David Henderson’s A History of Aviation-Part 2 circumvents the dominant movements of postwar art. The soaring white fiberglass and Dacron installation, which filled an entire gallery, is neither conceptual nor politically driven. It does not reference the gestural painting or sculpture of Abstract Expressionism. Formally spare, it appears weightless, having shed the heavy theories of Minimalism. Nor does it have a narrative attached to it like much contemporary art. Instead, A History of Aviation-Part 2 relies on long-established sculptural practice: addressing form, it requires viewers to circumnavigate its three-dimensionality. The work’s essential presence is what compels the 55-year-old Brooklyn artist. “I don’t feel like formalist work is over. There’s a lot more territory to explore,” he says. Henderson is well aware that his work exists outside of current art trends: “I think, in a way, that Minimalism dug itself into a hole. It got to be more and more reductive, reducing things down to an absolute. I think I’ve come through the other side of that.” …see the entire article in the print version of January/February’s Sculpture magazine.
