Arlene Shechet

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Arlene Shechet
Arlene Shechet in her Kingston studio
Born1951
New York City, U.S.
Education
Known forSculpture, installation, public art, paper works
SpouseMark Epstein
AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship, Anonymous Was A Woman Award, Joan Mitchell Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Academy of Design
WebsiteArlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet (born 1951) is an American sculptor known for her inventive, gravity-defying arrangements and experimental use of diverse materials.[1][2][3] Critics describe her work as both technical and intuitive, hybrid and polymorphous, freely mixing surfaces, finishes, styles and references to create visual paradoxes.[4][5][6] Her abstract-figurative forms often function as metaphors for bodily experience and the human condition, touching upon imperfection and uncertainty with humor and pathos.[7][8][9] New York Times critic Holland Cotter wrote that her career "has encompassed both more or less traditional ceramic pots and wildly experimental abstract forms: amoebalike, intestinal, spiky, sexual, historically referential and often displayed on fantastically inventive pedestals … this is some of the most imaginative American sculpture of the past 20 years."[10]

Shechet's work belongs to the public collections of the Centre Pompidou,[11] Metropolitan Museum of Art,[12] National Gallery of Art,[13] and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.[14] She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters as a lifetime member in 2023, and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004.[15][16]

She lives and works in New York City and the nearby Hudson Valley.[17]

Early life and career[edit]

Shechet was born in 1951 in New York City.[17] She earned a BA from New York University and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1978.[17] After graduating, she taught at RISD from 1978 to 1985 and at the Parsons School of Design from 1984 to 1995.[18] In the 1990s her sculpture centered on mound-like plaster and paint forms, the shapes of which were reminiscent of seated Buddhas.[19][10] During that time, a grant from the Dieu Donné Papermill in New York in 1995 led Shechet to initiate work in cast paper that mimicked clay and Chinese porcelain ware.[20][21][22] In the early 2000s she began receiving critical notice for sculpture and installations that built upon both bodies of work and explored Buddhist iconography and themes of flux, growth, enlightenment.[23][24][25][26][27]

Recognition came after Shechet turned to clay as her principal medium in the latter 2000s, when she began producing glazed vessel-sculptures with forms alluding to pot handles, limbs and snouts, lamps and abstracted dancers.[28][29][8] In a 2007 review, New York Times critic Roberta Smith wrote that these works were "full of references yet almost debt-free ... mov[ing] effortlessly between art and religion and East and West, and from painting and sculpture to craft and ritual."[28] Museum exhibitions followed, including solo shows at the Tang Museum (2009) and Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2009),[30][31] and later, the Weatherspoon Art Museum (2013) and Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2015, a twenty-year survey), among others.[17][32]

Arlene Shechet, No Noise, glazed ceramic on painted wood base, 67" × 17" × 14", 2013.

Work and reception[edit]

Critics distinguish Shechet's later sculpture by its contrasts, paradoxes of form, style and process, and unpredictable ranges of hue and texture.[32][8][19] Sebastian Smee of The Boston Globe wrote, "It's in the harmonies and tensions between these colors and textures, between suggestions of both order and anarchy, decay and blooming freshness, that these works cough, splutter, and sing … Shechet knows that this life is at once fugitive and monumental, characterized by strange, dreamlike changes of pace, unreasonable, asymmetrical, and ultimately unknowable."[32] Of note is the contrast between Shechet's open-ended, intuitive method, which embraces improvisation, accidents and rule-breaking, and the technical skill and rigor that underlies it, which encompasses fabrication, carving and clay-firing experiments with innovated glaze.[5][33][34][1]

In the solo exhibitions "The Sound of It" (Jack Shainman Gallery, 2010) and "Slip" (Sikkema Jenkins & Co., 2013), Shechet presented ungainly biomorphic ceramic forms on bases made of cast concrete, kiln bricks and painted hardwood, among other materials.[35][6][32] The two components functioned as physically and formally inseparable wholes, with the podiums in many cases constituting some of the most commented upon elements of individual works.[35][8] In a similar upending of formal-versus-functional boundaries, the first show included clusters of bowls, jugs and vitrines—none of practical usefulness—and inversions of the clay firing process in which the free forms were left in their original, unglazed state and the kiln-brick bases given detailed colorful attention.[36][35] New Yorker critic Peter Schjeldahl declared this work to be "Intimately brawny," and added, "the show lets us in on the studio eurekas of an artist with energy and second-nature mastery to burn."[37]

