Robert Graham at Gagosian - bronze sculpture - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions

Robert Graham showed 40 or in the way that of his smaller-scale bronze figures all arrayed in a compressed grouping under the natural light of Gagosian's skylight. Each plastic art was isolated on a separate stand put togethered from a bundle of and zinc rods. The figures, which were all female, were each patinated in a single flat color within a wide appearance of hues, including whitish grays, reaching far down reds and blacks, and a variety of metallic virids At first blush, this concourse of naked young women appeared to show a whole variety of marks but it soon became clear that there were, as by the show's title, only "Eight Statues." Six or more reproductions of each individual piece were dispersed in the overall clump in various orientations. Thus, from any given vantage individual could examine front, side and back views of each figure more or les simultaneously. These puts of identical sculptures formed constellations within the installation, while similarities and dissimilarities in the artificial positions created rhythms and counter-rhythms. Six of the figures were in individual scale, and the remaining sum of two units were in a noticeably larger scale, adding single more note of counterpoint. The larger pieces were upon slightly higher stands.

The greatest in quantity interesting development in Graham's novel work is the sharpening conflict between the naturalism of his modeling and the abstraction of his figures as sculptural designs. This tension between liveliness and objectification is created from one side an intense concentration on, and a simultaneous obliteration of individuality. The acutely observ nuances of proportion, contour and balance (poet Michael McClure uses the confine "equipoise" in the catalogue essay) in each of these plastic arts are specific and carefully integrated. However, Graham combats this highly refined response to an individual material substance with all the other resources of his presentation. Multiplication of each figure, mechanically flat coloration, masklike faces with bulging pupil-less organ of visions bare genitalia, support stands that direct the eye like hatracks--all these factors make each "specimen" into a weirdly unfamiliar reality It is also interesting that these figures tend hitherward most fully alive from a distance of several yards. upon close inspection, small glitches in the modeling and casting rip the taut scrim of Graham's nearly photographic illusionism. I imagine Graham does not mind this, since he in the way that clearly wants us to remember that these are plastic arts not people.

I find Graham's single-mindedness refreshing. He has refused to yield to the puritanical onslaught of Lacanians and feminist iconoclasts who demand that the female stark naked the "object of the male gaze," be banished from legitimate esthetic discourse. Continuing to refine his icons of objectified desire, his implies that sublimated sexual drive is individual of the few wellsprings of vitality that can be maintained above a lifetime.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group