MOMA-Puryear

Overall I found Puryear’s work to be interesting but not exactly intriguing or extremely inspiring; I do however find his use and mixing of materials to be interesting. Personally, organically formed sculptures such as the ones in Puryear’s gallery have never left a large impression in my mind. I have trouble and truthfully skepticism regarding works ability to communicate something when it has no emotion to do so. For example, these sculptures have no expressions as could be found in the Hellenistic sculptures of the Mediterranean or paintings and pictures for that matter. These sculptures are just forms, which possibly can describe some sort of whimsy, or solidity but in my opinion little beyond that. I will admit to being amused by Puryear’s decision to build this expansive form atop a small wheel barrow, the differing planes from the straight edges of the barrow to the busy, interconnecting bars of the sculpture give the piece and interesting texture, which sort of reminds me of a hedgehog. I feel as if the sculpture would be quite large, and I feel as it would continue on with the hedgehog metaphor, and create a rounded egg shape in back. The artist may be alluding to the fact that he’d need a wheelbarrow to be able to carry all of the ideas that come into his mind over the course of the day. This can be surmised by the fact the large white object in the middle of the wooden planks is shaped like a light bulb and some of the planks radiate outward from it like a halo, or light screams bursting from the form.