What is formalism in art? To me, it’s when the inherent qualities of the materials used to make the art are used to create the content of the art. To quote Ad Reinhardt, one of the most severe formalist painters of the post-war American art world, “Art is art-as-art and everything else is everything else.” He was opposed to art having any other interpretation or meaning beyond what was right there.
One doesn’t see much art that strives for pure formalism anymore. Pure formalism mostly died out around 1980. Even painters like Peter Haley who toyed with formalism were no longer strictly formalist. So I was a little surprised to see Vertical Tension by Houston sculptor Tom Bandage in a new art space on Richmond called The Car Wash.
This is The Car Wash—and it was an actual car wash in its past. The three standing structures on the left are Bandage’s sculptures. The are black vertical open boxes, bolted to the floor, with segments of square aluminum hanging within, tightly bound together by a steel cable.
The square aluminum parts are sliced and scrunched together by the tension put on them by anchors along the steel cable. They bunch together irregularly.
Bandage told me that the way they are bunched is down to physics. To a degree, there is chance involved. As he was making them, they could have arranged themselves differently.
There is not much to say about formalist artworks beyond description. I feel speechless before them. Not speechless in the sense of being overwhelmed or awed, but speechless in sense of Wittgenstein: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
Part of the pleasure of seeing an artwork like Vertical Tension is seeing what an artist does with a limited number of visual elements. But even though it is made out of highly refined and machines elements, it feel almost like seeing a visually arresting piece of nature, like a crystal. I say this because the intent of the artist is almost invisible. Think of the balanced rocks at Arches National Park, for example.
In a way, formalism—if successfully applied—takes the artist out of the equation.
This space, underneath the bar Echoes on Richmond Ave., is not ideal for exhibiting art. But perhaps that fact is what makes it ideal for displaying these pieces. Perhaps art that tells you nothing about its creator, Tom Bandage, should be shown in a venue that tells you nothing about the gallerist, London Ham. The anonymity is bracing.
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