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拍品專文
“Interior space is the secret space of sculpture.” Martin Puryear (M. Puryear, quoted by R. J. Powell, “A Conversation with Martin Puryear,” in J. Elderfield, Martin Puryear, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2007, p. 108).
Martin Puryear’s Dowager is a powerful and evocative work in which the artist explores new frontiers for sculpture. By exposing the typically hidden interior, Puryear rejects convention, discovering new artistic possibilities. “Interior space is the secret space of sculpture,” the artist has said, “I think of interior space as a world with enormous conceptual potential, an important aspect of sculpture” (M. Puryear, quoted by R. J. Powell, “A Conversation with Martin Puryear,” in J. Elderfield, Martin Puryear, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2007, p. 108). Revealing previously hidden and hollow spaces, both physical and cultural, has long been an important aspect of the artist’s work. Dowager is vital to the understanding of Puryear’s oeuvre as a whole.
Exhibited in Puryear’s greatest retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2007, Dowager comprises a ‘skin’ made from overlapping squares of wire mesh which are layered into a palimpsest and covered with tar. Molded by the artist into a soft humanoid form, the figure stands proudly atop a hewn wooden base. The result is a wholly authentic sculptural form in which the artist appears to revel as much in his process as he does in the finished result. In form and title, Dowager seems to refer to a woman in mourning. Perhaps in ritual clothing, the tar simultaneously performs as both cloth and veil – deliberately opaque, yet pierced with tiny holes that reveal a private interior, not quite resolving the personal mystery within. “Sometimes you make work in which the exterior is all you know,” Puryear told Richard J. Powell, “If its hollow, you can however intuit that there are forces pushing out” (Ibid.); in the case of Dowager, a force results from the psychological intensity radiating from within this veiled archetype.
Hidden and hollow spaces have long been a feature of Puryear’s work. In the present work, light travels through the openings in the surface and illuminates the interior. In this, Puryear owes a debt to the work of both Barbara Hepworth and Ruth Asawa. In the case of Hepworth, the openings that constitute a vital part of her organic forms become hollow voids and interior volumes with shapes of their own. Other acknowledged influences on Puryear’s work include the cultural objects which the artist experienced during a prolonged visit to Sierra Leone where he was stationed as part of the United States Peace Corps in the mid-1960s. In particular the Bundu masks of the Mende people resonated with him as the physical manifestation of the importance of recognizable art traditions (weaving, textiles, masks, and carved figures). He was also struck by how rich life was for the people who had so few materials and technical resources. “I learned a lot from watching the carpenters in Sierra Leone produce their work with no electricity. What they lacked in electrical power they made up for in skill and ingenuity and sheer muscle” (M. Puryear, ibid. p. 102).
Dowager was previously in the collection of Mary and John Pappajohn, notable collectors from Iowa. After discovering the power and beauty of art while at university, Pappajohn and his wife built an enviable collection which broke down the demands of beauty, realism, and subject matter that had constrained artists for centuries. John and Mary Pappajohn chose to live with art that challenged them, and their vision shaped a collection far ahead of its time. They also prized quality above all else and during their many trips to New York, their strategy was simple: they did not buy to invest, they bought the best. In 2009, John and Mary Pappajohn gave their sculpture collection to the city of Des Moines. The new sculpture park that opened in downtown Des Moines transformed the neighborhood into a world-class cultural attraction, and the Pappajohns continued to donate new exceptional works throughout their lives.
On the occasion of the artist’s retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (in which Dowager was included), New York Times art critic Roberta Smith, wrote of his work, “Mr. Puryear is a formalist in a time when that is something of a dirty word, although his formalism, like most of the 1970s variety, is messed with, irreverent and personal. His formalism taps into a legacy even larger than race: the history of objects, both utilitarian and not, and their making. From this all else follows, namely human history, race included, along with issues of craft, ritual, approaches to nature and all kinds of ethnic traditions and identities. These references seep out of his highly allusive, often poetic forms in waves, evoking the earlier Modernism of Brâncuși, Arp, Noguchi and Duchamp, but also carpentry, basket weaving, African sculpture and the building of shelter and ships. His work slows you down and makes you consider its every detail as physical fact, artistic choice and purveyor of meaning” (R. Smith, “Humanity’s Descent, In Three Dimensions,” The New York Times, Nov. 2, 2007).
