Artwork of the 80's
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Artists & Works
Joel Fisher
American (b. 1947)
BOLLARD (1987)
bronze
90" x 30" x 25"

STYLE: biomorphic,
sculpture

 ©Joel Fisher Archives

Joel Fisher's sculptures begin as arbitrary drawings traced over coarse fibers embedded on the sheets of handmade paper created by the artist. This fiber-to-drawing-to-sculpture progression reverses the process of abstraction through beginning with a completely non-referential drawing and ending with a highly associative object. Bollard is the third version of a sculpture Fisher began in 1983. The earlier versions, Whold (1983) and S (1987) are smaller but also feature a bowed head, protruding shoulders and curvaceous form. This sensuous, highly suggestive form evokes a wealth of references, including similarities to he work of the early 20h century sculptor, Jean Arp, as well as to the human figure.

CRITICAL EXCERPTS

Eleanor Heartney, ARTnews, 3/86
"Fisher has found a method of having it both ways. His small, engaging sculptures are traditionally objectlike, fashioned out of materials like bronze, fiberglass, papier-mâché and felt. However, they begin as arbitrary drawings traced over coarse fibers embedded on the sheets of handmade paper created by the artist...from them, Fisher creates sculptures that abound with art-historical, figural, and other references...One of the fascinating aspects of these works is how they reverse the process of abstraction. Beginning with a completely non-referential drawing, Fisher eventually arrives at a highly associative object...The works that result are a satisfying blend of the arbitrary and the personal."

Charles Hagen, ARTFORUM, 10/87
"The pieces...are also based on found figures in the drawings, but Fisher has cast them in the round, giving them a solidity and fluidity like that of work by Jean Arp. These sculptures remain figurative, but refer to a wide range of subjects...Fisher is a minimalist, but not a pure one...he draws attention to the process of interpretation, to the creative reading that is the root of signification."
Kotik, Brooklyn Museum, Four American, 2/89
"The artist acknowledges that the translation into three-dimensionality is both restrictive and arbitrary. His drawings provide initial suggestions of the shape of a future object, but they are far from supplying more information than one point of view...Accepting a fixed premise as a starting point—the drawn sign derived from the accidental twist of fiber—he creates a new form with startling inventiveness...The gentle irony and wit permeating all of Fisher's work is built into the very concept of each of his pieces."

Fisher statement from catalogue: "I think I am a Formalist. I believe that form has meaning—or content—which is separate from other things in the work; I suspect that there is consciousness in the material world, perhaps even thought...My work is very ordinary in that it processes experiences that we have all had."