at Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles (through 8 April 2023)
Reviewed by Lorraine Heitzman
In the midst of the frenzy of Frieze week, the quiet of Martin Puryear’s show at Matthew Marks Gallery was practically deafening. Admittedly, Puryear’s art has always been somewhat monastic, even restrained, and the sculptures in this show are no less hushed. Over the course of his career the world has only become louder and more vitriolic, and the stillness that is his stock-in-trade is amplified against the atmospheric noise that is now so prevalent. Like an admonished child, Puryear has learned to use his inside voice, but he has also mastered the ability to make his voice heard above the din. Through impeccable craftsmanship and a minimalist sensibility, his sculptures speak louder than the clamoring voices of countless others.
All images courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery.
This is Puryear’s first solo show to open in Los Angeles in 30 years. The sculptures made over the past five years were in some instances exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2019 where he represented the United States. At least one sculpture shown at the Biennale has been re-imagined for this show. His installation, Liberty, at the American Pavilion was inspired; his elegant sculptures played off the Palladian-style building and his precision and restraint echoed the architecture. Puryear used the American references to his advantage, too, because it is a building whose columns were modeled after those at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson and where Sally Hemmings, an African American woman, was enslaved. Jefferson is believed to have fathered several of her children, though he never claimed them as his own. At the Biennale, A Column for Sally Hemmings was placed prominently in the center of the entry rotunda so that one was forced to confront her. The intimate scale of the room and the proximity of the viewer to the sculpture brought out the figurative aspect of the abstract sculpture, with the fluted column becoming a dress and the hardware where the head should be evoking the shackles of slavery. These associations are more difficult to draw in the 2021 version shown in Los Angeles. In the cool architecture of the gallery, the spartan display of Puryear’s sculptures lacked the references and close domestic space of the pavilion. It is still a beautiful and thought-provoking work, but the larger environment dilutes the emotional impact.
Aso Oke (2019), Hibernian Testosterone (2018), and New Voortrekker (2018), all shown at the Biennale, fare better adapting to the larger and more neutral gallery. Aso Oke is a dome-shaped bronze sculpture seated on the floor that folds over itself. Originally made of rattan and twine and then cast, it has the irregular shape of a crudely constructed hut, although the inspiration is from a Nigerian hat made from woven cloth of the same name. As either a shelter or garment, its open woven structure makes it unreliable, and the bronze lattice effect transforms and cements a flimsy construction into a fortified object. It is both ironic — thwarting our expectations by manipulating scale — and reverential, by creating a monument to a common garment. It also hints at the bondage of African peoples, and the crafts they used to sustain themselves. In Venice, Aso Oke was placed near a wall of glass that emphasized the transparent aspects of the sculpture and helped define the volume, but otherwise, the experience isn’t appreciably altered.
New Voortrekker is far more complex in both meaning and construction. Puryear has fabricated a tableau of a wooden, toy-like truck pulling a wagon. The wagon is uncovered but is reminiscent of the Conestoga wagons of the American West. They climb up a ramp supported by a modified, de-stabilized sawhorse. Between the plank and the base is a wooden sphere, in essence a fulcrum. At what point does this instability cause the truck to drive over the cliff? The truck is an archetypal form assembled from a cube, a rectangular block, and four solid disks as wheels. A wagon made of silver-painted wood slats and spoke wheels is hitched to the truck that traverses an incline which could be anywhere.
Voortrekkers were Dutch speaking South Africans (Boers) who travelled from the Cape in wagon trains seeking new territory in which to live outside of British Colonial rule. During their exodus they battled Zulus, ultimately conquering them. Originally their plight was seen as heroic, but newer interpretations are less positive in light of the human cost of their conquests. Puryear’s New Voortrekkers updates their exodus by substituting a truck for a wagon that also recalls the westward expansion in the United States and the subsequent costs to indigenous people here at home. The artist seems to be implying that at some point the truck and wagon will undoubtedly fall over the precipice.
In Hibernian Testosterone, Puryear conjures the extinct Irish elk, replicating the skull and tremendous antlers in their actual size. With a span of over twelve feet, it is believed that the outsized antlers contributed to their demise. With the skeleton mounted on an inverted wooden cross, and through Puryear’s use of the classical name for Ireland in the title, Puryear points out the folly of Western cultures to over-exaggerate their significance, and that they do so at their own peril. In each of these three sculptures, Puryear re-examines history to expose human culpabilities and biological failures, perhaps in the hope of a reckoning.
More recent sculptures are here as well, including The Way, made in 2022. The Way is a linear exploration made of bronze that defies gravity as thin branches extend cantilevered beyond a small solid base. While the upright extensions derive from nature, the oddly arched shape that tethers them to the ground is decidedly man-made and somewhat architectural. The limbs have a lyricism but their artifice is accentuated by a spherical joint where the two branches meet. All of his transitions are subtle, and The Way possesses so many of the qualities that distinguish Puryear’s best sculptures: his masterful use of simplicity, his delicate but assured use of materials, and his superb craftsmanship.
Among the other sculptures on view are Looking Askance (2023) and Happy Jack (2020). Both address the figure to greater and lesser degrees. The first is an abstract head made from silver-painted red cedar and pine that has a comic, almost jaunty affect, something that is markedly different than Puryear’s usual sober approach. Depending on where you stand in relationship to the sculpture, it can be viewed as entirely abstract or undeniably figurative, as he plays with positive and negative shapes in a child-like manner. Is this Puryear learning to laugh? The second sculpture is a woven basket which is cast in bronze. Happy Jack brings us back to his wheelhouse, focusing on form and materials with a subtle inference of a bust suggested by the proportions and shape of the corked vessel.
Other works in the show are largely incidental. Nevertheless, if given the right environment and work, a Martin Puryear show can be a profound experience. Having seen some of this work in another installation, it is apparent that this experience was less than profound, lacking the intimacy and warmth that benefits his sculpture. Don’t let that dissuade you, though, since the work here is often exquisite and needs to enter into the vocabulary and collections of Los Angeles.
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Lorraine Heitzman is an artist and writer living in Los Angeles. She has written about the local arts community for ArtCricketLA and Armseye Magazine and is currently a regular contributor to Art and Cake. In addition to exhibiting her art, Ms. Heitzman has her own blog, countingknuckles.com, and her art can be seen on her website lorraineheitzman.com
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Cogent and deeply expressive review! I was fortunate to see some of Puryear’s artworks at the Venice Biennale. This wonderful review brought back memories.