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OBJECT/SHADOWInstallations of Steel and Light

LARRY KAGAN

The Butler Institute of American Art

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OBJECT/SHADOWLARRY KAGAN

The Butler Institute of American ArtThe Beecher Center

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Director’s Statement

So much of the art that has endured through time has been seen as bothcomplex and conceptually mysterious. One thinks of Diego Velasquez’sgreat work “Las Meninas,” which continues to enthrall and engage us in un-raveling its spatial mysteries. We might consider as well the paintings ofCezanne which seem never to reveal the visual magic that the modern mas-ter employed. The works of Larry Kagan present no less of a mystery.These are works that entice us to get involved on multiple levels. The physi-cal aspect of the work with its highly complex linear elements of twistedmetal are reminiscent of the compositions so identified with the drawingsof Jackson Pollock. And like Pollock, the lines are purposeful, but unlike anyartist in history, Kagan’s lines make possible a shadowed image of totalshock and surprise. This imagery which exists in shadowed form only ap-pears as alchemy. How is it that a totally abstract linear physical compositioncould make possible a recognizable image of perfect clarity?

�In a sense, Larry Kagan’s work is not only about formal art; it is alsoabout visual phenomenology. We look, we question, and then we lookagain. And while this would be a proper process for the enjoyment anddeeper appreciation of all art, it is a requirement for this art. Even thoughKagan might ask much from his viewers, what we gain from the work isworth the journey.�

Louis A. ZonaDirector

Bald Eagle, 2005

Tap Dancer, 2004

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Object/Shadow: Notes on

a Developing Art Form*

Object/shadow is my term for a new cate-gory of sculpture that I have been workingon for the past dozen years. The term de-fines a condition wherein a solid componentof the sculpture casts a specific shadow thatcompletes the artwork. Sculpture tradition-ally relies on mass to create its form.Shadow-art derives primarily from the nov-elty of the silhouette. Object/shadow needboth the solid and the shadow in order toexist. And, by virtue of their dual nature,they exhibit surprising visual behavior thatdefies our visualization rules for objects…

Larry Kagan

*Excerpts in the catalog are from the publiction Art from Startto Finish, Chapter 9. Edited by Howard S. Becker, Robert R.Faulkner, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. The University ofChicago Press, Chicago� London. © 2006 University of Chicago.By written permission.

Box II, 2000 Pump, 2001

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Drawing with Steel

…To be seen effectively, my steel assem-blages required a neutral backdrop - a wall.I began to “draw” with steel on the wall,shamelessly stealing at least a few of myteacher Stankiewicz’† ideas. I saw how hehung his steel constructions on the wall,leaving their interior elements energized,and I did likewise. Putting steel fragmentson a wall brought them nearer to the view-ers, and allowed the sculptural elements toutilize pictorial language for expressive andnarrative purposes. I also learned aboutscale from Richard. The intimacy of thework had power because it could be seenup close by the viewer - where tactility mat-ters, and where the rich surface of the steelcould do its work…

† Richard Stankiewicz (1923 -1983) was a recognized American Abstract Expressionist Assemblage Artist

…Using shadows in a narrative fashion isnot a mainstream art practice. Even now,there are probably no more than a dozenartists who are working in this medium andfewer who have achieved any significant vis-ibility. Art dealers and curators are also at aloss when it comes to shadows…

LEFT

Point Guard, 2001

RIGHT

Great Book, 2004

Drawing with Shadow

The act of drawing ordinarily requires pick-ing up a pencil and making a mark on a sur-face. The mark is normally invested withsome visual information. To draw withshadow, you suspend something in spacethat will interrupt a beam of light to make amark. Instead of executing a drawing stroke,you suspend or attach a cantilever…

…While making a mark on a piece of paperis automatic, making a shadow mark entailsa physical building process that requiresstepping back and applying an extra level ofanalysis. This involves much more work, butit also opens up new creative possibilities…this is where the fun comes in. By not hav-ing a one-to-one mapping between shadowand object, all kinds of new object/shadowrelationships become possible…

Intersection of Two Circles, 2003

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The Role of Shadow in

Cognition

…We are more or less aware of the pres-ence of shadows, since they tell us some-thing about our environment, but we donot actually look at them - unless they callattention to themselves by some unfamiliaror unexpected behavior. My challenge wasto induce viewers to actually look at theshadow rather than solely at the steel. Ibegan shifting more of the narrative burdento shadow. The more content the eyescould detect in the shadow, the more timeand attention they would expend on explor-ing its details…

Taking Aim, 2002

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Discoveries

…simply finding that it was possible to giveboth shadow and solid equal and comple-mentary visual roles in describing a singleimage was a step forward.

…a “new kind of thing”: an object that ishalf solid and half shadow - a hybrid. Imag-ine an object/shadow line drawing of acube. Half is drawn in steel and half inshadow. Together they constitute a com-plete cube. Simple to be sure, but there areno objects like this in nature.

