Epic

Erick Swenson
A Selection of Works
James Cohan Gallery –533 West 26th Street
Until May 1, 2010

Ursula Van Rydingsvard
Ersatta
Galerie Lelong –528 West 26th Street
Until May 1, 2010

Elliot Hundley
Agave of the Bacchae
Andrea Rosen Gallery –525 West 24th Street
Until May 1, 2010

EPIC
Monumental sculptures that highlight the artists’ interests in the melding of craft and idea. Erick Swenson’s works can be taken as meticulously formed comments on the human condition as seen through the eyes of cute little animals. Ursula von Rydingsvard’s cedar constructions are sensory enlightening plays on personal history. Elliott Hundley’s multi-media paintings and sculptures are epic narratives that combine the present moment with ancient history.

Erick Swenson
The Selection of Works at James Cohan gallery by Erick Swenson demonstrate the artist’s virtuosity with materials. For this artist who used to work with taxidermy, realism in the sculptures is paramount, and resin, acylic, MDF is made to look like flesh, both living and decaying. This same idea applies to his choice of sculpture over, say, painting or drawing – he points to the fact that sculpture takes up space, can be seen from all sides and engage the viewer in a visceral way. But why animals?

“You can get away with a lot more with animals,” he confessed. “They’re more fun to use to depict emotions and scenarios. Humans are very loaded and, frankly, I don’t find them very interesting in an artistic context.” Hersh, Allison, “Art and Soul: (Un)Natural history,” Savannah Morning News – Savannah Now, August 23, 2009

His work is built through a process of molding and casting that can take months and that add meaning to the conflict of man vs. nature: all of them reference death, decay and the passage of time and yet that time is suspended in these sculptures.

Experience it…

1. Untitled, 2008. A tiny deer is dwarfed by a black and red cape held aloft by some unknown force. What do you notice about the deer itself – its pure, white body, the large ears, the expression on its face? What do these tell us about the deer?The deer is possibly in distress as the cape is wrapped around one of its hind legs, but there are little signs of this distress in its face or posture. The deer looks almost playful or relaxed, nonplussed by the situation of its inevitable demise.

What about the cape – how would you describe the form? What do the colors tell us?

Within moments, the innocent, infant-like deer will be lifted off the platform and taken away by the ominous, cloud-like, magician hovering over it. As metaphors go, this is a dark and anxiety-producing take on life.

2. Ne Plus Ultra, 2010. The decaying remains of a mature doe are left to be investigated by anyone passing by. Inscribed on the bones is maritime map scrimshaw that seems to have always been there, even when the animal was alive, as if this is a secret code uncovered only with the demise of the animal. The deer wears a mix of frown and maniacal smile. By working with fabricated materials, the process of decay described in the piece is stunted, made synthetic, fictionalized.

An investigation into the mysteries of life. Searching for a universal mover, the forces that make us live and die, and in this sense the sculptures have a universal quality. Themes of the works – mystery, history, and the imminence of death –

Magic or fantasy mixed with hyper reality.

“I wanted to cast a rug. I wanted that challenge. Everyone was telling me that you can’t do that. But the more you experiment with the materials, the further you can push it, and that translates to the next project. You learn by doing things that are really difficult, and that was a really difficult thing to do, but you figure it out, and that’s fun. It’s fun to make things that you shouldn’t be able to do. It needed to be fabricated. There is a quality to the rug if you see it in person. It’s really strange. If it was just on a rug, it wouldn’t have the same impact”

Ursula van Rydingsvard

Hanging from the walls, spreading across the floor, rising up to the ceiling are forms intuitively cut out of 2×4’s and 4×4’s of cedar. Working with an 8 lb. circular saw, she nips at the wood, chipping off bits here and there to get the form she wants. In a simple curve of the form, there could be as many as 50 to a hundred cuts.

Working with a team of artists, she glues the wood together to get a block that she can then subtract from. Often her sculptures have powdered graphite rubbed into the surface, giving it a dark patina. In this show, there are several works left with the natural wood exposed. What is the effect of each? What does graphite add?

Almost all of the pieces on view in this exhibition are larger-than-human scale.

Experience it…

1. Blackened Word, 2008. This 20’ long work started out as a word scrawled out on the floor of her studio by a friend. When I heard her speak, she refrained from saying what the word is, though mentioned it was of personal significance. The cedar beams were then built up as walls following the curve of the writing.

As you walk around the piece, notice how the piece curves inward on itself and then back out.

Notice also the surface of the wood – how it is deformed and chipped. The artist has said she likes the liberties of manipulating the wood this way.

2. Droga, 2009. From a polish word meaning dear one, Droga is an undulating hollowed-out form that slowly spreads itself out from one end to the other. Her work often references her personal history. She was born in 1942 to a Polish mother and a Ukrainian father, arriving in the US when she was 8 years old. Read more about her personal history here.

The formal qualities of this work are achieved through impressive means: Look for the following:

Each of the beams she uses in the piece are as straight as can be so they can be glued securely. In this work, however, she employed shims, or thin wedge-shaped pieces to make it look as though the work were tipping over.

The inside surface of the work is manipulated in the same way as the outside surface. Droga comes apart and she was able to work on the inside of it without having to crawl inside.

The inside cavity extends the entire length of the piece and allows the viewer to see out the opposite end, notice shadows and light, the aperture sizes, the idea that you can see other viewers through the opening.

3. Unraveling, 2007. Each part of this work is held onto the wall by a cleat that is strong enough to support a person climbing on it (the artist almost demonstrated this fact while in the gallery). This piece shows how the artist can make rigid wooden beams look soft and easily pliable like clay. The forms themselves could be many things – vessels, cells, mouths, etc.

Think about it…

The artist has stated that she would switch materials if she found something that would work the way that the cedar does in helping her achieve what she wants. What does the material add to the work? How does the organic nature of the wood or the smell of the cedar add to your interpretation of the work?

See more…

von Rydingsvard has been interviewed extensively. You can see her speak about her work on Art21’s site here:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/vonrydingsvard/clip2.html

Elliott Hundley
The works that Hundley has created for this exhibition were built up in layers of collage elements to create epic narratives. They were inspired largely by an ancient Greek story of the Bacchae, an incomplete story about women who took to the woods to perform rites to the god Dionysus.

On top of the blown up photos are pinned smaller, cut up pieces of pictures of people from a variety of sources, magnifying glasses, real objects, words, and more. These images and materials are like specimens collected and classified by Hundley playing scientist.

1. Dionysus, 2010. Stand away from the works and try to make out the initial images in the background; these are larger than life size images that set up the color-scheme and composition anchoring all of the smaller pieces pinned on top. The piece is broken up into four panels with an image of the same woman repeated in each panel.