Both exhibitions illustrated another paradox in Shechet's work—the centrality of movement to her essentially solid and fixed sculpture.[1][19][38] Her arrangements both adhere to and defy physics, deriving formal and metaphorical tension from what The Brooklyn Rail called a sense of "dialectical balance"—motion without movement—variously suggesting growth, transformation or near-collapse (e.g., Because of the Wind, 2010).[35] A related aspect reviewers have noted is her work's capacity to seemingly morph or "impart multiple identities"[19] when viewed from different angles due to its asymmetries, surprising forms, and highly varied surfaces.[6][5]

Movement and balance—yielding a sense of precariousness and contingency—also convey two key aspects of Shechet's sculpture: humor and pathos.[35] Humor also arises out of her improvised biomorphic forms, which writers have described as rough-hewn, simultaneously awkward and self-supporting, and comical in their harboring of unexpected apertures, bizarre appendages, protrusions and outcroppings, and displaced limbs and growths.[3][6][35] The sculpture No Noise (2013) epitomizes these qualities, suggesting a large-pored, coral biomorph with a nose-like bump that seems upended, as though it had slipped on a banana peel; Roberta Smith likened it to a "flailing hot-water bottle."[6][38]

Curatorial projects and later exhibitions[edit]

Shechet's work is widely referential, often situating itself within and outside art historical contexts and broader culture, and in relation to the spaces it inhabits.[2][10][6][39] In 2014, she began curating a series of playful, subversive exhibitions pairing historical works from museum collections with her own sculpture.[40][41][42][43] The exhibitions "Meissen Recast" (RISD Museum, 2014) and "Porcelain, No Simple Matter" (Frick Collection, 2016) grew out of her two-year residency at the famed Meissen porcelain factory in Germany in 2012–3; notably, she was the first living artist to exhibit in depth at the Frick.[36][44][45] In both shows she highlighted the luxury tableware and figurines as industrial objects, juxtaposing them in highly unorthodox placements with her own new, hybrid sculptures.[7][40][44] One pairing at the Frick featured a 1730 lotus-inspired porcelain bowl appearing to hover over a rougher object that Shechet cast from the outside of the original bowl's mold; other works were made through irreverent samplings of figurative fragments and various manufacturing by-products.[45][41] Her subversions of high-low, art-functional hierarchies extended to museum display conventions, with custom walls that were cut away or echoed the factory molds, sideboards, protruding shelves and unorthodox materials and surfaces.[40][7] Andrea Scott of the New Yorker described the Frick exhibition as a "balancing act between respectful and radical."[45]

Arlene Shechet, Low Hanging Cloud (Lion), installation view, Full Steam Ahead, Madison Square Park, New York, 2018.

Shechet revisited this approach in "Disrupt the View: Arlene Shechet at the Harvard Art Museums (2021), presenting recent work alongside historical German, Japanese, and Chinese works of porcelain and other objects.[43] In the museum-wide exhibition "From Here On Now" (Phillips Collection, 2017), she paired her sculpture with paintings from the museum's collection by Van Gogh, Mondrian, Joan Mitchell, Morris Louis and Walker Evans, among others; in one sculpture, she cast the base to echo a negative of a facing fireplace's opening.[46] Washington Post critic Mark Jenkins said of the show, "most of the links between the contemporary artist and her precursors are intriguingly tangled. That inspiration is no simple matter is one of the lessons of this multifold show."[46] Shechet also curated shows at the Drawing Center and Pace Gallery.[47][48]

Her installation in Manhattan's Madison Square Park broke with typical public art practices in terms of its varied materials (porcelain, cast iron and wood), custom pedestals, and alterations and additions to the park's setting and seating (e.g., sculpted "skirt seats").[49][50] The show's title, Full Steam Ahead, referenced a legendary quote by Admiral David Farragut, whose monument anchored one end of the park.[50] Farragut's statue is seen by some as a symbol of the male domination historically prevalent in both art and society, and somewhat controversially, Shechet negotiated with park officials to empty the pool of water in front of the sculpture, effectively disempowering it.[49] Her dozen human-scaled sculptures suggested diverse personalities and creatures, as well as a family-like intimacy rare for public sculpture; they included Low Hanging Cloud (Lion)—a porcelain piece weighing more than a ton—and the chunky, confident female figure Forward, carved from cherry wood.[50][49] Shechet also organized a series of events during the exhibition that included actress Fiona Shaw performing T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Dianne Wiest performing excepts from Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days in sculptural costumes designed by Shechet.[51]

Arlene Shechet, Moon in the Morning, glazed ceramic, painted and dyed hardwood, powder coated steel, 75" x 44" x 37", 2022.

