shadow and white line
grows wider as the earth rotates. This
changing distance is like a nature performance. In addition to time, I began working
with other nature-related subjects such as
the passage of heavenly bodies and gravity.
JG: Do your sculptures relate to performance
or to the event in art? Can you describe
some of your works that are in the moment?
HK: The process of my work in nature is like
a performance without an audience. After
the work is finished on site, there is also
a performative way for visitors to participate in my sculpture and its natural surroundings.
JG: For Embodied Nature (2004), made in
Janggunbong, you set large chunks of earth
in the landscape and made a grass-based,
embroidered covering to drape over them.
HK: Janggunbong is a mountain with a valley. Half-way up the mountain, you can
hear the sound of water and see a field of
reeds. I constructed an earthen structure
from which to view the field. The earth
came from a hole that another artist had
dug for his project. This pile of earth is
momentarily liberated from tree roots and
gravity, and the structure is created through
the process of deconstructing and reconstructing the earth. When visitors sit down
on it, I hope that they think about how
nature was formed. Reeds, which love water,
expand their territories on the ground beside
water. While sitting on this earth and
watching the reeds, people might contemplate nature in a spiritual way.
JG: So, your work is symbiotic with that of
other artists. In your work for the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale, Between Eyes,
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Above: Layer of Sanglok Village, 2002. Zelkova

leaves and branches, 45 x 35 x 40 cm. Right: Flexible
Structure, 2001. Arrowroot vines and leaves, 230 x
120 x 50 cm. Below: Between Eyes, 2008. Water,
is there some idea of the human? How did

you come up with this idea?
HK: Whenever I walk along the stream in
my village, I recognize that a small amount
of water is enough for birds to bathe and
cool off. My work at Yeon-mi mountain,
where there is very little water, provides
two pools for birds. I made two holes,
where I could easily imagine wildlife gathering. Between Eyes is a metaphor for the
distance between human and nature. Just
like, as human beings, we have a sense of
balance achieved through our two eyes, I
hope that we can evolve a new harmony
with nature. After one month, there were
bird droppings and traces of small animals
they created a new ecosystem here.
JG: Your sculpture has a function in nature and serves more than an aesthetic purpose.
It is also in the scale of the place; for me, this is very humble. In 2002, you made Layer
of Sanglok Village, a very intimate leaf sculpture.
HK: In the fall, leaves pile calmly on the forest floor like soil. In the cities, however, they
are swept along with the people. For this project, when the zelkova trees started dropping
their leaves in my village, I collected them and brought them home. I thought of all the
trees on the earth and their falling leaves. One by one, I piled these leaves carefully on
top of one another, emphasizing their jagged edges. Countless leaves are piled, and soil
permeates between them. I cant imagine all of the layers created by the process.
JG: Do you see this work as a design, an action, or both? It seem to me not so much
an object as an action, perhaps a healing action.
HK: Thoreau talks about leaves in Walden. While working with leaves, I got a different
sense of form, a richer meaning than just a leaf in itself. Arranging, cleaning, and
grouping leaves is a way of connecting with the world. I was picking up leaves and
smelling them, looking at sunlight through them, and examining their veins. Passersby
started looking at the leaves like me.
JG: Near your studio, you recycled nature by using arrowroot vines to build a moveable
structure that collects leaves.
HK: I want people who enjoy art in nature to learn about natural diversity through my
sculpture. Above all, I want to break down certain stereotypes about artworks. My
intention was that people would move freely and use the vine sculpture. I gain more
than I expect if people recognize the drying process, the alterations of volume, the
changes of the weather, the variations of the color, and the changes caused by their
own interaction with my sculpture.
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lotus, and stones, 2 elements, 125 cm. each.
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Contemplating the Water, 2006. Pine, 2 elements, 380 x 55 cm. each.
JG: Contemplating the Water, which you carved in situ at the Geumgang Nature Art
Biennale in 2006, is like a sculpture for the body. It is crafted out of two tree trunks,
which remain where they grew so the context is preserved. People walking along the
paths can rest on your sculptures, and they can look up and sense the space, the air,
and the sky.
HK: I believe that people can perceive natures procreative process when they look calmly
at the natural world. I made this piece as an invitation for visitors to rest and contemplate nature. When the wind hits the rocks and trees, you can hear the sound of flowing
wateralthough this hill has no water. You might even see new relations between
things. I made this sculpture in the hope that people would connect with the world,
that they might communicate not only with the sound of the water, but also with other
natural elements.
JG: It is a very calming and contemplative piece. Does the scale of your work change
according to the landscape? Each piece seems to respond differently to the place.
HK: I decide the scale and the content in response to landscape and topography. When
White in Black, 1996. White pebbles, 200 cm. long.
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I find the place, I let all of the natural elements determine the character of my
work. In other words, the site generates
the sculpture. My way of making might
be similar to the way in which our ancestors built architecture. Traditional architecture was very flexible, changing design
according to available materials instead
of getting new materials.
JG: We put our bodies in physical relation
to the sculpture and then have a place to
perceive nature from a distance or up close.
Are we just interacting, leaving a memory,
or performing a physical action?
HK: I try to make my sculpture into a bridge
connecting man and nature; I want it to
awaken our lost spiritual senses through
interaction. Thats why I create projects
with which people can physically connect;
they can even alter the shape of the art.
Staying with nature and contemplating it,
people can experience that we are a part
of nature.
JG: In White in Black, you created a line of
stones at Naenara Island. Did you seek to
make this piece decorative, or is it performance art in a natural setting?
HK: This piece is performative. You could
say that it is a gesture that responds in a
direct dialogue with nature. I cant imagine
how the island formed there. I just saw a
long beach of black pebbles, with traces
of tidal water. I picked up white pebbles
and placed them in a line moving toward
the ocean. The white pebbles revealed the
islands unique shape by contrasting with
the black-pebbled beach.
JG: So direction or motion is part of the
piece. Was memory of place also part of
your intention?
HK: This piece combined direction, motion,
and memory, along with intuition and my
impression of the islands topography and
character. It is my response to the long
history of the island and to the invisible
but important natural elements of this
place. I set white in black and then left.
COURTESY THE ARTIST
John K. Grandes Dialogues in Diversity:

Art from Marginal to Mainstream was
published by Pari Publishing (Italy) in 2007
<www.paripublishing.com>. He is curator
of earth art at the Royal Botanical
Gardens. <www.grandescritique.com>.
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Carving
Out a
Distinctive Place
YOSHIHIRO SUDA
BY JANET KOPLOS
COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GALLERY KOYANAGI, TOKYO
Was it a trick on the audience for Yoshihiro Suda to open his second American museum solo, at Honolulus Contemporary Museum in
2009, with a space that seemed completely empty? You might have thought that youd stumbled into a gallery closed for installation,
except that there was no equipment sitting around, the floor was clean, the walls fresh-looking. There seemed to be nothing there,
until you spotted the first tiny detail: a sprig of green at the edge of the floor. Tiny leaves were growing out of the seam between the
flooring and the baseboard
Once noticed, these weeds (nearly two dozen of
them) could be spotted here and there around the Lshaped room. Their diminutive scale heightened your
awareness and pulled your eyes away from the fabulous
view across downtown Honolulu to Diamond Head,
a panorama typically blocked by the sliding walls that
cover the floor-to-ceiling windows in this home-turnedmuseum. Thus sensitized, you could find even smaller
growths, like blades of grass, by the windows. And a
single large leaf, green tinged but mostly yellow, with
a few tiny bug holes in it, occupied the pocket of space
between the sliding-wall track and the window glass.
It looked as if it had blown in when the windows were
open.
The diminutive greenery (Weeds, 200609) and the
leaf (Kaki [Japanese persimmon leaf], 2009) clearly
demonstrated Sudas technical mastery. The Japanese
Opposite: Kaki (Japanese persimmon leaf), 2009. Japanese magnolia wood, mineral pigments, and rabbit skin glue, 4.5 x 3 x
1 in. This page: Weeds, 200609. Japanese magnolia wood,
mineral pigments, and rabbit skin glue, dimensions variable.
sculptor is represented by DAmelio Terras Gallery in New York City as well as

Wohnmaschine in Berlin and Gallery Koyanagi in Tokyo. (The Art Institute of
Chicago presented a Focus show of his work in 2003, and a small show was
on view last winter at the Asia Society in New York.) Suda is a wood carver
who makes representational forms: flowers, branches, foliage of various types.
This is not an endeavor seen in American sculptureit is nothing like the work
of James Surls or David Bates, and it doesnt really relate to Roxy Paines early
re-creations of poison ivy, eitherbut it does have a relationship with traditional Japanese carving arts such as Noh masks. Suda has adapted hard-won
manual skills to the self-conscious and skeptical context of contemporary art.
Born in 1969 in Yamanashi, Suda earned a B.A. in graphic design from Tama
Art University in Tokyo, thinking to make a living in that field. But he was
introduced to wood carving in a foundations course, and he has followed
that line ever since. In his 2000 DAmelio Terras show, he offered a magnolia
series; a single bloom of the same plant (2009) was included in the Honolulu
show. The earlier magnolia series included a branch with buds and a bloom
emerging abruptly from the wall, approachable down a narrow corridor
accessible to one person at a time, and a fruiting magnolia set within a room
that could be entered only via a teahouse-style low door. As I observed at
the time (Art in America, September 2000), Suda thus made everyone bow
while approaching his workthe kind of playful gesture that was repeated
in the empty room at Honolulus Contemporary Museum.
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Above: Violet, 2009. Japanese magnolia wood, mineral pigments, and rabbit skin glue, 3.5 x 4 x 4 in. Below:
Morning Glory, 2009. Japanese magnolia wood, mineral pigments, and rabbit skin glue, 4 x 6 x 4 in.
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After that first gallery, one knew to look

toward the windows. The second room
featured two flowers of the damp woodland: Violet (2009) and Dokudami (Korean
Houttuynia) (2008), the latter resembling
a white trillium, but four-petaled. From
there on, the works were on the walls,
one or two to a room. Two morning glories, a purple (2008) and a blue (2009),
shared a room. Each floral trumpet jutted
from a stem stuck into the wall, not unlike
plastic flowers, but these had the soft,
matte surfaces and tiny bug holes of reality.
This exceptionally spare presentation
occupied the entire museum with just 11
works, counting the weeds as one. Some
plants were familiar: tulips, azalea, and of
course that magnolia. Far less known in the
West is the bush clover, a favorite citation
in Japanese medieval poetry: the flower
head is globe-like and divides into five or
more separate star-like heads of light and
dark pink. It, like the deeper pink azalea,
occupied the lower reaches of a two-story
gallery crossed by a bridge, while the tulips
were on the upper walls of that space. The
tulips were inverted, attached to the wall
at the tip of one lance-like leaf; here, even
more than usual, Suda emphasized the
artifice of his presentation. The petals of
the large red tulip (the other is jaggedly
red and white) were the least convincingly
realistic in the show, the most rigidly woody,
raising the question of whether he can
increase his scale. But maybe the question only arises because these are slightly
earlier works (2005 and 07), and his mastery has grown with experience.
Sudas craftsmanship is now so unbelievable that it barely figures in the consideration of his work. Were used to injectionmolded, plastic simulacra, not delicately
carved and painted wood. The art world,
with its ambivalent attitude toward skill,
would probably not accept this aspect in
isolation, so Suda necessarily concentrates
on presentation. The result is work that
cant be experienced in photographs because
one needs both the distance, to register the
emptiness, and the nearness, to be awed
by the illusion. Isolation and focus on individual objects are, in fact, conventional
artistic means of presentation, but Suda
offers the twists of no pedestal, no display
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Above: Azalea, 2009. Japanese magnolia, mineral pigments, and rabbit skin glue, 6 x 4 x 4
in. Right: Hagi (bush clover), 2009. Japanese magnolia, mineral pigments, and rabbit skin
glue, 6 x 4 x 4 in. Below: Magnolia, 2009. Japanese magnolia, mineral pigments, and rab-
bit skin glue, 9 x 9 x 6.5 in.
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case, no label, and mostly no centering in the

space. An exception to the last was the magnolia
blossom that one could see from a long distance,
from the first gallery looking across the bridge to
the last room. It was centered in that viewa
promise of pleasures aheadalthough the placement turned out not to be symmetrical when one
finally reached it. The three branches are a tour-deforce: the gnarly stem is dark, the two leaves leathery thick but not shiny and speckled with a stardust
of holes. The multiple milky-white petals cup
up around the spiky pistils, brownish-tan with red
underneath, while the looping carpels make a pale
greenish crown at the top. This blossom is the
largest, roughly the scale of two cupped hands.
With their demand for space, these isolated
works recall Joel Shapiros early steel floor sculptures, small objects that dominated a room simply
by the assumption that they could. Sudas work
similarly calls attention to its own anomaly and
makes one aware of the conventions and expectations that accompany us into any gallery. He probably will not be influential, since it seems unlikely
that American artists would invest the time to
achieve such mastery or be content with its simple, inarticulate pleasures. But who knowswith
DIY springing up everywhere and craft invading
discussions of architecture and design, maybe
Suda is perfectly poised to lead us back to the
deep satisfaction of handwork for its own sake.
Janet Koplos is a New York-based critic.
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JONATHAN SHAW, COURTESY THE NEW ART GALLERY, WALSALL, U.K.
Joana Vasconcelos
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From Cutlery to Corao

