1982 Dale Chihuly:
"Macchia Sea Form Group" by Dale Chihuly, assisted by William Morris, and Benjamin Moore, 1982, Providence Rhode Island. Corning Museum of Glass. ABJ photo, 2008.1982 Grace Gluek:
"THE French symbolist, Stephane Mallarme (1842-98), is not the most accessible of poets, believing as he did that language shouldn't reveal, but veil. A friend of artists, he tried to get a number of them to illustrate his cryptic texts. Most confessed their bafflement; Manet and - much later - Matisse were among the few who succeeded. Now Christopher Wilmarth, a sculptor known for his austere, Minimal creations of steel and etched glass, has dauntlessly taken up the challenge. Inspired by the translations of the American poet Frederick Morgan, Mr. Wilmarth has responded wholeheartedly, producing not only a series of sculptures, but etchings, drawings and paintings that deal with the themes of seven Mallarme poems.
It wasn't easy. Like most Mallarme readers, Mr. Wilmarth had problems with the inscrutable texts. On a teaching job in California, he pored over the translations for several months. At first responding to the external images they conjured up, he finally discovered ''that the poems had a common denominator, Mallarme's own separateness.''
''His imagination and reverie meant more to him than anything that was actually of the world,'' Mr. Wilmarth said. ''His work is about the anguish and longing of experience not fully realized, and I found something of myself in it.''
This emotional discovery coincided with a physical one: idly sketching some dishes in the apartment he had rented, Mr. Wilmarth started moving his arm in ''a different rhythm,'' breaking a certain habit pattern. ''Working my arm in a way I hadn't before coincided with a realization of what those poems were about.'' More than a hundred drawings later, he was able to arrive at a series of connected images, whose basic component is an oval form that suggests an egg, a seed, a head. At first drawing in charcoal, then pastel, he became so engrossed in the project that he turned to sculpture before doing the etchings that accompany the printed Mallarme-Morgan texts. Later came paintings, and finally a small book of poems of his own, inspired by the Morgan translations.
But it's the sculptural part of this endeavor that really excites. For his dimensional images, Mr. Wilmarth has made new use of his familiar medium, glass. Working with a glass craftsman, Marvin Lipofsky, he has produced a number of variations of the fragile, ovoid shape in hand-blown, acid-etched glass, taking full advantage of the affinities of this material for light and delicate coloration. And here, at home in his own mode and material, he has succeeded wonderfully in conveying a sense of Mallarme.
For the poem that begins ''When winter on forgotten woods moves somber,'' for instance, possibly inspired by the death of a friend's young wife, the glass shape is an elongated bubble of misted blue, with a hole cut in its surface that seems to suggest an indrawn breath. For another poem, ''Saint,'' the ''pallid saint'' is suggested by a diminished oval in the shape of a pear, or maybe a skull, contained in the vise of a V-like collar in the steel plaque it rests on. An erotic poem, beginning ''Insert myself within your story,'' has inspired the placement of a full, robust oval on a steel support that opens like a book; one ''cover'' of the book thrusts directly into the oval. And in the most beautiful work of the series, ''The whole soul summed up when slow we breathe it out,'' Mr. Wilmarth has put a clouded oval, apple-shaped this time, in the center of a sky-blue outer ring of cast glass; the two elements are separated by a void of space.
It's a rare match, that of a sculptor and a poet, and the restrained eloquence of Mr. Wilmarth's work is very affecting. All of the varied elements in this Mallarme extravaganza are on view at the Studio for the First Amendment, 144 Wooster Street (through May 29). The show is accompanied by a beautiful catalogue, produced by Mr. Wilmarth himself, with a first-rate essay on Mallarme by the critic Dore Ashton.
Other shows of interest this week include: Juan Downey (Gallery Schlesinger-Boisante, 822 Madison Avenue at 69th Street): Mr. Downey, a man of many media, is gripped here by a fascination with mirrors as perceptual devices playing back to us both life and art. His set piece is a blown up, black-and-white detail after Velazquez's ''Venus and Her Mirror'' in which Cupid offers Venus not the painted mirror of the Velazquez version, but a live television monitor. On the monitor, we see a 28-minute videotape, a fast-paced ramble on the theme of -well, perception, I suppose. It includes running sight gags (a live Narcissus regarding himself in, then diving into, a pool); travelogue (the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles), interviews (a talk with a mirror salesman) and a brief discourse on Velazquez's ''The Maids of Honor'' in which the Spanish artist's masterly structuring of psychological space is analyzed by the critic Leo Steinberg. A heady divagation, this tape, whose deliberate discontinuities are often annoying. But not dull.
The same can't be said for Mr. Downey's drawings, which play with themes from the two Velazquez paintings and put didactics before pleasure. No thanks. (Through June 5.)
William King (Terry Dintenfass, 50 West 57th Street): Two towering figures, made of cast and plate aluminum, dominate the gallery space. They derive their considerable effect not only from their giant scale but also from the inventive play of abstract and figurative elements.
One figure, ''Patience,'' sits with hands on knees; the realistic face and hands are cast - a new element in Mr. King's work - by the lost wax method, from corrugated cardboard. The rest of the figure is formed of aluminum flats with two long slats for legs, another pair for arms, the back and lap of tilted aluminum planes. The same with the other figure, ''Narcissus,'' which bows, hands clasped, from the waist. More of Mr. King's giant cut-out figures are seen in elegant photographs on the gallery walls, disporting around the country in parks, private lawns, plazas and hospital courtyards.
The wittiest of sculptors, Mr. King has a sharp eye for the idiosyncrasies of human anatomy, and he manages also to imply for his solitary figures a whole social context. (Through next Thursday.)
Braque and His Contemporaries (Saidenberg Gallery, 1018 Madison Avenue at 78th Street): Next year we'll have a chance to see a major Braque show at the Phillips Collection in Washington, but meanwhile, here's a quiet small one in which Braque is also the focus, though not the sole exhibitor.
The range is from a rather saccharine Fauve landscape of 1906 to an almost cosy still life of 1948-1950, ''The Yellow Pot.'' In between, there are a militantly Cubist work of 1919, ''Still Life with Glass, '' another still life of 1947, an almost Van Gogh-like depiction of a vase with flowers, and the show's most impressive painting, ''La Gueridon'' of 1928, a big vertical still life in subdued colors with all the familiar Braque props (a fat guitar, a glass, yellow apples, etc.) in which depth is implied by means of flat overlapping shapes. It shows Braque at his best: a refined colorist poetically concerned with the ambiguities of objects in space.
Braque is in good company here, with works also by Juan Gris, Henri Laurens, Fernand Leger, Andre Masson and Picasso. A good show to browse in. (Through May 29.)"
Gluek, G. "Art: Mallarme poems inspire glass sculpture." May 14, 1982. accessed November 2, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/14/arts/art-mallarme-poems-inspire-glass-sculpture.html?&pagewanted=all
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