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Sculpture: A Matter of Soft and Hard

Andrea Cohen, Joanne Greenbaum, Nancy Hathaway, Jeff Konigsberg, Thomas Lail, Joan Linder, Anna Pedersen, Julianne Swartz and Micki Watanabe

Part of Crossings: Artistic and Curatorial Practice a multi-site exhibition curated by Anne Ellegood and Rachel Gugelberger in conjunction with the 2003 College Art Association Conference

ARTISTS ALLIANCE, INC. project space
107 Suffolk St., NYC 10002
phone: 212-420-9202
Open Mon - Sat,12:00 to 5:00pm
Wed, Feb 19th - Wed, Mar 5th, 2003

Sculpture: A Matter of Soft and Hard gathers together sculptural works, examining the medium from two distinct perspectives: hard-edged, architectural work and soft, biomorphic or organic forms. A group show of nine artists, the exhibition presents sculptural works in three-dimensional forms as well as drawings that expand the medium from its two-dimensional definition to embrace built space as emphatically as any work more conventionally categorized as sculpture.

Jeff Konigsberg paints directly onto the walls of the gallery to collapse our sense of perspective, scale, interior and exterior. Panels of black and white and muted colors are covered in a maze of intersecting, and often broke up, thin lines, creating a space that draws you past the physical limitations of the wall.

Also playing upon our perceptual understanding is Julianne Swartz, whose work inhabits architectural space in subtle and surprising ways. Using devices such as mirrors, optical lenses, magnets, and fans, she calls attention to the less prominent aspects of a space, from corners to closets to ceilings.

Working on-site and building a new work for the exhibition, Thomas Lail cuts into constructed walls to create a space within a space that responds to the existing architectural site as well as its neighborhood or urban location. Joan Linder's large-scale drawings of architecture often mimic the format of the buildings she depicts; the high-rises are dramatically vertical, some even coming off the wall and flowing onto the floor beneath.

Created with ink on paper, her works TV Tower and Forum came out of her fascination with the architectural history of Berlin. Joanne Greenbaum's delightful and accomplished large drawings combine numerous abstract shapes to articulate grand yet precarious built environments. Using a graphic, colorful language, she describes her compositions as that of a sculptor "carefully placing objects."

Visually linked to the convention of the architectural model, Micki Watanabe's sculptures are containers of space. Inspired by structures found within literature, her open-ended, tabletop depictions of rooms suggest a narrative of human habitation, part fantasy and part reality.

Andrea Cohen bridges the natural and the man-made in her funky, yet carefully articulated hybrid-forms made of tree branches, styrofoam, plastic string, wire, felt, latex, and numerous other materials. Appearing to grow before our very eyes, Cohen's sculptures rejoice in numerous references, from the body to plant life, from industry to technology, and from formal compositions to summer camp crafts.

Anna Pedersen's enamel on mylar drawings and aquaresin sculptures reference the interior of the body. With almost a Pop sensibility, her works are like friendly spore growths or multiplying tumors that are equal parts seductive and repulsive.

Also directly related to the body are the sculptures of Nancy Hathaway, which humorously underscore the ever-present gender distinctions within art historical and mass cultural representations of the body.

North East Corner	North Wall	North West Corner	South West Corner	South East Corner