BY REGINA FRANK
Garden of Eden, 2007. Plastic flowers,

synchronous micro-motors, compact
fluorescent lamp, polychromed and
translucent acrylic discs, electric
system, Lycra, PVC, and MDF, detail
of installation.
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There is a place even more exotic than the

Museo do Oriente in Alcntara do Mar (Alcntara of the Sea), on the waterfront near
central Lisbon, Portugal. It is the Unidade
Infinita (Infinite Unit), the art studio of
Joana Vasconcelos on the Tagus River immediately behind the museum. Inside the vast
factory halls, huge red crates wait to be
shipped, Bordalo Pinheiros ceramic animals line up to be embroidered, and, on
shelves, plastic boxes filled with several

centuries of crochet and embroidery sorted
by color and shape wait to be recycled
into new artworks. One pictures Vermeers
lace-maker sitting here for an eternity,
but its a bit less romantic.
Pots and pans, tampons, plastic cutlery
in different colors, old, tattered handmade
lace, quilted swatches, ceramics, and all
kinds of materials from the old-fashioned
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Top and details: Corao Independente Dourado

(Golden Independent Heart), 2004. Translucent yellow plastic cutlery, painted iron, engine, metallic
chain, sound system, and music sung by Amlia
Rodrigues, 385 x 225 x 50 cm.
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DMF, LISBON (RIGHTS RESERVED)
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Above and detail: A Noiva (The Bride), 200105.

o.b. tampons, stainless steel, cotton thread, and
PTER CSVRI
steel cables, 600 x 300 x 300 cm.
womens tailor are part of Vasconceloss

palette.
Together with staff members, Vasconcelos meticulously puts together restraining
suits for wild animals, made from all kinds
of lace: Its only the wild ones that I keep
contained. When I ask, Whats wild about
a frog? she replies, Well, the frog can
turn into a prince and imagine how
dangerous he can beyou better dress him
well. Her color system for the animaltaming outfits is based on straightforward
symbolism that plays with associations
such as bull goes with red because of
blood; in terms of composition, however,
red only goes with subdued colors such as
beige or black and white.
Vasconcelos works with a team of 13 fulltime employees to develop approximately

20 exhibitions each year. She wants to create pieces that work on a visual levelin
fact, she looks for striking beauty, and she
also searches for depth. Her explanations
and dialogues are versatile, funny, and
smart, but you dont really need them in
order to appreciate the work. She pleases
viewers by processing popular images from
the design, fashion, and art worlds and
manages to turn craft and kitsch into
unique art objects. Her main success lies
in the transformation and re-evaluation of
pop culture and mass production at a high
level. Starting out from these operations
of displacement, the artist shares with us
a vision full of complicity, but at the same
time critical of consumer society and several other issues, which serve the propositions of collective identity, especially those
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concerned with the status of women, class

differentiation, or national identity, says
Lcio Moura, Vasconceloss full-time art
historian for public relations.
Vasconcelos questions Portuguese identity
by recycling underrated everyday objects,
such as tampons and plastic cutlery, using
them to evoke mainly Portuguese cultural
icons. The surprise of discovering these
materials in unexpected places leaves the
viewer slightly puzzled and adds to the
content of Vasconceloss work. One of the
more renowned examples of this effect
is the installation Corao Independente
(Independent Heart). Knives, forks, and
spoons are bent to perfection and meticulously glued and melted into the oversized
filigree hearts of traditional Portuguese
jewelry. In a photograph, you could easily
mistake the giant objects for typical filigree earrings, their assumed preciousness
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a stark contrast to the close-up view of the

plastic cutlery used in their creation. Questioning the difference in value between
pop and elitist culture, between luxury
object and ordinary object, the misuse and
transformation of cheap cutlery into a valued cultural object, she intelligently sabotages the functions of both.
Vasconceloss inspiration for this piece
was Amlia Rodrigues, the internationally
known Fado singer. Pendant filigree earrings
were a signature part of the Portuguese
folk musicians costume. Rodrigues introduced a refined version of Fado to an

international audience in the 60s and
made her style part of Portuguese identity
outside of Portugal. In a similar fashion,
Vasconcelos picks certain items of local
identity and transforms them in her work.
A Rodrigues soundtrack accompanies the
rotation of the three hearts, the black, the
yellow, and the red, suspended from the
ceiling and shown together for the first
time at the CCB Berardo Collection.
Many of Vasconceloss works play with

the effect of scale and contrasts between
the whole and close-up detail. In doing so,
she generates not only surprise and occasional irritation but also contentment and
humor. The cheap material always contrasts conspicuously with the expensive,
lavish appearance of the overall object.
Bride offers a clear demonstration of
these juxtapositions. This extravagant
chandelier already had quite an exhibition
record when it was shown at the Lisbon
nightclub Lux. The popular club, which
hosts around 1,000 guests on a normal
night, set a perfect stage for this unusual
work. Curator Rosa Martinez, who saw it
there, included it in her exhibition Always
a little further in the Arsenale at the 2005
Venice Biennale. This legendary show
included secret hits such as Regina Jos
Galinda and Runa Islam, as well as the
power-ladies Louise Bourgeois and Mona
Hatoum. Vasconceloss chandelier, which
dominated one of the first dark halls in
the space, glowed with brilliance in terms
of beauty and content. The joy of approaching this rather traditional-looking Venetianstyle candelabrum was shattered by the
realization that the 25,000 lustrous beads
were not crafted of Murano glass. In fact,
they are nothing more than ordinary, plastic-covered tampons. Suddenly the phallic
shape of the form becomes absurdly obvious. The white opacity of the limbs strikes
a chord with the title, contradicting the
original impression of a chandelier. The
title, as a tongue-in-cheek hint at the innocence and virtue of a bride and todays
reality of modern sexual practices, rises
eerily to our consciousness. The object
that passes secretly under the table after
a flustered request from your female friend
now multiplies into a group of strangely
innocent links in the numerous chains
of a luxury itemclassified details of a
womans life normally far away from the
male domain of public brilliance.
Employing the number of normal-sized
tampons that an average woman would
use and dispose of in a lifetime, VasconVictoria, 2008. Hand-knitted and hand-crocheted
wool, industrial acrylic, fabric, ornaments, polyester, and steel cables, 350 x 340 x 370 cm.
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Contaminao (Contamination), 2008. Hand-knitted and hand-crocheted wool, industrial acrylic,

fabric, ornaments, polystyrene, polyester, and steel
cables, 2 views of installation at the Pinacoteca do
TOP: DMF, LISBON (RIGHTS RESERVED) / BOTTOM: ISABELLA MATHEUS
Estado, So Paulo.
celos has bundled them together at the

top of the chandelier; they then bend over
metal rings that resemble the boning of
crinoline dresses, and their bright blue
strings hang loose following the laws of
gravity. The small blue letters o.b.(the
abbreviation for the German ohne Binde
or without pad) turn into an amusing
game of word-play: ohne Braut (without
bride), ohne Blut (without blood), and
ohne Brut (without breed).
Cinderella, Marilyn, and Carmen Miranda,
oversized high heels for giant pop icons,
play with the nonsensical fashion dictates
of the 50s, specifically the expectation
that women be perfect housewives, loving
moms, cleaners, and cooks, as well as sexylooking objects. The shiny silver heels are
made from mundane potspristine and
gorgeous, they look extremely uncomfortable, just like most of the shoes that
women have been expected to wear since
the invention of the heel. Initially, Vasconcelos made single shoes, like the one lost
by Cinderella. But this shoe is not too
small, it is too big. The dream, fiction, and
reality of todays fashion items are ironically undermined by the pots, mundane
objects associated with food preparation.
Since dresses are short and legs long, shoes
are the ultimate accessory. They serve as
the pedestal for the female bodyhigh
heels further pronounce feminine qualities by pushing out bottom and bosom,
thereby exhibiting a womans trumps. With
a shoe, a woman can convey self-confidence, stability, sincerity, weakness, carelessness, and much more. The wrong shoe
with the right dress makes everything
wrong, and if one shoe is lost, the other
becomes essentially worthless. In the past,
most of the worlds population did not wear
shoes, largely because they could not afford
them. Only with the advent of cheap mass
production has the wearing of shoes
become normal. Luxury footwear, on the
other hand, is worn by only one percent
of the worlds population. While shoes
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first evolved to protect the feet and were

made from flexible materials (leather and
fabric), Vasconceloss shoe is a piece of
armor, constructed like a knights breastplate. Is this a hint of womens need for
fortification or invincibility?
When Vasconcelos goes fabric, she
sets up a similar contrast between detail
and complete object. Victoria appears to
hybridize a wasp, a snake, and a female
figure. A professional tailors eye could
detect all kinds of details in this sculpture
garlands, buttons, rivets, eyelets, rhinestones, beads, frills, ruffles, pompoms,
brocade, damask, jacquard, and sequined
ribbons. The absorbing blackness of the
object, with its complete absence of even
a hint of color, pulls one dramatically into
details that are highly tempting to touch.
The gloomy atmosphere of the piece is
reminiscent of a night landscape lit by a
star-filled sky. One loses all sense of orientation in the surrounding blackness, while the
eye focuses on the diverse shapes in order
to identify them. Inspired by the trend-setting style of Queen Victoria, who influenced
fashion and culture during her 63-year reign
(the longest in British history), Vasconcelos
created a fanciful sculpture/installation
that morphs between monster and muse.
Contaminao (Contamination) is probably Vasconceloss largest and most ambi-
tious installation in terms of labor to date,

with a staff of nearly 20 people working
for several months. Vasconcelos employs
two full-time craftswomen who mostly
crochet and assemble various lace suits
for her menagerie of ceramic animals, people, and pianosbut with this project,
they would have been hopelessly overwhelmed. Installed at the Pinacoteca do
Estado in So Paulo in 2008, the piece
grew like some strange plant/animal to
infiltrate the entire museum, taking over
the sacred halls, embracing the pedestals
of classical sculptures, crawling up staircases, intruding through windows, and
invading the pristine hallways. The rampant growth harbors nearly every handwork technique and expression of female
creativity. Strick Dich Frei (knit yourself
free) and Trume er-sticken (suffocating
dreams; in German, to embroider [sticken] is enclosed in to suffocate [ersticken])
come to my mind. As in Victoria, all kinds
of decorative details emerge, reflecting
an amazing collection of traditional haberdashery. The piece also evokes memories
of homemade snails, which were the fashion during my childhoodthese knitted
and crocheted snails made from leftover
wool were reminiscent of our sweaters,
decorated with ribbons from old dresses
and spare fabric swatches.
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Garden of Eden, 2007. Plastic flowers, synchronous

micro-motors, compact fluorescent lamp, polychromed and translucent acrylic discs, electric system, Lycra, PVC, and MDF, dimensions variable.
The oversized crocheted tablecloth

