Locks Gallery is pleased to present Standing on the Edge: 20th Century Sculpture, on view April 1st through May 13th, 2011. There will be an opening reception on Friday, April 1st, from 5:30 to 7:30pm.
Standing on the Edge explores the sensation of vertigo and the fragile balance of an individual when facing war, the forces of Nature, or nostalgia. The exhibition gathers three groups of standing sculptures with elongated forms by Louise Bourgeois and Isamu Noguchi, as well as a mobile by Alexander Calder, a table piece by Anthony Caro and figures by Alexander Archipenko, Reg Butler, Lacques Lipchitz, Roberto Matta, Auguste Rodin, and Ossip Zadkine.
Louise Bourgeois’ Persistent Antagonism (1949) and Friendly Evidence (1950) are among the first sculptures she made upon arrival in New York. She said that she was sculpting her emotions by shifting the pain onto the sculpted material. She was experiencing deep homesickness, as she was isolated from her family and especially missing her son. She portrayed him in Portrait of Jean-Louis (1947-49) with two legs suggesting fragility and the ranges of windows in the upper part evoking a house.
Isamu Noguchi's slate sculptures date from 1945-46, with society coping with the horrors of World War II and when the artist began to experiment with free association and the intuitive methods of the Surrealists. The intertwined shapes of thin stone slabs evoke the fragility of the human psyche and the uncertainty stemming from the world at war. He describes them as memories of humanity: “The very fragility gives a thrill… It’s like life - you can lose it at any moment.” (I. Noguchi, March 1960)
