The following article
about Bennett Bean by James Yood is reprinted by permission of American
Craft, vol. 59 no. 6, December 1999- January 2000.
Bennett
Bean
R. Duane Reed Gallery
Chicago, Illinois
September 10-October 9, 1999
The fascinating
thing about the recent work of Bennett Bean is how securely it manages
to reconcile so many seeming opposites. His earthenware vessels are functional
and nonfunctional, colorful and pale, curvaceous and flat, open and closed,
delicate and sturdy, individual and divisible into multiple fragments.
They have insides that become outsides and outsides that become insides,
reflecting cultural traditions that can be identified as Eastern and Western.
And they are fully three-dimensional while also presenting a rewarding
two-dimensional aspect. His vessels become little dramas - highly decorated
surfaces performing risky but perfected arabesques, a tugging and shuffling
that keep these objects even more intense and vibrant than they might
at first appear.
At the core of this sense of acceleration has been Bean's tendency since
the mid-1990s to segment his vessels into several fully independent parts.
It is Bean's remarkable achievement to have these elements - whether two,
three or four - visually coalesce into a single interdependent unit. He
does so by simultaneously using every arrow in his quiver, and this begins,
not surprisingly, with the shaping of the clay. He torques and bevels
it, creating mini-vessels that in and of themselves are curiously and
even awkwardly shaped.
But they are not designed to exist in and of themselves; as in the recent
architecture of Frank Gehry or aspects in the sculpture of Richard Serra
and Frank Stella; the individual segments are created to dovetail in some
suggestive way with their equally individual companions. Blunt edges collapsing,
for example, to the right, seemingly screaming of asymmetry and chaos,
calm down and appear inevitable when placed next to a segment that performs
a similar sweep to the left. Rims never appear broken, and they actually
are not; our eye sweeps across space, moving from unit to unit, unquestionably
accepting the intervals and subtle twists he presents us, the drama of
the whole always overwhelming any separate impression made by the parts.
After a moment we slow up and start to take in this consummate orchestration
of bits, savoring a work's internal poetry and visual play. Bean's use
of paint and his decorative inclination play an essential role in unifying
the formally disparate components. His strategy is to paint these pieced-together
vessels as single units carrying his dreamy decoration across the surfaces
as if the spaces between them did not exist. Also contributing to a sense
of order are the pale and evanescent stippling on the bottom of the works,
which are low-footed and rather squat, and Bean's preference for a flattish,
primarily frontal main view. The upper part of the vessels appears colorful
and vivacious. Bean prefers a loose and gridded abstraction, a bright
and fundamentally upbeat patterning that sometimes gives way to a bolder
curved form. His paint suggests the qualities of watercolor, a washy delicacy
fully in harmony with the vessels it covers and, along with the sheen
of their gold leaf interiors, hints at preciousness. Beyond their particular
loveliness and the aesthetic satisfaction these pieced vessels afford,
Bennett Bean has accomplished a wonderful act of liberation: he has both
imploded and confirmed the vessel tradition, a fragmentation that somehow
remains tethered to the structure that has served so well for so long.
He intensifies rather than diffuses reconstructs at the moment he deconstructs.
His exercises in creating a kind of vessel-fugue reveal an artist at the
apex of his powers.
James Yood
James Yood teaches contemporary art theory and criticism at Northwestern
University and writes regularly for American Craft.
Reprinted by permission
of American Craft,
Vol. 59 No. 6, December 1999/January 2000
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Quartet on
Base,
Pair on Base,
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Photos:
Lindsay Rais
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Bennett
Bean
357 Route 661
Blairstown, New Jersey 07825
bennettbean@bennettbean.com
© Bennett Bean, 1990 - 2004