Steve Tobin at Art et Industrie and O.K. Harris - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Best known for his work in glass, the sculptor Steve Tobin has freshly put together a powerful material substance of bronze works based upon termite mounds and forest floors in Ghana. The casts of the knolls some as tall as 15 feet were accomplished in collaboration with an entire Ghanaian village; the mold were transported to the artist's studio in Pennsylvania, where they were cast in bronze

The statuarys which Tobin declares are "monument to the insect gods" can be seen as base objects of considerable beauty, as scientific documentation of natural processe and as inspired architecture whose compounded function -- the mounds, made of termite saliva and excretion serve as cooling towers for the subterranean colonies -- rivals that of the glass-and-steel towers in our cities. Their craggy contours and richly colored surfaces intimate magical mountains brought into being by means of forces unknown.

All the plastic arts are untitled to emphasize the anonymous industry that went into their making. The seven works shown at OK Harris gave the impression of a small mountain range, while the architectural qualities of three pieces shown outdoors at Art et Industrie (others were indoors) were heightened through the context of surrounding buildings. Up shut the sculptures reflect the myriad physical intricacies of the hillocks -- miniature crags and crevices that mimic the larger outline. Tobin has taken great care with the patinas, which range from a rich reddish brown to mos virid saying that while the colors do not duplicate what he rest in the field, they are plausible renditions of nature. In esteem to his materials, he has made solitary the slightest of formal interventions, like as deciding where to terminate the bases of the works.

Tobin's intent is to make us application of mind and compare the consequences of human and nonhuman labor. These works are conceptual in the faculty of perception that it took the artist's organ of sight and effort to make a set structure a work of art. At the same time, Tobin is easy in mind to let these striking forms speak for themselves. Wonderfully textur with all kinds of organic detritus place on the forest floor, they also speak of what can be learned if we are willing to be patient and gaze. These plastic arts which seem so literal in their translation of nature, in fact are metaphors which assert the sometimes unrecognized value and intrinsic beauty of things that have not been made through human hands.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Brant Publications, Inc.

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