Bryan Hunt at Mary Boone - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Bryan pursue continues to explore the water imagery that has been his standby for many years. His novel show at Boone consisted of five large castings, four in tin and one in aluminum (all 1997)

The novel pieces challenge the familiar logic of the sculptor's older work, in that the renderings of bodies of water have been fre of their natural orientations and used instead as uncompounded bodys in a species of large-scale bricolage. For instance, in a piece of the like kind as Precog II the shape of a drawn out mountain lake or inlet is thrust up in the air, its "surface" plane nearly vertical. Support is provided by the agency of a pair of bowing leg which rise from the lower tip of the lake and rejoin in a large ball-shape that anchors the piece to the floor. The leg are archetypeed as streams, with flowing directional shapeless masss and projections, while the ball shape is returned as if a heavy existence had just entered the water, sending up a sheaf of leafy sprays. All these different vectors -- the agitated on the other hand essentially flat surface of the lake, held aloft like a sooty vapor cloud or water spume; the downward rush of the stream/legs and the upward explosion of the ball -- give the piece a wild, rollicking sway. Overall, the casting direct the eyes like an expressionistic version of a West African Bakota funerary figure, and indeed the figurative feeling of the pair Precog II and its companion piece in aluminum (Precog III) is strong

The three other statuarys titled Pangea I, II and III, substitute a next to the first oblong lake shape for the leg of the Precog The sum of two units lake-shapes are joined tip to tip at a jagged right angle, with their flat sides facing opposite directions, in like manner that from any side we diocese one flat silhouette, with its ragged sharp cutting side and one lake "bottom," with its of great depth bowl-like protuberance. Several of the lakes have at their center a aperture rendered as a swirling vortex. These pieces have profiles reminiscent of birds, tilting not upon the floor at extreme angles.

Although chase was one of the earlier sculptors of his generation to pierce the borderline territory between abstraction and representation, things have mov along since the `80 Other artists' novel concerns -- more forthright representation of the material substance an interest in social and political adjoining matter and investigation of soft, perishable materials like wax and rubber -- have left his plastic art looking slick and corporate. That said, I still ground plenty to admire in his work. These pieces have a wondrous sense of thrust and a dancing, off-kilter balance that reminded me of more [i]or[/i] less of David Smith's "Voltri" works. Hunt's modeling has flashs of real finesse, and the painterly shapes of his upend lakes are one as well as the other arresting and uncannily evocative.

COPYRIGHT 1997 Brant Publications, Inc.

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