By Any Means Necessary

Jessica Jackson Hutchins is having a well-deserved moment of attention with a critically praised sculpture in the Whitney Biennial 2010 and 2 gallery shows: at Derek Eller “Kitchen Table Allegory” and Laurel Gitlen (Small A Projects) ”Over Come Over”.  

It is exciting to see Hutchins melding used furniture, ceramics, papier-mache, and fabric to create her sculptures.  In addition, she introduces new ways of thinking about ceramics by inserting pieces of material, for example denim, into the form.  Don’t be fooled by the intentionally unskilled look of her clay pieces and definitely take in the richly glazed surfaces. The pairing of these unique hand-made forms with couches, chairs and tables at first engages us with the idea of a new type of support or pedestal but then there’s the surprising interaction that goes on between the different objects.

As Hutchins explained in Artforum (here’s link but need to be registered to be able to access it),  ”I believe in osmosis between objects.  With time, there is something happening at the molecular level, where the objects come together in some way and begin to form their own associations.  So I will put an item on a chair and leave it, and I think it gets better overnight, even if nothing really changes.”

 

Experience it…

 

In the main gallery space at Derek Eller stands a large wooden table with it’s missing center leaf replaced by a big ceramic pot.  Look carefully at the surface of the table to discover gouges, cuts, and color remaining from it’s earlier function as a woodblock to make monoprints.  See the colorful examples on view and compare the marks in the monoprints with those on the surface of the table.  What color was the last print made from this table?  At this moment, the bright yellow monoprint remains in her studio along with one other print from this series.  Take a moment to look at the variety of collage elements that Hutchins adds to her striking monoprints.

 

Jessica Jackson Hutchins. Kitchen Table Allegory (detail), 2010

Notice how the colors found on the table are present in the pot and vice-a-versa, for example the reddish glaze on the interior of the pot is echoed in the red color on the inside of the hole cut through the tabletop.  The formal relationships continue as you realize the circular cuts that form the hole relate back to the circular swirls of clay that shape the pot and the bottomless pot with a view of the floor points back again to hole going through the top of the table.  The sensitive relationships of color, shape, and form subtly strengthen what might appear to be an initially tenuous relationship.  

Importantly, the table was originally in Hutchins’ home and a gathering place for her family.  The table shifted functions when it moved into her studio to become a tool of art-making and now appears as a work of art.  

The abstract narratives that Hutchins conjures up through the unusual pairing of care-worn furniture and hand-made objects is apparent in “Couple”: a well-used love seat sags under the weight of the papier mache form topped by a ceramic vessel squeezed between the two mounds.  What does it remind you of?  The associations abound from an amorous couple, to large breasts possibly holding a “baby”, to a mountainous landscape bathed in purple light.  As in “Kitchen Table Allegory”, there’s great sensitivity to familial relationships despite it’s abstract appearance.    

 

Jessica Jackson Hutchins. Couple, 2010

Take a leap of faith and spend time with “Fairywing over Men’s Pants“, “Settee“, and other works that upon first encounter may seem jarring in their juxtapositions of items but will reward you with formal, narrative, and emotive qualities.  The implied vulnerabilities carry over into more specifically referenced works, for example, “Indefinite Break (Tiger Woods)”.  In the past, Hutchins has focused on other public figures, for example Darryl Strawberry who represent the fragilities of the human condition and cycles of failure and redemption.   

Think about it…

Jessica Jackson Hutchins also said in Artforum, ”I use common and simple objects because they can act as nouns.  Strung together, they resonate like catchy song lyrics: chair, bowl, pants.  They are also weird together, and loving, too.  Sometimes the materials look old or crappy and that gives the sculptures a sense of urgency.  They have a ‘by any means necessary’ or punk sensiblity.  I don’t think the sculptures would be very interesting if they didn’t also possess disruptive qualities, if they weren’t tough and insistent.”  What do you think?

2. Ken Price

Courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery.

