Photography Reinvents Sculpture

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Brooke Rosenblatt

Sarah Hamill’s recent talk at the museum on how and why David Smith’s photographs matter inspired this comparison. Consider the photographs below of the museum’s Bouquet of Concaves (1959). The photo on the left was was taken by Smith; the one on the right one wasn’t.

: (Left) Bouquet of Concaves as photographed by David Smith at Bolton Landing, 1959. Color transparency. © Estate of David Smith/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. (Right) David Smith. Bouquet of Concaves, 1959, Steel, painted. The Phillips Collection, gift of Gifford and Joann Phillips, 2008. © Estate of David Smith/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

If you’re interested in learning more about Hamill’s take on Smith’s photographs, check out the exhibition catalogue for David Smith Invents.

Making David Smith Dance

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Brooke Rosenblatt

David Smith’s study of moving forms and dancers, in particular choreographer Martha Graham, served as the inspiration for the recent public program–Making Shapes in Space: David Smith and Dance. Kelly Mayfield, artistic director of Contradiction Dance, choreographed a response to the energy and movement of the sculptures in David Smith Invents.

Compare the company’s interpretation of Bouquet of Concaves to the sculpture in the Phillips. What’s your take on this cross-disciplinary collaboration?

Contradiction Dance company's interpretation of Bouquet of Concaves (Photo by James R. Brantley)

David Smith. Bouquet of Concaves , 1959. Steel, painted. The Phillips Collection, gift of Gifford and Joann Phillips, 2008. © Estate of David Smith/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

If you’re interested in more photos from the performance, check out our Flickr set.

David Smith: Brawn and Balladry

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Brooke Rosenblatt

Bouquet of Concaves as photographed by David Smith at Bolton Landing, 1959. Color transparency. © Estate of David Smith/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

I was getting ready to give tours in David Smith Invents, and discovered this quote, which I love, from a 1983 Time magazine article by Smith’s friend and painter Robert Motherwell, “Oh David, you were as delicate as Vivaldi and as strong as a Mack truck.”

Smith certainly had the credentials to be the Paul Bunyan of steel. His grandfather was a blacksmith. As a young man, he worked in an automobile factory and later a locomotive factory. He drove a pick-up truck, lived in the country, and he pushed heavy pieces of metal around to make sculpture.

Incredibly (to me), this strapping figure was an artist. Not that many other artists didn’t descend from the same macho vein (Jackson Pollock leaps to mind). Smith welded farm equipment, industrial components and discarded metal objects, and he created steel poems. He was also quite eloquent, in the catalogue for the exhibition at the Phillips, he describes his artistic process: “Sometimes when I start a sculpture I begin with only a realized part; the rest is travel to be unfolded, much in the order of a dream.”

Check out the full TIME article “Art: Iron Was In His Name” by Robert Hughes here.