Varina, named after women selling fish in
the street, was hung from the D. Lus I
Bridge in Oporto in 2007. Vasconcelos asked
more than 1,000 women to participate by
crocheting a huge decorative lace cloth
measuring 35 by 15 meters. According to
Lcio Moura, This homage to ordinary
women creates a dynamic exchange with
the surrounding landscape, redefining and
stimulating the traditional relations between
art and the social fabric, in dialogue with
the surrounding features of the landscape
both architectural and natural. Varina,
despite resorting to traditionally feminine
symbols, represents them, without renouncing them, transfigured by the monumental
scale, as a hymn to the feminine condition,
emphasizing the achievement of an individual, through subversion of imposed social
norms, in favor of the subject.
Seen from far away, Varina is not much
more than a small irritant, something that
interrupts the usual view: its not really
recognizable as fabric, it looks more like
ripped plastic. Moving closer, the object
hanging from the bridge recalls a freshly
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washed tablecloth dangling on a laundry

line and swaying in the wind. Even nearer,
the views from the bridge, seen through
the skillfully crafted lace, expand into something much richer, with sunlight glittering
on the bright sapphire water or against
the azure sky: the cerulean backgrounds
become interwoven with the textile patterns, contrasting with the hardness of the
architectural structure. Appearing through
the flowery grid of the lace, the landscape
changes enormously, turning into colored
pixels, like an abstract painting or an
Islamic mosaic.
Garden of Eden is made of slightly more
sophisticated materials than Vasconceloss
usual choices. Cheap artificial flowers are
arrayed in a snake-shaped garden, something between Baroque ornament and
fantastical beast. Hundreds of artificial
plants in buckets are symmetrically placed
to form a shape that magically glows in
the dark. The kitschy appearance of the
flowers contrasts with the spare outline of
the installation. Here, where there are
snakes, we are reminded that the artificial
Passerelle, 2005. Faience dogs, metalized chrome
iron, engine, power control and protection panel,
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evokes the assembly line: reversing the

process of construction gives space to a
dark humor that probes the senselessness
and predictability of our mass-produced
decorations.
In Matilha, similar porcelain dogs are
retrained by elaborately crocheted suits
in various colors. The dogs, as well as their
humanizing outfits, are made in Portugal.
Both the porcelain figurine and the crocheted doily are a bit out of fashion as
home decoration; together, the bizarre pairing speaks of domesticity and its partial disorientation. While crochet was a sign of
female creativity and care, giving a certain
sense of self-value to a home, the useless
porcelain dog is a cheap sculptural replacement for the real thing. Considered in this
light, domestication seems senseless and
rather dangerous. Doesnt it often result in
a backlash when we try to tame nature?
Vasconceloss work can currently be seen
at the Museu Coleco Berardo in Lisbon
through May 18. She has another solo exhibition coming up at Ermida Nossa Senhora
da Conceio in Lisbon, scheduled to run
from July 24 through September 19, 2010.
Regina Frank is an artist living in Berlin
and Portugal.
foot pedal, and PVC, 230 x 366 x 205 cm.
garden is a plot, at the price of nature,

which suffers from the abuse of its
resources.
Passarelle, which is the French word
for catwalk, takes a more destructive
approach to kitsch. Ceramic dogs of the
type commonly found in Portuguese homes
hang from a conveyor belt, like meat at
the slaughterhouse. The belt can be set
in motion, like a carousel, by pressing a
foot pedal. Dogs on a catwalk, the animal
figures dangle and dance and occasionally
bang against each other, resulting in shrill
crashes and broken pieces. The piercing
sound of cracking porcelain, together with
the screeching of the conveyor belt, makes
for a disturbing concert of demolition. Once
the mechanism is set in motion, the viewer
cannot intervene; the pieces are left to
their senseless destruction until the horror
stops, the broken leftovers sagging lifeless
and the debris spread on the floor. The connotations are obvious: the squandering of
resources, the destruction and extinction of
species, the meat industrys impact on our
natural heritage. The fact that the dog figurinessymbols of tacky home decorationbreak each other through indirect
human intervention is horrifying and funny
at the same time. The conveyor belt also
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DEDE HATCH
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Kathy Bruce
Ritual Renewal
COURTESY THE ARTIST
BY ELLEN PEARLMAN
Kathy Bruce explores bamboo and other non-invasive organic materials, building sitespecific works that have implied ritualistic connections to the land and that investigate
climate, ecosystems, and plant and animal life. She also uses the figure and, more
specifically, the archetypal female form. For too long, in both painting and sculpture, men
have projected their inner dialogues and psychological tensions onto the female body.
Bruce has helped to reclaim the female form from this male stereotyping, transforming
it from a passive slate into a spirit of possibility. The idea of woman as harbinger of
growth, fecundity, ritual, nature, and renewal can be seen as impossibly quaint and
sentimentalor quite radical. Most contemporary art arises from an urban, technological impulse, and examples that deal with themes of nature, especially nature and
ritual, tend to be lumped together as primitive, outsider, ecological, or 1970s-derived
earth art.
Bruces sculptures reconnect contemporary society with lost traditions based on the
fertility of a primeval earth goddess (for example, Pachamama of the ancient Andes). In
the past, many prehistoric structures and sculptures paid homage to an earth goddess,
as evinced by the Venus of Willendorf, the ruins of the Neolithic Ggantija temple complex
in Malta, and the remnants of the Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae in Orkney. The
archaeological sites, in particular, have inspired Bruce to use living plant material that
interacts with her sculptures and responds to the surrounding environment. Some of her
works encompass the life cycle of an entire growing season, with the plants starting out
as seedlings, progressing to full flowering vines, and then withering away to leave the
sculptures in their original state.
When she was a student at the PennOpposite: The Graces, 2008. Bamboo, sea grass, rafsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Bruce began
fia, plywood, morning glories, and nasturtiums, 12
using bamboo, a material with a long hisx 8 x 8 ft. This page: Sod Mound Earth Maiden, 2008.
tory as a craft material in Eastern cultures.
Bamboo, straw, chicken wire, and sod, 25 x 22 x 9 ft.
In order to achieve specialized technical

mastery, one had to train under a skilled
master in a guild. Almost all guild members were men. Bruces bamboo works challenged such traditional biases. Her sculptures were made of mostly found wooden
objects mixed with painted, draped, and
stained canvases. She inserted bamboo protrusions to expand from two-dimensional
surfaces into three dimensions. Viewers
often had to walk through or around these
multi-dimensional installations.
While in graduate school in sculpture at
Yale, she built wooden table-top sculptures,
drilled holes into the wood, and placed
bamboo strips that thrust outward
to resemble drawn pencil lines. Bamboo
offered a distinct formal advantage in these
works since it holds its shape, as opposed
to softer materials like cord and string,
which depend on other types of support.
But it was bamboos theatrical possibilities
that led to Bruces thesis on wearable sculptures. That theme extends into newer work
through her studies of Velzquezs Las
Meninas. She was especially intrigued by
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Metaphysical Menina II, 2008. Bamboo and

recycled shredded paper, 15 x 10 x 4 ft.
Homage to Neruda, 2008. Scavenged recycled

driftwood on rock base, 8 x 4 x 10 ft.
COURTESY THE ARTIST
the vast hoop skirts of the 17th century. To explore the underlying structure, she built
a bamboo frame. Since she does not treat the material with lacquer or other preservatives,
these constructions retain an as is, rough-hewn quality. In Metaphysical Menina II
(2008), made from bamboo and recycled, shredded paper, back- and side-lit shadows
hauntingly emphasize the skeletal forms. The piece seems to float atop the fluffy, shredded
bits of paper that lie underneath in an airy heap.
After graduate school, Bruce traveled to Peru on a Fulbright grant to research traditional
Peruvian folk art. There, and on subsequent trips to Patagonia and desert regions of
Chile and Argentina, she discovered toros locos or bamboo-framed bulls strapped onto
castillos. Torres, the towering Catherine wheel-style structures placed in town squares,
offered another inspiration. These open

cubes stacked one on top of another support spinning wheels of pyrotechnics,
which produce amazing displays when lit
at night. A special master fuse slowly burns
through each level of the cube, setting off
a charger, which in turn triggers different
levels of fireworks. Witnessing this spectacle freed Bruces preconceptions about the
structural properties of bamboo. In order
for bamboo to form any kind of coherent
structure, it must be braced and then stabilized. Bruce had to teach herself how to
support individual sections by splitting
them into halves or even quarters in order
to best distribute their load-bearing
responsibilities.
Composting Vessel (2008), made of bamboo, raffia, and netting and installed at
Jersey City University, takes the form of a
female figure embracing a basket of com-
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Above: Composting Vessel, 2008. Bamboo, raffia, netting, and leaves, 10 x 8 x 6 ft. Right and detail:
LEFT: BRIAN GUSTAFSON / RIGHT: TOM CATES
Earth Maiden, 200708. Bamboo, raffia, recycled wood, grass, and live shrub, 18 x 5 x 40 ft.
posting leaves. With rounded arms and a full skirt, the figure tilts toward the earth, its
joints tied together with raw raffia knots. The vessel is built using substructures within
the structure, and each arc is counterbalanced by an opposing arc to create stability.
That stability was put to the test when winds reached 65 mph for a two-day period and
the sculpture held up.
The Graces (July, August, September) (2008), an installation on the Ithaca Commons
in upstate New York, consisted of three female frame figures placed atop planter boxes.
Morning glory and nasturtium vines, supported by bamboo stalks, grew over their bodies, congruent with the main attributes of the graces: mirth, good cheer, and beauty.
When in full bloom, the figures resembled prancing maidens delighting in the summer.
In Woman Gazing At The Heavens (2007), a Diana-type figure perched atop a living lilac
bush, holding out a drawn bow and arrow. Made of bamboo and raffia and installed at
the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn, Bruces figure looked out across the river
toward the Statue of Liberty, a historical and allegorical figure of redemption and succor.
This metaphor reflects the influence of theorist Marina Warner, who argues that Liberty
belongs to a larger family of women used to embody abstractions (justice, wisdom, victory, chastity, fortitude, and truth, for example) and that these projections of idealized
rectitude were imposed on the female body. Men, on the other hand, who were not used
to embody abstractions, retained controlassertive, active masters. The placement
of Bruces installation across from this well-known symbol contained multiple layers
of allegory and interpretation.
The Earth Maiden (200708) at The Land/an art site in New Mexico used recycled wood,
grass, and living shrubs, while Homage to Neruda (2008) returns to the scavenged materials
of Bruces early works, using only intricately woven driftwood set on a rock base. Inspired
by Pablo Nerudas figurehead collection in Isla Negra, Chile, it was constructed at the
Nature Conservancy/Andy Warhol preserve in Montauk Beach, Long Island, New York.
Bruce believes in the future of bamboo and raffia, because of its environmental constitution, availability, cost, and practicality. More and more people will use itartists and
others. Her own work exhibits a commitment to a sustainability that can help maintain
the earth. Bamboo is a grass, not a wood, so it replenishes itself and is both biodegradable
and recyclable. Adhering to low-impact modalities, Bruce keeps electrical consumption to a
minimum and tries to work mostly with

hand tools. Each time she builds an installation, she is conjuring a spirit that she hopes
will lead toward healing the deep fissures
that have opened up between humanity
and our environs.
Ellen Pearlman is a writer who lives in
New York, Beijing, and Calgary.
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COURTESY LAUMEIER SCULPTURE PARK
INSIDE OUT
Roberley Bell
BY IVY COOPER
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Roberley Bells Inside Out at Laumeier

Sculpture Park in St. Louis was a breathtaking mini-retrospective and the sculptors
largest show to date. Installed in Laumeiers
indoor galleries, it included prints, sculptures from the Flower Blobs, Other
Landscapes, and Wonder series, an
installation titled Room with a View, and
an artists book, A Borrowed View. It was a
delectable collection, the sculpture, in particular, teeming with artificial flowers and
fruits and creatures arranged in elaborate,
candy-colored assemblages designed to
dazzle the sensibilities. From the moment
that one stepped into the galleries, the
visual pleasure was mildly disrupted by an
audio distraction in the form of chirps,
bangs, and thuds.
Those sounds, it turned out, came from
Cardinal (2007), a projected video screened
in the final gallery. The video frames a view
through a window onto a small copse of
conifers. The titular bird perches on the
other side of the window, and (evidently
fascinated by the camera or his own reflection) he chirps and hops and lunges at the
glass, only to bang his head, regroup, hop
a bit, and lunge again. Bell is not known
as a video artist; in fact, Cardinal is the
first shes produced. But its striking, and
it neatly captures the myriad related themes
that inform all of her work: framing as a
cultural process, our need to control the
landscape, and the dialectical relationship
between the artificial and the natural.
Framing has long been of interest to Bell,
as demonstrated in her 2001 works, Perfect
View Lisbon, Perfect View St. Petersburg,
and Perfect View Deerfield. These prints,
made during a residency at Dieu Donn
paper mill in New York City, feature grainy,
black and white photographic images of a
landscape, surrounded by a cream-colored,
leafy wallpaper design of the artists
own making. The wallpaper represents an
abstracted, artificial version of nature,
tamed for indoor consumption; yet the
natural scenes in the photograph are
every bit as contrived, the product of the
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cameras selective framing and its tendency

to abstract the three-dimensional world.
To make A Borrowed View (2008), Bell
moved from the realm of representation
to the actual landscape. While on a residency at the Stadt Kunstlerhaus in Salzburg, Austria, she took daily walks in search
of items belonging to one of two invented
categories: artifice of nature (or the
image of nature in the manmadefake
flowers, for example) and artificial nature
(or the intervention of man into nature
arranged flower beds and topiaries). The
book augments photographs of these specimens with a color-coded key and overlays
drawn on vellum that mark the path traveled on each days walk and the locations
of her finds.
A Borrowed View is a masterful example
of conceptual arta collection of deadpan
photographs of the nature/culture confluence, presented with the veneer of scientific inquiry. Like much conceptual art, the
book is also the archive of an extended
performance in real space and time. It
speaks to Bells interest in sculpture in the
environment, which is also behind a 2003
report published in this magazine that
recounts her pilgrimage to some of the
landmarks of 1970s Land Art (Nancy Holts
Sun Tunnels in Utah, Walter de Marias
Lightning Field in New Mexico, and others).
Bell has spent a good deal of her career
making works in the landscape, including
Arcadia Now (2000) at Wave Hill in the
Bronx, Somewhere Else (2002) at Connemara Conservancy in Allen, Texas, and Anomaly (2007), an installation in the pond at
I-Park in East Haddam, Connecticut. While
she continues to make large-scale outdoor
works, she has recently begun concentrating
on gallery pieces, which offer the opportunity to work on a more intimate scale with
more direct, hands-on processes. Inside
Out consisted entirely of indoor works,
only one of which, Room with a View (2009),
might be described as an installation (its
a room-sized work with foam floor mats
masquerading as a pond, a floating sculp-
Opposite: Room with a View, 2009. Pigmented fiberglass, polychrome steel, found china bird, wood, foam
mats, blown glass, plastic ducks, flowers, artificial lemon tree, and inflatable, installation view. This page,
top: Flower Blob #64, 2005. Cast foam, dyed plastic, flocking, plastic flowers and balls, and flocked bird, 20 x
16 x 12 in. Right: Flower Blob #77, 2006. Painted fiberglass, plastic flowers, and novelty bird, 36 x 20 x 21 in.
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Above and below: Installation views of Inside Out, 2010, at Laumeier Sculpture Park.
orescent inflatable inner tubes, painted tree

