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Marta Chilindron and Karin Waisman at Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY
Art in America, June-July, 2007 by Gerard McCarthy
The exhibition "Sculptures in Four Dimensions" contained recent work, much of it inviting viewer participation, by two sculptors born in Argentina but now resident in New York. Marta Chilindron's Blue Cube 48 is made of ultramarine ribbed polycarbonate in 72 4-foot squares that stack into the titular shape. The hinged sheets can be unfolded consecutively into the surrounding space. In one configuration for the show, the work extended like a meandering fence through the entrance doors and connected the gallery with an adjacent glass-walled atrium. Visitors could alter the arrangement at will, and the artist herself made occasional changes during the show's run. In its protean constructivism, the piece knowingly recalls Lygia Clark's manipulable sculptures of the 1960s.
Green Pyramid comprises several hinged green poly-carbonate triangles that when tightly folded against one another make a 4-foot-high pyramid containing pyramids of decreasing size nestled inside. These elements can be unfolded to resemble a flattened ziggurat, and there are myriad variations between these two states. As with Blue Cube, the translucence of the material produces pale and deep-hued tones, depending on how densely the planes are bunched together. The vinyl Yellow Circle, 80 inches in diameter, has been divided into six equal sections. When these hinged parts are arranged in three dimensions, the work offers a seemingly endless number of potential configurations.
Karin Waisman visually echoed the bunkerlike space of a sunken gallery with a 10-foot pink cube constructed from large Styrofoam insulation panels that have been sanded down and abutted to resemble cut stone blocks. Titled The Garden of Eden, the work has an inaccessible interior that, indeed, evokes innocent delight. Light shines out through several small holes in each side, and a pink glow emanates from the entire imposing volume. Most of the holes are at eye level and reveal a brightly lit interior space activated by the clusters and curls of a relief pattern carved into the walls. This pattern is punctuated by the rounded silhouettes of smooth surface areas.
Waisman's two other works were wall panels--one a rectangle and the other a circle, each over 6 feet high--featuring white relief patterns based on antique lace. The whorls and arabesques are formed by varying lengths of cast resin interspersed with larger circular elements. The expansive compositions thus acquire accents of visual weight while retaining an overall evanescent quality.
Chilindron and Waisman each develop complex works through elementary processes such as repetition and division. Updating an art form long associated with physical permanence and timeless themes, they focus on the here and now and the provisional configuration of sculpture that is implicitly mutable.
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