9 INA WAREHOUSE: AN ATTACK ON THE STATUS OF THE OBJECT Maz Keely ‘An idea ofthe implausible innovations that charge many of the new sculptures at an exhibition called 9 ar Cacl, ina spacious upper westside gallery warehouse, may be obtained by imagining, ofall things, caw dh eas met he nec! Bee shipment back tothe studio. Instead of being dismantled, unhooked, dolled and crated, these sculptures will have to be rolled up (Bollinger), swept into a pile (Serr), chipped and chiseled from a corner (Serra), and scraped and serubbed from the wall Sonnier) All of which isa way of saying that their approach to installation hints inordinately of the thinking processes and esthetic objectives ofa clutch of young sculptors, half of whom have yet to be shown formally (or informally) in one-man cahibions, (They were bought together here by Robert Mortis.) For in their stud- iedly casual arrangements, or their almost osmotic grip into the planes ofthe room, far more even than in their unusual materi als, they demonstrate a principle that will have nothing to do withthe propery dis- tanced, or dramatized contexts in which we normally view sculpture. Te would be hard not to think, toa great degre erroneously, that some rel dif dence and withdrawal ae involved in these tactics. Afterall, we are not accus- tomed to stepping on sculpture;or to avoid stepping on sculpture which appears tobe some kin of ving: Nor do wee ito seem merely a sullying and spot- tg ofthe sass which ences. nd this isnot to speak of the amorphousness ofthe substances that forthe most part are scattered or dropped about, and that be- tray litle preconceived notion of orthodox form or even pattern. It isnot that we are invtated by a disdain for permanence, but ‘we are touched by the knowledge that these works cannot even be moved without suffering a basic and perhaps irremediable shift in the way they look, The life and salience they have a objects, rather than the itactness of their medium, is, there- fore, ofa pathetic transience. Yet surely it sits attack om the status of the object which provides the show with its major premise and rationale. To recall the Primary Structures exhibition atthe Jewish Museum two and a half years ago isto realize what a drastic change has ‘occurred in the concept of spatial behavior, dcnsity, and abstraction as imagined by American sculpture. To begin, the new work may be just as large in scale as be- fore, but no longer is it monumental oF public so much as intimate, portable, even dispensable. Structure, too, no longer has any hubris—any more, that is, than ey= clone fences, molten lead, chiffon, rubbery latex or cotton batting can lend to it. In short, the idea ofthe object is engulfed by the volatility liquidity, malleability, and softness—all the unstable characteristics— ofthe substance which embodies it. Which ‘means that the object becomes largely a reference to a state of matter, or, excep- tionally, a symbol of an action-proces, about to be commenced, or already com- pleted Yer, light or kinetic sculpture, while often equally indeterminate, is not to be paralleled with this current work, because, among other things, it depends ‘on dematerialized effects rather than on the immobile nature of what is given. In this warehouse of shy, sly eonceivings, not ‘only is mass sacrificed to porosity, but the object, especially the artifical, man-made ‘object, returns to nature, obey’ physics. And as a result, one has few of the meta- pphors and les ofthe polish by which Primary structures contrived to look so associated with architecture or furniture. (On the contrary, the accent here ison the ‘uniquely tangible, even ifthe volume of the sculptural unit is slivered down to a fold or a shaving. Sill, this eangibilty or concreteness, un- fussed and undisguised a tis, becomes the matrix of a new metaphor. For, never lingering far from the sensibility displayed here is a pictorial sense chat conflates many interesting problems. It was perhaps inevi- table tha seulprare should Pe tothat same impulse to airiness and luminosity which has recently informed much current pasting. Bat instead ofthe chromatic bi lance and sensory power which earmarks the canvases, the seulpure concentrates on bol and tactile co-fficents of the paint- «ly development. It isa if one had some uickened, evasive allusion to the “per- ‘meable” surface life of a picture which then dissolved back into the opaque physi- calty and presence ofa aw materia The optical equivocations tremble in the breeze, as it were, or lie crumpled on the floot. (Though this does not apply uni- formly, certainly: Nauman’s inert block, and Kaltenbach’ folded felt rug have no such resonant intention.) Lines, shadows, markings spatter