trunks, and preserved insects. Their immediate reference is to topiary sculpture, but
they bring to mind 18th-century Rococo
decorative confections or the current fad
for overwrought, flower-encrusted, multitier wedding cakes. Works in the Other
Landscapes and Wonder series contain
luscious mounds of expanded foam, animal

figurines covered in fuzzy flocking, blown
glass blob forms, and strange little dabs of
fluorescent silicone. The colors are splendidly
synthetic: cotton-candy pink, lime green,
orange, tangerine, and pomegranate.
The delicious colors and joyful kitsch
sensibilities bear some relation to Jeff
ture, plastic ducks, and an artificial lemon

tree growing on shore).
The bulk of the exhibition featured what
Bell refers to as discrete gallery sculptures.
The Flower Blobs are ebullient assemblages of painted fiberglass, pigmented
plastic, or cast foam blobs, adorned with
artificial fruit, flowers, novelty animals, flu-
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Sculpture 29.4
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Koonss glossy kittens, bunnies, and birthday bows, even to his oversized, flowercovered puppy (Bell also shares Koonss
attraction to brightly colored inflatables).
Another fruitful comparison is the work of
contemporary ceramic artist Brendan Tang,
who invents versions of Baroque decorative
objects and enhances them with photo
decals, flocking, and paint. Like Koons and
Tang, Bell makes works that appear slick
and mass-produced, but which involve a
great deal of handcrafting. Indeed, theres
hardly a passage that she leaves untouched,
hardly a found object she doesnt manipulate, covering artificial fruit in sugary glass
beads, practically suffocating figurines with
flocking, and painting tree trunks to match
the overall color key of a work.
The sheer visual delight of Bells works,
however, never completely masks the
larger issues with which they engage.
Specifically, they take on our relationship
to natureour practices of controlling it,
copying it, and commodifying itand they
scrutinize the boundaries between the
artificial and the natural. Bell is keenly
aware that nature exists for us only in its
mediated cultural forms, in landscape
images and topiaries, novelty figurines and
embalmed specimens. And so, in her sculptures, nothing is pureevery form, every
surface, every found object is a hybridized
variant of nature. Everything seems to
declare the impossibility of the natural in
a world of synthetic simulacra.
This certainly explains Bells fascination
with blob forms, which she adopted from
Blob architecture, a movement in which
designers employ soft shapes that appear
organic, but are purely computer generated
and not naturally occurring. Blobs form the
core of most of Bells sculptures, and countless blob-style flower vases featured throughout this exhibition. Its hard to tell whether
these glass and plastic vases are custom
made or straight off the shelf from Target,
which is a testament to Blob architectures
infiltration of the design market, not to
mention Bells interest in the lure of the
commodity and the compulsion to collect.
The latter themes are strongly evident
in Wonder #2 and Wonder #1 (both 2008),
wall-mounted in the final gallery, which
combine artificial moss balls, plastic flow-
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Above: Installation view with Flower Blob #68, 2005,

and Flower Blob #83, 2009. Right: Flower Blob #73,
2006. Painted fiberglass, plastic flowers, novelty
birds and fruit, and inflatables, 58 x 24 x 24 in.
ers, preserved butterflies, and mechanical

birds, while her Wonder vases and Wunder Kammer for Laumeier (all 2009) decorate the aforementioned blob vases with
fake flowers and embalmed insects. Like the
historical Wunderkammer from which they
inherit their name, these works reveal less
about the marvelous specimens they display than they do about the people who
collect them: what fascinates us, what we
need to control, what we covet and possess.
Within the noisy final gallery, amid the
intermittent songs of the mechanical birds
in the Wonder works, the video cardinal
emitted his alternating chirps and thuds
in repeating 40-minute loops. Refusing to
fly away, hes caught in the sticky interface between inside and outside, between
culture and natureprecisely in the terrain
of Roberley Bells artistic interests.
Ivy Cooper is an art historian and writer
living in St. Louis.
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Federica
Marangonis
After more than 30 years of international activity, Venetian

artist Federica Marangoni, a pioneering figure in the realm of
light sculpture and video installation, still maintains a strong
aesthetic quality and humanist essence in her message. Her
2009 book, The Places of Utopia, offers her vision of the world
through neon, which is stationary but pulsating, and video,
which is moving but cold, both in frequent combination with
glass, her material of choice. The bilingual monograph previewed at the Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art in
Genoa in 2008, along with Free Womans Room, an installation dedicated to Virginia Woolf. The book was also introduced
at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, accompanied by
an exhibition of selected works from 1970 to the present that
included Tolerance-In-Tolerance, an installation consisting of
a video component fronted by a
No More, 2009. Layered glass wall,
barrier of barbed wire, emblematiglass fragments, and neon, 270
cally reverberating with a line of
x 300 cm. Work installed at Piazza
red neon.
della Scala, Milan.
sculpture
SILVIA RIGHETTI
BY VIANA CONTI
translated by Alexander Sera
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Tolerance-In-Tolerance appeared in reconfigured and expanded form at the Milan

Triennale in 2009, where it was installed on
a suspended structure made of 32 monitors.
In both versions, Marangoni addresses one
of todays crucial problemsthe question
of respect, whether granted or denied, for
those of different ideological, religious,
socio-political, cultural, civil, or ethnic backgrounds. Like a war documentary, ToleranceIn-Tolerance inundates viewers with a ceaseless flow of disturbing imagery, the tension
indicated by the rhythm of a beating heart.
The audience witnesses the reality of conflict catalogued over the course of recent
years, from hunger, disease, pollution, and
child labor in Africa and Asia to the delirium
of inconceivable violence against women in
fundamentalist Islam. In the Milan version,
the flow centered on the installations title
words, which appeared on the large-scale
projections together with images of the red
neon demarcation line and the barbed wire.
From exhibition to exhibition, using an

accumulation of multi-colored glass fragments, Marangoni succeeds in giving symbolic likeness to such fractures in reality. Her
voyage into transparency, light, and color
comes from sources such as Byzantine art
and Venetian colorism, the Secessionist
opulence of Gustav Klimt, and the Minimalism of Dan Flavin. Her iridescent and
uninterrupted dialogue with the island of
Murano continues to confront the crystalline iciness of glass and imbue it with soul.
From her forms in Perspex, shown on the
street in 1970, to the steps of light in Stairway to Heaven (1998) and The caged paradise (2001), she has liberated a forest of
signs to indicate distinct paths, designing
a rhizomatic map of movement across terrains and a series of utopian flight trajectories. Much esteemed by Nam June Paik
for her contributions to video and electronic
art, Marangoni has also taught glass for
12 years at New York University. She uses
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Tolerance-In-Tolerance, 2009. View of video installation at the Fondazione Triennale Design Museum,
Milan.
this material to cultivate a garden of memory, a preserve of reality against the electronic hallucinations that increasingly push
us toward oblivion.
With its combination of tradition and
innovation, Marangonis work activates a
connection between the aesthetic culture
of old Europe, with its socio-psychologicalphilosophical order, and young America,
with its ever-expanding parameters of communication. The golden mean of her sculptures of time and space recognizes the
unrestrained scale of American mega-structures. It is necessary to remember that, since
the mid-1960s, Marangoni has used new
synthetics (fiberglass, polyester, Plexiglas)
in tandem with naturally occurring materials. This combination, to which she adds
the immateriality of a conceptual, percep-
58
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ARCHIVIO MARANGONI
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Above: The caged flight, 2009. Industrial fencing,

LED lighting, mirrors, and Murano glass butterflies,
view of work as installed in Venice. Left: Stairway
to Heaven, 1998. Solid and fragmented glass,
metal, neon, and wheels, 150 x 200 x 110 cm.
TOP: ISAAC MARTINEZ / BOTTOM: ARCHIVIO MARANGONI
tual, and virtual dimension, formally defines

the creative sense of her work within the
contexts of art and contemporary life.
At times, it is the clear-blue or fiery-red
fluidity of neon light that creates vibration
in the rungs of her Endless Ladders or in
the spirals of her large-scale coils of light
and energy; at other times, its the audio
that reminds children of the digital age of
the reality beyond the video screen
of clouds and the flight of butterflies over
real meadows, green with natural grass.
And still other times, there is the turbulence
of pixels in an electronic rainbow of rhythmically cycled colors on computer-synchronized monitors, crystallized with glass.
Following the exhibition Luz y Sombra,
at the Centro de Las Artes, Alcorcn, in
Madrid, which featured Words/Palabras,
an ingenious light-emitting panel in the
form of a crossword puzzle that verbally
confronts conflict, Marangoni showed her
work at Glasstress, a collateral event for
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the 2009 Venice Biennale, part of the Hotel

Bauers Light Installations. In addition to
the site-specific The caged flight, a phantasmagorical, impossible flight on the terrace
of the Grand Canal, she contributed The virtual ladder, its red and white neon rungs
topped by two monitors and placed on
a mirrored base, so the image of the ladder continues into infinity (on the screens)
and the neon rungs reproduce themselves
in slow motion (in the mirrors reflection).
In October 2009, Marangonis People
show occupied several floors of the Silvy
Bassanese Gallery in Biella. Here, she put
together a strong choral scenario of human
voices, through audio and video sculptures

of faces from around the world, observed
without regard for political, religious, or
social barriers. The images were taken from
newspapers and magazines and re-presented
in tandem with Marangonis signature neon
writing. In the installation Postcards from
the world, the video Humanity dialogues
with a cascade of images to create a large
collage that, like an elaborate drapery,
descends from the ceiling to the floor. The
viewer, caught up in the hubbub of image
and sound, enters an environment dense
with presences. In November, Marangoni
installed No More, a wall of sheet glass
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The virtual ladder, 2009. Mirror, neon, video, and

mixed media, installation view.
segments and red neon tubes, in Milans

Piazza della Scala during Plaza: Beyond
the Limit 19892009, a public event commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. The
work gives form to personal and collective
emotion through a scenographic wall. The
transparency of the flat sheets of roughly cut and layered glass, the intense red of
the neon writing in the foreground, the
veils of translucent leaves, and the heap
of fractured fragments at the foot of the
wall all serve a strong metaphorical func-
60
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ISAAC MARTINEZ
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The Tree of Life, 2007. Steel and neon, 500 x 188
ARCHIVIO MARANGONI
x 110 cm.
tion. The idea of the wall is immediate, as

is its meaning as a barrier, the cause of
separation and repression, the archetype
of social, racial, religious, and political
discrimination. The text No More reminds
us of all the anonymous writings of love
and hate, tolerance and intolerance, that
urban walls exhibit every day to a fragile
humanity disenchanted and tragically distracted in its rush toward an uncertain
future. From the central crack that separates the two words of the text, a cas-
cade of fire-red glass fragments emerges,

expressing collective rebellion against
uselessly shed blood.
Marangonis The Tree of Life recently
made an appearance on the streets of
Manhattan, beneath the residence of collectors William and Ophelia Rudin. The 17foot-high sculpture, like a huge vertical
container, joins two steel slabs, cut out in
the form of an ascending tree and illuminated from within by a green neon light.
While giving verdant luxuriance to the
outline of the tree, this light also formally
and metaphorically signals its absence: the
void and the artificial light embody mans
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incessant work of emptying nature. The

Tree of Life represents a synthesis of Marangonis work on signs and symbols, on light
and shadows, on positive and negative
space, and on the combination of strong,
heavy materials like metal with more fluid
materials like neon and electronics. A master of the luminous sign, a creator of the
material and the immaterial, and a maker
of intense, emotional metaphors of daily
life in our globalized society, Marangoni
has laid the groundwork for a meaningful
place in the history of contemporary art.
Viana Conti is an art critic living in Genoa.
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Wa s h i n gto n , D C
Louise Bourgeois
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden
Putting Crouching Spider outside

the entrance was a stroke of genius
for the Hirshhorn. Not only did the
monumental sculpture offer a perfect preview of Louise Bourgeoiss
60-year survey, it was also an
instant magnet. Children chased
each other and posed around its
spiny legs to no end. Once inside,
viewers faced a fiercely personal
view of art as extension of the psyche, an aesthetic practice that
Bourgeois helped to popularize. We
watch as she mines her childhood
to resolve issues about herself and

her relationship to others. In the
process, some of the darkest and
most complex existential states,
including fear, anger, joy, and selfdoubt, are exposed and materialized into works memorable for their
unabashed honesty and visceral
ambivalence. As we follow the interplay between fragment and whole,
past and present, we become
Above: Louise Bourgeois, Cell (Twelve
Oval Mirrors), 1998. Steel, wood, and
mirrors, 228.5 x 243.8 x 335.2 cm.
Right: Louise Bourgeois, Three Horizontals, 1998. Fabric and steel, 34.6
x 182.8 x 91.4 cm.
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TOP: COURTESY CHEIM & READ, GALERIE KARSTEN GREVE, AND GALERIE HAUSER & WIRTH / BOTTOM: CHRISTOPHER BURKE
reviews
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Above: Louise Bourgeois, Spider, 1997.

