Charles Worthen at Gabriele Rivet - Cologne - Brief Article

That Charles Worthen, an American artist who has been living in Cologne for 10 years, titled this exhibition "Recent Stuff" gives some inkling of the casualness, self-mockery and general humor that characterized the show. The title is also a sly bilingual pun (and wordplay, too, is typical), since Kunststoff is his material. It's a rubber additive that he heats, sometimes kneads with oil color and shapes into fairly small objects of widely varying nature. Often the sculptures have such distinct personalities that you could think of them as living things, and then the modest size seems endearing.

Occupying the gallery's entry hall were the show's brightest-colored works: a "head," a pod and a stack of balls, each covered with a clownish patchwork of colored squares of Kunststoff reminiscent of Kraft cheese "singles" in their size, shape and limp adhesion. The view down the entry corridor ended with Bobblejoe, a tipsy totem of beach-ball-like spheres of increasing diameter. In a creamy white space, lit with yellowish uplights, these three works were joyous splashes of color in the gray light of a German winter. Equally euphoric were the various characters, in red or Kunststoff's natural off-white, occupying a wall of the gallery's largest room. Among the cast: Ball Drop, a red sphere that seems to have been cut in half and pulled apart, with stringy goo still connecting the segments; Clustral, a circular group of colorless forms suggesting bacilli; and Scoposcope, a red gavel shape with sculpted striking surfaces that recall boxers' cauliflower ears.

In the gallery's high-ceilinged basement, amid cool white paint and fluorescent lights, uniformly uncolored sculptures took on a warm cast. One of the most engaging pieces in the show was the diminutive Self-Portrait, just 7 1/2 inches tall. This is a lumpy ring that stands on three little clogshod feet. According to the artist, it's a blend of nikumon, a meat-stuffed dumpling that's a common snack in Japan, where he formerly lived, and the bundt cake of his current home. It's hard to escape the passing thought that it also resembles an anus, though it's still harder to imagine an artist, even in a show as genial and goofy as this one, choosing such an association for a self-image. Stackle, 28 inches tall, suggests a group of five tables piled up by a juggler, each one set at a tilt on the shoulder of the larger one below and precariously balanced. Napcap, a small wall piece, evokes in one reading a baby bonnet with two diagonal bulges and a chin strap, and in another, a cartoon frog with protruding eyes and a wide-open mouth.

Other works resemble tongues, baskets, mushrooms, pastries, sea creatures and cells. Play is the key here: wordplay, formal play, even subtle surface play when the small size invites intimate study. Worthen seamlessly blends the pleasures of hand-making with conceptual openness.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group