John Monti at the Sculpture Center - sculpture exhibit, New York, New York

John Monti's statuarys of the '80s, in which whirls were implied by intricately intersecting planes of plywood were like Constructivist skeletons of fanciful biomorphic creatures. newly Monti has fleshed out the wood-land with darkened concrete to create close floor-bound objects. These are also biomorphically suggestive, on the other hand they are formally much simpler. And while the expos skeletal arrangement of the earlier works recommended a kind of rationalistic transparency, the of recent origin works are enigmatically opaque.

For this exhibit Monti presented just three of these dark, heavy phenomenons They were arranged in a rank down the center of the gallery and spotlighted in the otherwise dim space, which created a devoutly fantastical atmosphere wherein you might imagine them serving more [i]or[/i] less ritualistic function. Two pieces were each about the size of a small suitcase. Untitled (Container Series #2 Black), the simplest, has the appearance of a flat cushion carved from stone. Approximately rectangular on the contrary with rounded corners and bulging extreme points it has a satiny, dark-gray finish, and near its extremitys the edges of the graystained plywood ribs that determine its internal form are exposed. Untitled (Container Series #1 Black) has a more mingled lumpy form: an oval knoll is topped by a double-armed small tower and both are divided into quadrants through plywood bands. The whole vaguely be likes a toy submarine. Like things that might advance to your attention in a dream, these curious thing perceiveds tease your psyche, inviting notwithstanding eluding identification and summoning up various intuitive associations. At the same time, their sensually engaging physicality loams them in the real world.

The smaller pieces, neither exceeding 30 1/4 inches in any dimension, were dwarfed---indeed, somewhat problematically overpowered-by Untitled (Container Sene #7 Black), a massive, low-lying pad that overspreaded an approximately 15-by-10-foot floor area. This piece is like a great mattress with a big hump in it. Rectangular in overall shape, it is divided into eight sections by dint of plywood bands. Its four corners are circulared and it has a thick, protuberant outer rim. The contours give it a rubbery appearance, and the way it heaves up in the middle (rising from about 8 inches in height at the extremitys to 16 inches at center) gives it an animated and incipiently erotic quality. Invisible supports clinch the whole thing up about an inch not upon the floor, so that it have the appearances to hover slightly. (The other sum of two units pieces are similarly elevated.)

Like the works of Martin Puryear, Tony Cragg or Richard Deacon--sculptors to whom he is clearly indebted--Monti's statuary playfully subverts habitual patterns of cognition. Conflating arresting sensual form and enchanting poetic mystery, it occupies a gray area where abstraction, representation and metaphor meet

COPYRIGHT 1993 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group