Art as a Universal Language Hannelore Baron and Andy Goldsworthy
L.P. Streitfeld
The Neuberger Museum
has scored a significant coup this year with the simultaneous exhibitions of
two exceptional artists exploring universal language. The dedication by which
Hannelore Baron and Andy Goldsworthy express the injection of spirit into matter
establish them as artistic standard bearers for the 21st century.
“Hannelore
Baron: Works From 1969-1987” reveals the path by which an artist’s
self-discovery transcends into universal expression. Working in the form of two-dimensional
collage and box assemblage, Baron explored the archeology of the soul. Born in
Germany, her family escaped to New York after falling victim to the “Night
of the Broken Glass.” Baron suffered from mental illness throughout her
life and died of cancer in 1987. Although she became a master of weaving emotion
into collage, her art was generally not recognized in her lifetime.
In her forties, Baron embarked on an uncharted voyage into collage as a method
of containing her search for human connection. Her mysterious and intriguing
works of ink, paper and fabric are eloquent testimonials to the common heritage
of humanity stretching all the way back to Sumer, the earliest recorded civilization.
Plunging deep into an expression of our common roots by means of personal suffering,
she developed a cohesive language through the weaving of texture, shape and symbol.
Her transcendent communication expresses the reassurance of the continuum of
nature’s cycles reflected by the injection of new life to old fabrics.
“Andy Goldsworthy:
Three Cairns” brings the natural process of life/death/regeneration to the
interior and exterior of the museum gallery space. On the way to the large theater
gallery, the visitor is taken through the step-by-step process by which the artist
created his eight-foot high beehive shaped stone sculptures representing spiritual
containers or markers on the earth. Photographs accompany notes from the artist’s
diary during the making of a cairn on the grounds of the Neuberger, participant
in a three-museum project to install permanent cairns in the mid-west and both
U.S. coasts.
In the gallery
are installations of photographs of three temporary Goldsworthy cairns interacting
with the natural environment. In the center, “Prairie” is a suite of
15 Cibachrome prints of a cairn in an Iowa wheat field depicted during the passage
of the seasons. “East Coast Cairn” and “West Coast Cairn”
reveal the effect of the tides in time sequence; one installation depicts decay
while the other is submerged at night and slowly appears again at dawn.
The south gallery
utilizes floor and ceiling to create a natural crossroads. “Line” is
created from branches retrieved from the campus sculptured with fine clay. “Passage”
is formed of Scottish ferns and cattail stalks. We experience this convergence
between man and nature again on the road leaving the museum when we locate the
permanent East Coast Cairn under the oak tree. At sunset, the stone turns golden,
infusing a spiritual resonance into the sculpture. This experience of the transcendent
is precisely what we should be seeking in art right now.
