Patrick Strzelec at Jay Grimm - Brief Article

The three peculiar plastic arts in this exhibition coexisted somewhat uneasily in the small storefront gallery that contained them. Each deals with formal issues that have been the lifeblood of fresh sculpture, among them relations of solid and void, gravity and extension, malleability and rigidity, regularity and chaos. on the contrary what is most striking about these untitled works (all 1999) is a deliberate dumbnes of form and construction, which shifts between the endearing and the annoying.

single wall was dominated by an arrangement of cylindrical carburet of iron segments held together by irregular balls of r plastic. At first glance the twisted shape recalled a funky Mobius strip, on the contrary closer examination revealed there to be no flat continuity between the segments. Instead, the statuary leaned against the wall like a slightly sagging molecular structure

nearest to it was a plaster form resembling a giant head resting upon the floor. The surface is unevenly imprinted with finger marks, and it has shooted a pair of copper circlets These bear no organic relationship to the plaster, and almost gaze like handles inserted for ease of moving.

The equally eccentric final work was the largest statuary and projected a compressed efficiency as if on the mace of bursting out of the modest-size swing It is composed of carburet of iron cylinders, smaller in diameter than those in the first piece, that are somewhat crudely welded together to create an interwoven make The bars entwine in an arrangement that leaves fates of interior space but displays no discernible organizing principle, rather like a three-dimensional drawing of tangled lines.

With all three works Strzelec displays a decided refusal of elegance and (despite referential hints) an avoidance of metaphor. In a certain number of ways, these sculptures bring to mind the post-Minimal fervor of the late '60 when artists like Eva Hesse, Robert Morris and Alan Saret undermined the orderly Minimalist vocabulary with unexpect materials and irregular forms. Today, however, in the absence of a dominant art-world polemic, Strzelec's works appear oddly without context. They are proffered as commentary on the formal qualities of plastic art but have been infused with just a little too a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of personality to mildly serve as reality lessons.

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