In later exhibitions, Shechet continued to parse sculptural, architectural and decorative traditions and develop new dialogues of material and form.[52] Los Angeles Times critic Leah Ollman described her 2019 show at Vielmetter Los Angeles as "generous with tribute and wide-ranging in association," with nods to ceramic sculptors Peter Voulkos and Ken Price, Constantin Brancusi, Claes Oldenburg and Brutalist architecture.[2] In the exhibition "Skirts" (Pace, 2020), she obliquely addressed gender disparities, in part through the show's title, which can serve as a verb, sculptural term and misogynistic expression.[53][39] A Brooklyn Rail review likened its synthesis of painting and sculpture in terms of color, surface and form to painters Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso; the materials included storm-felled tree trunks with knots filled in with brass, hunks of glazed ceramic, cast iron and steel (e.g., The Crown Jewel, 2020).[39][52] The exhibition "Best Picture" (Vielmetter, 2022) featured vibrant, human-scaled sculptures loosely suggesting Hollywood personalities; she also introduced a new format with two large mixed-material tapestries that offered soft counterpoints to her heavy sculptures.[9][54] At Frieze Masters (2023, London), Shechet exhibited eleven brilliantly colored and richly textured sculptures and cast paper vessels alongside a medieval illuminated manuscript that served as inspiration.[55][56][57]

Recognition[edit]

Shechet has received a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship (2004),[16] awards from Anonymous Was A Woman (2010), the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2011) and College Art Association (2016),[58][59][60] and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Dieu Donné Papermill, Joan Mitchell Foundation and VIA Art Fund, among others.[17][22][61][62] She was inducted into the National Academy of Design in 2016 and into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2023.[63][15]

Public collections[edit]

Shechet's work belongs to the public collections of the following institutions, among others:

