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J
a m e s D i n e r s t e i n
s c u l p t u
r e
Canon
Bronze
Permanent collection of Grounds for Sculpture |
My work is involved, probably in equal measure, with my experience
of modern abstract sculpture, and with my feeling for Egyptian and archaic Greek art. |
| On one level, it is trying to
restore to abstract sculpture the resources of plasticity and mass. On another, to
manifest the spiritual weight and potency that I find present in ancient art. In
particular, the archaic Greek kouroi and kori have been important to me. The
decisive uprising and standing of these figures, the freely sensuous yet rigorous plastic
articulation, the resolve and inner luminosity of their bearing, I find uniquely
compelling.
I've
tried to make a kind of abstract sculpture that could stand with this kind of necessity
and naturalness, by marrying the constructivist ideas of spatial openness and
juxtaposition of discrete forms, with the ancient tradition of shaping a plastic mass.
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Kouros
Anavysos
530 B.C. |
Sentinel
David Smith
1961 |
Still
Speech
James Dinerstein
2001 |
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| Related as much to the way ancient metal pouring
vessels and utensils were formed, as to sculptural works per se, my method of working
involves taking a simple plastic substance (clay) and subjecting it to a set of clear
forces; in particular a kind of extrusion pressure is important, generating elements that
achieve a kind of natural expressivity as this simple logic is deformed and inflected at
the juncture of parts and at crest or end points. This kind of forming can be seen, for
example, in the curled or pinched lip of a pitcher, or the way the extruded cross section
of a handle splays out to meet the body of a cup. |
Bronze wine pitchers,
Alexandrian Greece
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| Another
ambition for these recent sculptures is expressible in a musical analogy: the combining of
two kinds of sculptural articulation -- plastic modeling in concert with the abutment or
enjambment of discrete elements -- makes possible a type of sculptural polyphony.
Within the over-all stance and unity of the work, plastic motifs are announced and
answered, transformed and repeated in differing rhythms and scales, in ways comparable to
musical counterpoint. I exhibit
at the Salander/O'Reilly gallery in New York. [See
Resume] I graduated from Harvard College, studying with the art
historian and critic, Michael Fried, and worked at St. Martin's Art School in London with
the sculptors Anthony Caro and William Tucker.
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Essay
Resume
Reviews |