Nearly 30 large-scale clay spheres and a trio of cubes take the place of cars at an auto body lot in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Artist Bosco Sodi’s sculpture exhibition Perfect Bodies opened last Saturday, inviting visitors to see his work outdoors on a perfect autumn day.
Presented by Pioneer Works and curated by Dakin Hart, Senior Curator of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, Perfect Bodies is being shown concurrently with Sodi’s exhibit Vers l’Espagne on view by appointment only at Chelsea’s Kasmin Gallery through November 12.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions “it was very sad that [Vers l’Espagne would] be seen by very few people,” Sodi said last weekend in Red Hook. “I was talking to Dakin…and we said we should do an open show that people are able to go and walk around and spend as much time as possible and feel the elements…. It can be good medicine to walk around.”
Perfect Bodies examines “silence, contemplation, and the passing of time—the small things in life and our relationship with the earth,” Sodi states in the press release. “In this particular time more than ever, I believe in the healing power of art.” Sodi and Hart decided to produce the public art installation this past spring as Sodi prepared for his Kasmin exhibit.
In 2014 Sodi founded Foundación Casa Wabi, a non-profit arts center in Oaxaca, Mexico that promotes collaboration between its artists-in-residence and local communities. The stunning property, surrounded by breathtaking views of the ocean, sky, and mountains, was designed by renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando and was named for the concept of wabi-sabi, “a vision of the world focused on the acceptance of the ephemeral and the imperfect,” according to casawabi.org. Sodi’s work is influenced by Japanese aesthetics and Abstract Expressionism as well as by nature.
Though Sodi is a native of Mexico and created these sculptures in his sprawling open-air studio in Oaxaca, the artist is primarily based in Red Hook. After living in Barcelona for ten years, Sodi and his family came to New York a decade ago, planning to stay for just one year, he explained. “Then I found a studio here in Red Hook. I was bicycling every day around here and I fell in love with it,” he said of his decision to settle in Brooklyn. The neighborhood proved to be the perfect location when Sodi and Hart decided to exhibit his sculptures—composed of “raw and natural materials”—against an open industrial setting in a creative gesture to “reconquer” the land.
Known for his vividly hued, textured paintings, Sodi recently shifted his focus to sculpture and “the traditions of his Mexican heritage,” according to his bio on kasmingallery.com. Sodi sources the clay he works with from a town near Casa Wabi and “uses this elemental material, one of ancestral significance, to create minimalist sculptures.”
“I think that clay is something that has been with humans since the very beginning. It’s something that all countries have in common,” Sodi said. “It’s a material that involves the four elements and I think is a nice way to reconnect with earth, to reconnect with nature in these troubling times.”
The artist described his arduous and lengthy process of creating the forms, first meticulously shaping them by hand, leaving them to dry under plastic for about two to three months and regularly inspecting them to ensure they do not crack. He then uncovers the pieces and continues to dry them in the shade for another two to three months before placing them outside under the sun for another couple of months. If cracking should occur during this stage, the artist will leave the flaws so long as they do not “undermine the whole structure.” He then fires the pieces in an open kiln with native wood when various cracks will appear on their surfaces, providing wabi-sabi-style imperfections and organic textures. You can watch a video of Sodi's process on his Instagram account here.
Artist Bosco Sodi at the opening of Perfect Bodies in Red Hook, Brooklyn, Oct. 10, 2020.
Exhibited on a large lot with plenty of room for social distancing, the sculptures resemble a galaxy of planets or asteroids, prehistoric boulders, or a scattering of oversized seeds or eggs. But Sodi describes the works as simply geometric forms. “I like the concept of doing something by hand that’s imperfect, but trying to imitate a very human form,” he said. “At the end, they become alive when somebody…makes their own interpretation. It’s always right. For me, any interpretation is right.”
Learn more about the artist at boscosodi.com and find more info on Foundación Casa Wabi at casawabi.org.
Bosco Sodi: Perfect Bodies
Perfect Bodies Auto Collision, 184-186 Conover Street (at Wolcott), Red Hook, Brooklyn
On view through December 20, 2020, Saturdays & Sundays, noon to 7pm
More info at pioneerworks.org.
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