Cone, 2000

Speculations

…One curious element is the degree towhich each point of the object/shadow isrelated to the others. Exactly how many co-ordinates and data points are required tocompletely describe and locate each point inspace? If all of the variables such as the x,y,and z coordinates of the steel, the angle ofinclination, distance and beam spread of thelight, and the permeability of the mediumthat the light is traveling through arecounted, do they indicate that these worksoccupy something other than a simplethree-dimensional space?...

I generally like to hang these object/shadowin my studio with their light sources turnedoff, pleased just to know that there is some-thing lurking—a mystery.

Frankfurt Chair, 2002Nesting, 2001

Mosquito I, 2007

Beach Chair, 2001

F-16, 2003

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Shadow play has been Larry Kagan’s obsession for the past dozen years orso, when he first began making Object/Shadow—his term for his singular,spectacular steel wall sculptures/drawings that combine the fixed and thetransient, the two and three-dimensional, mass and the insubstantial, theone an avatar of the other and co-dependent. They are two-partinventions—the steel the “conundrum, the pre-cognition, and deliverysystem” while the shadow is the unexpected, ephemeral response. It’s a“push in two directions,” Kagan says, “with a certain dissonance.” He hasobserved that people are only peripherally conscious of shadows in nature;they do not really notice them. If the shadow is missing in a representation,however, they will sense that something is wrong. “My challenge was toinduce viewers to look at the shadow” and is a much more intricate andsophisticated version of the game that most likely every child has played,shaping fingers and fists illuminated by a source of light to create an arrayof figures on a blank wall.

Shadow play has a long history. Imagine prehistoric cave dwellershuddled around a fire gazing at premonitory shadows cast on rocky walls,revering and replicating them or, jumping forward, consider Plato’s allegoryof the cave in which its captive inhabitants mistook the shadows of thingsfor the things themselves. Shadow theatre is also part of that venerableheritage, brought to Paris from the East in the 18th century, and became apopular form of entertainment. Portrait silhouettes—essentially a shadowand related to cut-paper works—were also in vogue in Europe then andespecially beloved by the Victorians, a genre updated in the projects of KaraWalker, Paul Chan, Tim Noble, Sue Webster and other contemporaryartists.

CHASING SHADOWS

Lilly Wei

Poodle, 2005

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Kagan, however, a superb draftsman fascinated by line, wants tomake a real drawing out of steel and shadow, one that is as detailed andsubtly executed as its counterpart on paper, not merely an outline. Hebegins with the shadow, what he wants the image on the wall to be, thenworks out the configuration in steel. He uses scrap steel since he preferscommonplace, non-art materials that are readily available—a criterioninspired by his teacher Richard Stankiewicz—and his lighting is simple, MR16 low voltage track lights, based on the same principle. Kagan says he“goes out of his way to create the unexpected,” a visual, “encrypted”disconnect between the steel structure that, at times, resembles a tangledbriar patch or even spaghetti and a shadow image that can be complex orsimple.

They are a hybridized positive/negative entity; the steel(contradicting its actuality) is the negative and the impermanent shadow isthe positive. It’s not possible to determine the cast picture by the steelconstruct unless you know what you are looking for. Some of the simplestshadows—a filled-in, dark oval shape, a circle, and open circular loop with adouble shadow (not in this show)—are the results of the most delirious steelformations. As his technique developed and his pictorial language becamericher, he has been able to achieve ever more astonishing resolutions, fromdrawings of boxes within boxes, chairs, jet fighters, books to full-scaleimages of a basketball player in action or a dandy in a tuxedo. He haslearned, for instance, how to make the shadow denser, curve it or straightenit, how to blur or sharpen lines so that they resemble ink, pencil, pastel orcharcoal wall drawings. He can also vary the tonality of shadows in a singlework so that they range from dark to light. One recent projection—thecircular loop—consists of a lighter and darker circle, the former appearingto be casting a shadow of itself. Both, however, are insubstantial. Thedeception doubled—nothing casting a shadow of nothing—it glimmers asan apt metaphor for the illusion that is art.

Kagan studied engineering in college before switching to art,preferring its freedom of expression, its lack of utility. Nonetheless, heapproaches his production with a certain scientific methodology in whichone work is the starting point for the next in a series of explorations of formand content. He has written that the constituent parts of his Object/Shadow“must serve three roles at once: as objects that have material characteristics(texture, sensuality); as specific forms that embody a living process (time,entropy); and as building blocks in a larger composition (narrative,content).” The tension created by these three roles clamoring for theviewer’s attention is what he is looking for. He also asks an intriguingquestion, based on the kind of space, time and light that comprise hisObject/Shadow: Do these works occupy something other than a simplethree-dimensional space? Whether it does and whatever else it is, it is amulti-dimensional experience, an arresting optical drama vested in theperceptual, phenomenological and philosophical that Kagan, engineer, artistand spellbinding magician, gleefully translates.

