Richard Deacon at Marian Goodman

Made up of evocative loops and curves, the two elements of Richard Deacon's oak and stainless-steel Red Sea Crossing (2003) nearly filled Marian Goodman's north gallery. Three planks wide, these complex, ribbonlike components, each of which spans about 12 feet, appear to be standard-width milled oak planks extended end to end. Their sinuous meandering is the effect of steaming, a process that stains the natural red of the oak to a fumed black. Thin strips of steel maintain the integrity of the curves as the wood is softened and bent. To these elements, Deacon introduces lengths of 4-by-4-inch oak beams that have been twisted like a carpenter's bit, straight segments joined to those that curve by square steel cuffs. The curved lengths of four-by-fours are notched and wedged to facilitate their radical bends. Deacon's title is as playful as it seems descriptive: the sculpture's two elements have a passage between them; the roiling waves of wood on either side suggest the Red Sea's parting.

In the south gallery, Deacon installed two sculptures related to Red Sea by process and medium. Spanning as much as 10 feet, Individual and Couple (both 2004) consist of complex curves of ash. The manner of their joining reflects the involutions of a Mobius strip. Very different in form and effect, two shallow stainless-steel reliefs, Infinity #24 and Infinity #26 (both 2004), were installed low on the gallery wall. From 6 to 8 feet high, up to 9 feet across, these plaques are made up of amoeboid shapes welded together, their pitted surfaces penetrated by 3-inch circular apertures.

In the north gallery viewing room, Deacon presented Display Table (2001). The well-carpentered, waist-high, rectangular table of the title is made of finished ash. At one of its long edges, the top extends upward, benchlike, to form a backboard; the two perpendicular surfaces are fitted with a single inlaid sheet of medium-density fiberboard. Five found objects on wooden plinths are positioned in a slightly uneven row along the table's length. The first object, a chunk of gnarly wood and bark resembling the head of a wolf, is elevated by a pin above a square plinth. The second, third and fourth plinths support small, ambiguously figurative fragments of indeterminate materials. The fifth plinth, a somewhat taller wedge of ash, supports a conglomerate object made up of sand, stone and other detritus, etched through with holes. Foreign as an asteroid, the object, like the other works gathered here, remains organic in its essentially abstract form.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group