by Reggie Michael Rodrigue

Abstract Expressionist painter and all-around gadfly Ad Reinhardt once quipped that “Sculpture is something you back into while looking at a painting.”  This attitude has been around for quite a while.  It’s roots can be traced to the invention of oil paint and perspective, which both lent painting a revolutionary relevance in the days of the budding European Renaissance.  With oils and perspective, Renaissance painters could create windows into entire worlds, whether they were realistic or fantastical.  This was something sculpture could barely compete with at the time. The supreme position of painting was maintained through the Renaissance all the way into the 1950′s when the Abstract Expressionists were stretching pictorialism to its absolute, ethereal limits.  Sculpture was considered a secondary artistic pursuit.

However, in the 1960′s, our general attitude toward sculpture began to change.   The basic precepts of what sculpture could be loosened.  All of a sudden, it began to leap from it’s pedestal, take on more space, fracture into many parts, and multiply in a frenzy of disparate directions.  Of course, there were precedents for this sort of thing before the 1960′s, but the decade was really the watershed moment for sculpture.  Today, sculpture has superseded painting as the ultimate, avant garde medium.   However, considering that space is always a premium, sculpture still is more difficult to collect.  It’s typically more expensive to produce and transport.  Plus, its position as the avant garde medium par excellence is uncertain with the ascendency of  performance art, video and digital/social media art in the overall scheme of contemporary art.  Poor, poor sculpture!  Even at it’s height, it’s still the redheaded stepchild of art in many ways.

The current exhibition “Redheaded Stepchild” at Homespace Gallery satirically toys with this notion.  It is an exhibition of nothing but contemporary sculpture that is as tempestuous, mischievous and nearly inscrutable as its proverbial, ginger namesake.  Artists Kevin Baer, Thor Carlson, Kourtney Keller, Jonathan Pellitteri, Cynthia Scott and Patrick Segura offer a gallery full of sculpture to back into, scratch one’s head around, and wag one’s finger at – maybe even spank if you just don’t get it.  Just Kidding!  However, it does look like a rambunctious exhibition.

The closing reception for “Redheaded Stepchild” will be taking place this Sunday, December 4, 2011 from 12-5PM at Homespace Gallery, 1128 St. Roch Ave., NOLA.  A spoken word performance will be given at the gallery between 2 and 4 PM. Writer/performers include Helen Jaksch, theatre artist and dramaturg; Benjamin Alan Morris, poet and essayist; Eve Abrams, local writer and NPR contributor; Richard Goodman, professor of English at UNO; and Ingrid Norton, reading from her novella-in-progress.  I’ll be attending, and viewing the exhibition for the first time.  However, if you can’t make it on Sunday, you can see the exhibition on Saturday from 12-5PM.

The following are some installation pics from “Redheaded Stepchild” that Cynthia Scott sent to “louisianaesthetic” to whet my appetite.  Mission accomplished.  I hope they do the same for you as well.

sculpture by Kevin Baer

sculpture by Thor Carlson

sculpture by Thor Carlson

sculpture by Kourtney Keller

sculpture by Johnathan Pellitteri

sculpture by Johnathan Pellitteri

sculpture by Johnathan Pellitteri

sculpture by Cynthia Scott

sculpture by Patrick Segura

sculpture by Patrick Segura