Barry X Ball

The artist, taking the life-cast head of his New York gallerist as a jumping-off
point, in a concerted effort to reinvigorate the sub-genre of romantic portrait
sculpture, has here conjoined his signature fever-pitch execution intensity and a
newfound conceptual tenderness. Realized at 65% scale in the unique, recently-
sourced, densely-veined, hyper-translucent Rocky Mountain stone called Golden
Honeycomb Calcite, exhibiting a layered surface suffused with a ‘sfumato’
overlay of foliate relief and coincident miniscule diagonal / radial flutes, the
glowing stony surrogate captures, in soft-focus Galatean contravention of its
obdurate materiality, a moment of poignant reverie, rendered ethereal. The artist-
designed integral / modular base / pedestal unit, it’s tapering parabolic sweep
flowing into the sculpture’s mirror-polished flute stem (which, in turn, terminates
in a silhouetted arboreal fringe), conceived in parallel with the sculpture,
precisely-fabricated in stainless steel, acrylic-spray-lacquered aluminum and
wood (and a variety of subsidiary materials) by a studio-coordinated consortium
of disparate fabricators, is reminiscent, alternately, at its apex, of traditional
‘socles’ and mid-20th-century Modernist furniture pedestals. The resultant
deceptively-diminutive ensemble, created with deep reverence for and specific
focus on the history of sculpture, makes an expansive case for the critical
reconsideration of prevailing contemporary practice, while simultaneously
probing both the subject’s psychology and her complex relationship to the artist.

2007 - 2009

Golden Honeycomb Calcite, aluminum, stainless steel, wood, acrylic lacquer, steel, nylon, plastic

sculpture / base / pedestal ensemble: 65-1/4 x 8-1/2 x 8-1/2 in (165.7 x 21.6 x 21.6 cm)
sculpture: 10-1/4 x 5-1/4 x 5-3/8 in (26.0 x 13.3 x 13.7 cm)

Go to The artist, taking the life-cast head... process