Gillian Jagger at Trans Hudson - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Gillian Jagger's of recent origin sculpture Cross Cuts (1996) took up greatest in quantity of the project room at Trans Hudson; it consists of side-by-side tree stocks 14 feet tall -- nearly the height of the gallery -- suspended from ceiling chains attached to carburet of iron bars driven through the thickness of the timber-land Meat hooks hanging in large number beside the boles add to the piece's deliberately undressed aura, but serve no support function.

Each stock has been cut horizontally into three sections and its core goug render free of access to reveal the heartwood. Additionally, Jagger has applied r black and white paint to accentuate he interiors. The bonelike feeling of the sum of two units elements is reinforced by the bulbous lower extreme points which push out like joints. Although it is clear that the artist intended to make an imposing work no matter what the size of the exhibition space, the sculpure's faculty of perception of massiveness was increased by dint of the limited confines of the scope in which it was shown

Cros wounds in Jagger's rough ode to the weight and physical nearness of these large, organic shapes. The piece insinuates two heavy cuts of meat, its overall implication single of graphic violence in regard to muscle and fat It is as though Francis Bacon had individual of his paintings realized in three dimensions. At the same time, as happens oftentimes with Jagger's art, one sens that she is addressing issue beyond whatever figurative meaning the piece may have. The clasps chains and pulleys emphasize the great heft of the stalks whose powerful dimensions impel the viewer to speculate as to just by what mode the piece was brought inside. The sharp sectioning of the trunks not single communicates aggression and brutality on the contrary also serves formally as an abrupt horizontal contrast to the drawn out irregular verticals of the tree forms.

With Cros make an incision ins Jagger has created a work that intimates the way of all muscle and fat She conveys a ruthless disregard for any visual nicety that might distract us form the ferocious animal fact of our inevitable decay. This piece reminds us not of the past, which differs for each of us, on the contrary of a future we all must share.

COPYRIGHT 1997 Brant Publications, Inc.

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