Date: Fri 01-May-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: JUDYC

Quick Words:

Gura

Full Text:

New York Edition Of SOFA Presents Elite Level Of Craft Art

with cuts

By Judith B. Gura

NEW YORK CITY -- Referring to SOFA (its official name is Sculpture, Objects

and Functional Art) as a craft show is tantamount to calling Harrod's Food

Halls a grocery.

The event, after five years in Chicago and three in Miami, made its New York

debut with 46 top-of-the-line galleries showcasing some of the finest artists

in contemporary ceramics, glass, furniture, fiber, metal and wood. Dealers

came from North America, Europe and as far off as Tasmania, with exemplary

objects that were the absolute antithesis of the usual craft fair offerings.

The downside, as one might expect, were prices. They ranged from relatively

high to stratospheric. Transposing craft into a more elite classification

meant price tags ranging from $500 to as much as $150,000, a daunting figure

for novice collectors, or even longtime clients accustomed to more modest

costs.

At the opening reception, one collector praised the high quality of the

objects, but added, "This is really a snob show." Perhaps it was, but perhaps,

too, that's just what the crafts marketplace needs to regain some of the

prestige lost in the street-fair atmosphere of recent events in the genre.

The word "craft" has unfortunately become associated with the trinkets offered

in flea markets around the country. According to show organizer Mark Lyman,

that is precisely why SOFA avoided use of the word. "The name of the show is

simply a description of what's in it -- sculpture, objects and functional

art." He pointed out that, in any case, the use of "crafts" to describe a

category of objects is incorrect. "Art has to do with statements and vision,

and the word craft has to do with the process of expression," he asserted.

"Paintings, for example, involve craft."

Whatever one chooses to call them, the offerings at this show were of a

uniformly high level, executed with skill and vision. Clearly, the artists

were no amateurs -- whether learning their craft via studio apprenticeship,

art institute or years of trial-and-error experiment. Even in works meant to

be amusing, or those with a folk-art aesthetic, there was no trace of the

loving-hands-at-home look.

Although all materials were represented, glass is clearly the star in the

current firmament, proving its versatility and creative potential in displays

that generally outshone most of the exhibits. The close runner-up was textile

art, which has evolved from simple handweavings to complex and sophisticated

expressions. There was relatively little furniture, perhaps as a result of the

emphasis on aesthetics rather than utility, and similarly, only one gallery

offering wearable art. Jewelry - in gold, silver or mixed materials - offered

the options of high-fashion pieces to wear or sculptural works to collect and

display. Otherwise, there were just a handful of works in metal, and no

leather or paper objects were shown.

The most interesting works at SOFA, in any medium, can be described only as

sculpture. Even those with functional designations, such as bowls or vases,

were expressions of form and material rather than objects for quotidian use.

The noteworthy glass offerings included Heller Galleries' prime-position booth

showcasing four established masters of glass art -- Bertil Vallien, Lino

Tagliapietro, Tom Patti and Paul Stankard. At Holsten Galleries, Christopher

Ries' exquisite and deceptively simple forms utilized the full potential of

luminosity and reflectivity of glass. On closer viewing, and at different

angles, they revealed seductive interior patterns, $2,000 to $100,000 or more.

At Galerie Elena Lee, Daniel Chrichton's engrossing vessels of blown glass

with intricately colored and fired exteriors and luster interiors were marked

$2,200 to $2,900. At Mark Saunders, Michael Pavlik's characteristic bold works

of clear and colored glass in interlocking geometric forms were $19,000.

At Joel Myers', seductive shapes were injected with color. At Na Janskem Vrsku

of Prague one found the refined, intensely colored hemispheres of Frantisek

Vizner, $16,000; and at Elliot Brown, Hank Adam's bizarre and unsettling

portrait heads.

In ceramics, Garth Clark's keen-eyed selections starred Georges Jeanclos,

whose landscape-wrapped clay figures eerily evoked Samuel Becket's woman

submerged in sand, $16,000, and Junko Kitamura's intricate, pin-dot-patterned

pieces.

Australia's Beaver Galleries offered Pippin Drysdale's exquisitely colored

porcelain bowls. Barry Friedman showcased Bennett Bean's split-apart

evolutions of his pit-fired stoneware bowls. Munich Gallery b15-Neue Keramik

showed French artist Claude Champy's rock-like stoneware "boites a secrete,"

each opening to reveal a tiny hidden compartment. And William Zimmer offered

bold pieces by octogenarian Paul Soldner, conventionally turned bowls that the

artist roughly breaks apart and distorts. "He's always courting disaster,"

commented Zimmer.

