ART CITIES:Paris-Arlene Shechet
Arlene Shechet isknown for her sculptures that defy categotization. Some are figurative, some are architectural, and others resemble melting vessels or growing biological forms, always looking off balance or on the verge of collapse. Over the years, she has used materials as diverse as plaster, acrylic, cast paper, porcelain, wood and crystal. In 2006 Shechet began sculpting in clay.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Almine Rech Gallery Archive
Arlene Shechet presents “Some Truths” at Almine Rech Gallery, this is her first solo exhibition in Paris, previously the artist has participated in the group exhibitions: “CERAMIX” and “The Imaginary Museum”. Shechet is well known as a brilliant ceramicist but in her latest works she uses her ceramic vocabulary to generate forms in companion materials as well. As the artist says “Clay is extremely elemental. There’s nothing about it that is attractive or interesting. The lack of beauty in its raw state is important to me because it gives me great freedom. Because it has no character I can make anything. It’s just there to be invented”. On the main gallery are on view sculptures executed between 2015 and 2018 that show off Shechet’s idiosyncratic visual language. Continuing to mine the psychology of transitional space, the sculptures, each in their own unique posture, provoke an immediate empathic response in the viewer. This is evident in the “The Body is an Ear” (2016) with its implied movement and humorous swish of a wooden skirt. The work refers in equal parts to architecture, figure, costume, and 18th Century furniture. Visually held together by ephemeral gold leaf, this impressive construction is balanced on a carved hoof and a glazed ceramic block. “Equal Time” (2017) is a related work done exclusively in black, white, and grey nods at Constructivism with its aggregation of elemental shapes miraculously heaped together. “Standing Paw” (2018), that is on view for the first time, is a large sand-cast aluminum sculpture, relates to Shechet’s upcoming outdoor project at New York City’s Madison Square Park. The smallest of three rooms in the gallery pays direct homage to an original installation (from 1900) she has long admired at the Rodin Museum where a grouping of idiosyncratic columnar plinths are gathered together on a large low oval. Rodin’s “Madame Fenaille, buste drapé, la tête relevée, sur gaine à rinceaux” (1898-1900) boldly extends over the edge of one of these classical columns. Bowing to Rodin’s Madame, Shechet’s new bronze casts of evocative paper constructions, “Prophet 1” & “prophet 2” (both 2018), flow over their respective plinths just as Rodin’s creation spilled from his.
Info: Almine Rech Gallery, 64 Rue de Turenne, Paris, Duration: 21/4-26/5/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.alminerech.com
