Nobody Sculpts
Leslie Wright
Nobody Works is an expanding art collective exhibiting contemporary art in group exhibitions by medium. I started Nobody Works in August of 2005 with the ideal that artists could make art all the time as opposed to having to work at a day job. "Nobody Sculpts" is the third in a series of Brooklyn exhibitions, following closely on the heels of "Nobody Paints" and "Nobody Draws." "Nobody Sculpts" is a sculpture show featuring a variety of types of sculpture that includes industrial urban, figurative abstract-realism, and a delicate swirling installation piece that winds throughout the exhibition overhead. This current exhibition focuses on a group of sculptors from different social backgrounds who are currently living in urban American cities. Within their pieces, a playful, youthful quality is combined with the industrial environments in which they now reside. Occupying the sprawling East Williamsburg loft of artist Christy Singleton, who co-curated this exhibition, the show bursts with the vibrant efforts of eight artists, most of which are young, Brooklyn newcomers.
Andy Wilhelm’s matrix of pulsating wooden spheres appears as a cross between a complex logic puzzle for advanced 12 year-olds and a model for a utopian outer space village. It forcefully weaves through and compresses and collapses the surrounding space. A second of his works reads like a fragment of a muscular alien pipe system. Cast of aluminum, its gaping interior hollow is highly polished, flashing within itself a brilliant storm of light.
Christy Singleton’s two figurative pieces in the exhibit are part of her body of work that creates an irrational reality–realizing humans as they could look in the future, almost as though they are a different species. Elvis and Caren are both silicone-based sculptures that have a basic human form that is distorted into dreamlike, mutated shapes while still retaining familiar features.
The installation piece by Jongil Ma titled I Am Glad You Like Elvis was conceived as a companion piece to Elvis by Christy Singleton. As you make your way through the exhibition, you follow the delicate interweaving strips of wood that rise above your head and decoratively lead you throughout the exhibition, using the colors in the clothing on Elvis. It evokes the idea of a long kite that is being trailed through the air.
Boxed Heads: Pit Bull, Monkey and Bear by Mark Denardo is an exhibit of three pieces that are abstract representations of each of these animals. They are cardboard and tape pieces reminiscent of primitive, tribal masks combined with a spirituality of childlike, western culture.
Chido Johnson’s pieces Holey Head and Call Me are socially informed figurative pieces. Holey Head is a beautifully rendered cast aluminum piece with various holes that penetrate into its smooth and pristine surface. Call Me is a resin piece that is a playful depiction of two childlike obese male figures on a skateboard that are pulling their mouths open to make identical funny faces.
Truck by Tom Butter, who is well-known in sculpture circles throughout New York City, also has a piece in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In this exhibition, his thought-provoking piece is constructed mainly of steel and fiberglass. This piece references industrial influences and then combines those materials and forms them with fragile paper strips that have prints of fire trucks on them. This childhood reference contrasts with the strong verticality of the fiberglass casting.
Sitting high on a pedestal is Todd Lambrix’s untitled rectilinear piece featuring circular topped pins resting in a painted sheep’s wool and foam block all enclosed within a glass house. The piece is very organic and addresses issues of sex, mortality and control. The miniature scale of this piece eludes to a dollhouse in which we can play out our fantasies.
Tomasso Tastini’s piece called Simbol is a small, cracked head sitting atop a long, metal pole. A gash runs the length of the face in which other colors mingle with the metallic hues. The piece itself is industrial with many metal parts making up the base and head.
This exhibition includes an eclectic mix of pieces that are products of the complex environments in which we live, including both industrial elements and childlike qualities. Each artist uses their own unique self-expression to portray the different ways in which we relate to our world using our childhood experiences to teach us lessons that are useful in the present day.
