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Artweek (contd.)

UC Berkely Daily Californian Arts Magazine
February 23, 1973

By Jan Markell
The University Art Museum is now showing the abstract sculpture of Barbara Chase Riboud as well as a member of related graphic works. In addition, more than one hundred intricately patented and exquisitely colored hand-woven Oriental rugs are on display. Both exhibitions will last until Feb 25. 
A graduate of vale University Art School (1960), Barbara Chase-Riboud has been living and working in Paris for the last ten years (the chairman of the Vale University Art School, by the way, was Josef Albers). Most of her work concerns the development of various sculptural problems the unification of opposing materials to present oppositions of hard and soft form; shiny and matt surfaces; projecting volume and empty cavities the evocative suggestion of "recognizable" images through abstract means.
Generally, the works may be described as highly polished bronze surfaces separated by troughs which are combined with silk and synthetic fibers braided woven looped and knotted to form ropes which hang from the crevices between volumes or from below there is usually a fairly distinct separation between two are of the image one of the positive and negative spaces formed by the metal and the other of soft hanging ropes. In an image such as Confessions for Myself (1972) which has recently become part of the University Art Museum's permanent collection, the opposition of these two are begins to take on a new reality in the suggestion of a woman in a dress. This evoked by the contours and bulges of the metal which roughly assume the shape of head and shoulders as well as the hanging fibers forming as dress
Zanzibar (1972), as well as the pieces already discussed, adds another dimension to the sculptress's work. They both seem to be conscious recollections of her black heritage, since these images recall the ritual masks of African. African mask were on display last month at James Willis Gallery, and many of them were a combination of various materials such as wood and hemp, leather, feathers, or metal. Thus, Chase Riboud's work aesthetically and symbolically evokes powerful images created by the tension and opposition of juxtaposed materials.
The drawings are conceived with the use of a similar language of contrasting elements as in the sculptures. Thus, light and shadow parallel the polished bronze and dark cavities between metalic surfaces Aperture I (1972) is even more abstractly "primitive" than the works which are all African masks for this charcoal drawing conjures up a vision of man's Stone Age existence living  in caves which are the result of natural formations of huge granite boulders.
Speaking of her work, the artist has stated, "There is a mysterious and not far from threatening underbelly to this surface which has the same emotional effect as some Africa sculptures have on Westerners and for the same reason displaced in time and space taken out of their real environment they assume a certain impenetrability that can disconnect and repel as well as please and attract" The statement is absolutely true her work is so starkly

original that there is no room for ambivalent feelings about it You'll have to decide for yourself.