By K.D. Norris
One of the grand things about Grand Rapids’ annual ArtPrize explosion of often-comfortable, and occasionally controversial, art is listening to people-on-the-street talk about what attracted — or befuddled — them.
Waiting in line at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum — traditionally a focal point of artistic entities eying public support by offering very accessible, if not very exploratory, art — my wife and I overheard a man talking about a modern figurative sculpture included as part of the current Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park exhibit.
The man, wearing a military service hat of some branch and looking very much like a visitor from Indianapolis so some other heartland city, was trying to convince the other man in his foursome of the absolute necessity that he see Swede Anders Krisár’s startling, almost surreal split body sculpture.
Not exactly the kind of art you’d expect to attract conservative artistic appreciation, but such is the world of ArtPrize dialogue.
As part of the Garden’s ArtPrize exhibit, “Rodin and the Contemporary Figurative Tradition”, Krisár’s work — Untitled, from 2014-15 — both fits in and stands out among the works of 17 contemporary figurative sculptors and video artists in an exhibition “influenced” by Rodin.
The work is in keeping with the now Stockholm-based artist most recent works, which show people intentionally left incomplete or disassociated from themselves in various ways. Intentional or not, that vision of a lack of wholeness is something which runs through his art.
“I think not many people are whole,” Krisár said in an interview with WKTV. “We try to find ourselves through other people, find completeness through other people. And also, (other people) can help you become more whole and heal yourself.”
But that idea of creating art which offers what is sometimes called “empty space” for the viewer to fill in, that intentional invitation for interaction with the viewer, is not something the artist says flows consciously.
“It is not really a (part of his) thought process, emotional feeling process,” he said. “The thoughts come afterword, when I start to work more with my hands on, and after, when the work is done, I start to think about it more.”
Krisár, who has spent time in New York and has a foundation in photography to compliment his 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional installation art, described his artistic process this way: “First it is a human model, and then we cast the model, then we make a resin out of that cast and rework that cast. It is kind of a mixture of cast and sculpturing.”
In the case of the Meijer Garden’s exhibit, his final product is polyester, but he has worked in several mediums.
His work came to the attention of Joseph Becherer, Meijer Gardens vice president and chief curator, in a completely different form, however.
“I actually saw some of his works in print form first and I thought they were so interesting and so, sort of, singular, that they really merited being part of this exhibition,” Becherer said. “… I thought what he was doing, in terms of both technology and form, on one side. But also in terms of the content was pretty special.”
They also, apparently, deserve special discussion to even the most casual observer of ArtPrize offerings.
“Rodin and the Contemporary Figurative Tradition” is free to the public through the run of this year’s ArtPrize, through Oct. 8, and then will continue on display through Jan. 7, 2018.
The exhibit, after ArtPrize closes, will include an outdoor guided sketching event on Oct. 20 focused on Rodin’s “Eve”, one of the cornerstones of the Garden’s permanent collection, and a discussion by Becherer on Nov. 5 titled “The Rodin Revolution, In and Out of Context”.
For more information on Meijer Gardens and its ArtPrize exhibit, visit meijergardens.org.
