November 27 - RPCV Martin Puryear sculpture featured at Milwaukee Art Museum

Peace Corps Online: Peace Corps News: Peace Corps Library: Reference: Special Interests: Art and Culture: November 27 - RPCV Martin Puryear sculpture featured at Milwaukee Art Museum

By Admin1 (admin) on Sunday, December 23, 2001 - 3:45 am: Edit Post

Read the story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on RPCV Martin Puryear's sculpture which is currently featured at the Milwaukee Art Museum at:

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee Art Museum

Martin Puryear's work at the Getty Museum

FRAMED

MAM'S PERMANENT COLLECTION

Monday, November 26, 2001

The Milwaukee Art Museum's renovated and expanded galleries give the museum's permanent collection its best showcase in decades. Each Monday we feature one of the collection's works.

"Maroon" (1987-'88)

Artist: Martin Puryear (born 1941)

Medium: Steel, wire mesh, wood, tar

Location: Modern, contemporary galleries

As with so many of Puryear's big-scale sculptures, "Maroon" implies a practical purpose without literally telling us what it is. Rather, it evokes a sense of formal monumentality and superior craftsmanship on the order of the objects Puryear saw and studied in West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Critics have discerned in Puryear's output the sort of grace and balance that inform the works of Jean Arp and Constantin Brancusi. He is a modernist who instinctively harks back to the precise layering and accurate fit that characterize wooden objects created by African civilizations of the past.

The human touch is evident in the gently curved surfaces, fashioned out of wire mesh, tar and wooden planking. Unlike much modern sculpture, which has a machine-finished air, "Maroon" projects a sensation of warmth, welcome and community. Measuring 76 by 120 by 78 inches, it dominates its space.

-- James Auer


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