Proving it's more than just a lightweight packing material, Styrofoam is at the center of the RISD Museum's newest exhibition, which features a diverse collection of Styrofoam-related works from various contemporary artists.
Compiled by Judith Tannenbaum, the museum's curator of contemporary art, "Styrofoam: from industrial invention to artistic transformation" presents about a dozen pieces and sets of works, representing a sampling of the material's possibilities.
In the exhibition notes she wrote for the show, Tannenbaum poses the questions: "Why would artists choose to work with this particular material, and how do their investigations relate to larger environmental issues and socio-political concerns?" This exhibition attempts to answer those questions through the work of 10 artists, demonstrating Styrofoam's cheapness, lightness and malleability, as Tannenbaum notes.
Just beyond the museum's entrance stand two wall-sized installation pieces by artist Sol LeWitt. Entitled "Black Styrofoam on White Wall" and "White Styrofoam on Black Wall," the pieces are chromatic opposites, featuring fractured pieces of Styrofoam fitted together like stone slabs or cracked glass.
Among the strongest pieces in the show are a pair of relief paintings from Bruce Pearson. Pearson achieves his unique, textured surfaces by cutting Styrofoam with hot wire and layering it to make "tesserae-like shapes," according to the exhibition notes.
Pearson creates his patterns through layering words and phrases. In his complex 2003 piece, "Encyclopedia I (Clues Scattered from Charred Remains of a Father's Plea False Names)," words can only barely be gleaned from the web-like geometric shapes he forms. In addition, each shape is filled with a swath of bright colors, in which no one paint color is ever repeated.
The show also features an earlier piece from Pearson, 2000's "Who's to Say That a Shoe Is Not a Piece of Sculpture." In this simpler piece, Pearson works with the same processes he used in "Encyclopedia," but the title words are clearly legible over a ripple-like pattern. A simplified palette of red, pink, green and aquamarine also makes this a more straightforward piece.
"Styrofoam" also features some fascinating three-dimensional works such as Tom Friedman's untitled powder blue Styrofoam cube. With rounded edges and a soft-looking texture, the cube looks like a giant petit four. The piece sits on a raised platform surrounded by Styrofoam shavings. In a whimsical touch, a powder blue fly takes off from the object, suspended on a piece of wire.
One advantage of working with Styrofoam is its lightness. RISD alum Heide Fasnacht's dramatic installation "Exploding Airplane," suspended near the gallery ceiling, captures a frozen moment of explosion. Using a web of wires, the nose, tail and wings of a silver airplane are seen fracturing apart, spewing forth a mass of silvery urethane foam.
Only one artist in this exhibit attempted to work with foam in reaction to the human figure. Dutch artist Folkert de Jong's sculpture "The Piper" immediately catches the eye upon entering the exhibition space. The massive, multicolored piece depicting Abraham Lincoln as a bagpiper in a kilt is almost grotesque. The figure is complex, yet roughly hewn, made of yellow, red, pale pinks and greens, with orange and blue accents.
Using polystyrene and liquid plastics, de Jong creates sculptural pieces that "refer to the history of Western painting and sculpture as well as to the current state of the world," according to exhibition notes.
Other artists in the show explore the nature of Styrofoam itself rather than simply utilizing it as a convenient material. Shirley Tse's "Do Cinderblocks Dream of Being Styrofoam?" makes use of cinderblock-like Styrofoam pieces to play with the viewer's expectations about the material's weight.
Titled after Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" according to exhibition notes, the piece is mounted in a corner of the gallery, suspended off the ground. The artist added little designs to the industrially produced blocks in order to personalize them.
Artist Tony Feher used found Styrofoam in the creation of his sculpture "Blue Tower." In the piece, Feher arranges blue Styrofoam bricks in a vertical cylindrical shape.
The oldest works in the show are a series of photographs by artist B. Wurtz. Dating back to 1986, the six black-and-white photographs of Styrofoam forms are shot as close-ups, removing the shapes from context. Although the bumpy texture of the Styrofoam gives away what the viewer is seeing, the "molded packaging is transformed into mysterious architectural plazas or interiors," according to exhibition notes.
Other pieces draw notice to the apparent similarities between Styrofoam shapes and the art of ancient cultures. Steve Keister's series of wall reliefs feature casts of Styrofoam packing materials, which he likens to pre-Columbian art, according to the exhibition notes.
Using browns, oranges and rich terra cottas, Keister paints on designs to heighten this likeness, combining "the everyday material culture of our time with the rich visual vocabulary and history of a unique culture from the past."
Richard Tuttle's wall reliefs, part of his 16-part "Lonesome Cowboy Styrofoam" series, are reminiscent of Native American artifacts, suggesting pottery shards or arrow heads, the exhibition notes stated. The simple shapes are daubed with brightly colored paint.
Tuttle's pieces are accompanied by an artist's book, which features images of the "Lonesome Cowboy" series paired with photographs of the farmhouse where he found his materials. In his book, he states, "It's not to celebrate this material that I use it. It is one of the worst materials used by man. Nature in man must find a method to deal with 'Nature.' The material is nature. Perhaps, then, I am the environment."
The artists in this exhibition have different responses to the environmentally harmful implications of Styrofoam. Some seem to disregard these negative connotations, while others, such as LeWitt, have since stopped using it due to these concerns, according to exhibition notes.
Artists working with found Styrofoam are engaging in a type of recycling.
Others, like de Jong, choose the controversial material deliberately, as a symbol of mass consumption, immorality and political incorrectness, according to the exhibition notes.
As a whole, "Styrofoam" is almost awkwardly disparate, featuring artists with different aesthetic intentions and different relationships to the material. But Tannenbaum has pulled together a playful, colorful collection that is still compelling and accessible.
