Beautiful Beast

by Claire Cushman, MFA 2015

“Artists have a limited amount of studio time, so we have to be selective about which shows to see,” says Peter Drake, Academy Dean and curator of Beautiful Beast.

“I envision going to shows as part of an artist’s studio practice – and seeing shows that don’t inspire you is like losing time in the studio. With any show at the Academy, it’s important that the work presented gets people back to their studios wanting to make art.”

During the February 3^rd opening of Beautiful Beast, it was clear from guests’ reactions that this show had succeeded in inspiring artists. I overheard more than one guest remark, “This is THE BEST show the Academy’s ever put on.”

Beautiful Beast brings together 16 of the most compelling and influential figurative sculptors of our era. With wildly different visions, materials, and processes, the artists in this show slip back and forth between the beautiful and the grotesque. The works, which range in material from carved wood to stainless steel, foam rubber to video installation, ask audiences to question the meaning of these two paradigms and all that lies between.

During the Opening

Last week, I sat down with Peter Drake to discuss three of the pieces that caught my eye and left ME itching to get back to the studio.

Lesley Dill - "Rush" metal, foil, organza and wire (size?)

Although Beautiful Beast is a sculpture show, Lesley Dill’s 2D wall installation, “Rush” was the first piece Drake thought of for the show. “Often sculpture shows can feel monotonous, because there tend to be a lot of works of roughly the same height,” he says.  “This piece, which covers the whole wall, activates the space so that anything happening in the rest of the room becomes part of a spectacle.”

In “Rush” a small metal cutout of a seated figure occupies the left corner of the wall. Hundreds of different cutouts pour forth from his back, overlapping and flowing into one another in a cloud of swirling imagery. Dill grew up in Maine, and says the vastness and grey luminosity of the sea has stayed with her and influenced her work in metal.

Dill sees the small figure as one of us. The work deals with the limitlessness and wonder of the creative impulse, and the need to just get ideas out of one’s system. She based the piece around a Kafka quote:

“The tremendous world I have in my head. But how free to myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times rather be torn to pieces than retain it in me or bury it. That, indeed, is why I’m here, that is quite clear to me…”

“This figure needs to have this purging experience in order to live and survive,” says Drake. “There’s a rush of cultural activity exploding out of him –Indonesian art, European art, American art, Mexican art – all these different icons of creativity.”

The overall effect of this piece is one of overwhelming beauty combined with frustration and confusion at this cloud of ideas. Just as the viewer can’t parse the imagery out into discrete units, as artists, we often don’t know quite what it is we’re trying to make or say, just that we need to get it out.

Folkert de Jong - "The Piper" 2007, polystyrene, plastic, pigments and adhesive, 80x40x40

In the far corner of Wilkinson Hall stands Folkert de Jong’s “The Piper.”  Its placement in the corner is no accident – with playful, candy colours and an enticing variety of materials, The Piper is incredibly seductive from afar. “It acts as a magnet and pulls people into the space,” Drake says.  

De Jong creates an entire world out of cheap materials such as polyurethane and Styrofoam. “Many of his pieces are anti-war themed,” Drake explains. “He does something that few people can do – he makes very powerful social statements, but you don’t feel like you’re being preached to.”  

The pipers de Jong refers to are the musicians employed to encourage soldiers into battle. “The piper is both musical and beautiful, but for a very destructive purpose,” says Drake. “The head of this sculpture is based on Abraham Lincoln – a strange contradiction, considering that Lincoln was a crusader for peace.”

While this piece immediately draws you in, up close, it’s downright frightening. The range of textures is at once gorgeous and repulsive, with wax that depicts flesh peeling away in some areas. The body is the size of a human form, but the swollen looking head is larger than life, and leans forward toward the viewer. If you stand right in front of the sculpture, you feel as though it might to topple over onto you, invoking a harrowing physical experience.

Monica Cook - "Snowsuit" wax, pigment, fur coats, aqua resin, fiberglass -28x30x40

Monica Cook crafted “Snowsuit” specifically for Beautiful Beast.  It began as a smaller figure, but grew to life size as she worked. “She had in mind the idea of shedding the skin, the rebirth and renewal that you must do in order to grow as a person,” says Drake. “But she was adamant about not leaving the skin behind looking like some discarded thing – she wanted to construct it in a confident posture.”

At first this piece, with its furs and zippers, reminded me of a piece of clothing I might see in a winter couture show. However, after spending some time with it I began to feel a bit sick. Cook incorporated flesh coloured pigment into the resin, which reminds the viewer of human skin. The scale of the piece makes it impossible not to think of our own bodies while viewing the piece, and the large chunks of the legs, arms and torso are cut away to reveal what looks like a layer of viscera and organs. I couldn’t help but think of “Silence of the Lambs” suit made of skin.

Monica Cook was originally thought of as a painter, but has undergone massive transformations as an artist. “She started making sculptures for stop action animation, so she had to learn all these new techniques at the same time,” says Drake. “This piece is about her journey as a creative person – she’s constantly learning and trying on new things, becoming expert at them and moving on.”

While the opening certainly succeeded in inspiring Academy students and viewers alike to get back to the studio and make things, it also provided a fantastic opportunity for the artists in the show to meet each other. “Many of them have had work in shows together or followed one another’s work over the years, but have never met in person,” says Drake. “So there was a really nice energy in bringing them together.”

Beautiful Beast is on view daily in Wilkinson Hall until March 8^th, 2015.

