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PARTISAN REVIEW
cliche of describing slender metal sculpture as "drawing in space"
seems apt. Unlike his earlier works, which were relatively massive
and usually hugged the ground, Wolfe's sculpture of the past five
years or so has been increasingly delicate, linear and upright. Squig–
gles and whorls of steel, in the recent works, gather themselves up off
the ground or, surprisingly, seem to be magically suspended from
some unknown point. Elements that, in fact, support often seem to
hang rather than to stand erect; the effect is something like that of a
flying buttress on a Gothic cathedral, a structure that always ap–
pears to spring upward even though its function is to transfer weight
to the ground.
What was most striking and newest in Wolfe's September ex–
hibition was the comparative simplicity of the sculptures . They were
clearer and less complicated than in the past, the drawing less
"sketchy." Each "stroke ," whether a wiry curl or a flat, curving bar
had its own distinct character, while bulky geometric elements and
larger-scale "lines" provided welcome counterpoint to the more flam–
boyant twirls and spirals. For all their abstractness, the best of
Wolfe's pieces were animated in ways that suggested reclining fig–
ures or, at least, the movement of reclining-stretching out, prop–
ping up and so on - without being particularly
like
anything recog–
nizeable . Generally, the midsized pieces were most successful, since
their component parts were relatively large in relation to the amount
of space between them. (Wolfe's large sculptures can risk attenua–
tion, when drawing appears too thin, another reason that his new in–
corporation of broader bars and robust chunks improves them) .
Having said this, however, I must point out
Sea Steps,
one of the
largest sculptures in the exhibition, with its staggered upward path
of blocks and coils, was one of the best.
Wolfe is certainly not the only sculptor to aspire to poly–
chromy. Vividly painted sculpture is almost the rule these days , per–
haps in retaliation for painters' having appropriated surface inflec–
tion, but the notion has absorbed modernist sculptors since the first
Cubist constructions. David Smith spoke of merging painting and
sculpture into a new art form that would "beat either one." Wolfe
may not have fulfLlled Smith's fantasy, but he is one of the few who is
able to make color shifts enhance three-dimensional form .
Sea Steps,
for example, is inconceivable without its range of warm and cool
grays, its punctuating notes of black, blue and green that distance
like elements from one another and unify unlike ones. When Wolfe
succumbs to dramatic contrasts of-say - matte black, cream and
