Viewing page 156 of 166

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Art

Marisol—Top to Bottom

by John Gruen

"Who, Marisol? Why, she's a sphinx without a riddle!" someone said as the name of the young Venezuelan sculptor was brought up in conversation, the other day.
Marisol may be a sphinx, but as for being without a riddle, one need only go to the Stable Gallery, where her new show is on view, to realize how riddled with riddles she really is. There's plenty going on behind the imperturable mask that is Marisol's face. In fact, that very face may be seen innumerable times in the show itself.
What is more, not only does Marisol incorporate self-portraits in her sculptures, but is given to making plaster casts of her own hands, feet, separate features, like ears, nose,and—well, it's true—her own bottom, all figuring into her work.
There is one sculpture in the show entitled "The Wedding." The life-size bride (elegant as can be) is Marisol; the groom, bow tie and top hat in place, has a square head, on which is pasted a glamorous photograph of Marisol. As she put it: "I finally made it legal."
This going inward, this self-absorption, and its recognition on the part of the artist, is disarmingly honest.

One could puzzle over two enormous female babies in the exhibit, one upset and crying, the other rather self-satisfied, with her pink silk bow in the single wooden curl on her baby head. Each infant has a little doll in her lap. They are minuscule Marisols—soignee and mysterious in appearance. Conclusions, all of a psychoanalytic nature, could be drawn, but Marisol is not prone to assign special meaning to any of her pieces: "All I can say is that my work brings me down to earth. I'm such an abstracted person that these figures somehow concretize me. Through them I feel I exist. Actually, I don't wish to belong to any group, 'pop' or otherwise. I believe in artists doing what they wish."
But "pop" artists are her friends, and the brilliant portrait of Andy Warhol attests to this. As in many of her works, Marisol draws directly on the sculptured wood. Warhol is drawn on all sides of the sculpture—a seated figure, immaculate in its fidelity to the appearance of the sitter. Did he pose for it? "I think it's wrong to make anyone sit for a portrait. It is a form of torture to demand of anyone to sit still. I prefer doing portraits from photographs. They don't move. In fact, I do my own self-portraits from photographs."
These statements, coming infrequently from an artist who is taciturn by nature, have the directness and originality of the work itself.

[[image]]
Marisol