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5/5/2005

Jim Hodges, Look and See

Creative Time, New York

In early February, nine tons of stainless steel arrived at the Hudson Valley foundry ready to be polished to a fluid reflective surface, molded into a curved S-shaped wall, laser cut, and painted black and white to complete the stylized four-tone camouflage pattern. On May 6, Jim Hodges' massive new sculpture, Look and See, will begin its six-month public view as part of Creative Time's Art on the Plaza at the Ritz Carlton New York, Battery Park City. The artwork will transport visitors on a sensual journey as they experience the warped refractive environment that fuses reflections of their own images with the opposing landscapes of skyscrapers and park, and raises questions about identity, artifice and nature.

Jim Hodges' Look and See is the fifth artwork commissioned for Creative Time's Art on the Plaza. The series explores contemporary sculpture's myriad manifestations, from LED lights and video to sound sculptures and performance, by internationally acclaimed artists Jim Campbell, Gary Hume, Zhang Huan, and Shirazeh Houshiary & Pip Horne.

Departing from the delicate, ephemeral materials that have characterized much of Hodges' work, Look and See is a bold and powerful sculpture that mixes the elusive with the solid. The substantial size (11.5' H x 50' L x 1" D) and weight (9 tons) of the sculpture are juxtaposed with the ideas inherent in the work. The curved form is exaggerated by the distorted reflections of the mirrored surface, and the carefully constructed camouflage voids bring the subtle and transient details of life into focus. The fleeting images and play of light mark the passage of time and cast kaleidoscope shadows on and around the sculpture.

Throughout his career, the artist has employed a wide range of materials including silk flowers, paper napkins, silver chains, shattered mirrors, and now for the first time, stainless steel, to create deceptively simple objects layered with complex meaning and symbolism. His work is also about discovery and the pleasure of seeing familiar things in new and different ways.

In Look and See, Hodges extends the ideas and materials explored in his earlier works (cut outs, camouflaged painted walls, and shattered mirrors) and pushes his practice into new terrain. By removing sections of the pattern and polishing the surface for Look and See, the artist penetrates the formidable steel wall, creating a vulnerability consistent with his work. The use of fragmented mirrored surfaces and camouflage, a historical manmade rendering of nature layered with cultural and political allusions, elicits a tremendous range of emotional associations. Hodges' fascination with camouflage - its basic pattern of light and dark- exists in its ability to conceal and alter our perception.

Look and See, created specifically for this public site, extends Hodges' fascination with urban and natural landscape and his belief that any material or situation may become the occasion for inventive transformation. The sculpture becomes and extension of the environment where reality dissolves and is replaced by a new disorienting vision of the individual merged with his natural surroundings.

On view in the Plaza at the Ritz Carlton New York, Battery Park City

Creative Time
307 Seventh Avenue, Suite 1904 New York, NY 10001

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