Steel, tapestry, wood, glass, fabric,
rubber, money, gold, and bone, 445
x 665.4 x 518 cm. Right: Louise Bourgeois, Cell (Choisy), 199093. Marble,
TOP: RAFAEL LOBATO, COURTESY CHEIM & READ, NY / BOTTOM: PETER BELLAMY
metal, and glass, 306 x 170 x 241.5 cm.
voyeurs: we feel the oscillations of

her life, her challenge to (often)
male power figures, and her convulsive bouts of freedom.
Already in the first gallery, the suspended, polished bronze Arch of
Hysteria (1993) commanded attention. Slick and sinewy, the headless
male figure asserts Bourgeoiss antiFreudian view that hysteria can affect
both sexes as a source of pleasure
and pain. Equally troubling is the
headless Couple IV (1997), installed
in the last gallery, in which two figures sheathed in black cloth copulate missionary-style inside a Victorian vitrine. Off-putting yet sexy,
the lace-up prosthetic reflects vulnerability and survival, as well
as Bourgeoiss shock over World War I
disabled veterans. Black, the color
of mourning and resented authority, in her own words, reinforces the
allusion to her fathers longstanding
affair with her nanny, Sadie.
In the intervening galleries, a
mercurial array of works recounted
Bourgeoiss avid curiosity and ceaseless experimentation. A group

of wooden, Surrealist-looking Personages (late 1940s/1950s) underscores her interest in interactive
environments and her uncanny knack
for transformation, though she

denies allegiance to this or any other
20th-century art movement. In this
series, she anthropomorphizes architectural elements to conjure the
loved ones left behind when she
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moved to New York. The carved and

assembled totems also evoke attenuated needles and knives, motifs
that become regulars in her repertory. This concern for fragility and
precarious balance appears again in
the salmon-colored Blind Leading
the Blind (194749). Here, a double
row of tapered planks steadied by
a lintel-like structure explores modularity well before Minimalism.
The stiffness of the wooden sculptures loosens in cast latex, plaster,
and plastic works from the 1960s.
Torso, Self Portrait (196364), Soft
Landscape II (1965), and Le Regard
(1966) synthesize topography
and the body (vegetal, animal, and
human) into abstract masses of
seemingly indeterminate boundaries.
From this period onwards, a kindred
sensuality infuses many of her marble and bronze works, mediums
traditionally associated with male
artists. Some, like Germinal (1963)
and Nature Study (198494),
counter with fecundity, while others, such as Filette (1968) and the
Janus sculptures (1968), meld vaginal and phallic elements.
Bourgeoiss first installation, the
dark, smoldering-red Destruction of
the Father (1974), makes a fantasy
meal of the family patriarch. A
breakthrough of self-actualization,
the claustrophobic tableau includes
rounded protuberances whose theatrics read as a bit hokey in contrast
to more convincing sculptures like
the bulbous Cumul I (1969). In this
work, the mounds bracket a table
decked with organic shapes, some
of which resemble flesh and bones.
The latter recur in Untitled (1996),
where a coquettish black dress and
underwear hang from bones on a
metal stand like so many pieces of
meat. Once worn by Bourgeois,
these garments become surrogates
in a bittersweet vanitas.
The sense of spectacle culminates
in the monumental Cells from the
1990s. In Spider (1997), a pregnant
arachnid squats protectively over a
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wire-mesh cage with tapestry remnants patched onto its walls. Inside,
a lone, tapestry-covered chair complements dangling bottles of
Shalimar, Bourgeoiss favorite perfume. Over and over, she has stated
the importance of tapestry restoration, her family business, and the
spider as weaver and mother figure.
Spider boldly integrates these two
aspects. While it is often hard to
discern fact from myth with Bourgeois, her vision astounds. Recognized rather late in her career, when
feminists, post-feminists, and PostMinimalists embraced her, her challenge to beauty and tradition
is unrelenting, and her work feels
alive and natural, no matter the distortions. Above all, it is the power
of her handthe link between
mind and body and the instrument
of transformationthat endures.
Sarah Tanguy
Wa s h i n gto n , D C a n d
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Dalya Luttwak
Katzen Arts Center, American
University Museum and Sawhill
Gallery
Hidden, Dalya Luttwaks provocative show at the Katzen Arts Center,

exposed the rich potential of
a seemingly narrow premisethe
root systems of plants. Not only did
roots provide a central, ambivalent
image, but they also alluded to the
artist herself as we sensed her
working through her past and forging a new approach to her preferred
medium, welded steel. Eleven sculptures and installations, all from
2008, established an immediate dialogue between nature and the outdoor sunken plaza. While the gray
concrete made a perfect foil for the
works earthen palette and organic,
at times riotous, shapes, the intermittent rustle of leaves played off
the ongoing roar of traffic from an
invisible, nearby street.
Until quite recently, Luttwak had
favored hard-edged geometry and
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primary colors, making works that

resembled elaborate matchstick
constructions. For Hidden, she
looked to nature for inspiration. A
few years ago, she experienced the
full force and beauty of a root ball
when a silver maple, dislodged by
a tornado, landed on her car. She
started collecting and comparing
roots, including Kentucky bluegrass,
mangrove, and basil. This research
led to a series of site-specific works
that exploited the high walls,
ground, and entrance of the Katzens space. Increasing the scale
raised the emotional barometer,
and experimenting with gravity lent
movement. Far from exact studies,
the final compositions were full
of dynamic transformations, though
they maintained the rigorous craftsmanship of her earlier sculptures.
The range of gestures was exhilarating. A ganglion gone wild,
Phyllostachys Nigra (Bamboo) scrambled a full 33 feet across the plaza,
while Cirsium Arvense (California
Thistle) straddled an upper corner.
Reaching downward, its roots created an open-ended oblong that riffed
on the neutral grid of the walls.
Allium Porrum (Leek3 stages of
growth) choreographed a dense
arabesque of variously proportioned
seminal roots all the way to delicate, seemingly fragile root hairs.
Punctuated by bulging pods, the
installation reveled in subtle nuances
of Indian red, sienas, and umbers
and teemed with life through an
infusion of cast shadows, especially
visible at night. Elsewhere,
Asparagus Officinalis (Asparagus4
stages of growth) suggested a rope
ladder anchored at the top of the
wall and dangling mysteriously in
the wind like an unfinished narrative. By contrast, Palmaceae (Palm)
Top: Dalya Luttwak, Poa Pratensis and
Liatris Pycnostachya, 2008. Steel,
installation view. Left: Dalya Luttwak,
installation view of Roots: The Hidden Half in Black and White, 2010.
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TOP: CLAIRE BOULEAU / BOTTOM: GARY FREEBURG
sculpture
Sculpture 29.4
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sculpture
offered a resting spot for leaves

inside the sculptures root ball.
Luttwaks engagement with nature
is distinguished by her works raw
sensuality and enigmatic meaning.
The companion catalogue is dedicated to her parents, who left the former Czechoslovakia for the Middle
East at the start of World War II,
and we can read the works as
a loaded metaphor for exploring
familial roots and seeking new soil.
She recently unveiled another body
of site-responsive work at the Sawhill Gallery in Roots: The Hidden
Half in Black and White. For this
show, she sought to distill the formal essence of her subject; her
emotional reaction to the factorylike site was validated by her experience of the worlds largest aeroponic root laboratory in Tel Aviv.
Luttwaks work offers comfort in
the form of enduring metal and lifesustaining roots. At the same time,
it haunts us with an alternate
visionthat of a post-apocalyptic
prison populated by dead leaves
and roots of metal trees.
Sarah Tanguy
of the exhibition was that of tragic

young love.
I saw our future that day set the
story. This large-scale work re-constructs the front porch of a house,
including the railing, in pink polystyrene. Longsdorf lights it from
behind, like part of a theatrical set.
Your comfort subdues the pain

reveals a similar sensibility. This
oversized rocking chair, again constructed out of building materials
(wall studs, polystyrene, and
expanding foam) has an added
audio component, the artists humming voice. The chair, though built
In Did you mean anything you

said?, a section of a wall made out
of drywall mounted on wooden
studs supports a roll of toilet paper
that unwinds into a paper shredder.
This work wittily comments on a difficult liaison through the banal
devices of toilet paper and shredder.
Further and further apart, which
also has an audio component, consists of a typical student-type sofa,
inexpensive, well worn, and no
doubt handed down from owner to
owner, but Longsdorf divides it in
two with an eight-foot-high studded
wall. Fiction writers are often directed
to write about what they know
best. Longsdorf has also taken this
advice, making autobiographical
art that speaks beyond its specificity
to young viewers who no doubt
empathize with his personal narrative of love lost.
J. Susan Isaacs
N e w Yo r k
John Cleater and Ana Golici

Nicole Fiacco Gallery and The
Elizabeth Foundation
Ron Longsdorf
Mezzanine Gallery, Delaware
Division of the Arts
Ron Longsdorf, I saw our future that day, 2008. Polystyrene, wall studs, floodlights, DMX lighting system, MAX MSP software, and motion sensor, 10 x 10 x 4 ft.
The fact that it consists of raw building materialsthe manufacturers

logo repeats across the surface of
the polystyreneprovides a surreal
quality. This becomes the set for
a play in which the main character
sits on a quaint front porch planning the future with his girlfriend.
The setting is a long-ago, small-town
America that predates Longsdorfs
birth.
for a man-sized child, alludes to the

memory of being rocked to sleep,
a homage to the safety, imagined
or real, of childhood. The rough construction contrasts with the evocative subject, mirroring the contrast
between childhood and adulthood.
The desire to return to the safety
of childhood during a time of
stress supports the tale of love
gone awry.
Serious artist-in-residence programs

are a blessing to adventurous
artists, none more so that those run
by two big international names:
Kohler, the bathroom people, and
Corning, the glassware giant. Both
make their considerable expertise
available, not to mention furnace
and workshop facilities. Kohler has
been doing so for more than
30 years, with a total of 500 artists,
while Corning began its program in
1996 and has hosted 60 artists from
more than a dozen countries.
Though not technically a sculptor,
John Cleater (his many hats include
architect/set designer and multimedia installation/soundscape artist)
is accustomed to working with new
materials like vacuum-formed or
custom-bent glass and forged steel.
When he arrived at Kohler for
his Arts/Industry residency, he was
quick to embrace the smooth sur-
69
Sculpture May 2010
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H u d s o n a n d N e w Yo r k ,
W i l m i n gto n , D e l awa r e
It is surprising that an artist as

young as Ron Longsdorf looks to the
past for inspiration, but the past
was indeed the subject of a recent
exhibition celebrating his fellowship
award from the Delaware Division of
the Arts. Although his subject matter is nostalgic, his materials and
forms are current, providing a contrast between images and content
that is both fascinating and unsettling. His constructed objects range
from a front porch to a sofa, from
a rocking chair to a bathroom wall.
Longsdorf comments in his artist
statement that he is questioning the
methods and actions of domestic
spaces and personal relationships.
However, the unfolding narrative
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Above: John Cleater, The Last Giant Squid Sperm (detail), 2007. Polished,
chrome-plated brass, Kohler drain, and iPod, 10 x 41 x 6 in. Below: Ana Golici,
Flea, 2009. Photo sandblasted glass, 175 pieces, 8.5 x 10 ft.
faces of the companys enameled

iron and chrome-plated brass bathroom productsdespite his lack of
foundry experience. The works that
he produced during his three-month
stay (shown at Nicole Fiacco Gallery)
are impressive.
Romanian-American printmaker
Ana Golici, likewise unfamiliar with
glass processes, spent four intensive
weeks at Corning and produced
a large mural. While Cleater had a
full-time technical assistant, Golici
did not, and she spent a lot of time
experimenting, eventually mastering a complex digital process for

