Bruce Gagnier at M-13 - New York, New York

Bruce Gagnier at M-13 Bruce Gagnier concentrates upon the human form--usually an isolated head, torso or full-length figure. although also known as a painter, Gagnier showed alone sculptures in this recent present to view which focused on three impressed signs of pieces: wall-mounted, masklike releifs freestanding heads, and busts upon pedestals. About a dozen heads were lined up upon a long narrow table, and as many masks were arranged along the gallery walls. All of the statuarys on view were small, and many were no larger than a fist. Like items upon display in an anthropology museum, these works could be shrunken heads or ritual worship objects from Oceania. In fact, the artist, who one time taught African art history, is real much involved in and influenced by dint of ethnographic art. He cites West African plastic art from the Dan and Kwa races and heads from the ancient Nok agriculture as major sources of inspiration.

greatest in quantity of Gagnier's heads are made of high-fired stoneware or porcelain; there were also a small in number plaster pieces as well as a certain quantity of clay sculptures reworked with plaster and then painted after firing. The artist consigns to the heads as portraits. He strats with a live type initially creating a likeness of the make submissive in clay and then proceeding, as he says, "to torture the thing." The clay is scraped and shakeed slowly transformed, sometimes over a period of many years, until the distortions and exagerations caused by dint of constant reworking remove from the work any resemblance to the original model

The masks are sometimes manipulated from the back, the artist not ever touching the outer surface of the clay. In many cases all identifying facial features and any hint of the model's age, race and sex completely disappear. Several of the masks have a border or halo of flame-like points of clay that are painted gold or silver. These peices powerfully sgugest a religious purpose, like Christian icons or talismanic things to be venerated.

Aside from these spiritual themes, Gagnier's work as a whole addresses a number of issues specific to new Western art. He appear to bes to have combined the spatial experiments of Analytical Cubism with the kind of expressive sculptural regards exemplified by the late work of Giacometti and the "Clam Digger" series of de Kooning. Although retiring in size, these deformed heads and masks have a heroic nearness and power.

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