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"Zanzibar" (left) and "Black Zanzibar" by Barbara Chase-Ribaud: Polished bronze and silk in an Afro motif.

Detroit Free Press - Sunday 4-29-73

Chase-Ribaud at the Institute: Black Culture and Sexuality
BY BETSEY HANSELL
Free Press Guest Columnist

Black culture and sexuality are the themes explored by Barbara Chase-Ribaud in her series of abstract sculptures and drawings on exhibit in the North Court of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Ms. Chase-Ribaud, a graduate of Yale University Art school, is searching into her Black African origins. "I feel an obligation to explore a culture which is related to me racially," she says.
In the African collection of the Art Institute are several masks and figures that combine braided rope fibers and polished hard elements. Chase-Ribaud's sculptures make this same contrast, using hard yet organically shaped bronze attached to silk skeins. She attempts to achieve a sense of the primitive within a contemporary format. 
"The Albino" for example, is a hanging sculpture of black patina bronze threaded with black wool rope like kinky "Afro" hair. In "Zanzibar," beige silk ropes and coils emerge from a faceted relief of polished bronze, falling to the floor in a texturally variegated mass. These works have an African feel to them. 
The best sculptures in the show reveal another aspect of Ms. Chase-Ribaud's complex artistic personality. There are six three-dimensional pieces of bronze that evoke a profound sense of female sexuality. Many are triangular forms with undulating, faceted surfaces. Silk cords spill from the apex of these triangles, and trail onto the floor to form sensuous patterns. They seem umbilical, life-giving forces emerging from a central feminine matrix.
One other sculpture, "Bathers," is composed of 16 rectangular segments of polished aluminum arranged to form a square on the floor. Emerging from these are dull gray cords, close in color but light-absorbing in contrast to the wavelike aluminum's reflective surface. This work is placed in front of a window, and the constant changes in light add a kinetic, living quality to the piece.
This entire show, incidentally, is very well presented. The North Court provides both intimacy in a small area, and openness because of the view from the window. 
The artist's drawings are her finest work. There is an exquisite contrast of soft charcoal smudging and precise linear definition of form. They depict rock shapes connected by twisted ropes. Two include written poems, and others have mysterious calligraphy that cannot be read but conveys a strong sense of magical incantation. These drawings seem more unified and powerful than the sculptures, which do not always succeed in making a logical whole out of the diverse elements of fiber and metal. 
Barbara Chase-Ribaud is an artistic loner. She does not belong to any current school. The work is abstract, but rich in references to herself as a young Black woman of today's world. She is able to translate her uniqueness into universal terms of sensuous beauty that anyone can understand and enjoy.

Other Shows
BERNARD ROSENTHAL SCULPTURES, Gertrude Kasie Gallery, 310 Fisher Bidg Through May 19

EMIL NOLDE: Watercolo drawings and Prints, from the Permanent Collection Detroit Institute of Arts Through May 27

LOUIS NEILLOT, Oils, Watercolors from the artist's Intensely personal expressionistic view of nature, Morse Capponi Gallery, 88 Kecheval, Grosse Pointe Through May 10.

SPIRITS OF ATLANTIS, sculpture by Bennett Vitale, Little Gallery 915 E. Maple, Birmingham. Through May 12.