sandblasted glass. Her finished mural
(shown at the Elizabeth Foundation)
consists of 175 seven-by-nine-inch
pieces.
Cleater used a 3D computer-design
program, combined with video projections at differing angles, to morph,
stretch, reconfigure, and transform
Kohlers everyday sinks and baths
into unique forms that he calls
Appendages: I imagined myself
as Duchamp browsing readymades
at his local store, but I wanted
to reveal hidden views of these common products by extracting, twisting, and pulling them until they
were no longer recognizable. Some
became too abstract, so at the end,
I re-introduced a toilet trap or drain
to remind viewers of their origins.
One wonderful piece includes a Web
cam/video of the artists blinking
eye; another features a water-spurting drain.
Large-scale and weighty, the Appendages take the form of stand-alone
sculptures and wall, floor, or ceiling
reliefs. Though reflective, they radiate a solid, shiny monumentality.
Ranging from pristine, sexy silver
to graphite black, celadon to chocolate, vanity pink to elegant gold,
they sport titles like Chocolate Trap
and The Last Giant Squid Sperm.
Some emphasize playful, often ominous, organic pulsations; others are
minimally space age and streamlined. Cleaters artistic philosophy is
all about the magic of perception,
the alchemy of technology, and how
technology can be used to create
illusions of space. Here, his spiritual
and practical sides overlap in works
as beautiful as they are unlikely.
Golicis key image derives from a
composite picture of a flea produced at New Yorks Hall of Science
in Queens on a scanning electron
microscope. It took her almost a year
to photograph the entire flea,
enlarged 750 times. Golicis previous
work was inspired by medieval
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maps; here, the surface of the flea

emerges in topographical fashion.
Golicis subject came from her own
dog, and once she began to record it,
she realized that it was a damaged
specimen, which was not without
appeal. She has also made work documenting the beautiful fluorescent
color mutations that occur in
insects found near Chernobyl:
Nature doesnt distinguish between
health and illness, between normal
and abnormal. Some of the most
splendid-looking cells are cancerous. Her Corning mural offers an
intriguing and suggestive array
of complex frozen activity, with the
fleas antennae, hairs, and legs
forming an almost abstract image.
Areas of high-contrast black and
white can be read in several ways.
One viewer interpreted the work as
depicting a flamboyant religious
leader from the East.
In the current economic climate,
it is vital that residencies like these
continue, and happily this year sees
the inauguration of a joint Corning/
Kohler residency, which will run
every year. Bravo.
Clare Henry
N e w Yo r k
Candice Breitz
Yvon Lambert
Candice Breitzs latest meditation

on gender in the modern media is
deceptively simple: the installation
consists of two rooms where identical steel structures, each with seven
50-inch plasma screens mounted
in three rows, display a series of
edited movie clips. The arrangement
creates a maximal home theater
through minimal means, enveloping
audiences in the aura of film performance.
Breitzs strategygathering, editing, and arranging film scenes into
a narrative montageis a familiar
one, seen so often in documentaries
and in the work of many video
artists that it verges on the clichd.
Also overworked are the two stars,
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sculpture
TOP: PETER NORRMAN
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Sculpture 29.4
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TOP: JENS ZIEHE, BERLIN / BOTTOM: JASON WYCHE, COURTESY SEAN KELLY GALLERY, NY
sculpture
Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson,

who endlessly (and tirelessly) perform their roles (23 by Nicholson
over a period of 40 years and 28
by Streep covering 30 years) in their
separate chambers. This familiarity,
even over-exposure, works to Breitzs
benefit. Drawing on the allure of
the screen, our attraction to the
stars and fascination with their performances (made all the more dramatic by the mirrored effect of the
double-room installation), she sets
up an intriguing dialogue between
the installations, the actors, and
their roles. As these performances
play out within and against each
other on multiple screens in complex rhythms of image and recitation, they create a compelling, everchanging collage of dynamic dissonance and ironic juxtaposition.
Everything other than the leads
dramatizing their rolesother
actors, scenery, plothas been
eliminated or blacked out, stripping
away the narrative context. Costumes, wigs, make-up, and accents
produce an array of characters
(especially for Streep), but Breitzs
careful elision and creative mixing
of clips only heighten the gendered
clichs of these roles while emphasizing the reflexive, participatory
nature of film.
The multiplex screen format allows
viewers to compare, to look for
interpretative nuances, and to see
the artificiality of the performances.
At the same time, the many characters and monitors compete for
attention. It is almost as if Streep
and Nicholson are participating
in some sort of acting smackdown,
with each trying to top the other. The

resultant cacophony of ticks and
psychological mannerisms alludes
not only to the schizophrenic nature
of acting, but also to Hollywoods
ways of linking neurotic behavior
with gender.
By assigning these well-known
actors the generic third-person monikers of Her and Him, Breitz points
out the audiences willing participation in the performance of femininity and masculinity. In these edited presentations, Her is defined in
relation to men, to how she is seen
and how her self-worth is assigned
and performed, most often through
talk that is emotional and filled with
doubt or worry. While she receives
her definition from others, he commands the look with few words.
Him is all about attention and dominance conveyed through an overbearing narcissism that also disguises
neurosis, self-doubt, and insecurity
over sexual performance.
Although the characters and voices
created by these actors are disparate, abundant, and seemingly
complex, through its judicious overlay of images, Breitzs artful joining
of film and celebrity accentuates
the artifice of interpretive performance and how it interacts with
and reinforces the gendered stereotypes of mainstream cinema. The
battle between the sexes has been
going on for a long time, but in
Candice Breitzs witty Him and Her,
each soldiers on in his or her separate sphere, as a self-reflective
dtente settles in.
Susan Canning
N e w Yo r k
Left and above: Candice Breitz, Him
Wolfgang Laib
Sean Kelly
and Her, 19682008. 2 7-channel
Wolfgang Laibs installations are

known for their presence and fleeting sense of time. The environmental-scale works in his recent exhibition, The Frieze of Life, continue to
speak to the recognition of mortality,
which he acknowledges through art
that aspires to the status of spiritual
offering. The show demonstrated
Laibs brilliant, uncanny symbolism
in a grouping of three works: a
pollen installation (his first in New
York in 23 years), a small arrangement of brass cones and rice, and
a piece involving clay pots filled with
ash. Together, they subtly constructed a cycle of human lifebirth,
duration, and death.
The long effort required to create
his pollen installations (in this case,
it took several years to gather the
hazelnut pollen near his studio in
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Below: Wolfgang Laib, Pollen from
installations, 28 min., 49 sec. each.

Hazelnut, 2002. 5 jars of hazelnut
pollen, installation view.
Germany) gives them a spiritual

aura that is neither culturally nor
doctrinally specific. Laibs unusual
gift for environments that linger
in the viewers thoughts represents
both a meeting with and a transcendence of human time. Interestingly, these saffron-colored
pollen installations look very much
like floating color-field paintings,
and the hazelnut pollen seems
close to lifting off the floor. Here,
Laibs field suggested both transience and evanescencequalities
affecting our awareness that as
soon as existence begins, it is also
moving toward an endpoint.
Mortality makes itself present in
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Sculpture May 2010
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everyones conscious mind, but Laib

staves off, if only for a moment,
the acuity of such a realization with
environments linked equally to art
and nature. As viewers, we know
that the pollen has been painstakingly gathered, and this knowledge
gives depth to our consciousness,
implying that hard work is one
way of realizing meaning in a limited
time. Laib never preacheshe is
too subtle to judgeyet the implications of his work intimate a familiarity with spiritual life. With his
pollen fields, he builds a bridge of
conviction by opening a space that
serves as a beginning or birth,
much as the grid does in contemporary art.
Rice Meals (1988) consists of 12
brass cones, randomly arranged with
rice spilling out from under them.
These cones appear to reference life
as an ongoing process, in which
food is, of course, a necessity. Drawing on his interest in Indian mysticism, Laib constructs a kind of offering that links our need for sustenance with the insight that nutriment is itself a gift, something that
maintains living. Here, the symbolism, which is not particularly
oblique, presents an essentially
positive view of existence.
In the third piece, Frieze of Life
(2009), we meet our demise in the
form of 400 clay pots filled with
ash gathered from temples in India.
Supported by high shelves, the contents can just be seen rising above
the lips of the vessels. The place-
ment of the pots clearly references

a frieze, which also makes it clear
that art is the mediating vehicle in
this deeply affecting, artfully constructed demonstration of lifes end.
Laib is a poet who works with
objects, relying on hisand our
intelligence to make sense of
impressive truths.
Jonathan Goodman
N e w Yo r k
Mika Tajima
X Initiative
In the wings of a serpentine cul-desac, objects lie pell-mell. Art reconfigured as theater, Mika Tajimas
installation The Extras ushers us
backstage. From handcrafted frames
on flat-footed rolling stands to
unfurled backdrops and sandwich
boards, the pieces look contingent,
as if ready to be reshuffled for the
next scene. With static artwork
recast as fluid production, normally
unseen mechanisms of the painting

processstorage racks, photography
rig, lights, and ladderare incorporated into this 7,500-square-foot
installation. From here, Tajima cuts
loose normally petrified art surfaces. Pristine Modernist planes are
slashed and skewed, spawning compositions infused with space.
Miminalist stripes and bars turn tangible; verticals and diagonals repartee. In fact, soaring bands rain in,
out, and across slatted and rotating
frameworks, morphing Minimalist
austerity into keyed-up Baroque
flux.
In Viewing From a Wall (1 & 2),
Tajima further puns on conceptions
of surface and depth, springing liberally between illusory/art and literal/
extant space, raw material/polished
finish, patterns in industry/motifs
in art, and process/end product.
From solarized photos of buildings
to caution-sign-like squares, yellow
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Above: Wolfgang Laib, Frieze of Life,

2009. 400 clay pots, ashes, and
wooden shelves, installation view.
Below: Mika Tajima, The Extras, 2009.
Mixed media, installation view.
Plexiglas panes, and actual structural barswindows go from reproduced simulacra to design, to real
transparency, and ultimately, to
open air.
Pairs and trios of works appear
uncannily to titter tte--tte,
almost as though they were at a
VIP-opening-night party with an
eye on the crowd. Indeed, like those
other materialists Jessica Stockholder and Phoebe Washburn,
though not without conceptual
cogs, Tajima allows the language
of texture and form to insinuate
meaning and humor.
The heart of The Extras lies in the
arid, dystopic video, Dead By Third
Act, a post-manufacturing-scape of
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TOP: JASON WYCHE, COURTESY SEAN KELLY GALLERY, NY / BOTTOM: TOM POWEL, COURTESY X INITIATIVE
sculpture
Sculpture 29.4
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sculpture
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seemingly ceaseless stretches of

concrete and scrap tires. The grainy
pans of deserted, detritus-strewn
construction sites and factories
drone on in low-level Street-Metal
angst. The climax, however, with
Tajima and another woman smashing a has-been Fiat like acid rockers,
adds a cocktail of mixed emotion.
Beyond the ecstatic blitz of letting
raw feelings ripoften denied
in analytic Postmodernismthere
hovers ambivalence. One is reminded of the chorus of sledge hammers
thundering down on ancestral
dwellings in 13 cities, 140 towns,
and 1,350 villages in Jia Zhangkes
film Still Life. The penultimate scene
of Emir Kusturicas film Arizona
Dream also comes to mind. Beyond
resignation, both directors share
with Tajima a relishing of ostensibly
inconsequential extras. Frail
schemes, pipe dreams, and creative
processes are not the luxury condos, celebrity artists, and milliondollar paintings revered by influential collectors, but dalliances, significant in that they keep us interested.
Gae Savannah
resembling frozen effigies or Tantric

Buddhist guardian figures, their
painstaking construction recalls the
frustrated labors of 19th-century
samurai swordsmiths who had to
turn their virtuoso skills to intricate
re-creations of metal animals,
insects, and fish when swords were
banned at the Meiji court.
Toyonagas craft and studio processes have been overlooked by his
New York critics, but these construction aspects indicate deep potential
tions may be perceptive, or they

may tell us more about those who
made them. Toyonaga moved to
New York to get closer to Western
art, especially that of Philip Guston
whose works he encountered in the
late 1980s. Inspired by Gustons reconciliation of abstraction and figuration, and his refusal to choose
one camp over the other, Toyonaga
imagined an art that could address
both nature and industry, abstraction and representation.
bronze and aluminum works, along

with some sculptures made of papiermch with blood-red resin
berries inside, sacrifice a certain
amount of the life-likeness in the
more breathable ceramic works. In
return, Toyonaga gains a new monumentality for small- to mediumsized pedestal sculpture. More
gleaming than glowing now, his sea
creatures have been capturedor
eulogizedin bronze.
Matthew Kangas
Ryo Toyonaga, Untitled, 2005. Cast bronze, beeswax, resin, pigment, and patinas, 11 x 40 x 13 in.
N e w Yo r k
HENDRIK SMILDIGER, COURTESY CHARLES COWLES GALLERY, NY
Ryo Toyonaga
Charles Cowles Gallery
In the sculptures of Japanese-born

