Rune Olsen’s beautifully composed, often shocking, masking tape-covered sculptures are some of the most visually seductive and physically intriguing figurative works being produced today. His three-dimensional tableaux, representing man and beast in various positions of sexual dominance and compliance, interweave personal narrative with mind-expanding revelations about natural science.
Robert Arneson in the ’60s
The early sculpture of Robert Arneson was the very essence of Funk, a term disdained by most of the artists. But the maker of these irreverent, sarcastic ceramics was indeed the King of Funk. Funk has been compared to Dada, but Dada assaulted traditional art by attacking hypocritical bourgeois values, whereas Funk was not engaged
Making Everything: A Conversation with Ai Weiwei
In 2007, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei brought 1,001 of his compatriots to Documenta for a city-wide performance called Fairytale, and Template, a 39-foot-tall structure made of doors and windows salvaged from houses destroyed during China’s recent building boom, was a highlight of Skulptur Projekte Münster – despite its collapse in a violent storm at the
Carlo Borer: Peculiar Geometries
Carlo Borer’s recent steel sculptures stand in the landscape, or in exhibition spaces, like messengers from another reality. Their strangeness is not overbearing, but the longer you look at them the more you surmise that their forms stubbornly deny comparison.
John Grade: Lived History in Sculpture
Northwest artist John Grade first made a name for himself with small, finely executed drawings and mid-size sculptures that subtly evoked the aesthetics and workings of organic matter. His current sculptural work and large-scale installations tend to reference phenomena from different geographical locations and point to a continued interest in the natural world.
Lynda Benglis: Material Personae
Lynda Benglis’s recent sculptures consistently direct the viewer to their material qualities. However, it is the narratives that develop in relation to the materials and shapes that are stressed in her works. As one moves from their commanding physical power to the richness of their metaphoric and emotional associations, their playful intelligence becomes more evident.
Tom Joyce: The Iron Iceberg
When the Twin Towers fell, Tom Joyce was in New York for an exhibition of his work at the Museum of Arts and Design. Several months later, a friend sent him a vial of ash from the site.
Miami: Sculpture in the Pleasure Dome
In December, as crowds pour into town for Art Basel/Miami Beach, Miami will once again become the darling of the international art set. Art Basel puts Miami in a brilliant spotlight, but there are other major players contributing to the city’s reputation.
Beverly Pepper: Primal Potential
Majestic, monumental, yet scarcely 10 inches high, Beverly Pepper’s “Explorations in Stone” may be uncharacteristically small works, but they have her signature robust stature, conveying a primitive energy and raw power. Photographed without scale markers, these marble, granite, alabaster, and onyx sculptures could be six or 60 feet high—and as Pepper is famous for her
Alwar Balasubramaniam: Uncharted Territories
Seeing is believing. In Alwar Balasubramaniam’s case, seeing and believing are two separate acts, depending on your discernment and perception. His prints, paintings, and sculptures, with their constant plays on the visible and invisible, illusion and certainty, challenge notions of the real and the unreal.
