132
I'AlnlSAN R.EVIEW
into a skylit industrial space across the street fi-ol1l the I)ia Foundation's 22nd
Street building, except that there is an elel1leIlt of threat implicit in Serra's
pieces that is cOl1lpletely at odds with Caro's welcoming towers. It's partly
because of the brute physicality of the steel, partly because of the disorient–
ing effect of the vast enclosing walls themselves, which lean and bulge in
defiance of gravity and logic. The sculpture consisting of two concentric
rings that form a tall, tight, swooping corridor is particularly uncomfortable
(no, I am not claustrophobic). Standing within the single arc pieces is some–
thing like being at an archeo logical site- inside a
tholos
tomb or surrounded
by a cyclopean wall- but there is something prison-like about the space, as
well. I suspect that the Sen-as would be even more potent installed out of
doors. The contrast between the massive, twisting, confining walls and a cir–
cumscribed oval of sky above would add to their il1lpact, making these huge
enclosures seem more like places and less like oversized
thill<fZS.
But the fun–
damental hostility of
Tilrqller/ Ellipses
would remain unchanged. Not only
does their mass suggest danger, but everything about thel1l seems calculated
to make people feel diminished, insignificant. The Caro towers, on the other
hand, enhance our experience of being inside our own bodies.
Georges Jeanclos's conception of sculpture is as far fi-om Serra's as it is
possible to get. The eloquent, androgynous clay figures of this acclaimed
French artist, who remains too little-known in this country, are doll-sized,
fragile; the matte, impossibly thin sheets of unglazed earthenware with which
they are constructed seems about to shatter and crul1lble under the pressure
of your gaze. The pyramidal
Kalllalmms
(named for a fal1lous Japanese shrine
dedicated to unborn and stillborn children, populated with rows and rows
of tiny figures) are like seated Buddhas, their delicate heads balanced above
spreading cones of fragile clay, their gaze turned inward; the reclining
COl/pies
embrace under sheltering wrappings, sleep or watch the sleeper, as self-suffi–
cient and withdrawn as the
K(//l1almms_
Jeanclos's world is preternaturally
silent and intensely focused, as though time were somehow magically
stopped by his potent images. His figures draw you in, demanding and hold–
ing your attention, slowing everything down at the sal1le time that they stir
your emotions.
I don't know of any work qui te like it and I haven't the faintest idea why
it is so compelling. I've seen otherwise sensible, unsentimental people begin
to weep in fi-ont ofJeanclos 's sculpture. Anyone who was privileged to have
met the artist himself, a deeply thoughtful, wry , extraordinarily well-read and
cultivated man, had other reasons for being profoundly moved by his recent
show, his first at Garth Clark Gallery;Jeanclos died earlier this year at sixty–
four. He is greatly l1lissed.
Michael Steiner's recent steel sculptures at Salander- O ' IZ.eilly Galleries
and Willard Boepple's wood constructions ;It Tricia Collins Grand Salon
