 | | Saw Lee Bontecou's semi-retrospective at MOMA-Q(uee)NS on Thursday. The work to the left is typical (if a bit over-metallic in the reproduction)--don't remember if it's in the show; the image came off the web. |
|
| Bontecou--Progenitor or Symptom? (right: H. R. Giger, the "Alien" guy) |
|  |
 | | Using perspective depth and modeling in shallow space is a way to "do abstraction" without sacrificing the pleasure of drawing. Left: Augustin Fernandez. |
|
| Alexander Ross (right) also does this. |
|  |
Donald Judd gave Bontecou an early critical nod, as practically every article about her reminds us, but her work is completely at odds with his minimal aesthetic. She started out in the assemblage camp, just as he did, but while he gradually shed more "stuff" from his art, she kept working with materials from the scrap heap, and worse to minimalist sensibilities, used it to make a kind of sculptural abstract expressionism. One oohs and ahs at her craftsmanship but the work comes off strangely inert in person; the Giger-esque vaginas dentata are overwrought and corny. In the early 70s she made vacuformed plastic objects somewhat reminiscent of the forms in Judy Chicago's biomorphic airbrush art--those were actually kind of good.  (The story is she "turned away from the art world" at this time, but it's possible her career as a crypto-feminist surrealist abstractionist was going to jump the shark when she started making plastic fish suspended from the ceiling with monofilament--maybe the turning away was pre-emptive?) Lately she's looking more like Roger Dean of Yes LP cover fame, making Metal Hurlant/Hobbit Rock spaceship thingies that hang from the ceiling and resemble hypertrophied sea urchins. Some of this is good (and slightly off-topic, I happen to know the above-mentioned Alex Ross is a Dean fan, though more rigorously abstract overall--Dean's is still the cult that dare not speak its name in the fanboy-averse art world, regardless of the fact that his architecture is now getting some acclaim). The tepid copper, teal and, alabaster color schemes of Bontecou's "spaceships" are a turnoff, though. The bolder colors in her drawing above--or no color--would have been more satisfying.
loved the Bontecou show. You may have liked it more had you seen it in LA where it was much larger and made more sense because of the additional work and space.
The top image here is of a sculpture in the permanent collection of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It looks darker and more dusky/dusty nowadays, not shiny metallic as in this image. It has been there since the 1970s.
|
Donald Judd gave Bontecou an early critical nod, as practically every article about her reminds us, but her work is completely at odds with his minimal aesthetic. She started out in the assemblage camp, just as he did, but while he gradually shed more "stuff" from his art, she kept working with materials from the scrap heap, and worse to minimalist sensibilities, used it to make a kind of sculptural abstract expressionism. One oohs and ahs at her craftsmanship but the work comes off strangely inert in person; the Giger-esque vaginas dentata are overwrought and corny. In the early 70s she made vacuformed plastic objects somewhat reminiscent of the forms in Judy Chicago's biomorphic airbrush art--those were actually kind of good.
- tom moody 8-21-2004 9:15 am
loved the Bontecou show. You may have liked it more had you seen it in LA where it was much larger and made more sense because of the additional work and space.
- anonymous (guest) 10-20-2004 9:40 pm
The top image here is of a sculpture in the permanent collection of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It looks darker and more dusky/dusty nowadays, not shiny metallic as in this image. It has been there since the 1970s.
- anonymous (guest) 1-03-2013 12:07 am