Pierre Bonnard, Still Life with Ham, 1940, copyright 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris, Photograph by Robert Pettus
Minimalist sculptor Gedi Sibony has been praised for his spatial genius, his understanding of light. But more often, people identify him with the materials he uses, often scavenged from Dumpsters near his studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard: chunks of ragged drywall, carpet remnants, sheets of Visqueen, blonde hollow-core doors.
He’s working with far less humble stuff for “In the Still Epiphany,” an exhibit opening April 5 at The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. As part of the Pulitzer’s 10-year anniversary, the foundation invited Sibony to create a large-scale installation using work from the collection of Emily and Joseph Pulitzer Jr. Though Sibony has built structures on which to place some of the objects, the exhibit won’t include any of his own work. Rather, his task is to create evocative environments throughout Tadao Ando’s building.
The Pulitzer’s senior curator, Francesca Herndon-Consagra, says “Epiphany” is also meant to echo the foundation’s 2001–02 opening exhibit, curated by Emily Pulitzer from the private collection—which, she says, was a very different show. “It had a lot of Ellsworth Kelly, Rothko, and things like that,” Herndon-Consagra explains. There is only one overlap between the two shows, Alberto Giacometti’s simple white marble sculpture Tête qui regarde; Sibony’s chosen mostly figurative works by Pierre Bonnard, Lucio Fontana, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, John Singer Sargent, and Jean-Édouard Vuillard, as well as sixth-century Chinese terra-cotta vessels,
Pre-Columbian headdresses, and African statues. “This is very different for him,” Herndon-Consagra says. “He has a way of creating mystery with the mundane. Now, he’s going to be creating mystery with great art objects.”
Pulitzer director Kristina Van Dyke says some of Sibony’s choices may surprise visitors, which is part of the show’s power. “He’s chosen some very unlikely objects that an art historian or a curator would not choose, and he’s thinking very hard about the relationship between objects,” she says. “There are very tiny things and very large works; there are textiles.”
She adds that Sibony wanted to evoke the feeling of rooms in a house as a way of describing the history of the collection and the Pulitzers’ domestic relationship with it. The Entrance Gallery becomes a foyer filled with portraits, including Auguste Rodin’s 1907 bust of Joseph Pulitzer. In the Main Gallery, Picasso’s The Fireplace, Pierre Bonnard’s Still Life with Ham, Matisse’s The Conservatory, and Jean-Édouard Vuillard’s Woman in Green describe the chatter, eating, and repose that occurs in every house. In the Cube Gallery, Sibony conjures something more cosmic with Lucio Fontana’s 1966 painting Black Landscape, juxtaposed with an African stone figure and a Pakistani terra-cotta mother goddess.
“The Cube Gallery is our most mysterious space,” Herndon-Consagra says. “There’s one way in and one way out. He’s using Fontana, who punctures canvases—for him, in the puncturing of a canvas, it’s this discovery of a new dimension, which is infinite. It’s going to be very still and a magical space.”
That plunge into the sublime is a reminder that visitors should take care not to get too pinheaded about literalizing, though the art is figurative and the theme is domestic. Like a poem, “In the Still Epiphany” (Sibony’s title) aims to accommodate many different readings.
“He connects these objects almost like a rebus, where disparate objects start to sing, and he doesn’t want to have a really strong narrative,” Herndon-Consagra says. “He wants you to unravel things as you go.”
The opening reception for “In the Still Epiphany” is Thursday, April 5, from 5 to 9 p.m.; the show runs through October 27. Admission is free. Times: noon–5 p.m. Wed, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sat. The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, 3716 Washington, 314-754-1850, pulitzerarts.org.
