The Renaissance Society's current exhibition is a survey of the sculpture by the British artist, Rebecca Warren. Serving as the American public's introduction to Warren's work, the show has been rigorously curated to include two seemingly disparate bodies of work, the unfired clay objects and the reductive steel structures. Although at first these works may appear to be in direct contradiction in terms of aesthetic dialectics, it quickly becomes obvious that both forms are trying to address contemporary issues of feminist identity through the employment of historical references to two particular devices; the tradition of figurative sculpture and post-expressionist minimalist structures. Warren's intent is to incite a new discourse about the position of the contemporary woman in the production of art but, unfortunately the sculptures get lost between their own "generic-ness" and ambiguity becoming nothing more than tired references and cliches.
Upon entering the gallery space the viewer is immediately reminded that he or she is viewing a collection of precious items. All of the sculptures are evenly spaced in the center of the room and do not engage any of the walls. They require the viewer to walk around to take them in from every angle. Almost all of the clay figures are placed on the left-hand side of the room atop pedestals reminiscent of the classical period sculptures in museums. However, while classical sculptures are meant to depict the perfect human form, Warren's figures glorify "womanliness." They are amply over-endowed, with disproportionately large breasts and buttocks that overcompensate for the missing heads and limbs. Arguably, these sculptures have more to do with the figures produced by primitive civilizations, but even then, the apparent roughness in the material manipulation, the haphazard and uneven application of paint, and their unfired state suggest an attempt to reduce the female figure to a more primordial state.
In contrast, the right side of the gallery is occupied by slabs of oxidized steel or bronze meticulously composed together to highlight the formal qualities of the sculpture and material as well as to maximize their consciously non-objective nature. The planes of metal stand tall cutting across and intersecting each other becoming a study of generic forms more than conceptual notions until, upon closer inspection, the viewer notices a lone pom-pom carefully placed upon every single sculpture. What initially appear to be formal exercises in the style of the male-dominated minimalist sculpture of the 60s, are re-contextualized through the integration of a soft material associated with craft and notions of femininity.
Right in the center of the gallery space, marking the division between the organic forms and manufactured structures, is a bronze cube. This form acts as the amalgamation of both aesthetic languages. It takes the most iconic minimalist device, the manufactured static cube, and repositions it as an organically evolving object by presenting it on casters and leaving it in a 'raw' production state. This marrying of methodologies continues in the careful distribution of the sculptures throughout the space. One lone metal structure stands among the unfired clay figures, while one of the womanly sculptures stands encased among the rest of the metal pieces. The employment of contrasting devices succeeds in its attempt to make a feminist statement, however, exactly what that statement is isn't entirely clear. Warren's utilization of cliched referential techniques makes her work feel derivative. The forms and language are generic but nonetheless the works is readable and accessible. At the same time however, Warren's conceptual logic remains ambiguously entrenched in her forms. The sculptures exist in a realm of suggestive discourse but they never seem to fully reach a definitive point of view.
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