BY SYLVIE PEDERSEN
Spontaneous Surrealism
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Full Bar
Organic Café Mam
Coffee
Organic Menu
for
Lunch & Dinner
Wireless Internet
Locally Owned
& Operated
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
P
piece itself as in Dogon Mother and Child.
layfulness and humor — such is the
On the other hand, Tic-Tac-Toe is more
first impression Jerry Harris’ sculp-
clearly derived from the piece itself with its
tures impart — an absurdist, surre-
three blocks of wood and knobs illustrating
alistic, cerebral and often dark, playfulness
in the Surrealist tradition how the mind
and humor. Harris’s exhibition of collage
free-associates.
and sculpture at the Jacobs Gallery closes
The Executioner’s Song combines both
this Saturday, April 10.
carved wood and clay forms. A slim rod
Harris himself describes his work as sur-
hangs from a beam surmounting two poles
realist. One should not think of Dali or
and ends with a clay shape that evokes a
Magritte’s naturalistic surrealism, however,
stylized cow-head (and Picasso’s bike sad-
but rather of Miró and Jean Arp’s abstract
dle of a bull). Two parallel strings stretched
surrealism with its biomorphic shapes and
between knobs frame the central rod. This
its predominant concept of automatic or
is a powerful piece and strikingly similar to
intuitive work mode. “I totally work from
Harris’ earlier Homage to the Muscogee
the subconscious,” Harris said, “with no
Indians War Of 1812-13.
preconceived ideas about my sculpture.”
Lady Sings the Blues: Homage to Billy
The Jacobs Gallery’s exhibition of
Holliday includes a single stalk covered
Harris’ recent work includes a dozen col-
with rounded clay protu-
lages and some 15 sculp-
berances which are easy
tures. The latter are con-
to anthropomorphize
structions assembled out
into tiny breasts or slight
of variously combined
buttocks while wooden
media: polished carved
knobs evoke the keys of
wood; sculpted clay
a wind instrument.
encased in fiberglass and
Because
Harris’
painted
uniformly
sculptures are conceived
brown; manufactured
and created as construc-
objects such as string,
tions, the artist finds col-
wooden utensils and
lage to be a similar
wooden knobs, dowels,
process. “It’s a building
rods, staffs, buttons, pins,
process,” he explains,
spools in all sizes and
“using the same additive
shapes. Many of the
and
subtractive
sculptures stand on long
sequence of sculpture.”
thin legs like a new breed
Harris’ collages are
of tall wading birds.
mostly triptychs with
Although
Harris
bold color schemes
warns us to not take his
using one or two domi-
titles too literally or read
nant colors beside black
too much into them —
and white, often com-
they are often sponta-
bining primary colors
neous in the tradition of
(red and yellow) or com-
the Surrealists — their
plementary ones (red
connotations
are
and green). They com-
nonetheless inescapable
The Executioner’s Song,
bine abstract and figura-
even when there is no
sculpture by Jerry Harris.
tive elements, organic
obvious link with the
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Sculptor Jerry Harris at the Jacobs.
and the fantasy at the heart of
improvisation.
Beyond literature and the arts,
Harris’ work also invokes a variety
of socio-cultural issues, from the
and
geometric
question of a future shaped by tech-
shapes into abstract
nology to cultural minorities and
racial issues. Windows of Old New
compositions that
sometimes acquire a
York Ca. 1937 is a particularly suc-
cessful example. Three prints of the
cubic edge.
Repetition on a
same collage are juxtaposed land-
scape-wise over an off-white back-
triple beat is used as a
basic
structural
ground. The dominant color is
black with some with, red, orange
device for the trip-
tychs. Nausea is an
and green accents. The prints
appear to be based on a photograph
example of this gen-
eral pattern. Harris
of ads for the Dixie Theatre posted
on a facetted cylindrical structure:
created a first collage,
which here includes a
“Strike in the Mines! Coal Police!
Men, Women and Children Die of
title-page fragment
from Sartre’s Nausea
Hunger! The Greatest Show Ever
Made About Miners: ‘Black Fury.’”
and cutouts from
images of Francis
The text allows Harris to refer to
Lady Sings the Blues:
the
plight of both miners and
Bacon’s paintings. He
Homage to Billy Holliday,
scanned and printed
African-Americans through the con-
sculpture by Jerry Harris.
notations of the word “black.” Harris
this collage in tripli-
cate then built over each print a second layer
has drawn a grid of window panes over the
prints and added bits of color into some of the
of mixed-media marks and collaged materi-
als. This second layer adds similar but not
windows creating the illusion of a cityscape
at night. We are looking into a series of visu-
identical elements to each “panel” of the trip-
tych – here fragments of French poetry. The
al and cultural frames; whatever social reali-
ty is hinted at has been transposed and trans-
finished collages were then affixed to black
and white paper frames placed over a black
muted through various media.
Harris thus succeeds in weaving an elab-
background. In Dance Theater of Harlem,
another triptych, a single image repeated at
orate multicultural web that brings together
America, Europe and Africa. Harris’ artistic
different angles and enclosed in geometrical
shapes succeeds in evoking ethereal bodies in
background is indeed international. He stud-
ied in London and the US and lived in
movement.
Sweden until recently. His work is in the
Dizzy G Playin High Yellow follows a
Swedish National Art Collection and he has
different format. Prints of a collage are
placed side-by-side over an off-white back-
exhibited throughout Europe and the US:
“My work doesn’t say ‘African-American.’
ground to create a single landscape format.
The collage elements include fragments
It’s universal.” If some of his sculptures show
African influence, so does much of modern
from music sheets and texts and are repeat-
ed in a series of panels of unequal width that
art. “I was influenced by Henry Moore,
whom I met in the ’70s in London, and he
function like measure bars. A face-and-
wind-instrument cutout is altered in a Cubist
was himself influenced by African art.”
In the end, though, there is one determin-
manner and further transformed from meas-
ing factor, deceptively simple, that fuels
ure to measure. The overall effect suggests
Harris’ art: “I think,” he says, “what I have
high energy, rhythm and syncopation; it
captures at once the repetition inherent to
kept in a certain way is my vision as a child
— that sort of surprise in front of things.” ew
rhythm; the variations necessary to music
MMM
MM
MM
MMMM
MMMM
MMMMMM
13th
& M
Oak
(formerly
Field’s)
• 434-6553
APRIL 8, 2004 29