SOFA is a “sleeper” no longer.
The ninth annual International Exposition of Sculpture Objects & Functional Art: SOFA Chicago 2002 reaches a benchmark level of brilliance this year.
You can forget the ongoing controversy among critics whether the ceramics, glass, furniture, sculpture, textiles, jewelry and so on in this convention-busting show were really art, or “just” craft that infiltrated previews of SOFA. That concept is a lumbering dinosaur. Today, what matters is: Do you like it, and does it do something for you?
This year, show participants have surpassed categorization as artists or craftsmen to become alchemists. They turn materials such as clay, sand, wood, strips of linen, even birch roots and bamboo (plus a few more elegant substances such as gold and silver) into objects of breathtaking beauty, even wonder.
“There is a lot of high-quality work” coming to SOFA by the 85 participating galleries, says Mark Lyman, the show’s president and founder. And “there is a kind of magic to it all,” he agrees.
“Of the 1,000 artists represented at SOFA this year, 25 percent of them could be considered the masters, the people who are the very best, literally, in the world at what they do. [These are] people who have taken the beauty that is there to the level of genius. This field has reached that point,” says Lyman, who recently received a Visionaries Award from the American Craft Museum in New York.
Adding to the brilliance, a theme running through this year’s show is the element of surprise. And what else might one expect from magician-artists pulling aesthetic rabbits out of hats?
Here are a few highlights:
Fabulous fiber
Representing the strong fiber presence at the show is 70-year-old Colombian artist Olga de Amaral. Her sensuous, shimmering tapestries of linen threads, gesso, pigment and gold and silver leaf mesmerize the viewer with their swirling abstract energy. Using “pastiglia,” a medieval painting technique wherein built-up gesso modulates the gold’s intensity, she can express the essence of light and the meditative moods it evokes.
“It is the construction that is the magic of her pieces,” says Charlotte Lornstein, owner and director of Bellas Artes Gallery in Santa Fe, N.M., which brings de Amaral’s work to SOFA.
Furniture redux
The visitor may be startled to find Midcentury Modern studio furniture at the exhibit this year.
“Mark Lyman believed that SOFA had evolved to where it needed to have some historical perspective,” explains Robert Aibel, owner/director of Moderne Gallery in Philadelphia, which will be making its SOFA debut.
Aibel will be bringing approximately 15 pieces by George Nakashima (1905-1990), whose method is frequently cited as an early rebellion against large-scale mass production of furniture in the U.S.
As a dealer, Aibel is considered “Mr. Nakashima” for having the largest stash of the designer’s work.
“I have been selling George’s work since 1986, when he was still alive and what he made was still `used’ furniture,” Aibel says. “Nakashima has clearly become the hottest thing in the decorative-arts market. The recognition of his work has increased 100-fold over the last 10 years.”
What makes Nakashima’s work so desirable? “George’s work was the second life of the tree. What you see in George’s work is a person who could bring out the best in the wood and use it. He really was a genius, but he didn’t sign his work. `It is not about me, it is about the wood,’ he said.”
Glass magic
No one will be surprised to see glass at the show since it has had a strong presence at SOFA since its beginnings.
But this year, visitors will enjoy a special treat when the great glass maestro, Lino Tagliapietra, represented by Tom R. Riley Galleries of Kirkland, Wash., brings to SOFA his newest series, “Bilbao,” inspired by the Frank Gehry museum in Spain.
“Lino found Gehry’s architecture was not only very dramatic but contained surprises,” Riley says. “For a whole year, the idea percolated and he finally came up with some very unusual shapes and windows in his blown vessels. Usually one sees round shapes in blown glass. Lino incorporated the encalmo technique, putting together in juxtaposition six or seven gathers of glass that each could have been a separate vessel. It is an amazing feat to put all of that together.
“The Bilbao series is kind of the pinnacle of Lino’s 50 years of glass blowing,” he says.
A special currency
Another eye-widener at SOFA will be “Money! The Collective Hunch,” a timely exhibit by Douglas Dawson, owner of the eponymous Chicago gallery of ethnographic material.
For his exhibit, Dawson cast about for “something that would sort of disarm people, objects that might have different layers of meaning.” He decided “it might be fun for people to look at money as aesthetic objects.”
Money is a universal need, he says, and the three basic forms that inspired currency are jewelry, weapons and farm tools. Among items in Dawson’s display are 14th Century bronze jewelry-based forms, such as large wrist and leg coils.
“The whole thing about the exhibit is suspending one’s belief about what represents value,” he says. “Few among us, as we reach into our pocket or purse and pull out a filthy, crumpled piece of green paper, find it curious that we are able to exchange it for something of value.”
For those who still find it hard to accept textiles as currency, Dawson suggests: think mink.
SOFA Chicago 2002
What: Ninth Annual International Exposition of Sculpture Objects & Functional Art. A prestigious international exposition of contemporary decorative arts and design, SOFA presents more than 80 of the world’s finest galleries and dealers. SOFA functions as a benchmark event in the arts world, as a lively confluence of artists, museum directors and curators, collectors and adventuresome visitors.
Where: Navy Pier, Festival Hall, 600 E. Grand Ave.
Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and noon to 6 p.m. Oct. 27.
Cost: $12; $20 three-day pass; $10 students, seniors and groups. Catalogs are $10.
Highlights:
– Special exhibits: The Collective Hunch, an exhibition of primitive money from Africa, Asia and the Americas. Examples include iron, bronze, feather, shell, copper and textile currencies in which aesthetics are as important as the values represented.
– Opening night benefit: 6:30 p.m. Thursday. Tickets are $175 and up. Contact Sarah O’Brien of the Northwestern Memorial Foundation at 312-926-7777.
– Chicago lecture series: Ongoing lectures, beginning on Friday, explore the history and aesthetics behind the art, artists, processes and materials. Admission to the lectures is included in the SOFA ticket. For speakers, subjects and schedule, call: 800-563-7632 or visit www.sofaexpo.com.
— Mary Daniels
