HOUSTON: Neil Harshfield at James Gallery - Houston, Texas - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Neil Harshfield's novel exhibition of sculpture demonstrated the artist's continued exploration of innovative strategies for combining glass and industrial metal. Avoiding predictable contrasts between the fragility of the former and the power of the latter, Harshfield relies on formal values derived from the materials, composing the works by means of means of unexpected hierarchies of color and shape.

The artist's previous work took the form of garden tools pay backed in cast glass, with the original handles sometimes retained as part of the final compositions. sum of two units new series comprised his novel exhibition: the "T-cups" and the "Self-Help Suits." The "T-cups" are blown-glass utensils usually acid-etched to bring up the skin of the glass, high hilled on pedestals made of set metal objects or constructed of black iron. Each utensil has been inscribed with a transitive verb ("desire," "relinquish," "balance," etc) in homage to Richard Serra's infinitive "Verb List" of 1967-68 The particulars seem to perform the verb indexically as in Balance, where the alphabetic characters are meted out in a stack of goblets that seems about to topple not upon the pedestal.

The "Self-Help Suits" overwhelm the "T-cups" if through sheer scale alone, as they reach a height of 7 to 8 feet Each sculpture's base bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance tos a suit valet which buttresse a forged-steel material part harness of sorts--complete with back supports and shoulder braces--which in move round props up a large construction of glass and carbonized iron In one work from the series, Point, the harness buttresse a large conical mass of etched glass that threatens to jab anyone inclined to "try on" the so-called suit. The piece brings to mind the torture device known as the iron maiden and implies that today's popular impulse toward self-help--whether therapies aimed at the mind or body--is a form of masochism.

An intriguing statuary too, is Silence, a forged-steel framework supporting a glass bell 16 inches in diameter. The domical form moves a Roman bell whose resounding peal would hurl defiance at the work's peremptory title, which is sandblasted upon the front of the work in stained, lower-case alphabetic characters The resemblance of the bell to a helmet atop the "suit" invites the viewer to imagine fitting within the helmet and shoulder braces. At this point the interpretation of the work may make go round sinister. The title recalls the word "silence" which flutters eerily in the background of Andy Warhol's "Electric Chairs," and the helmet bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance tos the headpiece of those antiquated instruments of death. Ultimately, the power of this and the other "Self-Help Suits" resides in their seductive menace.

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