al testing or wash through three-dimensional filters whose discontinuity fluctuates acording to ct- ‘cumstance. Volumes tend to be extremely recessive and imprecise, incised by fap ot mesh or erease. But itis in this shallow kind of existence that pictorial format, as distinct from effect, unexpectedly asserts itself. Serras splash pice takes as is im- probable field the meeting ofthe for and the wall, whose right angle joining he fudges and blurs by having thrown pon it, by turns, lacy and lumpy molten lead. In another work, he seems to prop alead Picture rectangle against the al by ‘of a pipe wedged diagonally from the loot ‘The focculent latex swatches of Sonnies, with their dangling or stretched twine, ‘reat the wall itself as a piture plane ‘They ae ike finished sketches, or some= times more dabbled ones, with linear cextcasions trailing hesitantly into space,‘Alon Saret, not here, but at che Whitney ~ Museum, crates a giant wire tumbleweed, srapled on the wall, which moves out into ‘hry entanglement not dissimilar fom the emir idiom of Abstract Expressionism ‘At this point, one might easily imagine the sculptors to have finagled them- elves, unwittingly or not, into the old. esthetic of “action” painting, Qualities of spontaneity and improvisation, all- coverness and design, are much reminiscent of early fifties painting. But nor only are these more atomized, they are also hum- bled, gratuitous, and thrown away, with the peculiar confidence of those who never had faith inthe egocentrcism of gesture, and who are therefore free to objectify {tas the delicate chance slavering of grav- ity. What characterizes this group of sculp- ‘ures most provocatively i its absence ‘of formal prejudice, its indifference to style, such that even fairly obvious sugges- tions of prior art become mere manipulated ghosts: themselves nthe tentative hassle ¢ ‘with material itself. Developed with the resourcefulness that greets onc at the warehouse, the new sculpture isa subtle, liberating spectacle ‘As a reaction tothe rigid, minimal sculp- ture that immediately preceded it, it dis plays much ofthe same conceptual cool ness and devaluation of “relationships” at the same time that it opens up new pos- sibilities of freedom from the object and collaboration with the envionment. But this has not been achieved without certain very restrictive suerifices. For one thing, ‘even an intensified exploration of the prop- ‘erties of one material does not permit a great or meaningful variety of statements ‘within it. Once the esthetic is known, the sculptural stuf, be it car, industrial grease, ‘or excelsor, exhausts its range, its spee- trum of permutations, with distressing case. This ibility has already manifested itself in the rage to discover new materials and the redundancy of adhering to them in more than just a few contexts. There isa 4uiet breathlessness in this exhibition, ‘where originality is something to struggle for and against. No one wants tobe rrade- marked by flagrant device accessible to everyone else, and yet no one can give himself over completely to the anonymity ‘which is one of the implications of operat ing at such a remove from the conscious shaping of matter. The sculptor inthis ‘mode locks horns with the fragile devalua~ tion of his own inventiveness, a dilemma from which only strength of personality will deliver him. Fortunately, at least three of the exhibitors spay certain distinct pre-dispsitons ‘which color their work and authentically focus its resolve. Richard Serra is posses- sed ofa peculiar gamincss that gives to his lead o latex debris a hide-ike authen- ticity, One senses also an inherent violence that at its best wards off the expressive. Keith Sonnier, for his part, purveys a kind of handkerchief elegance, sported or Ineaded in streamers and floced serubs, 4s well as a conserved, laconic energy that tents or demarcates space by a few simple Tinearents. Alan Saret likes a complicated chaos, insouciant and wooly, even in chick- ‘enwire, as his recent show at the Bykert Gallery proved, That he color sprayed some of his pieces there indicates hs afin- ity with the atmospheric lyricism to be found in much current spray painting. Teannot say quite as much for Eva Hesse and William Bolinger. The former’ latex mats and rippled edge series of wall boxes are slightly more picturesque versions of ‘minimal sculpture; th latter’ extremely handsome fallen 40-fo0t cyclone wire fence that ops over and inverts itself halfway across its length is rather too emphaticall purposeful 0 be placed within the oveal sensibility. Finally, Brace Nauman and Steve Kaltenbach repel both attentive looking and conceptual openness in a Dada gesture that is too frivolous for me. 107