Lilly Wei is a New York-based critic and independent curator.

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SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2009Object/Shadow. The Butler Instituteof American Art, Youngstown, OH

2008The Grand Illusion. Louis K. MeiselGallery, NYC

2007OK Harris Works of Art, NYC Object/Shadow Installation. NeimanMarcus, Dallas , TX

2006–5 Tribe Art Tour. Spazio Etoile, Rome,ItalyOmbres et Lumiere. Centre GeorgesPompidou, Paris, FranceTribe Art Tour. Solo Exhibitions: LaTriennale di Milano, Italy; ExBologna Motori, Bologna; SalaEspace, Torino.Larry Kagan. O.K. Harris Works ofArt, NYCThe Essence of Line. ConcordiaGallery, Concordia College,Bronxville, NYThe Reserve of Form. ViennaKünstlerhaus, AustriaSeeing Is Believing: American Trompel’Oeil. New Britain Museum ofAmerican Art, New Britain, CTThe Medium is the Message. FlintInstitute of Arts, Flint, MI

Subject: Object. O.K. Harris Works ofArt, NYCThe Secret of Shadow. GermanArchitecture Museum, Frankfurt,GermanyCamino Real Gallery, Boca Raton,FLAlbany Institute of History and Art,Albany, NY

2001O.K. Harris Works of Art, NYC Figurative Explorations. MoniqueGoldstrom Gallery, NYC

2000O.K. Harris Works of Art, NYC1999O.K. Harris Works of Art, NYC1998O.K. Harris Works of Art, NYC

SELECTED ARTICLES/REVIEWS/BOOKS

Art from Start to Finish. Edited byHoward S. Becker, Robert R.Faulkner, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. The Universityof Chicago Press, Chicago.� London.© 2006 University of Chicago.Hartford Advocate, Aug 5, 2004,What You See Is What You Get by Pa-tricia Rosoff The New York Art World, March

Larry Kagan

333 West 57th Street New York, NY 10019www.larrykagansculpture.com

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2003 issue, Short List by Lily FaustSalvage, Issue 03, Shadowing aprofile by Heather MacDonaldGallery Guide, NYC, Cover Review,Volume 5, #9, February 1, 2000,Larry Kagan by Herbert ReichertThe New York Times, Art In ReviewFebruary 4, 2000 by Grace GlueckThe New Yorker, August 6, 2001,Galleries DowntownThe Boston Globe, August 9, 1995,Nature Gets into the Act by ChristineTeminThe New York Times, December 20,1998, The Powers of Light by HelenA. HarrisonSculpture, January/ February 1999Dispatches by Jane Ingram AllenNewsday, January 8, 1999,Illuminating Works by AnnabelleKerins

FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS

Corriere Della Sera, Milan, 4 Nov.2004, L’artista che crea le ombre, byChiara VanzettoLa Repubblica, Milan, 4 Nov 2004, Ilmago Americano delle ombre cinesiby Chiara GattiGiessener Anzeiger, 11 July 2005,Kombination swischen Mathematik,Kunst und Physik.Cronaca, Torino, 11 Jan 2005.“Arriva la ‘Tribe Art’ firmata LarryKagan” Il Domani, 19 Nov 2004. “ScultureFatte D’Ombra” by Irene BisiLa Repubblica, ed Bologna, 18 Nov2004. “Pistole e Cowboy per Kaganson fili Il d’arte” by Paola NaldiGiornale d’Italia, 29 Jan 29 2005.“Larry Kagan, artista in ombra” byEloisa Covelli

Il Giornale ed. Roma, 29 Jan 2005. “Idubbi artistici di Larry Kagan trarealismo e astrazione” by GiacomoBondiRepubblica ed Roma, 30 Jan 2005.“Larry Kagan, fili d’acciaio per ilcowboy e l’e-mail” by Linda deSanctisIl Tempo Dell’Arte, Roma, 28 Jan2005. “Volumi D’Ombra” byCristina SpinellaFocus, Feb 2005, “Il Mago DelleOmbre”

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLEC-TIONS/COMMISSIONS

Norton Simon, Passadena, CAAlbany Institute of History and Art,Albany NYSchenectady Museum, Schenectady,NYThe Jewish Museum, New York, NYKeycorp, Albany, NYRensselaer (RPI), Troy, NYState University of New YorkUSIS, St. Petersburgh, RussiaNew York State Legislature, Albany,NYEmpire Blue Cross CorporationThe Hunter Museum, Chattanooga,TNFlint Institute of the Arts, Flint, MIMathematikum, Giessen, GermanyMontclair Art Museum, Montclair,NJUniversity of Toronto, Ontario,Canada

