In general, sculpture is considered separately from painting. But there is one sculptor, Manuel Neri, who today at 91 can look back at his career as someone who was an important part of the Bay Area Figurative movement.
Another Gen 2 artist who was attached to the Beats and to Funk Art, Neri was nevertheless deeply influenced by his time as a student of Diebenkorn, Bischoff, Weeks, Oliviera and the work of the gone-too-early David Park. But Neri instead took the interest in the form and color three dimensionally.
Neri was from a Mexican immigrant family that had worked as laborers in the Central Valley. After a high school class in ceramics, and a course at the California College of Arts and Crafts, and a connection there to grad student Peter Voulkos who became his teacher and mentor, Neri served in Korea, and then traveled through Mexico with Billy Al Bengston (you see how the California artists begin to interconnect). Neri even invited Alan Ginsberg to read Howl in a debut of the piece.
He began by painting, but Diebenkorn thought he was a 'lousy painter' and that he should stick to sculpture. The early examples of his work are Picasso-esque constructions of wood and plaster, and very much in the vein of folk art. But Neri often decapitated his figures too, aiming for a kind of Greek archetype
He also lived with Jay De Feo who influenced him. "I'm a true romantic," he once said. But his more significant attachment was to come later as one half the power couple of the era with Joan Brown which provoked important exchanges including in this piece, Seated Girl from 1964 in a private collection and which sprang from a drawing of her. You can see the Parkian influence of color and shape.
Neri left the figure for a time but returned to it in the 70's and has devoted most of his career to this expressionistic form. He now also has fame as the father of Ruby Neri, another inventive sculptor.
Mother Earth at Rockaway Beach
You would be forgiven for thinking--as I immediately did--that this splendid sculpture titled Mother Earth by artist Kris Perry was part of one of the grand Socialist Modernism IG offerings for it has all the hallmarks of one of these monuments that still populate the Eastern bloc countries. The Museum of Modern Art did a whole show of these in their marvelous Concrete Utopia exhibition of 2018--this ersatz steel rocket-ship would fit right in. But no: you can see it right now at Rockaway Beach where it's just been installed, a fitting monument to the open access beach that has served for so many years as the Hamptons alternative. The NYC Parks Department’s Art in the Park program is to be commended for the bold vision of its choice and installing this beauty in the midst of pandemic, a sight for sore, socially-distant eyes. But why only for one year Parks Department? Another wonderful steel sculpture, the Unisphere is still extant, though the Trylon and Perisphere were alas destroyed after the fair. Don't make the same mistake!
All photos of Mother Earth by Angus Mordant.
Niki de Saint Phalle: while waiting for the PS One retrospective, Salon 94 has some jewels
Image courtesy Salon 94
I am mourning the Niki de Saint Phalle show that was to have been at MoMA PS1 beginning in April. My ardent hope is that it is rescheduled. More than ever, Niki's art and life are intriguing and seem utterly contemporary. Salon94 has a rare sculpture, La Cabeza, made in 2000 comprised of foam and resin, encrusted with tiles, shells, and mirrors like her famous Tuscan Tarot Garden. It is both a Day of the Dead image and a meditation room. Niki was fearless and ambitious. The gallery has tentative plans for a major show of her work in 2021. I think people are going to be surprised just how much she anticipated so many important themes for art and for women.
Michelangelo stays at the Met
For the few years I worked at the Services Culturels housed in the former Payne Whitney mansion across from the Metropolitan Museum on Fifth, we used this rather nondescript statue as a coat or hat rack, ashtray, or place to wad a used cocktail napkin. When it was discovered to be a vrai Michelange I was rather nonplussed. My office which was vaguely like a bordello with a white shag rug and dark walls in a remade attic space was only one of many odd nooks in the building which Miss Helen Whitney had done up when upper Fifth was the boonies. Still the statue conferred a sense of decorum and history during a time of my life dearly lacking in same.