Santa Fe, NM – A major new show of sculpture by Bill Barrett – one of today's foremost metal sculptors of avant-garde abstraction – goes on view at LewAllen Contemporary on April 4, 2008. Making this show totally different is the fact that it includes for the first time what amounts to a virtual retrospective of work from more than 25 years of Barrett’s highly distinguished career, all rendered in miniature. More than two dozen sculptures – some of them originally conceived for outdoor installations – have been translated by the artist into small editions of tabletop scale precisely in order to afford collectors who do not have the space for his more monumental work the opportunity to include his distinctive, fluid creations in their own collections.
Remarkably, the reduction in scale – for example, in Hari IV, from 28 feet to 6 ½ inches – takes nothing away from the beauty of forms that might sit today in front of major buildings on university campuses or corporate headquarters. Comprised of what Barrett regards as some of his finest creations, this virtual retrospective draws together in accessible format many of the diverse shapes and materials that exemplify the artist’s reputation for producing work characterized by fluid grace and elegance, calligraphic play of positive and negative forms, and exquisite asymmetry in perfect balance. Invariably beautiful from all angles, these bronze and aluminum sculptures, like their more monumentally-scaled siblings, recall in an uncanny, effortless way the lithe, reciprocal movements of a troupe of dancers or the tracks of an AbEx painter's expansive gestures.
More than two dozen of these beautiful smaller-scale sculptures will be on exhibit at LewAllen Contemporary in Santa Fe from April 4 to April 27, 2008, in a solo exhibition titled Bill Barrett: Divertimentos in Bronze. In addition to this fascinating virtual restrospective in miniature, the exhibition includes several larger works that offer immediate and visually compelling contrast between the smaller works and Barrett’s more familiar larger ones. A full-color catalogue of the exhibition with an essay by art historian and critic Peter Frank, Senior Curator of the Riverside Art Museum, is available.
With each work of art, Barrett aims for "a certain life-spark" that speaks to the viewer's "inner self, to his ideas and his moods." Though not strictly representational of the human form, Barrett's art does evoke that which is distinctly human. Peter Frank writes admiringly of pieces included in the exhibition, "These sculptures are not bodies gesturing, they are the gestures themselves." Barrett concurs with the composer Edvard Grieg's belief that to create art "One must first be a human being. All true art grows out of that which is distinctly human." Indeed, there is a warmth and humanity to Barrett's sculptures that transcends the starker aesthetics of minimalist abstraction.
Barrett’s work is represented in numerous private and public collections, and he is frequently called upon to produce public sculptures. His sculptures are in such renowned sculpture parks as the Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey, Pyramid Hill in Ohio, and Runnymede in California, and also are installed on dozens of corporate, municipal and university campuses. Several are on the campus of his alma mater, the University of Michigan.
Barrett attended the University of Michigan from 1954 to 1960 and earned his BS and MS in Design and his MFA from the same institution. He has been exhibiting his work since the mid 1960s and has been included in many museum exhibitions and international art expositions—the Whitney Sculpture Annual in 1970, Art Basel in 1989, the Tokyo Expo in 1990, and the Armory Show in New York in 1996, to name only a few. Barrett is the subject of Bill Barrett: Evolution of a Sculptor, a major monograph of his work by Philip Palmedo, published in 2003 by Hudson Hills Press.
LewAllen Contemporary is open 9:30-5:30 Monday through Saturday and 11:00-5:00 Sunday. Bill Barrett: Divertimentos in Bronze runs Friday, April 4, through Sunday, April 27, 2008. For further information please contact Diane Kell at (505) 988-8997 or [email protected].