Ryo Toyonaga, perforations of all
types create an astonishing array
of patterns and textures on biomorphic forms. Having arisen
from some sludgy, primordial silt, his
amphibian-like organisms demand
our attention with their cyclopean
eyes. Since Toyonaga claims few
explicit intentions of meaning, viewers are free to assemble their own
interpretations. Although the individual sculptures are all untitled,
each displays its own unique features while remaining related to
the same family of underwater
organisms. Their life-like qualities
become more rigid in bronze,
which he began using in 2005. Now
meanings: the worthwhile passage

of time in solitude, in a studio,
creating a parallel, imaginary, handmade world. David Smith did this
at his studio in Bolton Landing, and
so did Alexander Calder, not that
far away from Toyonagas studio in
Garrison.
Toyonagas references to the
unfathomable subconscious mind
aside, Japanese critics living in New
York have stressed his exploitation
of the disconnect between nature
and industry, so prevalent in Japan,
and have also raised popular
culture as a possible inspiration.
Anime, manga, and low-budget
Japanese science-fiction films are
invoked in an attempt to slide
Toyonaga closer to artists like
Takashi Murakami. These observa-
West Coast funk art is another

influence; Toyonagas body parts,
animal innards, and mechanical
fragments resemble those of Robert
Arneson. After a while, one has to
look away from a Toyonaga sculpture, so gripping and magnetic
are the solitary orifice-eyes, like the
hypnotic orb of a baby octopus or
squid. Patiently coil-built, whether
finished in hand-built clay or cast in
bronze or aluminum, each sculpture
has an unmistakable glow of lifelike presence.
Toyonagas background in psychology may have driven the development of his mysterious carved stoneware sculptures. The shift to metals
evidenced a growing fatigue with
ceramics; as he put it, one fights
with gravity too much in clay. The
Pit tsburgh
Maria Grazia Rosin

Carnegie Museum of Art
Venetian artist Maria Grazia Rosin

creates glass sculptures that fuse
color, radiant light, enigmatic symbolism, and allusion into fantastical
biological kingdoms. With a
Surrealist sensibility, she expresses
the workings of the unconscious
mind.
Rosin approaches fabrication as a
post-studio artist who believes in
the power of collaboration. Initially
trained as a painter, she has used
glass as her primary medium since
1992. She makes rough, to-scale
sketches, which she then gives to
a glass maestro to fabricate. The
sculptural proportions and color
combinations come together during
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Providence, Rhode Island
Arnie Zimmerman and Tiago

Montepegado
Rhode Island School of Design
Museum of Art
pegado, Inner City, 2010. Ceramic,

installation view.
(Black Water Hole, 2007), presented

a digital animation of what
appeared to be a swirling black hole,
and a sound installation by Visnadi
and Camomatic generated an
immersive audio environment that
Rosin describes as a seductive,
sensory machine.
Colorful light forms an essential
part of Rosins work, as evidenced
by the archetypal Venetian chandelier-forms. By means of complicated LEDs and dangling fiber-optic
lighting, Rosin transforms conventional chandeliers into enchanting
organic shapes that incorporate
the worlds of art, design, and science. Her multi-hued, tentacled
creatures are gracefully seductive,
beckoning viewers to move closer
in order to inspect the details,
which radiate striking spectrums
of glowing red, green blue, and
purple light.
This ambiguous and compellingly
immersive show traversed disciplines, as well as perceived barriers
between the ornamental and the
sculptural. Taken as individual compositions and as a collective environment, Rosins installation was
triumphantly absorbing.
Elaine A. King
Inner City, which filled the largest

gallery of RISDs museum, is a collaboration between New York-based
ceramic sculptor Arnie Zimmerman
and Lisbon-based architect Tiago
Montepegado. An astonishing sprawl
of buildings and male figures fashioned entirely in clay, it is also a
playground that invites viewers negotiating the twists and turns of its
cityscape to reflect on the history of
the world. Here, almost every type
of human situation imaginable
think Balzacs La Comdie Humaine
or the densely populated paintings
of Pieter Bruegel and Hieronymus
Boschis visible: mankind at work,
at play, dreaming, drinking, fighting,
and marching off to war, in short,
going about lifes daily business.
The installation, celebrating its
third and most comprehensive edition to date, had its initial outing at
the 2007 Lisbon Architecture Triennial
at the Museu da Electricidade. At
this showing, Montepegado and
Zimmerman, who first collaborated
on a figure-only project in 2005,
decided to add monumental industrial forms. Using cement blocks,
they created a walled-in city consisting of dramatically lit plinths, which
served to illuminate the behavior of
each sculpted character. The following year, at the Keramiekmuseum
Princessehof, Leeuwarden, the
74
sculpture
installation views of Gelatine Lux

Arnie Zimmerman and Tiago Monte-
Viewers first encountered a magnificent floating glass curtain of

linked transparent hooks titled Ganxi
(hooks, 2006), blown by Massimo
Lunardon but designed and assembled by Rosin. This glistening
expanse functioned as a transitional
portal from the real world into a
mysterious, enveloping, and disorienting realm where Rosins aquatic
creations transported one into an
eccentric terrain. In the darkened
gallery, 20 luminous, suspended
sculptures resembling exotic jellyfish, octopi, and squid floated in
space. A continuous video projection by Andrew Quinn, Buca dAcqua
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Left and detal: Maria Grazia Rosin,

(Gelatinous Light), 2009. Below:
the blowing process. She also makes

detailed blueprints to assist metal
fabricators and lighting engineers
as they bring her complex chandeliers to fruition.
Her recent, otherworldly installation in Pittsburgh was part of the
Gelatine Lux (Gelatinous Light)
series that she has been working
on since 2003. Similar to a larger
installation created in 2007 for
the Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, which
contained 40 hanging, chandelierlike sculptures, this particular installment in the series was determined
by the dimensions of the Carnegie
Museums Forum Gallery.
LEFT: TOM LITTLE / RIGHT: ERIK GOULD, COURTESY MUSEUM OF ART, RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN, PROVIDENCE
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Left: Arnie Zimmerman and Tiago

Montepegado, Inner City (detail),
2010. Below left: Debra Baxter, Love
Makes Me Dumb (Snowed), 2009.
Indian okenite geode and cast stainless steel, 6 x 5 x 5 in. Below: Debra
Baxter, installation view of So
TOP: ERIK GOULD, COURTESY MUSEUM OF ART, RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN, PROVIDENCE / BOTTOM LEFT: RICHARD NICHOL, COURTESY HOWARD HOUSE, SEATTLE / BOTTOM RIGHT: WILL AUSTIN, COURTESY HOWARD HOUSE, SEATTLE
Proud of You, 2009.
Netherlands, they again played city

planners, adding construction scaffolding, walkways, and a street-like
grid to indicate a living city in the
throes of rampant growth.
Before turning primarily to figure
modeling, Zimmerman, a mid-career
artist with an MFA from the New York
State College of Ceramics at Alfred
University, was drawn to large pots
and container forms. During his
early college years, he spent his
summers carving monumental
blocks of limestone in the south of
France. In graduate school, he
began to build large, thick-walled
hollow forms. When the clay
became leather hard, he carved the
surface to give it the appearance of
worked stone. In 1996, putting the
large totemic vessels that first
brought him to public awareness
on the back burner, Zimmerman,
whose Brooklyn studio boasts its
own kiln, switched his attention
to modeling the human figure.
At RISD, Inner City lifted itself from
its humble beginnings into the
realm of extraordinary narrative
extravaganza. With some 200 handcrafted clay sculptures, situated on
pedestals of varying heightsa
virtual army of buildings, chimneys,
industrial pipes, I-beams, ladders,
and stairs, as well as downtrodden
working-class men, single and
groupedthe scenario brings to
mind the urban dystopia of Fritz
Langs Metropolis. Everywhere, men
are seen arguing or fighting, if not

working. Most cart heavy loads like
industrial tools and, in some cases,
weapons of war. A number of figures meld with their burdens, while
others have jugs or tubes for heads.
With the addition of a large ominous black bridge and an elevated
viewing platform that overlooks the
panoramic installation (the latter
a surprise coda), Zimmerman lays
claim to this domain. As for those
of us who travel through this rich

installation, we are left contemplating the fate of the world.
Edward Rubin
S e at t l e
Debra Baxter
Howard House
Extensions of original Surrealist

objects by artists like Man Ray and
Louise Bourgeois, not to mention
Marcel Duchamp, Debra Baxters
sculptures make up for their clearly

derived sources with a high level of
craftsmanship and finish. Far from
rough or found, their intimate scale
reinforces a sense of hushed secrecy
and ambiguity.
Many of the 20 sculptures in her
recent show build on resemblances
to body parts with an erotic tinge.
Thus, Palate Cleanse (2009) carves
alabaster into a full phallus pierced
by a steel ice hook. Brass Knuckle
(2007) and Tongue Prop (2009) harden the oral organ into cast bronze
and aluminum. Us (2009) presents
two blown-glass blobs dusted with
crushed alabaster and capped with
sterling silver stoppers; they suggest breasts. A clear glass, sandfilled pairing, Time Out (2009),
suggests an hourglass placed on its
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Left: Jannick Deslauriers, Growing

there, going where?, 2009. Thread
and fabric, 10 ft. high. Bottom left:
Jannick Deslauriers, Relique II, 2009.
Embroidered fabric and Plexiglas, 8
x 8 x 20 in.
side but again is redolent of mammaries.

With such firm materials somehow
in need of carving and manhandling,
Baxter runs the risk of her materiality
overwhelming her concepts, yet this
is precisely what rescues her work
from the status of tiresomely familiar conceptual objects. Suck It Up
(2008) and CO2 Bag (2009) offer two
more examples of hard parading as
soft. Alabaster and quartz crystals
in the former are so weighty as
to evade ethereal implications. The
flimsy paper bag in the latter is
drenched in silver paint.
Baxter displayed these objects randomly on a long custom-built steel
table. This decision to play off stilllife references set the right tone for
the diminutive sculptures. Rejecting
monumentality and mass, Baxter is
reinvigorating small-scale sculpture
without sacrificing disruptive, unexpected levels of meaning. Rigidly
subjective and enigmatic in character despite their family resemblances
to works by other artists, the elements in this tabletop landscape had
a collective impact, though each
sculpture retained its autonomy.
Baxters is a sly and humorous vision.
Matthew Kangas
Montreal
Jannick Deslauriers
Galerie SAS
Pavots (200809), by the young

Montreal-based artist Jannick
Deslauriers, surrounds viewers with
a garden of flowers. Some are pale,
while others are a vivid red; still
others form opium-like pods in green
and gray. Some gather in dense
clusters; others stand alone. The
effect is strange and otherworldly
artificial elements look as though
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they have been drawn from nature.

Though the play on and with natural
and artificial is nothing new, the
sensitive, handmade aspect of Deslaurierss sculptures in her recent
show, is striking. These works flaunt
the flawed character of craftwork,
because perfection is not Deslaurierss aim.
Growing there, going where?
(2009), another installation, features
expansive sculptural outgrowths that
resemble an inverted network of
roots. These hand-sewn forms in
black, silver, and white occupy space
eloquently. Some of them are
attached to other forms, while others
are sewn into soft, textural, relief-like
wall graphics. A few of the root tendrils have human hands attached
to their ends. Is this a comment on
genetic manipulation of nature, or
on notions of purity and the untouchability of our post-Cartesian worldview? Deslauriers says, What these
hands previously sought to attain
above, they now seek below, reaching for the fragments of what hope
remains. Her statement explains
the basic fragility, vulnerability, and
almost psychotropic nature of her
work. Deslaurierss sense of humor
about the purity of art and nature as
concepts shines through her craft.
Lethe (2009), a finely stitched and
assembled wall piece, resembles a
three-dimensional line drawing. The
threads follow a line or hang and
trail off into the air, and the piece
plays on layered levels of cloth, each
with details and sewn imagery. The
imagery depicts men and women in
varying states of repose. Most interesting of all are the tiny assemblages
Relique I, II, and III. Set into Plexiglas
boxes, these precious mini-sculptures
of bombs (they look like they were
worked from an engineers drawings)
are themselves fragile, made of tissue and thread. It is this frailty, this
human aspect, that makes these
study-like sculptures universal and
accessible.
John K. Grande
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BOB SKINNER
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Above and below: Reece Terris,

