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DIVERGENCE IS GOOD

Wangechi Mutu's Sculptures Prompt Questions of Perspective

Nigerian-born Wangechi Mutu is well known for her sculptures and distorted, figurative collages. For an exhibition at Storm King Art Center, she has installed eight large-scale bronze outdoor sculptures, including In Two Canoe (2022), a green-patinaed fountain depicting two female figures obscured by mangrove leaves and vines, steering a boat flowing with water. Nearby, five large bronze baskets are each filled with a different element, including snakes, tortoises, and hair braids. The exhibition continues indoors, where the works feel more intimate and organic, regardless of their size. The Glider (2021) is a substantial sculpture made from soil, charcoal, paper pulp and other materials. A hybrid-figured sea creature with a raised, turned female head, skims over its pedestal, eyes and face adorned with shells and brass beads. The rough-hewn sculpture is accompanied in adjacent galleries by other compelling and tactile works both large and small, including two new films.
 

In Canoe Two, 2022

Storm King was founded in 1960 by Ralph E. Ogden, shortly after purchasing a 150-acre estate 55 miles north of New York City. Initially he intended to display Hudson River School paintings, but he quickly realized his passion for sculpture, which took off in 1967 when he purchased thirteen works from David Smith’s estate.  Now, the outdoor museum encompasses over 115 sculptures on 500-acres as well as indoor exhibition spaces.

The Glider, 2021 [detail]

In 1980, Arts Magazine ran an issue with Storm King on the cover, dedicating two articles to the subject, under the umbrella of “Binary Essays” – a series commissioning writers to take different views on the same subject. In the first essay, Emmie Donadio’s “Unnatural Appearances: Reflections on Scale at Storm King Mountain,” the critic suggests that Ogden and his family’s interest in large-scale iron works might be related to their family company, Star Expansion Industries, which manufactured metal fasteners. She is also not impressed with installation itself:

Instead of complementing the luxurious natural environment, these large-scale sculptural works displace it. One cannot help wondering whether the pretext for such large pieces was not simply the existence of a field large enough to accommodate them.

On the other side, Addison Parks presents the park as a sculpture in itself in “Storm King Visited,” as well as an important showcase for contemporary sculpture. “Storm King surrounds every work with the most lush kind of frame,” he writes, “and the result is pure as well as gilded.” It’s difficult today to imagine a publication soliciting contrary opinions, when the mainstream approach to art and criticism seems to have a predictable path that steers away from negative reviews, promoting art and perspectives that are routine and familiar. Veering from orthodoxy and mutual agreement is rare, which would perhaps make such “Binary Essays” even more valuable now.

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WANGECHI MUTU is on view at Storm King Art Center through November 7, 2022 (1 Museum Road, New Windsor, NY)


–– Stacey Goergen is an art writer and curator in New York, NY.  [Contact]
 
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