Mia Westerlund Roosen at Lennon, Weinberg - New York - exhibition of art installations, drawings and sculpture - Brief Article

Mia Westerlund Roosen's recent show of works from 2001 included five drawings on vellum (most of them suggesting interventions in the earth), a smallish sculpture on a pedestal and a large floor work--all of which were overshadowed by a huge, dazzling installation of variable dimensions that took up the gallery's largest room.

Roosen's three-dimensional works are hand-formed of concrete without armatures; the surface is smooth, yet dark flecks suggest grittiness. For the installation, the concrete was tinted pink. Parts and Pleasures consisted of rippled disks about 3 feet across, irregular 6- or 8-inch balls shaped something like ginkgo nuts, cylinders about a foot in diameter and from 2 to 6 feet long, and extensive "ropes." There was no obvious size referent; the forms didn't declare direct representation of anything from the real world. Yet the parts suggested systems, because the forms repeated and were connected in various ways--the cylinders by the snaky ropes and the disks by little balls set between them, fanning them out.

That implied order rapidly dissolved: other disks and balls were strewn across the floor, and some cylinders stood while others seemed to have fallen. The pink color recalled Roosen's frequent sculptural references to the body. This body seemed to have burst some bound or lost control. Since no enveloping whole was shown and the title refers to parts, these abstract yet allusively functional elements seemed to be microcosmic enlargements. The implications weren't worrisome--nothing was shattered or deformed and the loss of order seemed more like release than collapse. The roseate hue could symbolize the feminine and/or could evoke intimate or flushed skin. It seems likely that this installation was a visualization of the sensation of orgasm--not the propulsive male variety but the tension and dissolution of a woman's.

The other large work, Fagin (39 1/2 by 168 by 108 inches), might be described as a standing concave wall from which emerge two long, sagging tubes that eventually snap over two protrusions on a reclining concave wall in the way that rubber caps snap onto spark plugs. But that's just one interpretive description. The protrusions have vertical striations that recall the rush of falling water, so perhaps the two tubes and caps are eccentric faucets or kitchen spray nozzles. Dowager (19 1/2 by 39 by 12 inches) could refer to the trailing hem of a long 19th-century gown or wedding dress. The sculpture ends at what would be the waist, which is open to allow a view into the darkness of the hollow form. In all three works, Roosen captures sensation or gesture rather than image; the genius of her abstraction is that the forms convey physical feelings that viewers may internalize.

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