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 The Exclusive Airline of SOFA CHICAGO 2006 |
www.SOFAEXPO.com The Website of the biannual International Sculpture Objects & Functional Art (SOFA) Expositions in New York & Chicago © 2006, Expressions of Culture, Inc. No reproductions may be made of any content of this site without the approval of Expressions of Culture, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
CONTEMPORARY CONCEPT + MASTERY OF MATERIAL CHICAGO, AUGUST 20, 2006. Mark Lyman, founder/director of Expressions of Culture, Inc., producer of SOFA said, “Extraordinary works of art are marked by conceptual content and mastery of material through skilled handwork. The 100 international galleries and dealers at SOFA CHICAGO recognize this virtuosity of mind, skill and material and present the best of the new, from New York to Sydney.”
No artist has greater mastery over the material of glass than Lino Tagliapietra, pushing its frontiers technically and conceptually in his abstract vessel forms. Holsten Galleries, Stockbridge, MA will feature the Italian maestro in an unprecedented solo exhibition at SOFA CHICAGO. Tagliapietra taught Dale Chihuly and many others Venetian glassblowing technique—a closely guarded secret from the Island of Murano, Italy, and to this day, Chihuly calls Tagliapietra “Maestro.” Jim Schantz of Holsten said, “2006 will mark Lino's 60th year working in glass. Our feature exhibition at SOFA will be one of our most comprehensive representations of Tagliapietra's work. Among the works will be the newest series including Fenice, Mandara and Saba series.”
Merging classical Venetian technique—learned while on a Fulbright Scholarship to Murano, Italy in the late 1960’s—with conceptual object art is Richard Marquis, recipient of the 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Glass Art Society. Elliott Brown Gallery, Seattle, WA will offer a signature whimsical, non-functional Marquis teapot, stunning in technical virtuosity and translucent beauty. Kate Elliott of Elliott Brown Galley said, “Dubbed by Lino Tagliapietra the "king of murrine" (technique of fusing small pieces of colored glass dating from the 16th c.), Marquis continues to amaze with his zanfirico cane, bold colors and design, and irreverent humor. Zanfirico Teapot has the appearance of lace because of Marquis’ complex intertwining of white and clear glass cane within.” Tina Oldknow, Curator of Modern Glass at The Corning Museum of Glass said “Dick’s work is often about subversion, and it can be particularly charming in its subversiveness.”
Caterina Tognon Arte Comtemporanea, Venice, Italy will present the darkly humorous and subtle sculpture of Silvia Levenson, whose use of kiln-cast glass (often cast in a rosy palette) is primarily conceptual— metaphoric of the fragility and opacity of domestic life in bourgeois society. Levenson fled Argentina during the brutal dictatorship of the late 70s-early 80’s and now lives and works in Italy. Of her work, Levensen said, “Sometimes households become a pressure cooker. These emotional bombs lurking in family relationships are the focus of my work.” Caterina Tognon will also represent rare optical sculptures in glass by Czech master, Vaclav Cigler, who uses glass not as an end but “rather a means of viewing and watching… non-technical devices which enlarge, reduce, mirror, dissociate the outer environment.”
Jose Chardiet, represented at SOFA CHICAGO by Chicago’s own Marx-Saunders Gallery, realizes the conceptual potential of using surrogates for the human figure in his work, substituting its likeness with prosaic objects – vase, bowl, musical instrument. In Chardiet’s dream-like anthropomorphism, common objects in become uncommon metaphors for a diversity of human experiences. Ken Saunders of Marx-Saunders said of Chardiet’s Dame, which the gallery will have on-offer at SOFA: “Dame is such a handsome, elegant form. His approach to the object is so original, his mastery of technique so inventive that one can’t resist being beguiled. The abstraction of the human form recalls De Chirico and even Dali. Jose has imbued this piece with a spirit that summons the grace of Art Deco and the mystery of the Surrealists.” Leo Kaplan Modern, New York, NY will also represent Chardiet at SOFA CHICAGO.