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Hambleton, Merrell. "Arlene Shechet Creates Beauty Out of Chaos," The New York Times, February 27, 2020. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  2. ^ a b c Ollman, Leah. “Arlene Shechet's new sculptures are weirdly engrossing and crazy fresh,” Los Angeles Times, April 29, 2019. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  3. ^ a b Rapaport, Brooke Kamin. "Body-To-Body Experience," Sculpture Magazine, June 2016, p. 30–35. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  4. ^ Murtha, Chris. "Arlene Shechet," Artforum, October 28, 2016. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  5. ^ a b c Micchelli, Thomas. "Parallel Strains: Arlene Shechet's Ceramic Abstractions," Hyperallergic, October 19, 2013. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Smith, Roberta. "Arlene Shechet: 'Slip,'" The New York Times, November 8, 2013. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  7. ^ a b c Molon, Dominic. Arlene Shechet: Meissen Recast, Dominic Molon, Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, Elizabeth A. Williams, Judith Tannenbaum and Arlene Shechet, New York: Gregory R. Miller & Co, 2015.
  8. ^ a b c d Thorn, Bruce. "Arlene Shechet: In the Meantime at Corbett vs. Dempsey," New Art Examiner, July 2017.
  9. ^ a b Taft, Catherine. "Arlene Shechet," Artforum, June 2022. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  10. ^ a b c Cotter, Holland. "Arlene Shechet Has a First Museum Retrospective in Boston." The New York Times, July 19, 2015. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  11. ^ a b Centre Pompidou. Arlene Shechet, Artists. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  12. ^ a b Metropolitan Museum of Art. Seeing Is Believing, Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  13. ^ a b National Gallery of Art. Arlene Shechet, Twin Rockers, 2007, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  14. ^ a b Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Eye Level, Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  15. ^ a b American Academy of Arts and Letters. "2023 Newly Elected Members," News, February 21, 2023. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  16. ^ a b John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Arlene Shechet, Fellows. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  17. ^ a b c d e Art 21. Arlene Shechet, Artists. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  18. ^ Ceramics Now. "Arlene Shechet." Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  19. ^ a b c d Hirsch, Faye. "Buckle and Flow," Art in America, January 2012, p. 58–64. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  20. ^ Smith, Kiki. "Artists Choice: Arlene Shechet," Art on Paper, November/December, 2003.
  21. ^ Ruth, Tara. "Double or Nothing: Mimicry in Contemporary Art using Handmade Paper," Hand Papermaking, No. 24, 2009.
  22. ^ a b Abruzzo, James and Mina Takahashi. "Chairman and Director's Messages," Dieu Donné Papermill. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  23. ^ Johnson, Ken. "Arlene Shechet," The New York Times, May 3, 2002, p. E40. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  24. ^ Temin, Christine. "Perspectives: Assorted Artists Capture 'Rapture,'" Boston Globe, February 2, 2000, p. D1.
  25. ^ The New York Times. "Minister Wants Artwork Revised or Removed," June 23, 2001, p. B7. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  26. ^ Koplos, Janet. "Arlene Shechet at A/D," Art in America, January 2002, p. 109–10.
  27. ^ Harrison, Helen A. "Recycling Paper: Not Just Good for the Environment," The New York Times, January 5, 2003. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  28. ^ a b Smith, Roberta. "Arlene Shechet," The New York Times, September 14, 2007, p. E41. Retrieved October 26, 2023.
  29. ^ Hirsch, Faye. "Arlene Shechet at Elizabeth Harris," Art in America, February 2008.
  30. ^ Berry, Ian. Arlene Shechet: Blow by Blow, Saratoga Springs, NY: Tang Museum, 2009.
  31. ^ MacMillan, Kyle. "MCA exhibits showcase big names, big ambitions from Big Apple," Denver Post, November 22, 2009.
  32. ^ a b c d Smee, Sebastian. "Sculptor Arlene Shechet evokes inner life in new ICA exhibition," The Boston Globe, June 18, 2015. Retrieved October 25, 2023.
  33. ^ Benschop, Jurriaan. "Arlene Shechet, Nature Morte," Artforum, February 2013. Retrieved October 26, 2023.
  34. ^ Kapplow, Heather. "Arlene Shechet's Unified Theory of Ceramics," Hyperallergic, September 2, 2015. Retrieved October 25, 2023.
  35. ^ a b c d e f Rooney, Kara. "Arlene Shechet: The Sound of It," The Brooklyn Rail, November 2010. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  36. ^ a b Ventura, Anya. "Review: Arlene Shechet: Meissen Recast," Big Red and Shiny, April 2, 2014. Retrieved October 25, 2023.
  37. ^ Schjeldahl, Peter. "Arlene Shechet," The New Yorker, September 28, 2010.
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  39. ^ a b c Rhodes, David. "Arlene Shechet: Skirts," The Brooklyn Rail, April 2020. Retrieved October 26, 2023.
  40. ^ a b c Chan, Dawn. "Arlene Shechet," Artforum, January 15, 2014. Retrieved October 26, 2023.
  41. ^ a b Dailey, Meghan. "Contemporary Ceramics, Up Against 18th-Century Pieces — Literally." The New York Times, May 24, 2016. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  42. ^ The Phillips Collection. "Intersections: Arlene Shechet – From Here On Now." Events, October 19, 2016. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  43. ^ a b Harvard Art Museums. "Disrupt the View: Arlene Shechet at the Harvard Art Museums," Exhibitions, 2022. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  44. ^ a b Camhi, Leslie. "Porcelain Comes to Life at Sculptor Arlene Shechet's New Exhibition at The Frick Collection," Vogue, May 26, 2016. Retrieved October 26, 2023.
