Recorded (via Zoom) September 18, 2020. Sculptors Garth Evans, Jock Ireland, and Brandt Junceau discuss the difficulty of discussing, when only have seen in photos and videos, Willard Boepple’s exhibit “Wood and Paper, Sculpture and Prints” at Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson, NY, June 27 – July 26, 2020. Artist Maryna Bilak went to the exhibit in person and sent photos and videos for the group to see. (Edit and sound by Maud Bryt)
Here are some excerpts below. Please make comments in the Reply box at the bottom of the page.
We’ve batted this thing around quite a bit. My sense was that we can’t really talk about this sculpture—or at least I have great reservations about attempting to talk about it based only on the images we have, and not actually having had the opportunity to experience the work in person. —Garth Evans
I think they are all wood with the exception of the smaller pieces that were 3-D printed and are just feather-light. . . And they are very carefully, evenly finished: no brushstrokes, no tones, opaque monochrome colors. –Brandt Junceau
I think if they were really heavy and made out of blocks of steel, I would think differently about them. If they were just rougher. . . If they had the sense of being cobbled together, you know, relatively quickly. They feel more like things that have been carefully constructed and composed and contemplated and worked through and worked out and worked over and reworked. –Garth
To come back to the photography of sculpture issue, it’s best for sculpture to be photographed in non-white cube settings—where one instantly and instinctively picks up a sense of scale and a person-to-person relationship with the object. –Brandt
Thinking of Brancusi’s photographs of his own work, you don’t get so much a precise sense of what the object is, as a sense of what the object is about. –Garth
I’m surprised that you guys aren’t as relaxed as I am about talking about this work. –Jock Ireland
I’m not suggesting for a minute that photography is an enemy of sculpture. –Garth
Sculpture Forum 
Wonderful talk! Thanks so much. I particularly liked the discussion about the differences between viewing sculpture in-person vs. seeing it through photos; something I think more and more about in my own work, having realized more people will probably view it through the cyclops gaze of the camera than in-person.
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hahaha… I love this:
I’m surprised that you guys aren’t as relaxed as I am about talking about this work. –Jock Ireland
Although I agree with Garth that “I know how big they are but I don’t FEEL how big they are.”
And Brandt was right, it would have been easier if something in the photograph gave a sense of scale. That is why I like exhibition views from the 60s where we can see a model walking around.
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