SHARKFORUM: OPINION WITH TEETH

Puryear's work is both sophisticated and playful, featuring organic forms which are oddly humanistic. As with all great sculptors he clearly devotes a great deal of attention to scale, incorporating the anticipated viewer into the design of his pieces.



Puryear's use of craft is authoritative, but this skill never overpowers the metaphorical quality of his work. In fact the beauty of this work is that the choice of materials, method of application and joinery all contribute to a greater gestalt. A knowledge of Scandinavian woodworking and furniture design is evident in the joinery of these pieces (the artist studied at the Swedish Royal Academy of Art, Stockholm, Sweden from 1964 - 68), but all of these pieces are invested with a playfulness which comes across to young audiences as well as old.



As my 6-year-old son moved around "Untitled" (picture above) he was enthralled by the organic qualities of the piece. "It looks a little like a giraffe mixed with a Rhino!" he informed us. And I can't help thinking that such associations are not entirely unintentional. This may be just one form of success, but it's very powerful - such connections, made in the mind of the viewer, creates a wonderful connection between artist, art and patron.



What strikes me as so masterful about this work is the way in which all the elements of form serve to support the final piece. It would be easy for an artist with this level of technical mastery to fall into the redundancy of mannerism, but each of these pieces is unique in it's own way. As an art student I struggled with style, and quickly adopted a rant against those who rely on stylist concerns above all else. In many ways I still feel as strongly about it, and a show such as this is a reminder why. Too often we see high-stylists with tremendous skills go to great lengths to cover for the fact that they are bereft of good ideas. In so many ways American contemporary culture celebrates style over substance, and the art world is not immune from such myopia.



But really great artists find ways to balance all of the formal concerns - content, meaning, style, material, scale, color, hue, value, contrast, and so on. And really great art demonstrates the inter-connection of all things. It is this sense of connection, along with the conflation of the literal and the abstract, which makes Puryear's work so very powerful. This work is strangely both global and American at the same time, as the technique references the woodworking traditions of both Scandinavia and the Orient. And yet the subject matter and boldness of presentation seem somehow uniquely American. The work is by turns pensive, boisterous, contemplative and robust. Both sophisticated and approachable, it's not quite populist and not quite aristocratic.

And I can't help wondering what he's working on now, as his next big show, at MoMA in NYC quickly approaches. I only wish this show had been larger.