Humanist geometry - Tony Smith, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York

Tony Smith: Architect, Painter, Sculptor. Exh. cat. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998. Distr. Harry N. Abrams. Essays by Robert Storr, John Keenen, Joan Pachner. 200 pp., 108 color ills., 235 b/w. $50, $22.50 paper.

Exh. schedule: The Museum of Modern Art, July 2-September 22, 1998. Concurrent outdoor exh.: Tony Smith in the City, July l-September 22, 1998; temp. install. Doris C. Freedman Plaza (Fifth Avenue and 60th Street), Seagram Plaza (Park Avenue and 53rd Street), Bryant Park (Sixth Avenue and 41st Street); perm. install. Hunter College (Lexington Avenue and 68th Street) and rear courtyard of International Paper Building (1166 Sixth Avenue).

Why has it taken so long for a major institution to do a comprehensive exhibition of this major U.S. sculptor? With museum exhibitions in recent years of virtually all of the artists associated with Minimalism or Primary Structures - considered by some the more appropriate term (adopted by curator Kynaston McShine in his 1966 survey at the Jewish Museum) - it seems almost anticlimactic to pay tribute to the progenitor of this monumental development in post-World War II U.S. art nearly two decades after the artist's death in 1980. Given the superb, though somewhat overwhelming, four-star exhibition schedule last summer at MoMA, including retrospectives of the French painter Pierre Bonnard, the Japanese proto-Pop artist Yayoi Kusama, and the Russian Constructivist Alexander Rodchenko, one might conceivably underestimate the importance of the Tony Smith retrospective in clarifying the artist's position in recent U.S. art. His contribution is one of the most revolutionary in contemporary sculpture.

Like Arshile Gorky, who was wedged between late Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, Smith was on the tail end of one movement and at the genesis of another. He functioned as a bridge between the heroic internal myths of Abstract Expressionism and a more public-directed, systemic approach to sculptural form. In another sense, he could be understood as a bridge between late modernist aesthetics and what came to be the postmodern anti-aesthetic. Regardless from what angle one may evaluate the significance and timeliness of this transition, Smith's work belongs there. He set the stage for most of the important sculpture of the 1960s.

Robert Storr, the exhibition organizer, wanted to present Smith as a "total artist" by showing the three interrelated aspects of his career: architecture, painting, and sculpture. (The term "total artist" was generated by the Bauhaus, and, in fact, Smith's brief stint at higher education took place at the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937.) From a conceptual viewpoint, one might argue that mediumistic differences were irrelevant in the context of the artist's overall concept concerning modular form and space. But the actuality of mounting such an exhibition, based on the artist's concerns for structural coherence, is not so easy to translate when there are obvious spatial limitations to be overcome.

Given the total amount of floor/wall space made available for special exhibitions in the upper galleries, there simply was not enough room to adequately show what the curatorial staff had in mind. Because too many special exhibitions had been scheduled for the same time period, the upstairs galleries had to be shared between Smith and Kusama. Had the exhibition focused only on Smith's later sculpture (from 1961 through the mid-1970s), for which he is best-known, the problem could have been alleviated. As it stood, the best works were either situated in MoMA's sculpture garden or sited at various locations throughout Manhattan.

On entering the exhibition, there were the early architectural drawings, photographs, and sketches of projects, including Brotherton House (1944), Bultman Studio (1945), Stamos House (1951), and the ill-fated Church, also from 1951, though never built (supposedly a planned collaboration with the painter Jackson Pollock). There were maquettes of various scales and materials, including abstract models built of plywood, lathe, metal, and cement for the modular Bennington Structure (1961). Often these projects overlapped with early drawings, some figurative, unrelated notebook sketches, and later abstract modular paintings. The second room of the exhibition consisted of the paintings. Most important was the large-scale Louisenberg (1953-54), along with various component paintings on an adjacent wall, all composed of circular modules within a grid format, painted in predetermined, systemic colors, and all connected to one another like peanuts.

The next elongated space was filled with the early sculpture, sculptural studies, drawings, and maquettes. In the last room were the important works that made the artist famous. In 1967, these works, along with those in the sculpture garden, earned him the cover of Time magazine. These included the famous Black Box (1962), Die (1962), and The Elevens Are Up (1963). This gallery also featured the large Untitled (1962) in black and blue and an Untitled suite of small black-and-white paintings (1962-63). In that this space also has a plate glass window looking out over the sculpture garden, it was also possible to see six other works, including the stupendous Moondog (1964) and Moses (1968). In short, this final room presented the best of Smith and made it clear why his stature was considered so important.