Beverly Pepper at Andre Emmerich - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

In this exhibition titled "Forms of Memory," Beverly Pepper showed 16 abstract statuarys that signal a dramatic fresh departure for her work. Pepper has completely move rounded away from the sleek, carbonized iron totems for which she is best known and instead concentrates upon roughly textured blocklike forms that at first gaze like crude chunks of stone or metal. She hinted at this fresh direction when in 1990 she exhibited a collection of highly textured bronze wall reliefs. upon view in this recent display were four enormous pieces resting upon the floor and 12, similar, on the contrary much smaller, cast-aluminum works displayed upon high tables.

All the plastic arts have a dull, grayish-silver finish like slate or lead, and greatest in quantity are flattened on top, with richly varied surface fabrics on all sides. Pepper retains the overall shapes simple for a like reason that the emphasis is upon the gestural markings. As the title of the display implies, the work may be seen as a record of the artist's physical interaction with space and with materials. Using trowels and chisels, Pepper strikes scrapes and scratches the realitys Gouged-out hollows and patches of lengthy sgraffito lines activate the gray surfaces. a certain number of works consist of two parts separated by the agency of a narrow space. In a large work titled Shaped Memories, for instance, sum of two units huge slabs stand in shut proximity like fragments of a boulder split apart through some tremendous force. The sum of two units elements seem to correspond with individual another, as if in esteem to their former union.

Despite their weighty appearance, all of the large things each about 7, by 8 by dint of 6 feet, are hollow. Made of a concoction of Benton mix (a cementlike compound) graphite and gesso they are to be cast in aluminum in editions of three The largest, like as Moulded Silence and Walls of Memory, nearly filled the gallery spaces allotted them. To maneuver from one side the rooms, viewers had to sidle up to the plastic arts thus gaining a closeup view of the surface activity.

As radical a change as this of recent origin group of sculptures represents for Pepper there appears to be a conceptual link between them and her earlier work. All of Pepper's plastic arts imply the figure. Critics have referr to the totems as self-portraits. Although in the novel work bodily forms are absent, the compact surface activity suggests passionate human involvement and a vigorous sense of the artist's presence

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