http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/11/DDGP98MJ4Q1.DTL
Kenneth Baker
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In new bronzes at Paul Thiebaud, Bay Area continues his practice of assembling figures from fragments originally worked in clay.
Anyone who knows his art will quickly recognize the new pieces as his. They sustain the double-thrust characteristic of his work: to preserve, or repeatedly rehabilitate, the human figure as a pretext for sculpture and to fend off the sentimental engagement that it tends to solicit in the contemporary art context.
The most influential sculpture of the past half century has made a tacit project of discrediting the tradition of the human form as a symbol of values and artistic truth. Rodin (1840-1917) began the process by showing numberless times how truncated figures could achieve sculptural wholeness better than descriptively finished ones.
Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), whom De Staebler's work recalls, reinstated modeling and the human form. But in his hands even a full figure appears emaciated by exposure to -- what? -- time, the course of events, the artist's despair? Interpreters continue to debate.
Meanwhile, various modernist tendencies gave a new priority to the viewer as the one whose engagement completes an artwork. And 20th century thinkers from Freud to Foucault to Daniel Dennett have argued that the body as a form shows us little of what defines humanity from a philosophical or a scientific perspective.
Against this complex background, De Staebler's work continues to stand out. We can read the brokenness of a figure such as "Winged Woman on One Leg III" (2004) as acknowledging the ruin of representation, as commemorating sculpture's ancient roots and as a phrasing of form and material satisfying in its own right. The play between bronze -- about the most durable material available to a sculptor -- and disintegrated form heightens all the interpretive tensions in De Staebler's art.
From certain vantage points, "Winged Woman on One Leg III" and one or two other pieces on view look as much like castings of voids -- of spaces between other forms -- as sufficient figures.
Beyond remaking the point that representation no longer enables us to see ourselves whole, if it ever did, the busted-up look of De Staebler's sculpture evokes the loss of heroic possibility, perhaps for the better, in an age in which imperial ambitions have repeatedly had catastrophic outcomes.
Had he wanted to give it topical overtones, De Staebler might have called "Winged Woman" "Winged Defeat."
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Stephen De Staebler: Recent Work: Sculpture. Through Oct. 30. Paul Thiebaud Gallery, 718 Columbus Ave., San Francisco. (415) 434-3055, www.paulthiebaudgallery.com.
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NOTE: It is gratifying to have been able to observe the "marathon" development of several fellow Berkeley sculpture students since 1961. Steve's work began with a simple and small stone carving in a course I shared with him in 1961 at Berkeley. The instructor was Richard O'Hanlon. He has made long and significant progress in the field of sculpture. And, his fine arts work has significantly contributed to the enhancement of architecture. .H.
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Kenneth Baker
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
In new bronzes at Paul Thiebaud, Bay Area continues his practice of assembling figures from fragments originally worked in clay.
Anyone who knows his art will quickly recognize the new pieces as his. They sustain the double-thrust characteristic of his work: to preserve, or repeatedly rehabilitate, the human figure as a pretext for sculpture and to fend off the sentimental engagement that it tends to solicit in the contemporary art context.
The most influential sculpture of the past half century has made a tacit project of discrediting the tradition of the human form as a symbol of values and artistic truth. Rodin (1840-1917) began the process by showing numberless times how truncated figures could achieve sculptural wholeness better than descriptively finished ones.
Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), whom De Staebler's work recalls, reinstated modeling and the human form. But in his hands even a full figure appears emaciated by exposure to -- what? -- time, the course of events, the artist's despair? Interpreters continue to debate.
Meanwhile, various modernist tendencies gave a new priority to the viewer as the one whose engagement completes an artwork. And 20th century thinkers from Freud to Foucault to Daniel Dennett have argued that the body as a form shows us little of what defines humanity from a philosophical or a scientific perspective.
Against this complex background, De Staebler's work continues to stand out. We can read the brokenness of a figure such as "Winged Woman on One Leg III" (2004) as acknowledging the ruin of representation, as commemorating sculpture's ancient roots and as a phrasing of form and material satisfying in its own right. The play between bronze -- about the most durable material available to a sculptor -- and disintegrated form heightens all the interpretive tensions in De Staebler's art.
From certain vantage points, "Winged Woman on One Leg III" and one or two other pieces on view look as much like castings of voids -- of spaces between other forms -- as sufficient figures.
Beyond remaking the point that representation no longer enables us to see ourselves whole, if it ever did, the busted-up look of De Staebler's sculpture evokes the loss of heroic possibility, perhaps for the better, in an age in which imperial ambitions have repeatedly had catastrophic outcomes.
Had he wanted to give it topical overtones, De Staebler might have called "Winged Woman" "Winged Defeat."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen De Staebler: Recent Work: Sculpture. Through Oct. 30. Paul Thiebaud Gallery, 718 Columbus Ave., San Francisco. (415) 434-3055, www.paulthiebaudgallery.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: It is gratifying to have been able to observe the "marathon" development of several fellow Berkeley sculpture students since 1961. Steve's work began with a simple and small stone carving in a course I shared with him in 1961 at Berkeley. The instructor was Richard O'Hanlon. He has made long and significant progress in the field of sculpture. And, his fine arts work has significantly contributed to the enhancement of architecture. .H.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html