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F-16, 2003Steel: 30 x 32 x 15½ inchesSteel with shadow:45 x 35 x 15½ inchesLight Location:6 inches to right of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Intersection of Two Circles, 2003Steel: 18 x 23 x 10½ inchesSteel with shadow:28 x 19 x 10½ inchesLight Location:41 inches to left of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Great Book, 2004Steel: 21 x 43 x 12 inchesSteel with shadow:34 x 52 x 12 inchesLight Location:27 inches to left of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Tap Dancer, 2004Steel: 24 x 16 x 18½ inchesSteel with shadow:59 x 19 x 18½ inchesLight Location:14 inches to left of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Bald Eagle, 2005Steel: 28 x 31 x 12¼ inchesSteel with shadow:39 x 37 x 12¼ inchesLight Location:On centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Poodle, 2005Steel: 23 x 22 x 9 inchesSteel with shadow:29 x 24 x 9 inchesLight Location:2 inches left of centerDistance from wall: 24 inchesDistance from floor: 8 feet 6 inches

Mosquito I, 2007Steel: 29 x 38 x 16 inchesSteel with shadow:51 x 43 x 16 inchesLight Location:10 inches to right of centerDistance from wall: 30 inchesDistance from floor: 9 feet 3 inches

* All artwork measurements are H x W x D (irreg.)

Box II, 2000Steel: 21 x 31 x 10¾ inchesSteel with shadow: 34 x 35 x 10¾ inchesLight Location:6 inches to right of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Cone, 2000Steel: 18 x 40 x 13 inchesSteel with shadow:34 x 49 x 13 inchesLight Location:17 inches to left of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Point Guard, 2001Steel: 31 x 29 x 16¼ inchesSteel with shadow:61 x 33 x 16¼ inchesLight Location:17 inches to right of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Beach Chair, 2001Steel: 32 x 38 x 13 inchesSteel with shadow:44 x 41 x 13 inchesLight Location:16 inches to right of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Nesting, 2001Steel: 22 x 31½ x 17¼ inchesSteel with shadow:53 x 38 x 17¼ inchesLight Location:8 inches to right of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Pump, 2001Steel: 23½ x 33 x 13 inchesSteel with shadow:45 x 41 x 13 inchesLight Location:14 inches to left of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Frankfurt Chair, 2002Steel: 22 x 23 x 14¼ inchesSteel with shadow:46 x 25 x 14¼ inchesLight Location:20 inches to left of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Taking Aim, 2002Steel: 24 x 14 x 15 inchesSteel with shadow:38 x 20 x 14¼ inchesLight Location:17 inches to right of centerDistance from wall: 42 inchesDistance from floor: 12 feet

Exhibition Checklist

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Acknowledgements

An exhibition is really a collaborative effort and many are responsiblefor mine.

Heartfelt thanks are due to Ivan and Ethan Karp of the OK Harris Gallery who believed in my vision and have shown my workfor years. Thanks to Dr. Louis A. Zona for his kind invitation to presentthis exhibition, and to all the helpful staff of The Butler Institute ofAmerican Art for making this project such a pleasure. My gratitude toMarijo Dougherty for her devoted curatorial and coordination efforts,to Gary Gold for his terrific photography, to Zheng Hu for a fine cata-log design, to Lilly Wei for her thoughtful essay on my work. Specialthanks are also due to the University of Chicago Press for permission toreproduce text from the book Art From Start To Finish, and to RensselaerPolytechnic Institute, the university where I teach, for its long-term sup-port of my creative work.

Finally, and most importantly, a great big thank you to my wife,Lisa, without whose encouragement, understanding and forbearance Object/Shadow would not exist, and to my sons, Moses and Eli, whogave up so much quality time with me when they were younger so thatI could pursue my dream.

IMAGE LEFT:

The artist, pictured at La Triennale di Milano Museum of

Art and Design, before Lucky Strike, 2004. The work was

part of a one person exhibition, Tribe Art Tour, shown

2005-6 at museums in Milan, Bologna, Torino and Rome.

September 20 – December 27, 2009

The Butler Institute of American ArtThe Beecher Center

524 Wick Avenue

Youngstown, Ohio 44502

Phone 330.743.1107 Fax 330.743.9567

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday 11 am to 4 pm, Sunday noon to 4 pm.

Closed Monday and major holidays.

© The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio. All rights reserved.

ISBN 1-882790-56-1

Curated by Marijo Dougherty

Essay by Lilly Wei

Designed by Zheng Hu

Edited by Erika Groff

Photography by Gary Gold Studio

This catalog is set in Adobe Dante on Platinum 100 lb. text and

1500 copies were printed by New York Press & Graphics, Albany, New York

COVER IMAGE: Poodle (detail), 2005

OBJECT/SHADOWLARRY KAGAN