THOUGHTS BEFORE THE FIRING RANGE

Uttering the words “mid-year critique” in early December to a second-year student is likely to induce an excited and petrified reaction simultaneously.  Can you imagine the courage it takes for a student to stand in front of an audience of their peers with their work as a backdrop explaining their intent and point of view to a group of esteemed faculty and visiting critics including Alex Kanevsky in under a minutes or less?  Sprinkle in the Dean of Academic Affairs, Peter Drake, Academy President David Kratz and you have quite the all-star squad ready to not only challenge and question the student’s techniques but the success of their outcome. Staying present during this fifteen minute critique is no small feat, especially with the camera rolling and recording every word.  However, beyond the fear and vulnerability lies inspiration that creates the space to expand and grow.

In this blog post, Adam Cross (MFA 2014) shares his experience:

From the moment I stood to present my art pieces, I began to feel a sense of relief.  Soon this public review of my work would be over, and at least now it had finally begun. All of the hard work, preparation, and anticipation for this event – the Mid-Year Critique at the New York Academy of Art – was under way.

 As silence began to fill the room, I was given the floor to introduce my work, and suddenly became fully aware of the fact that I now had the attention of the entire audience.   As I let this realization sink in, I skimmed the assembly I faced.  The first row of the all-star crowd staring back at me represented my critics – esteemed and admired professionals of the contemporary art world who were among my favorite living artists.   Beyond that sat my colleagues, an equally talented and inspirational group of artists, possessing sharp minds and skillful hands.  My fellow classmates were also capable of sophisticated critical feedback – evidenced by numerous faculty and peer discussions of each other’s works throughout the semester – but were resigned to remain silent this time, as they were not permitted comment during the Mid-Year Critiques.

Looking out, I pondered what an honor it is to be counted among these peers with this unique chance to receive comments from such a talented and accomplished panel of reviewers.  Once I introduced my work, and was able to say mostly what I had intended, it was now my turn to listen. Having talked with alumni of their experience “before the firing range,” I was told the experience was for most people like a “black out” and would be “over before you realize it.”  However, for me, it was just the opposite.  I felt as if I was wide awake for my own surgery, but rather unlike being under the knife, it was relatively painless.  Although difficult at times to remain quiet, I knew from past personal experiences that being defensive would be selfish, senseless and only rob me of valuable expert feedback.  What my critics offered was their fair, insightful and, sincere reactions that I feel so fortunate to have received.  As difficult as the truth was to hear, the honesty they provided will help to shape me as an artist, enabling me to create the best work I am capable of producing, and I know this was their goal.

To learn more about Adam and his work visit: www.adamcrossartwork.com

Interested to experience mid-year critiques for yourself?  Find past critiques on Academy’s Vimeo channel.

Spring Break: Day 4 - A visit to Glasmalerei Peters in Paderborn, Germany, with Peter Drake

By Peter Drake (Dean, Academic Affairs) 

I'm very happy to announce that I have been commissioned by the MTA Arts for Transit, one of the nation's largest public art programs, to create site-specific public art for the Long Island Rail Road Massapequa Station.

The project will feature 18 glass windows and five ceramic/glass mosaics measuring 463 square feet throughout the train station. My MTA proposal evokes timeless scenes of waiting for trains to arrive with toy figures representing rail customers, a bright sky, rows of hedges and local details. I am collaborating with artisans at Mosaika Art and Design in Montreal, Canada, and Glasmalerei Peters Studios in Paderborn, Germany.

Paderborn, Germany, is a lovely town of 150,000 people about three hours from Munich. It is home to Peters Glass, one of the most accomplished art glass manufacturers in the world. Peters Glass is a family affair, with four generations of experience working with artists and restoring stained glass. Wilhelm and Inge Peters, their son Jan and a staff of 60 occupy several buildings in Paderborn and the surrounding communities.

Peter Kaufmann, the American representative of Peters Glass, met Jan and me at the airport and quickly brought us to the main facility. For anyone who loves color, stained glass is an amazing material, and the Peters family has made an art out of working with artists and extending the technical and imaginative possibilities of working in glass. Every square inch of the facility is covered in glass samples, finished pieces and the extensive collection of Westphalian art that Wilhelm and Inge have collected.

In addition to the seemingly limitless studio facilities, there are enough apartments to house six or seven visiting artists at any one time. The apartment where Janice and I were staying has a bedroom, kitchen, bath, terrace and living room. It couldn’t be more gemütlich.   

On our first day, Peter K. took us on the 50-cent tour of the town and the facility. There are 13th century windows from Chartres Cathedral right next to new works commissioned by the MTA. The combination is awe-inspiring and a bit intimidating. As Peter K. and Jan like to say, stained glass is fragile and strangely permanent. If you make a piece of glass at Peters, it will be around for a while.

Peters Glass works with artists from all over the world, and about seven projects have been commissioned by the MTA in the past few years. In addition to my own seventeen 3 x 6 ft. pieces, Peters Glass is in the middle of working on more than one hundred 5 x 5 ft. pieces by Shinique Smith that look amazing.

 

Claus Happe is my master craftsman and he is an encyclopedia of talent and information about all manner of painted and stained glass. There were samples of techniques waiting for me to look at, and Claus was more than willing to experiment with sandblasting, multiple firings and pretty much anything that I wanted to try. I even tried my hand at painting on glass, and I have to say that it is a very unforgiving material. The results are incredible, but getting used to the flow of water-based paint on a slippery surface is pretty tough.

That said, the folks at Peters Glass want to start a residency program for the Academy in which two students would come to Paderborn for as long as one month to learn how to work with glass and finish a piece for display. It could start as a contest to see whose proposal would translate best into the medium. Wilhelm is particularly keen about this idea, and I think it could happen this year.

One of the many things that I have learned from this experience is that in a great collaboration you have to be open to the nature of the materials and the experience of the people that you're working with. You really can’t have a rigid interpretation of your own work; something new and refreshing will come out of the collaboration if you are open to it.