Arlene Shechet: girl group

Uittreksel

"Arlene Shechet: Girl Group brings together the artist's recent work in wood, steel, ceramic, paper, and bronze with six new monumental sculptures created for Storm King Art Center. Through her signature emphasis on process and improvisation, Shechet (American, b. 1951) harnesses the expressive power of geometry, line, color, and form in works displayed across Storm King's hills, fields, and galleries. The artist maintains a spirit of constant discovery as she mines the possibilities of multiple sculptural materials, experimenting with their capacity to hold color and light while creating form and volume. The exhibition centers on the translation of lyrical ceramic works from Shechet's Together series, on view indoors, into robust, large-scale painted metal works outdoors. Shechet began her ceramic series during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to convey a "strong sense of a life force that seemed to be gone during that time." Each work is titled with a time of day or a moment in a season: a means by which to reflect upon existence amid the uncertainty of that period. Shechet calls the Together works the "generative seeds" of her outdoor sculptures. The new works expand the artist's intuitive and handmade approach into towering constructions of welded metal. Over the course of three years, Shechet fluidly alternated between digital and analog methods of creation, extrapolating from elements of the Together works to invent new forms through an open-ended process of call-and-response. Outdoors, the hollow clay of Shechet's ceramics transforms into open volumes of sheet metal, while the vibrant and textured glazes of her ceramics inspire an array of painted colors rarely seen in monumental sculpture. Shechet's works incorporate nature as material, harnessing it through negative space and the use of matte and glossy surfaces to reflect and absorb light. Their shifting colors form a spectrum across Storm King, allowing visitors to identify a shared vocabulary over great distances. According to Shechet, "They're all in relationship to the landscape and to each other."

Inhoud

Foreword and acknowledgments / John P. Stern -- Artist's foreword / Arlene Shechet -- In the landscape / photographs by David Schulze -- Arlene Shechet : a vibrant nature / Nora Lawrence -- Arlene Shechet : alive in the making / Eric Booker -- When casting is dispersing, emitting, shedding, sculpting / Kate Nesin -- The privilege of being lost : Arlene Shechet at Storm King / Anne Reeve -- Arlene Shechet : shapes of time / Sheena Wagstaff -- Museum building / photographs by David Schulze -- Exhibition checklist -- Contributors -- Artist's acknowledgments.