Month: May 2017

Lygia Pape at The MET Breuer

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Lygia Pape “A Multitude of Forms” currently on display at the MET Breuer is the first US museum retrospective for the Brazilian artist. A member of both the Grupo Frente and the Neoconcrete movement, both with emphasis on abstraction and geometry during the 1950’s and 1960’s. She continued to work while under dictatorship (1964-1985) broadening her creative practice to include film, performance, poetry and installations.
One of the most impressive works in the exhibition is “Livro du tempo” (“Book of Time’, 1961-1963) which consists of 365 wall sculptures, to represent 365 days in a year. Each of the forms is a variation on a square.
The squares have each had at least one section cut away, recolored and placed back on top of the square.
In the top example an L shaped corner has been cut away from the red square painted white then arranged so that the corner of the section meets the new corner of the red figure. In the bottom example the yellow square has had a smaller square (with sides 1/3 the length of the original) removed from the center of the top edge. Painted white and rotatated 45 degrees the new square is placed centered under the void.
 
The individual sculptural elements can be more complex with multiple identical cut-aways. The myriad of possibilities explored by Pape is what makes this work monumental. Created during the time of the Concrete movement “Livro du tempo”, this work included  an element of viewer interaction: viewers (back then) were allowed to touch the work. By including 365 elements the artist references the time it take for the earth’s rotation, tying the abstract geometry to the natural world.
The MET Breuer has presented a large comprehensive display of Pape’s art. I have only really talked about one work of art, there is so much more to discuss. Anyone in NYC this Spring should definitely plan to go to the museum.
Susan Happersett

Mathematical Meditations in Beacon, New York

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A survey of my Mathematically inspired paintings, drawings, videos and artist’s books is currently on view at the Roundhouse Gallery in Beacon, NY. Situated in a restored 19th century factory building, the gallery space provides ample room for a wide range of work I have completed over the past twenty years.
Included in the exhibit are my counted marking drawings. I started making these early in my career and I am still creating them with more complex algorithms.
There is also a range of work based the Chaos Theory.
 
A wew of my pieces from my recent “Cartesian Lace” series are also on display.
 
 This wonderful opportunity has offered me a chance for the first time, to present an exploration of all of the various types of my Mathematical art all in one room.
The opening last weekend was wonderful. On May 21, Dikko Faust and Ester K. Smith of Purgatory pie Press will be at the gallery for a meet and greet. Over the past years I have collaborated with them on a number of limited edition letterpress projects, that are also on display. Meet Esther and Dikko from 2PM to 6PM.
Susan Happersett

The Whitney Biennial

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This year the Whitney Museum of American Art presents its 78th Biennial survey. I knew from media reports that the art selected heavily represented political and social current events. There was a wide cross section of themes including an emphasis on figural work, but there were two artists whose work dealt directly with geometric figures.

Matt Browning, untitled, 2016

Matt Brownings gridded wall sculptures were installed in small groupings through the two floors of exhibit. each grid of 26 cubes is hand carved from a single piece of wood forming an interlocking lattice work.
Brownings’ subject matter of the cubes relates to the perspective of minimalist geometric sculpture. His technique of painstakingly whittling the wood by hand takes the geometry to the unexpected realm of craft and folk art.

Larry Bell, “Pacific Red II”, 2017

Larry Bell’s laminated glass sculptures are installed on a roof terrace. Consisting of 6 large prisms featuring six foot by eight foot walls each enclosing a smaller six foot by four foot prism. The transparent nature of the material allows for a comparison of the proportions of the two sized boxes. All twelve have the same height but the interior forms are half as wide. The volume of the larger boxes are 4 times that of the interior boxes. I particularly like the way the sculptures are situated so that the viewer can see the surrounding buildings through the colored glass. The abstract geometry becomes part of the city scape.
Susan Happersett