Ought Apartment, 2009. Mixed
media, 2 views of installation.
Va n co u v e r
Reece Terris
Vancouver Art Gallery
How is a celebration of the banal

differentiated from a critique of the
banal? Reece Terriss Ought Apartment poses this question. The Vancouver-based sculptors life-sized
apartments raised on steel scaffolding represent six decades, from the
1950s to the 2000s. In Vancouver,
the apartments ascended in chronological order beneath the museums
rotunda; the 1950s segment was
only feet away from the exhibition
Vermeer, Rembrandt, and the
Golden Age of Dutch Art, one of the
most incongruous juxtapositions in
museum history.
Each apartment leaves spaces
exposed so that one can peer inside
or, in some cases, walk through. The

dcor and accessories from the 1950s
are painfully clichd: a turquoise sofa
and chair in the living room, a pink
kitchen where the shiny mixer and
toaster gleam with the spirit of 20thcentury progress. There are requisite
displays of cocktail glasses, a tacky
Don Quixote plaque on the wall, and
various other tchotchkes. Each object
or color has been selected for its ordinariness. The imaginary inhabitants
have chosen what they ought to
own; Terris mocks our sense of being
individual or original.
The order of the ought apartments mimics the aspirational nature
of modern society; the gallerys
grand double staircase led one up to
the 1960s with its riot of shag carpeting. Terris used authentic appliances,
furniture, and cabinetry, often from

properties that were going to be
demolished.
Like a dollhouse for grown-ups,
Ought Apartment invites viewers to
investigate its interiors. The 1980s
apartment includes a huge, neglected aquarium with algae-colored
water and a large Jacuzzi. Visitors sit
in gray leather furniture and open
and shut the refrigerator in the
kitchen as though they might discover something marvelous. While viewers in the Dutch show observed a
reverent hush, in the apartments,
people poked and pried, all experts
on North American consumerism.
In Ought Apartment, the representations of daily life show no special
craftsmanship, no connoisseurship
a marked contrast to Delft tiles and
intricate silver. One woman, looking

at a black refrigerator, remarked
apologetically, We still have one.
She added, We live in a very old
placeold meaning a decade or
two, not centuries-old like the masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum.
Critiques of consumerism and bourgeois mediocrity have been around
since Marx. The intriguing thing
about Ought Apartment is not its critique of banal consumerism but
how it puts some viewers at ease
delighted to discover something
familiar in a serious institution. The
installation swings between criticism
and nostos or homecoming, the irony
being that these homes are simulacra.
Laura Albritton
Leeds
Keith Arnatt
Henry Moore Institute: Leeds City
Art Gallery
Keith Arnatt created sculptures with

an intense interest in dematerializing the object. In Invisible hole
revealed, he destabilizes the interpretation of reality. In Mirror plug, he
plays on the perceptual gestalt that
infuses objectness into a rectangular
box even when it is only the gesture
of an object. This exhibition presented Arnatts site-specific installations
in the moorlands of the U.K. through
a series of documentary photographs.
Because the works were created in
the moors, which are full of dips and
holes, their sitings are very physical,
with a visceral sensibility.
Invisible hole revealed is quite a
curious intervention in the landscapea precisely excavated rectangular hole, with rectangular mirrors
that fit the sides exactly. Grass grows
at the bottom of the hole just as it
does in the surrounding landscape.
This tangible intervention quickly
becomes invisible because the mirrors reflect the grassy areas, obscur-
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Above: Keith Arnatt, photo documentation of work in Todmorden Moors, c. 196569. Below left: Keith Arnatt,
Invisible hole revealed, 1968. Photo documentation of site-specific work. Below right: Keith Arnatt, Mirror plug,
1968. Photo documentation of site-specific work.
ing the holean effect that paradoxically reveals aspects of the environment while simultaneously concealing them. Via the mirrors, the environment becomes part of the artwork, an integral part of an object,
as the sculpture takes on the rich
mantle of the landscape. Mirror plug
creates a similar hole in the ground.
Beside the hole is a box of the exact
same size, sheathed in mirrors. These
mirrored constructions achieve
provocative illusions because they

are not abstractions of the imagination but engineered forms superimposed on the natural landscape. They
create a profound dichotomy
between the built environment and
the irregularity of nature. Arnatt
made forms with straight lines and
right angles but always shrouded
them in a coat of grassnot paint,
metal, or wood. Created with earth,
dirt, and grass, these installations
hide behind synthetic reflections of

dirt and grass.
Arnatt lived on a farm in Todmorden Moors, a location that influenced
his notion of site-specific sculpture.
His surroundings injected meaning
into his sculptures as he investigated
the relationship between an object
and its context. He once said that a
specific place often suggested a
way in which an aspect of that place
could be revealed.
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Between 1965 and 1967, Arnatt

created a series of sculptures that
engaged color and landscape. Some
of these installations were timebased works referencing the processes of nature throughout the year. He
used chicken wire as a canvas, covering it with intense color. These
paintings were then spread out
over the moor, undulating like a field
of wild flowers; the intensity of the
color, however, pushed them beyond
reality. Another project involved
painting numerous rocks with intense
colors and spreading them around
the meadow as attention-drawing
beacons. In the winter, they were
gathered up into a pile. When
it snowed, this additional element
changed the form, creating a new
sculpture in the process; as the snow
melted, the pile of brightly colored
rocks re-emerged. This experience
may have inspired Arnatts later conceptual approach to concealing and
revealing his sculpture through the
incorporation of mirrors in the landscape.
Joan Truckenbrod
London
Radical Nature: Art and

Architecture for a Changing
Planet
Barbican Arts Complex
Should the priorities of a messageled exhibition trump internal conceptual consistency? This was the question that I came away with after visiting Radical Nature. With an
emphatic tilt toward installation and
other conceptual media over the last
40 years, it embraced a beguiling
diversity of philosophies and perspectives. Given such an exploratory
agenda, there was a certain hostageto-fortune element in using the word
radical for this well-funded and
wide-ranging show. Installed in the
Barbicans Brutalist complex deep
inside Londons financial district, the
exhibition re-awakened environmental arts radical critique of gallery limitations: What might the ghosts of
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COURTESY HENRY MOORE INSTITUTE
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Above: Newton Harrison and Helen

Mayer Harrison, Full Farm, 1972.
Mixed media, installation view. Right:
(left) Toms Saraceno, 3 x 12MW,
2007, and (right) Simon Starling,
Island for Weeds, 2003. All works
COURTESY BARBICAN ARTS COMPLEX
from Radical Nature.
Joseph Beuys and Robert Smithson

make of this celebration of a onceradical art practice returned all too
completely to the gallery?
This was essentially a contemporary show, pushing anti-Romantic,
realist, and quasi-activist agendas.
Mark Dions Mobile Wilderness
UnitWolf, with a taxidermy wolf
sitting on a steel trailer and looking
each new visitor straight between
the eyes, announced the dominant
themesthe nature/culture divide
and the anthropomorphic question of
the nature of nature. If the wolf represents the untamed wild in us all,
reminding the viewer, in John Bergers piquant phrasing, of how the
closer we look into the animal world
the further it retreats from us, then
the majority of the works here looked
to the vegetable rather than the animal kingdom to navigate their relations with human nature. Naturederived technological reverie defined
another popular approach: a Fulleresque wooden geodesic dome was
installed just feet away from Toms
Saracenos 3 x 12MW, inflated spherical balloons hung on and anchored
by ropes, each speaking to natures
geometrical and mathematical won-
der without giving further information about their sources of inspiration. Simon Starlings Island for
Weeds relayed a developed disenchantment, mixing human and ecological colonialism, migration, and
displaced nature in the form of that
charismatic weed, the rhododendron,
growing on the mechanical, self-regulating underbelly of a motor

launchs plastic tubingthe composition carefully conspiring to remind
us of the tableaus glaring artificiality.
Works drawn from an older generation told a different story. Newton
Harrison and Helen Mayer Harrisons
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Full Farm drew viewers back to the

dependence of human health on the
health of the environment. There is
a survivalist streak to Full Farm, an
indoor allotment consisting of four
pairs of containers growing various
vegetables. Our dependence on
the natural world for food was also
implicit in the photographic and
video archives of Agnes Deness Wheat
FieldA Confrontation in which a
wheat field and New Yorks monster
skyline face off against each other.
With a net so widely cast, Radical
Nature included many artists
who would otherwise not have been
brought to public attention. The
dynamic between the older pioneering idealist and the younger studiedly disengaged generations turned
Radical Nature into a register of
retreat. Despite the realist/activist
refrain, its sheer range aligned it
with todays neutrality. But, in a fundamentally conformist era, if the
exhibition inspired or even turned visitors heads toward the space offered
up by radicalism, then it will have
done its job. And, as documentation
of a space and time, it was likely as
good as we are going to get.
Oliver Lowenstein
Ivan and Heather Morison, I am so sorry. Goodbye, 2008. Scots pine, larch, and
sweet chestnut, exterior and interior views. From Radical Nature.
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Book Review
Kenneth Snelson: Forces

Made Visible by Eleanor
Heartney.
New York: Hudson Hills Press,
2009. Hardcover; 193 pp. $75.
ISBN: 978-1555952433
Anyone who thinks that Modernism

is finished needs to look at Kenneth
Snelsons work. Spanning more
than five decades, his career reminds
us that individuals of unusual
integrity are still working within the
tradition of modernity. Featured in
a mini-retrospective at Marlborough
Chelsea last year, Snelsons sculpture, from 1948 to the present, is
also the subject of a comprehensive
monograph.
Born in 1927, Snelson served in the
Navy in World War II, turning to art
at Black Mountain College, where
he worked with Josef Albers and met
with Buckminster Fuller. Snelson
relies on tensegrity, an architectural
term described in the dictionary as
denoting a stable three-dimensional
structure consisting of members
under tension that are contiguous
and members under compression
that are not. His use of this principle
translates into stunning structures
whose stainless steel poles are held
together by wire, so that the tension
from the taut wire maintains itself

in sculptures that range from early
small works to the ambitious, much
larger efforts for which he is best
known (Snelson began working large
in 1960). Many of his forms seem to
hover or fly across the ground, practically poised in mid-air; the transparent support becomes remarkably
visual and beautiful in its own
rightwe see both the structure
and its reinforcing elements.
Indeed, the pleasure of Marlborough Chelseas small show, which
coincided with the books release,
stemmed from the viewers ability
to navigate these support systems.
While the results are very complex,
the methods used to realize the work
are very simple. Like his colleague,
kinetic sculptor George Rickey, whose
moving works depend on a delicate
balance, Snelson achieves originality
through a primary insight into how
his structures are built. Because
of tensegrity, the sculptures can be
made to stand and move upward, as
if they were about to take flight from
the ground. One work from 1950,
Bead Chain X-Column, shows a towerlike arrangement just under three
feet high. Here, the materials maintaining the steel poles are strings of
beads, which adds a tactile dimension to the line element.
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Top: VX, 1968. Above: Stereo Lithography Atom, 2007.
Forces Made Visible, a richly illustrated coffee-table volume, offers a

full portrait of Snelsons artistic and
intellectual development, as well as
his working process, featuring photo
essays, a foreword by the artist, and
an essay by Eleanor Heartney that
puts his achievements into the larger
context of modern sculpture. Some
of the most interesting sections
touch on Snelsons ongoing dialogue
with physicists and mathematicians
as he explores the structure of the
atom and the problems of quantum
mechanics. For readers interested in
the sensitive engineering behind the

finished outdoor works, Snelson provides a fascinating illustrated commentary on the installation of one
of his sculptures in Berlin.
Again and again, Snelson is able to
translate a basic idea into an art of
fine achievement, by calling attention to the means by which the work
is transparently sustained. One can
only wonder at his capacity for creating various works bearing the same
system of stability, which by itself
offers remarkable visual pleasure.
Jonathan Goodman
Vol. 29, No. 4 2010. 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 <isc@sculpture.org>.
_______ 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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From the Chairman

ISC Board of Directors

Struggling For Centimeters: A Conversation with Christiane Lhr by Paula Llull

20 Chianti Sculpture Park by Laura Tansini

Yoshihiro Suda: Carving Out a Distinctive Place by Janet Koplos

Joana Vasconcelos: From Cutlery to Corao by Regina Frank

Kathy Bruce: Ritual Renewal by Ellen Pearlman

Washington, DC: Louise Bourgeois

Roberley Bell: Inside Out by Ivy Cooper

Washington, DC and Harrisonburg,

Federica Marangonis Luminous Signs by Viana Conti

Virginia: Dalya Luttwak

Wilmington, Delaware: Ron Longsdorf

Hudson and New York, New York: John

New York: Candice Breitz

New York: Wolfgang Laib

New York: Mika Tajima

New York: Ryo Toyonaga

Pittsburgh: Maria Grazia Rosin

Providence, Rhode Island: Arnie Zimmerman

Seattle: Debra Baxter

Montreal: Jannick Deslauriers

and Tiago Montepegado

Vancouver: Reece Terris

Leeds: Keith Arnatt

London: Radical Nature

Book Review: Kenneth Snelson: Forces Made

Sculpture May 2010

Address all editorial correspondence to:

Each issue of Sculpture is indexed in The Art Index and

Major Donors ($50,000+)

Chairmans Circle ($10,00049,999)

Kanter Family Foundation

Directors Circle ($5,0009,999)

The James J. and Joan A.

Melody Sawyer Richardson

About the ISC

This program is made possible in

This issue is supported

Patrons Circle ($2,5004,999)

Agnes Gund & Daniel Shapiro Museum of Glass

Friends Circle ($1,0002,499)

Professional Circle ($350999)

John & Deborah Lahey

GarriguesShohini GhoshJames S. GibsonJohn GillGordon Huether

NeubertJohn NicolaiEleanor NickelJames NickelBrenda NoelDonald

Sculpture May 2010

of will and longing that sustains life

inorganic materials and powered by

and sociological implications) by

Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art

Henry Moore Institute

abstract, or caricature form. The

Left: The Montastruc mammoth, from

equivalent resonances in water, ice,

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Sculpture May 2010

Carthusian monastery of Champmol, was equally innovative: the 56