Susan York and I began our day at Dia:Beacon last fall with a guided tour of Michael Heizer’s sunken sculptures. She examined the way the pieces were set into the floor and questioned the guides about how they were installed.
Oliver Jackson: The Order of Making
As a sculptor, Oliver Jackson is almost free of what we typically call “style.” His work frustrates attempts to establish an overall order based on appearance alone. In many instances, his production begins from a specific mode of resistance, and as these change, so does the work.
Thomas Schütte: Model Figures
Model for a Hotel, recently installed in London’s Trafalgar Square, and a major exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds have generated significant interest in Thomas Schütte, one of Germany’s pre-eminent artists. Meeting him after the official launch of Model for a Hotel, I found him exhausted by his four-year commitment to the project, clearly finding
Balancing Families in Stone: A Conversation with Boaz Vaadia
A sculptor who grew up on a farm, Boaz Vaadia is inspired by the nature around him. Vaadia says, “I work with nature as an equal partner. The strongest thing I address is that primal connection of man to earth.
Contemporary Still Life: A Conversation with Ricky Swallow
There’s nothing expedient about Ricky Swallow’s work. For his wood carvings, he uses Japanese tools that require continual sharpening as he “gains information by removing material” from large pieces of jelutong, the Malay hardwood he favors.
The Machines Have Not Taken Over: A Conversation with Richard Dupont
Richard Dupont’s sculptures are essentially warped-out, three-dimensional photocopies of himself. These eerie, distorted, hi-tech self-portraits seem stretched by the time/space continuum to varying degrees, from barely recognizable blurs to attenuated or distended humanoid oddities. As viewers, we physically enter that same disconcertingly surreal realm, like a cinematic fantasy of traveling through a worm hole.
Julia Venske & Gregor Spänle: The Antithesis of Marble
For Julia Venske and Gregor Spänle, a “shopping spree” is not what you might expect. Last summer, they drove three hours from their studio to buy three blocks—three or four metric tons altogether—of pure white marble.
Public Art in New York City Parks: Celebrating 40 Years
In 2007, the New York City Department of Parks celebrated the 40th anniversary of its public art program with a documentary gallery exhibition and a city-wide series of outdoor installations. The indoor show, a compelling walk through history, was curated by Jonathan Kuhn, director of Art and Antiquities at New York Parks and Recreation.
Confronting the Grotesque: A Conversation with Folkert de Jong
Folkert de Jong aims for the solar plexus. His life-sized figures, grouped in open tableau-like arrangements, are startling. Made from Styrofoam and polyurethane foam, they strike archaizing poses fraught with allusions to earlier art, appearing brittle, yet on the verge of collapse, oozing in places and liquefying in others.
Pilar Ovalle: Place in Nature/ Nature in Place
Pilar Ovalle has developed a personal language of sculpture based on the tactile, multi-dimensional experience of wood as a medium. She is part of a young generation of Chilean sculptors who are now beginning to emerge on the international scene.
