RICK BECK, Utility, November 14 - December 10, 2003

RICK BECK

RICK BECK “UTILITY” November 14th

December 10th, 2003

ESSAY BY James Yood

MARX♦ SAUNDERS GALLERY, LTD 230 West Superior Street Chicago, Illinois 60610 T 312.573.1400 F 312.573.0575 marxsaunders@earthlink.net www.marxsaunders.com

COVER DETAIL AND BACK COVER Amber Clamp (Wall) 2003 86” x 13” x 9”

Cobalt Milk Spoon 2003 88.5” x 18.5” x 16”

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Green Fork 2003 103” x 18.5” x 12” Clear Milk Spoon 2003 86” x 18.5” x 17.5” Melon Baller 2003 81” x 18.5” x 12”

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Measuring Spoons 2002 11” x 30” x 25”

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G

igantism. That’s a term used to describe when an object—usually a smallish one— is presented incredibly out of scale, blown up to rather immense proportions. It’s a device advertisers sometimes use (there’s nothing like the sight of what appears to be an 8-foot hamburger, or a lipstick that seems bigger than a person), using trick photography or collage to grab our attention by offering us the seduction of the colossal. It works too, as when it comes to making a visual statement, size indeed does matter, and there can be a special pleasure and release in the disruption of the optical procedures of this so-called normal world.

Of course, Rick Beck does more than just make his subjects—things such as scissors, forks, melon ballers, wall clamps, spoons, spatulas, backscratchers, etc.—colossal, he also makes them glass. They then become both big and somehow vulnerable, these little cultural relics now brought to the scale of icons, a melon baller that starts to look as if it comes from some ancient Cycladic civilization. There’s rich humor in that too, the sheer delight in thinking about a melon baller gone gigantic, inviting us to look carefully at the implements that surround us, things we often never notice at all. It’s an almost 7-foot tall melon baller, after all, and has already probably achieved the status of being the finest single depiction of a melon baller in the history of art. This is funny, but somehow we immediately sense that this sculpture is more than that. Moments after recognition of the subject matter we begin to appreciate its extraordinary suppleness and grace, the lovely and subtle attenuation of form, the vertical sweep of this translucent white stele that is presented so beautifully and forcefully that it always seems more than its origin in an implement. Beck’s work can sensitize us to the pictorial intrigue played out in the design of much of the stuff that surrounds us every day, selected here by an artist extremely attentive to such charms.

Beck actually does not make his utilitarian sources gigantic, he makes large molds based on their shapes and then casts molten glass in them. This can alter his source material, allowing him to embellish some areas while eliminating others, streamlining the design of these vernacular objects, permitting him to accentuate some rhythms he finds embedded in their shape. These are some fantastic implements, reflecting design strategies that sometimes seem remote from their sources, tweaked by Beck into new profiles that can suggest some art historical connections. Several of these pieces read like homages to Giacometti, playing on his love of simplified vertical forms shown in isolation or in huddled groups.

Beck’s process also allows him to introduce color, and a part of the allure of his work is chromatic, the way light loves to play around his surfaces, both rough-hewn and exposed.

Backscratcher/Staff could easily be categorized as clever and humorous, playing off a tool we use to extend the reach of our arms to get a little relief. It’s odd when shown more than 5-feet tall, a huge disembodied attenuated arm made out of amber colored glass. It gets a bit eerie, though, this enormous arm, and it makes one look—and find!--throughout Beck’s work more examples that hint at this kind of anthropomorphism, the oddly human profile within many things we make and use. This is Beck’s zone, the increasingly interwoven arena between the iconic and the mundane, with special attention to the poetry implicit in the latter.

JAMES YOOD James Yood teaches contemporary art theory and criticism at Northwestern University and write regularly for GLASS and American Craft magazines.

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Shears (Wall) 2003 52” x 11” x 9”

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Knife Staff 70” Spoon Staff 63.5” Gig Staff 59” Fork Staff 72”

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12“ x 8” 12” x 8” 12” x 8” 12” x 8” 2003

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RICK BECK EDUCATION 1989 - MFA, Glass, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois 1982 - BA, Art, Emphasis on Glass, Hastings College, Hastings, Nebraska

AWARDS SAF/NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship North Carolina Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship

SELECTED COLLECTIONS Asheville Museum of Art, Asheville, North Carolina Fletcher, Barnhart, White Corporation, Charlotte, North Carolina Glasmuseum, Ebeltoft, Denmark Hickory Museum of Art, Hickory, North Carolina McDonalds Corporate Collection Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Charlotte, North Carolina Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, Alabama North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina Wustum Museum of Fine Art, Racine, Wisconsin XL Screw Corporation, Wheeling, Illinois

Back Scratcher Staff 2003 64.5” x 12” x 9” Spatula Staff 2003 61” x 12” x 9” PHOTO BY: DAVID RAMSEY

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