Tangled Eloquent

Our sense of curve arguably has a lot to do with water. Apparently it likes gathering itself most as sphere.  Then,  consider where the fall of gravity sends it.  Mix that with the ricochet pull of the planet’s horizontal spin, turning water’s earthward linear chute spiral, and bend that around shapes of resistance tossed by ground itself, and its visibled motion backloops and complicates further, speaking as kinetic mirror of what’s invisibly felt, as live cartography of cosmic motions and disputations so thorough that even our bodies, inside and out, correspond in shapes evidenced through how water flows.

Curve is what’s happening in Christopher Wool’s new sculptures.  I’ve not otherwise been so taken by his efforts on canvas or paper, which are nice enough, I suppose, but often feel more post than anything else to me, as if so much has got to be left out in order to come across as “current” in a sort of well mannered begging to differ.  But, he does have an eye and has always hinted a rich sense of line and texture.  None of the work feels truly glib, and refreshingly, it’s never been ironic.

These sculptures, however, are really something else.  One viewer next to me impulsively muttered something about his having paperclips at home that already do what these sculptures do, but I’m not so sure he was really giving them their due time or recognition.  I was surprised by them, and they stayed surprising even more so the longer I looked, feeling fresh in a way that even feels like a different kind of fresh.

At Luhring Augustine in Chelsea are three constructed out of what looks like welded and bent bronze tubing, another from unevenly fettucini ribboned strips of bronze, copper and steel and one fashioned with barbed wire.  All are intertwined linear gestures that more than nod at the pivoting language of the drawing-and-painting hand-and-arm and can easily be seen as three dimensionaled drawings, recalling Julio González’ apt conception of “drawing in space.” Wool’s not at all the only painter to have gone there, but so what. The act of perception has yet to become dated, and there’s still so much to explore.

The tube sculptures are coordinated like thickened surfaces that could have been modeled with coat hanger wire.  They’re wide and tall across relatively shallow depth with unpatinaed surfaces and welding stains that don’t  wear makeup. This unapologetic matter of factness feels neither random, careless, self consciously rough nor mannered and effects an overall balance that’s interestingly neither “beautiful,” “pretty” nor “ugly.”   The lines don’t act like footnote illustrations to a preconception. Each meanders widely and promiscuously throughout the field within a chorus of idiosyncratic narratives that altogether hook up somehow.  The rhythms pulse more contrarian than would some rote emulation of water. The “whole” is not exactly a gestalt or an inclusive totality.  The overall shape of each is, paradoxically, conceptually elusive, which is part of what makes these pieces so rejuvenatingly engaging.

The other two constructions read more evenly 360º to the horizon, although the barbed wire piece is backed by a wall.  The “fettucini” ribbonesque sculpture (all are untitled) stands at 12 feet in the proportions of a standing figure without any allusions toward illustrating one (all of these works are really themselves, not “about” something elsewhere). The motion here, smoke-like, waves closer to air than water, time release packed with rhythmic density as ambulatory rotation modulates one’s perspective.

It seems that Wool’s art has been gradually worked more and more into the big time money market through diffusion into the museum circuit.  It’s possible to speculate that he’s no longer risking his rent every time he goes into his studio; and while some might opt for self satisfied replication under such circumstances, maybe he’s applying that type of freedom to support more important freedoms in his art.  These sculptures may be harbingers of yet further surprise. 

Christopher Wool: New Paintings & Sculptures

May 2 – June 20, 2015
Luhring Augustine  531 West 24th Street, New York City
May 2 – June 21, 2015
Luhring Augustine 25 Knickerbocker Avenue, Brooklyn