Artist Exibition - Nick Van Woert

I went to the exhibition at the Shepard gallery, by the artist Nick Van Woert. The title of the show was Pink Elephants on Parade. None of the works had titles, so the viewer couldn't assume anything about the meaning of the pieces. It also makes it difficult to talk about his work since people may call his pieces different things. His works were all three dimensional, most were sculptures and one piece was tree bark in frames on the wall. The pieces in the gallery included sculptures utilizing exhaust pipes, coral, a chair made from boxes of sand, an industrial iron contraption, a welded copper piece that looked like a giant popcorn kernel, a black rock with a pole through it, two framed trees, and a statue covered in what looked like glass or wax. Van Woert uses a wide variety of materials and techniques.

The first piece in the entry of the gallery, is a statue of Poseidon face down in a pool of black wax. This was then presented upright in the gallery, with the hardened wax pool facing the door. It was the most interesting and unique presentation of Van Woerts work. This was the best piece in my opinion since it was both visually interesting and it had a message about pollution. I took the wax to represent oil, and the statue was covered in it like a bird covered by an oil spill. I then began to think maybe all of his pieces were about oil, but I couldn't make the connection. The exhaust pipes could represent a car that uses oil and gasoline, and the tree bark represents what the oil is made of. However, now I don’t think that’s what the work was about, I believe all of the works are about natural resources and how humans manipulate them. The tree bark was manipulated to be completely flat on a wall, the steel or aluminum of the exhaust pipes was bent, twisted and burned to create the blue finish on the tips. The colored sand was manipulated into a chair by putting it it plexiglass boxes. The copper sculpture was hammered and welded. The iron tower was also welded. I don’t know if Van Woert is trying to make a statement with all of these pieces or if hes just trying to work with as many materials and styles as possible. Most of the work doesn’t look like it was created by the same artist, the only unifying mark is his welding is consistent in the metal pieces.

I found most of the work aesthetically unappealing. The forms were usually bulky and unbalanced, especially the rock with a pole through it, I’m not sure if it was supposed to represent coal, it just looked fuzzy. The work was very random and seemed as if it was made by a collection of artists rather than one. The Poseidon piece seemed separated in style from the rest of the show, and also was the most successful piece in getting its message across. Visually the rest of his pieces weren’t nearly as striking, in fact they were boring. Most were just clumps of metal or other materials, and the tree bark felt completely out of place. Unless that was the point, that nature doesn't fit into this view of man manipulating resources. Nature is an afterthought, if even, to what we as a society create. If that was the message then it is made collectively by all of the works and the gallery space putting them all in context. This makes the Poseidon piece strange to include because it has the same message but does it itself, without the need to be combined with the other pieces in the space.

I can acknowledge that all of the works took time to build but I don’t think it makes them successful, they look over-thought and like a simpler approach might have made the sculptures more unified. I did like how he left it completely open to the viewers interpretation of the meaning. He also utilized the gallery space to allow his works to contrast in form and texture. As a whole, his work was more successful than his pieces because each material’s texture contrasted with the sculpture next to it. Too much contrast made the show feel somewhat disjointed. Overall I would say this exhibition was interesting, perhaps for reasons different than the artist intended, even if I didn’t think the art was very pleasing.