Leading the way in the presentation of international studio ceramics at SOFA CHICAGO is Galerie Besson, London, which will represent major sculptors working in the media, principal among them, Spanish artist Claudi Casanovas. Casanova’s rugged, powerful works evoke the texture and landform of his native Catalonia, suggesting archaeological fragments of ancient structures, such as cisterns and foundations. They also rawly reference the unique properties of clay when it is subjected to fire. Casanovas’s technique is to freeze the porcelain clay before shattering it to form blocks of dense, massed forms. After the firing process, he further sculpts these forms with a hammer and chisel to achieve highly textured, eroded surfaces that catch light and shadow, showcasing the elemental properties and beauty of the marriage of clay and fire.I
On perhaps the opposite end of the spectrum, Chicago’s Perimeter Gallery will present a post-industrialist artist who uses ceramics as medium primarily because its suits her conceptual ends—Julie York’s sensual, smooth-sanded porcelain objects are never the completed piece. York uses slip cast clay to mimic objects produced by industry, assembling collections of them (funnels, cups, appliances, food items, etc.) within illuminated acrylic forms—transforming the way in which the objects are read or perceived.II York said, “The vocabulary of objects selected reference our material culture and are symbolic within a broad range of associations. The presentation of the objects is intended to disorient the viewer and challenge them to “read” these symbols, a perceptual handicap allowing them to have interpretations that are both accurate and inaccurate.”
Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA reports it will present Ron Nagle’s sculptural ceramics--intimately scaled, with their perfection of surface and eye-popping color. Nagle is renowned for playing with the convention of the simple cup for decades, pushing the form to the point of abstraction. The New York Times art critic, Roberta Smith, wrote of Nagle: “Like Frank Stella, John Chamberlain or Ken Price, Ron Nagle operates in the gap between painting and sculpture.” Rena Bransten will also represent key works from the late Viola Frey’s estate. Frey was an internationally respected artist and a leader in exploring contemporary concepts in ceramics. She is well known for her monumental, intensely colored ceramic sculptures, which explored issues of gender, cultural iconography and art history.
Sergei Isupov (Ferrin Gallery, Lenox, MA) treats the satiny porcelain of his ceramic sculpture as a “canvas” for his “paintings.” Isupov uses plastic, graphic, and painting elements to complement each other in a given piece, mixing classical forms with surreal, comical content. Isupov said: “I like the contrast of serious to humorous. The front is cartoon-like, but the back of each figure features an intimate painting of the being's spirit.”III Ferrin Gallery and Isupov will celebrate their ten-year association this year with an anniversary presentation at SOFA CHICAGO. Another up-and-coming artist working in figurative ceramics is young Christina Cordova (Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago), whose totemic heads and human and animal wall-sculptures are neither characters nor objects but repositories of allusive meaning.
At SOFA CHICAGO, visitors can gauge the remarkable metamorphosis of contemporary wood and fiber art since the 1970’s, progressing through alternative materials, processes and content. Gyöngy Laky’s sculptures, temporary site-specific outdoor works, language pieces and vessels are often composed of orchard debris and tree prunings, with non-traditional joinery such as food skewers, toothpicks and golf tees. Laky’s works ask what is and what is not waste in a throwaway culture—from the environment to war dead. browngrotta arts, Wilton, CT will offer Laky’s large-scale, activist word sculpture, Globalization IV: Collateral Damage, which uses bullets as joinery. browngrotta arts will also offer a major piece by master Magdalena Abanakowicz, who is completing a major sculpture in Chicago’s Grant Park.
Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA will present works by San Francisco artist, Ruth Asawa, who for the past forty years, has pushed paper, wire, clay, concrete, fiber, steel, and bronze into new and highly original forms. From a difficult childhood that included confinement in a Japanese internment camp, Asawa made her way to Black Mountain College in North Carolina to study with avant-garde artists Josef Albers and Buckminster Fuller. There she found her unique aesthetic voice in wire crocheted forms. Her work has been purchased by prestigious institutions including the Whitney Museum and MOMA in New York. Gallery Drud & Køppe, Copenhagen, Denmark, will represent avant-garde Danish furniture artist, Cecilie Manz, winner of numerous European awards including Forum +1 award / Caravaggio P4, 2006 and the Danish Design Prize 2004, whose rickety Slightly Disabled Chair is entirely conceptual. International art jewelry has also made astonishing strides both in conceptual emphasis and use of non-traditional materials and processes. Natalia Pinchuk (Charon Kransen Arts, NY, NY) creates colourful brooches of wool, copper, enamel, plastic and thread; Bettina Speckner (Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA) from Munich, Germany, uses etched photographs as a starting point—images of mysterious faces, stately architecture and unidentified gardens—transferring them to zinc or enamel, inviting the wearer to bring their own narrative to the piece; and New Paltz, NY artist Sergey Jivetin (Ornamentum, Hudson, NY), winner of the prestigious Herbert Hoffman Preis this year, well-known for his series of wearable art made from thousands of watch-hands. Ornamentum will also bring Jivetin’s newest body of work—form and shadow line drawings made of alloy wire and sliced syringe tubes.
_______________________________ SOFA CHICAGO 2006 GALLERY PRESENTATION
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