Despite being part of the influential 1960s LA artist community including Ed Ruscha and Robert Irwin, Ken Price hasn’t received the broad-based recognition that his friends have… up til now!  At 76 years old, Price has 4 shows currently on view in New York at Matthew Marks Gallery, Nyehaus Gallery, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, and Brooke Alexander Gallery as well as a retrospective scheduled for the fall of 2012 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and arriving at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013.  But why hasn’t he gotten the attention?  Is it because of a built-in bias the art world has towards ceramics as craft not “fine art”?

Experience it….

Walk around Matthew Marks Gallery and first focus on the forms of the sculptures.  What words would you use to describe them?  Their biomorphic appearances elicit many different responses and Price remains silent on their specific meaning.  In a slide talk at the Chinati Foundation [it's part of press packet on MM website in pdf form], the artist shared, “…I think meaning is ambiguous.  It’s mysterious, uncertain, and open to personal interpretation.”

Fung, 2009. Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery.

Price has developed a remarkable labor-intensive process that sets his ceramics apart.  Instead of glazing his clay forms, he paints them.  As Price described in a recent New York Times article, each sculpture is painted with 14 different colors starting with black and going to the brightest color at the top.  Each color is applied in 5 thin and even coats of acrylic paint resulting in approximately 70 coats of paint.  The next step is carefully sanding the surface of the piece to reveal the depth of colors underneath.  It is this final step that introduces chance into the process and results in a brilliant shimmering surface.  
 

As you look up close, notice the little black circle (from the 1st coat of paint) that surrounds the other colors.  Price feels it adds to visual success of the work - what do you think?  Compare the surfaces of different sculptures to see the range of results the color selection and sanding process produces.

To see how Price’s work has evolved, find “Eeezo” which dates from 1995.  How does the surface and form differ from the other works you’ve been looking at? 

You can’t miss the 3 largest sculptures in the show located at the front of the gallery and mark Price’s move into a more monumental scale.  In order to achieve the larger size, the works are a bronze composite instead of fired clay.  In Price’s ongoing practice of pushing and changing his work, does “Lying Around” with it’s bumpy but non-sanded monochrome surface offer a new direction for his work? 

Think about…

Price in his slide talk at the Chinati Foundation said “I make sensual work. The use of my work is to lead to an experience that makes life more interesting or enjoyable, like listening to music, or reading poetry or something. And I don’t see myself as strictly a formalist either.  I’m trying to get feeling into my work, like joy.  Sometimes I want it to have, you know, an ominous quality, so that it has an edge, and humor in the form too, if possible.”  What’s your response to his work?

Installation View. D

3. Jedediah Caesar

Since late in 2003, Jedediah Caesar has been challenging our notion of what the material of sculpture can be.  He invented a new medium when he began encasing a mixture of found objects in clear and colored resin.  For many of us, our first introduction to his work was the 2008 Whitney Biennial.  As described in his catalogue entry [in pdf form on gallery website under press], “… he filled buckets and other containers with leftover scraps of plywood, along with paper, pieces of cloth, and other assorted studio debris.  He poured in liquid resin and when it hardened he removed solid masses of an essentially new kind of material.”

Experience it…

Keeping in mind Caesar’s process described above, look closely at the panels on display at D’Amelio Terras Gallery.  Do you recognize any of the original items added into the resin?  How would you describe the transformation of the original materials and the resulting new material?   

In this body of work, Caesar has sliced the solid blocks of resin into a series of panels.  The cross-sectioned tiles offer the opportunity to trace the embedded items from one panel to the next and/or the patterns of colored resin.  What associations do they suggest to you?

Caesar’s sculptures have been compared to paintings and film cells - what do you think?  

They’ve also been related to the Minimalist sculptures of Carl Andre, particularly in his use of individual tiles and blocks arranged on the floor.  Of course, Caesar replaces Andre’s mainly monochromatic units with a multi-color “chaos” of matter.  

What are the different ways Caesar has chosen to arrange his panels?  Also, consider Caesar’s placement of his wall sculptures near the floor and in corners.  How does that impact your experience of the work? 

Think about…

More…

Make sure to look at the checklist to see how Caesar’s inventiveness extends to the titles of his sculptures.  For example,

I I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I   

Consider how the symbols underscore the sculpture’s arrangement as the identifying characteristic of each work.  The formal and playful come together!