It is with great
pleasure that the Walnut Creek Civic Arts Gallery presents this
exhibition focusing upon a significant period of work by a
distinguished Bay Area Sculptor. Jacques Schnier, a long-time
resident of Lafayette, celebrates his eight-fifth birthday this
year.
Schnier's
creative journey, over the last half century, moves through
frontiers explored by those innovators who are compelled by
visual and intellectual curiosity to continually seek new
combinations of form and material. Such discovery does not come
easily. It is a difficult process of perceptual reordering
linked to technological exploration, a quest for timeless
perfection shaped through contemporary means.
This exhibition
surveys Schnier's commitment to abstraction during the past
twenty-five years of an illustrious career. On view are his
major works of this period, comprising a rich variety of
experimentation with three dimensional shapes ranging from
curved to cubic. These seemingly effortless inventions are
realized through the artist's total dedication to a craftsmanly
approach to diverse processes and materials which include cast
bronze, carved acrylic, constructed polymer tubing and welded
stainless steel. Throughout this body of works runs the
creator's vision of a simplified elegance which combines
vitality of form with a graceful sense of resolution. A romantic
impulse of energetic rhythms and fluidity is tempered by a
classical ideal of clarity, restraint and minimal means.
Upon entering
this exhibition, the viewer is presented with a thumbnail sketch
of the artist's stylistic development through an installation of
small-scale works. Among these sculptures are examples of his
earliest Art Deco-like treatment of subject matter in wood,
stone and bronze. It is important to note the continuity of
these representational statements with later abstract sculpture
as regards the coherent interrelation of rhythmic form, the
suspension of shapes in space and the sensitive treatment of
materials.
In 1958 Jacques
made a decisive break from the representation of subject matter
in his sculpture. Having observed "That from the point of view
of composition the inventive use of figurative subjects had
practically been exhausted," he chose to concentrate on form.
The works installed in the Main Gallery are the products of that
aesthetic commitment.
The "cubic"
sculptures of 1958-63, executed in wood, bronze, copper and cast
iron, incorporate overlapping planes and shaped, block-like
masses into several variations of composition that included
compact, vertical and cantilevered structures. In exploring
these formal possibilities the artist used his new sculptural
language to pursue many combinations of proportion, surface and
spatial relationship.
The bronze
sculptures of 1964-68 contains curvilinear elements arranged
through an openly fluid use of space which interacts with their
highly textured and lustrous surfaces.
From 1969-78
carved acrylic sculptures, in both organic and geometric forms,
were designed to reflect, refract and radiate light in myriad,
intricate patterns through their own internal facets and lenses.
The formal purity of these highly polished, crystalline
presences interact with light so as to transform them into
kinetic works imbued with great subtlety and power.
The industrial
polymer pieces of 1978-80 consist of flexible tubing used in
ventilating and heating ducts which were manipulated by bending
the volumes so as "to create virtually three dimensional
sculpture compositions within the limits of a continuously
turning and twisting tubular shape." Completed works were
painted intense colors by spraying on "many coats of automotive
lacquer, and then hand rubbed and buffed to a mirror finish."
The cuboid forms
of 1981 to the present are small to large, seamless, planar
constructions in clean brass, stainless and lacquered steel
surfaces. These rigorous geometric forms interact rhythmically
through a series of diagonal thrusts resulting in a dance-like
sense of motion. This feeling of movement is intensified by the
instability of these masses which rest only on their corners.
Over the years I
have pinned selected exhibition announcements on a wall behind
my desk as a sampling of the diverse art shown in the Bay Area.
When Jacques Schnier recently visited my office he immediately
seized upon a poster reproduction of "Standing Woman," a bronze
nude by Gaston Lachaise. "Look!" he exclaimed, "how she seems to
float." Although I had often admired the sculpture's consummate
grace, I had never clearly observed that the tapering figure
appears to levitate from its tiny feet so that the massive
volume seems to hover in space. It was only natural that Schnier,
the creator of such unique balances of form as "Four Cuboids on
Three Points" should perceive how Lachaise had, through his art,
suspended the law of gravity.
__________
Worth, Carl. "Jacques
Schnier, Sculptures Since 1960." Civics Arts Gallery.
(Exhibition
Announcement, 1983).
pp. 3-4.
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