In fiber arts, standouts were Olga De Amaral's exquisite and newly sculptured

hangings at Bellas Artes/Thea Burger, $70,000 to $95,000. Brown/Grotta's

masterpiece-filled booth starred past-master Sheila Hicks, playing with spun

stainless steel. Big balls of wound-up threads were $7,000; a five-foot-square

piece of linen twisted with 500 pounds of linen rope was $68,000. Helena

Hernmarck and recent find Kobiyashi rounded out the Brown/Grotta display.

Furniture, most notably at Franklin Parrasch and Leo Kaplan, tended toward

high-concept interpretations, which made only vestigial references to the

objects from which they had evolved. Even Wendell Castle, at Kaplan, moved

beyond his familiar table forms in variations that were more abstract than

utilitarian. As with the best-realized works in other media, utility seemed

beside the point. The object became pure expression of the artist's

sensibility through a chosen medium.

Some artists, however, found no reason to break altogether with the original

vocabulary of crafts. As Daniel Mack at Ferrin Gallery noted, "I'm pushing the

edges of craft, but I still haven't broken with function." His twig-chairs are

still intended for sitting. "Now, if I hadn't put the cushion on..., " he

mused, studying a shovel-and-pickax-ornamented "Chair for a Grave-digger's

Garden."

Jewelry included more-art-than-accessory pieces at Helen Drutt, Barbara

Paganin's delicate beaded anemone pins at Charon Kransen and a selection of

finely crafted but wearable offerings at Aaron Faber and several other

galleries.

Though the high prices tended to discourage frivolity, there were touches of

whimsy to be seen. Kaiser Suidan's quirky wall-mounted ceramics were colorful

cone-shapes with all manner of adornments, to buy individually and arrange in

any configuration. They cost $175 to several hundred dollars each at Gallery

500. Witty miniature chairs and tables with one or two legs extending down the

side of the accompanying pedestals were $2,400 at Suk Kwan.

Quebec Craft Gallery showed clever anthropomorphic sculptures with an

industrial aesthetic. Daniel Lamothe's figures of electronic or tool fragments

ranged from $1,700 to $2,700. Michael Cooper's appealing bubinga tricycle was

an altogether serious work, assembled from hundreds of individually crafted

parts. At Zimmer, it was $14,000.

A number of pieces in mixed media defied classification and would be

compatible in an avant-garde museum venue. John Garrett's wall-hung grid

assemblages and Nick Cave's mesmerizing "Fetish Pieces" at Duane Reed come to

mind, as do Italo Skanga's constructions at Riley Hawk and Ronald Labelle's

work at Option Art.

Several special exhibits complemented the dealer offerings at SOFA. These

included Yaw Gallery's adventurous "Functional Vase Project 1998." The

traveling invitational of works by 130 metalsmiths offered objects of

unexpected variety, a reminder of the versatility of the artistic imagination.

Elliot Brown Gallery's invitational gathered luminaries from Rhode Island

School of Design's glass and jewelry department in a striking and varied

presentation.

To mark the concurrence of SOFA with both Easter weekend and the Passover

holidays, an inconvenient but unavoidable scheduling glitch, the sponsors

arranged an exhibition of contemporary religious fiber art, sponsored by

Friends of Fiber Art International.

The tendency to dismiss craft as somehow less than fine art has plagued the

genre for some time. Contemporary craft evolved from utilitarian forms, made

by women at home or laborers in shops and small-scale factories. Craft works

were collected, or even placed in museums, but more often as examples of

material culture and historic reference rather than art. The mid-century

explosion of interest in crafts and the rise of the studio crafts movement,

partly as a reaction to the impersonality of mass-produced objects, was the

first sign of a change in attitude. As young artists became interested in

traditional hands-on crafts techniques, studios and training facilities were

established to teach them. As crafts were approaching art status, in galleries

catering to a burgeoning collector's market, they were simultaneously

downgraded by cookie-cutter multiples or third-rank kitsch. The

loving-hands-at-home association held down prices and, with a few exceptions,

prevented skilled artisans from gaining the recognition they merited.

The American Craft Museum, which pioneered the movement to regard craft as

another art form on a level with painting, sculpture and decorative arts, has

been meeting the challenge head-on with its exhibitions and educational

programs. The museum was quick to support SOFA as another means of increasing

the audience for crafts and was the beneficiary of the opening-night preview

party.

The sponsors of SOFA have staked out a territory between a high-end craft fair

and a fine arts fair, showcasing objects that appeal to lovers of either or

both markets. From the look of the crowds on opening day, they've come up with

a winning formula. If future versions of SOFA continue on a similarly high

level, it bodes well for the future of crafts in general.