Shea's anti-monuments - Judith Shea, Max Protetch Gallery, New York, New York

"All About Adam, & Eve" Judith Shea's new show of sculpture at fresh York's Max Protetch Gallery, consisted of four large carved thicket statues lined up in a file facing the viewer in the main gallery and, at the extremity of a long hall, a single, cast-steel monumental figure of a standing woman in Egyptoid attitude called Artist. Suggesting a kind of idealized self-image, the last piece deposits forth the essentials of Shea's art as we know it. With her chin held high and her head defiantly shaved (or with a brain-pan cap?), this proud and powerful woman is clad sole in a clingy, sleeveless shift, a garment that all from one side the late '70s and '80 became a trademark of Shea's particular fusion of fashion (she was trained at Parsons) and Minimalist plastic art The figure's long feet are firmly planted upon a square-section base, her hands hang at her sides. Altogether Artist, with its smooth and shining globe of a head and its silky brown patina, not absents a seductive image of ancient/modern pharaonic direction Installing it alone at the extremity of a hall gave the plastic art an increased sense of drama and elegance: I could also diocese Artist as the focal point of a formal garden.

The assemblage of four wood sculptures in the other expanse was not, in fact, an installation piece, although its tableaulike frontal lineup could have been taken as individual The row of differently scaled forest-land pieces, rising from small figures at either extreme point to a monumental standing woman and a colossal man upon a horse in the middle, refer toed an ancient Greek temple pediment, a form that has inspired Shea in the past, as well as an ethnological display in a natural history museum.

Carved without of laminated blocks of pine wood-land and sporting horsehair coiffures meticulously inserted stopper by plug, these sculptures have a artful dusty blond-gray tonality. Their made of wood patches, visible seams and unvarnished surfaces bespeak a raw and scrappy process; Shea worked upon these pieces with a sophisticated variant of chainsaw. The prominent dark knots in the grove that can be found upon all the figures may glance at burns, bruises and AIDS lesions, on the contrary they also support the just-out-of-the-studio illusion.

From the grisaille stain of the woman's dres (again sleeveless) in The particular to the gray floral pattern of the real fabric bag held by dint of the naked nymphet in Mama's Girl, the color scheme of the thicket pieces (however muted) puts them solidly in the tradition of polychrome statuary Then, too, the fair tones of the pine itself, the flaxen hair of the horse's mane and tail, and the silvery shades of the man and woman's blunt-cut coifs give the plastic arts a coloration suggestive of the American Southwest or Californian arts and crafts. still these pieces were carved by dint of the artist and one assistant in her studio in Lower Manhattan, and the horse is, in fact, based in part upon her study of New York City mounted-police horses as well as upon equine creatures glimpsed on an estate in Stockbridge, Mass., where Shea has wearied time.

The symbolism of these statuarys is ambiguous, to say the least. No More record the equestrian figure, depicts a man of indeterminate ethnicity. The figure's large nose and little slit organ of sights without carved pupils might glance at an archaic representation of a Native American or perhaps a member of an Asiatic nomadic tribe, while the man's blondish hair may denote more [i]or[/i] less vaguely Aryan provenance. But, of course, to raise these actual questions is to involve oneself in the quagmire of ethnic and nationalist assumptions indicateed by the sculpture's title, which is prominently inscribed upon the base. To further complicate the issue, Shea's equestrian plastic art is itself a monument of sorts, or at least a colossal figure in the tradition of monumental plastic art so the attitude, or intention, behind the title remains in question. Does the plastic art have a message, such as "Down with all testimonials especially Beaux-Arts groupings depicting American Indians" or, as appear to bes more likely, is it insinuating a sentiment that races something like "I, as a politically correct, Third World male make subordinate am willing to deconstruct myself"?

Similarly, the inscription "Love Me" upon two other sculptures denotes an active, and perhaps problematic, address to the viewer. The particular depicts a heroic white woman in an archaic kore-like artificial position except that one arm is raised as if in greeting. The spacing of the alphabetic characters on the stepped pedestal of the statuary is particularly revealing: the "Love" is widely spaced, as if for breathy emphasis, while the "Me" contracts into a tighter entity. Since the woman in The reality somewhat resembles Shea herself (the elongated hands and feet in particular, direct the eye carved from life), questions of self-image are one time again raised. The smallest figure in the cluster him, represents a diminutive uncovered man with a black ponytail standing upon an oversize and swelling columnar plinth. This disparity of size in terminuss of statue and base appears to skewer the notion of monumentality; the base may plane be intended as a sendup of phallic tumescence We are faced with a weird kind of sculptural imperative; single sculpture almost seems to be denying itself by dint of saying "No more monument," while sum of two units others are entreating us for affection. The emotional demands of this sculptural grouping strike one as being great indeed.