Robert Winokur at Helen Drutt

Robert Winokur's recent show centered on 17 modest-size versions of simple architectural forms--mostly houses of one sort or another--all but two of them dated 2000. Hand-built of Pennsylvania brick clay and salt-glazed, they have pebbly surfaces of deep gray with veils of darkness or gloss.

The most obvious art-world referent would seem to be the iconic early house sculptures of Joel Shapiro. But it's not a true link. Winokur's buildings, from 8 to 21 inches tall, are perforated by windows, niches or grilles that give them a sense of hollow volume quite opposite to Shapiro's dense solidity. They are more closely related to the ceramic box--an angular version of the age-old vessel--as well as to pure geometric forms (in their simplification) and a variety of architectural precedents both European and tribal (in their proportions and footings).

All the works have plain gabled roofs without eaves. The differences between them are in size, proportion and perforation. Ode to Blake (2000) has a rectangle cut in its side--a squarish hole occupied by a set of stairs leading back to a tiny table. House as a Shrine (2000) is almost as narrow as a fence picket; it has a square niche containing another house structure, this one hardly bigger than a thimble. House on a Hill (2000) includes a minuscule square hole in both its long sides. This may be simply functional, an airhole to keep the ceramic object from blowing up in the kiln, but it emphasizes the closedness and mystery that Winokur imparts to these everyday structures: the walls protect the secrets inside. Beyond that, familiarity turns the form into an essence, a beautiful pattern of planes.

Winokur, a professor of ceramics at the Tyler School of Art, also showed six cups in a wall display. The container part of each is a fairly regular cylinder that sits flat and sturdy, distinguished only by a turned-out lip and a glossy brown-spotted yellow interior. But the handles are something else: the profile may be square or oval, or a wing shape extending outward like the handle of a saucepan. The handles have various blocky attachments--a tombstone and a gable form as well as a narrow house shape that recalls the sculptures. Winokur plays the relation of vessel/container against building/container with a vigor that seems to be about enjoyment, not argument.

The show also included several monoprints in the same colors as the clay, one with a bit of collage and all of them printed with diagonal lines, squares, rectangles and tabs that echo the house sculptures. Again, in two dimensions, Winokur is happily engaged with the abstraction and reference of the container form.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group