There is a magical quality to the current Martin Puryear exhibition at the SFMOMA. When you enter the first space you become aware of the scale and majesty of the works and yet their elegance beckons you to approach.
The works tactile quality comes from Puryear’s ability to utilize the raw textures and forms of his materials, in most cases various woods, but also steel, wire, rattan, and leather. It is only fitting that the first work you encounter is Ad Astra 2007. It is an astounding piece that resembles a horse drawn wagon tipped upwards by the weight of is cumbersome load. The work incorporates the found wheels and axle of an actual wagon, and wooden planks arranged to create a large askew cube that situates the sculpture on a large base. It then incorporates entire tree trunks to recreate a tongue like protrusion (the pole extending from a carriage or other vehicle between the animals drawing it) that reaches over 100ft into the atrium of the museum. As to why it is there we know not, but its title means “to the stars” and as it reaches into the heavens it seems to call out to God, “could you be so kind as to bare this burden?”
One of the earliest works in the exhibition is Some Tales 1967-9. It is a grouping of forms that resemble tools hanging in a shed. They are a clear vision of the artists concept and a poignant starting point to the artist's development. It is his iconographic craftsmanship that is situated to traverse the line between pure form and representative object. As he has stated, “The most interesting art for me retains a flickering quality, where opposed ideas can be held in tense coexistence,” that idea becomes clear throughout the exhibition.
One of the most complex and astounding works in the exhibition is C.F.A.O 2006-7. In this composition Puryear incorporates a wooden wheelbarrow, a relic the artist supposedly found while doing a residency at the home of well know 20th century sculptor Alexander Calder. It consists of a grid like construction of 2” by 2” pine that surrounds the concave carving of a white head that emerges out of the wheelbarrow bed. The head form in this case is reminiscent of an African mask from the Gabon tribe. This mask like head adds additional layers to the interpretation of the work especially in the context of the artist's race; African-American. Also adding to the analysis is the fact that the wheelbarrow and mask both serve as objects with functional roles, the wheelbarrow as a movable lever, and the mask as a ceremonial object. It is increasingly difficult to distinguish the intent of their appropriation but the effect is transcendent. Now to infer as to their meaning. It is possible to say that the work is about the weight of displacement the African American culture suffered through the slave trade, or also the anachronism of past religious histories, yet in the gallery the piece evokes the cool geometry of minimalism, given its grid like construction and history of the incorporated wheelbarrow, so that regardless of its intent it becomes is a complex diagram of the artist’s ability to weave seemingly disparate genres and histories into a unique visual vocabulary.
Throughout the exhibition one see sculptures that challenge their materials, and transcend the confines of the gallery to exist in the collective unconscious of the viewer as both tools of humanity and objects of art.
