Label TextIn Post Balzac, Shea creates a surreal figure: an empty jacket draped over an absent body, mounted on a tall plinth. The piece references the famed sculpture, Monument to Balzac (1898), by the 19th century French artist, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), which was commissioned to honor novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). Rodin spent seven years at work on the sculpture, making preparatory studies of models who resembled Balzac, reading about the provocative and influential writer’s life and work, and even ordering a suit tailored to his measurements. Ultimately, Rodin depicted Balzac wrapped in a monk’s robe made to resemble the simple garment that he wore when writing at night. This voluminous draped garment functions as a dramatic symbolic invocation of the artistic inspiration that struck the writer during these hours. Shea — through a bit of sly humor — removes the body altogether, leaving behind just the robe. Devoid of the figure, Post Balzac becomes an exercise in minimalist sculpture and a parody of the minimal style of abstract work popular with the generation of sculptors that preceded her. Shea has explained that her clothing sculptures are metonymic: they stand in for the absent body, much as Rodin used Balzac’s robe as a stand in for the ephemeral process of artistic inspiration. In place of the corporeal form and animated details that gave Rodin’s sculpture its drama and emotion, what remains in Shea’s work is a psychological complexity. The weighty materiality of the bronze contrasts with the sensation of absence. On the base on which the body-less coat stands, Shea has inscribed XX, referring to the 20th century. By reimagining this iconic 19th century sculpture into her present day, Shea challenges the traditional conventions of memorial sculpture, in which the protagonist becomes larger than life. She explains that the hollow coat is a metaphor for the contemporary condition of the spirit, which she presents as emptiness.
Published References"John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park", Lea Rosson DeLong, ed., Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, 1923, 128-129
Published References"John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park", Lea Rosson DeLong, ed., Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, 1923, 128-129
DimensionsOverall: 100 × 28 1/2 × 28 1/2 in., 2000 lb. (254 × 72.4 × 72.4 cm, 907.2 kg.)
Accession Number 2015.23
Classificationssculpture
CopyrightJudith Shea
P.O. Box 1086
New York, NY 10008
jshea@nyc.rr.com
judithshea.com
Provenance(Max Protetch); John and Mary Pappajohn [Purchased from previous, 1991]; Des Moines Art Center [Gift from previous, 2015]
Images (1)
Audio (2)
