Tag Archives: soft sculpture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Mrs. Jones and Family By Faith Ringgold

mrs jones and family photo by gail worley
All Photos By Gail

Like many feminist-aligned artists in the 1970s, Faith Ringgold embraced collaboration as a politically significant part of her practice. Ringgold’s primary collaborator was her own mother, the fashion designer and dress maker Willi Posey. Mrs. Jones and Family (1973, also known as Mrs. Jones, Andrew, Barbara, and Faith) was created with Posey, who designed and sewed garments for many of Ringgold‘s mask sculptures throughout the 1970s. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Mrs. Jones and Family By Faith Ringgold

Modern Art Monday Presents: Claes Oldenburg, Soft Calendar for The Month of August

Soft Calendar
Photo By Gail

Claes Oldenburg has consistently embraced contradiction to transform and animate everyday objects. In his art, hard becomes soft, miniscule becomes monumental and, as in Soft Calendar (1962), flat becomes three-dimensional. Oldenburg’s stuffed fabric sculptures originated in 1962 as props to his art events, or Happenings, and evolved into independent artworks. The giant numbers of Soft Calendar are sensuously rounded and pillow-like. Each Sunday is called out in brilliant red, while the remaining days of the week are coated in white enamel. Photographic documentation suggests that Soft Calendar was assembled by Oldenburg and is partner, Patty Mucha, at Green Gallery in 1962, in preparation for the opening of his solo exhibition.

Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

Katherine Bernhardt’s Concrete Jungle Jungle Love at The Lever House

Installation View
All Photos By Gail

The Lever House Art Collection recently hosted Concrete Jungle Jungle Love, a site-specific installation by New York based artist Katherine Bernhardt. I happened to pop in to the exhibit which filled the Lever House Park Avenue lobby, while passing time before dining a nearby restaurant, as the installation’s vibrantly-colored elements drew me in from the street like steel to a magnet.
Continue reading Katherine Bernhardt’s Concrete Jungle Jungle Love at The Lever House

Modern Art Monday Presents: Claes Oldenburg, Giant BLT

Claes Oldenburg BLT
Photos By Gail

The triangular mass of Claes Oldenburg’s Giant BLT (Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich”) 1963, is actually constructed from many smaller sculptural components including wood slabs, stuffed cushions and fabric pieces, which must be restacked each time the work is shown, allowing ample room for creative variation. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Claes Oldenburg, Giant BLT

Pink Thing of The Day: Soft Sculpture by Natsuko Hattori

Natsuko Hattori Soft Sculpture
Photos By Gail

Artist Statement:

Mocomoco  (もこもこ) is a Japanese word that refers to a soft or puffy surface and the comforting feelings that one might get from holding a toy stuffed animal, or being wrapped up in a down coat. Fabric is my medium of choice because people everywhere can relate more easily to this material, which conveys warmth, natural softness and the intimate human touch. The act of wrapping is central to my sculptures. Continue reading Pink Thing of The Day: Soft Sculpture by Natsuko Hattori