  45. ^ a b c Scott, Andrea K. "Porcelain, No Simple Matter: Arlene Shechet and the Arnhold Collection," The New Yorker, June 27, 2016. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  46. ^ a b Jenkins, Mark. "For artist Arlene Shechet, the Phillips is full of inspiration" The Washington Post, January 18, 2017. Retrieved October 25, 2023.
  47. ^ Smith, Roberta. "Drawing, a Cure for the January Blahs," The New York Times, January 20, 2022. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  48. ^ Gural, Natasha. "Arlene Shechet Creates Sculpture To Transform Hudson Valley Landscape, Curates ‘STUFF’ At Pace Gallery To Transcend Art History," Forbes, August 5, 2022. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  49. ^ a b c Loos, Ted. "Porcelain Finds Its Outside Voice," The New York Times, September 23, 2018. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  50. ^ a b c Solomon, Deborah. "Review: Arlene Shechet Goes Public," WNYC Public Radio, December 21, 2018. Retrieved October 26, 2023.
  51. ^ Small, Zachary. "Fiona Shaw Will Perform T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in Madison Square Park," Hyperallergic, April 11, 2019. Retrieved November 13, 2023.
  52. ^ a b Smith, Harriet Lloyd. "Arlene Shechet brings nature into the gallery arena at Pace New York," Wallpaper, October 21, 2022. Retrieved October 26, 2023.
  53. ^ Pfaff, Judy. "It's a Verb, a Noun, But in Both Instances Rather Beautiful," Flaunt, April 2020.
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  55. ^ Laster, Paul. "Celebrating 20 Years of Frieze London with 20 Frieze London and Frieze Masters Picks," Whitehot Magazine, October 19, 2023. Retrieved October 25, 2023.
  56. ^ Loos, Ted. "Before Social Media’s Rise, Frieze Found New Ways to Share Art," The New York Times, October 6, 2023. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  57. ^ Cole, Alison. "Artists and Their Studios, Interview with Sheena Wagstaff," The Art Newspaper, October 13, 2023.
  58. ^ Anonymous Was A Woman Award. Recipients. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  59. ^ American Academy of Arts and Letters. "2011 Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts," Exhibition. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  60. ^ Greenberger, Alex. "Carmen Herrera, Rosalind Krauss, Arlene Shechet Among Winners of 2016 CAA Awards," ARTnews, January 5, 2016. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  61. ^ Joan Mitchell Foundation. Arlene Shechet, Fellows. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  62. ^ VIA Art Fund. "VIA Art Fund Awards $1 Million in Grants in 2021," News, 2021.
  63. ^ Reizman, Renée. "Arlene Shechet's Gestures and Jesters," NAD Journal, May 1, 2019. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  64. ^ Allen Memorial Art Museum. Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved November 11, 2023.
  65. ^ Art Gallery of New South Wales. Beginning now, Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  66. ^ Blanton Museum of Art. One and Only, Arlene Shechet, Objects. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  67. ^ Boca Raton Museum of Art. "Bold New Season Kicks Off: Welcomes Culture Lovers Back to Boca Raton Museum of Art with Timely Messages," News, September 23, 2020. Retrieved November 11, 2023.
  68. ^ Brooklyn Museum. From the "Flow Blue Series," Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  69. ^ Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Three Sided Dream (for Sophie), Arlene Shechet, Collections. Retrieved November 13, 2023.
  70. ^ Harvard Art Museums. Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  71. ^ Hirshhorn Museum. Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  72. ^ Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Arlene Shechet, Essential Head, Art. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  73. ^ The Jewish Museum. Arlene Shechet, Travel Light, Art. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  74. ^ Museum of Arts and Design. "Museum of Arts and Design Collection Exhibition Highlights Craft's Advancements from 1950s to Today." Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  75. ^ Tampa Bay Newspapers. "MFA presents Marks Made: Prints by American Women Artists," October 11, 2015. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  76. ^ Nasher Sculpture Center. "Nasher Sculpture Center Announces Recent Gifted Acquisitions," October 15, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  77. ^ Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. "NewNow – Building the Museum Collection," Exhibitions. Retrieved November 13, 2023.
  78. ^ Norton Museum of Art. "Norton Museum of Art Celebrates Recent Acquisitions and New Installations in 80th Anniversary Year," News. Retrieved November 13, 2023.
  79. ^ Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Seems Like Spring, Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  80. ^ The Phillips Collection. The Possibility of Ghosts, Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  81. ^ Princeton University Art Museum. Arlene Shechet, Collections. Retrieved November 13, 2023.
  82. ^ Rhode Island School of Design Museum. Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  83. ^ San Jose Museum of Art. Together: Pacific Time: 5 a.m., Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  84. ^ Smith College Museum of Art. Arlene Shechet, Buddha, Objects. Retrieved November 13, 2023.
  85. ^ Art in Embassies, US Department of State. Arlene Shechet, Artists. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  86. ^ Walker Art Center. Arlene Shechet, Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  87. ^ Whitney Museum of American Art. Arlene Shechet, Artists. Retrieved September 25, 2023.

External links[edit]

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