Martin Puryear’s Dowager is a powerful and evocative work in which the artist explores new frontiers for sculpture. By exposing the typically hidden interior, Puryear rejects convention, discovering new artistic possibilities. “Interior space is the secret space of sculpture,” the artist has said, “I think of interior space as a world with enormous conceptual potential, an important aspect of sculpture” (M. Puryear, quoted by R. J. Powell, “A Conversation with Martin Puryear,” in J. Elderfield, Martin Puryear, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2007, p. 108). Revealing previously hidden and hollow spaces, both physical and cultural, has long been an important aspect of the artist’s work. Dowager is vital to the understanding of Puryear’s oeuvre as a whole.
Exhibited in Puryear’s greatest retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2007, Dowager comprises a ‘skin’ made from overlapping squares of wire mesh which are layered into a palimpsest and covered with tar. Molded by the artist into a soft humanoid form, the figure stands proudly atop a hewn wooden base. The result is a wholly authentic sculptural form in which the artist appears to revel as much in his process as he does in the finished result. In form and title, Dowager seems to refer to a woman in mourning. Perhaps in ritual clothing, the tar simultaneously performs as both cloth and veil – deliberately opaque, yet pierced with tiny holes that reveal a private interior, not quite resolving the personal mystery within. “Sometimes you make work in which the exterior is all you know,” Puryear told Richard J. Powell, “If its hollow, you can however intuit that there are forces pushing out” (Ibid.); in the case of Dowager, a force results from the psychological intensity radiating from within this veiled archetype.
Hidden and hollow spaces have long been a feature of Puryear’s work. In the present work, light travels through the openings in the surface and illuminates the interior. In this, Puryear owes a debt to the work of both Barbara Hepworth and Ruth Asawa. In the case of Hepworth, the openings that constitute a vital part of her organic forms become hollow voids and interior volumes with shapes of their own. Other acknowledged influences on Puryear’s work include the cultural objects which the artist experienced during a prolonged visit to Sierra Leone where he was stationed as part of the United States Peace Corps in the mid-1960s. In particular the Bundu masks of the Mende people resonated with him as the physical manifestation of the importance of recognizable art traditions (weaving, textiles, masks, and carved figures). He was also struck by how rich life was for the people who had so few materials and technical resources. “I learned a lot from watching the carpenters in Sierra Leone produce their work with no electricity. What they lacked in electrical power they made up for in skill and ingenuity and sheer muscle” (M. Puryear, ibid. p. 102).
Dowager was previously in the collection of Mary and John Pappajohn, notable collectors from Iowa. After discovering the power and beauty of art while at university, Pappajohn and his wife built an enviable collection which broke down the demands of beauty, realism, and subject matter that had constrained artists for centuries. John and Mary Pappajohn chose to live with art that challenged them, and their vision shaped a collection far ahead of its time. They also prized quality above all else and during their many trips to New York, their strategy was simple: they did not buy to invest, they bought the best. In 2009, John and Mary Pappajohn gave their sculpture collection to the city of Des Moines. The new sculpture park that opened in downtown Des Moines transformed the neighborhood into a world-class cultural attraction, and the Pappajohns continued to donate new exceptional works throughout their lives.
On the occasion of the artist’s retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (in which Dowager was included), New York Times art critic Roberta Smith, wrote of his work, “Mr. Puryear is a formalist in a time when that is something of a dirty word, although his formalism, like most of the 1970s variety, is messed with, irreverent and personal. His formalism taps into a legacy even larger than race: the history of objects, both utilitarian and not, and their making. From this all else follows, namely human history, race included, along with issues of craft, ritual, approaches to nature and all kinds of ethnic traditions and identities. These references seep out of his highly allusive, often poetic forms in waves, evoking the earlier Modernism of Brâncuși, Arp, Noguchi and Duchamp, but also carpentry, basket weaving, African sculpture and the building of shelter and ships. His work slows you down and makes you consider its every detail as physical fact, artistic choice and purveyor of meaning” (R. Smith, “Humanity’s Descent, In Three Dimensions,” The New York Times, Nov. 2, 2007).