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Miracle on the Scrap Heap: The Sculpture of Richard Stankiewicz:
A
review by Peter C. Hobart
Chairman Emeritus, International Sculpture Society, Washington,
D.C. and Hamilton, N.J.
Member, Board of Directors, Hobart Institute of Welding
Technology
Miracle
on the Scrap Heap is the definitive monograph on Richard
Stankiewicz’s sculpture, beautifully done, with marvelous
photographs and layout. It
includes contributions of four of the most important experts on
his life and work, Adam Weinberg, Emmie Donadio, Jon Wood and
Martin Friedman.
One of America’s greatest sculptors
passed through the Hobart Institute of Welding Technology in
1968 as an artist-in-residence, accepting the invitation of
Howard Cary and Aka Pereyma, for the summer class of “Welding
for Artists.” This
was an extremely important event for the school, and for Richard
Stankiewicz, which the book clearly mentions of how his supplier
of raw material, or “junk”, commented to him that he would
never become a great sculptor because he did not know how to
weld. He took this
very seriously and concentrated upon strengthening his
technology and engineering background, since he was basically an
engineer and a mechanic, to become truly a qualified sculptor
with all of the tools that were necessary.
That, and an experience in Australia at the Proprietary
Limited steel plant in Sydney in the early ’60s, gave him that
background in metallurgy, foundry and welding that he so needed.
Having come from a working class
background and growing up in the Midwest, he was constantly
affected by the “jarring appearance of industrial detritus in
the lush American landscape.”
Stankiewicz was the man who invented
“junk art” or “assemblage” as it was referred to in
Europe. This was
the sculptural expression of Abstract Expressionism in painting,
incorporating all of the many influences of Modernism, Dada,
Cubism, Surrealism, and Kitschen, creating “life out of
death.” He was
inspired by Picasso, whom he knew; Marcel Duchamps, David Smith,
Alexander Calder, Herbert Ferber, Richard Lippold, Lipchitz, Max
Ernst. He studied
with Hans Hoffman in New York and then proceeded to Paris where
he studied with Ferdinand Leger for a certain period of time and
then with Ossip Zadkin. He
also established close friendships with all of the important
American and European sculptors who were there at that time.
Richard Stankiewicz was seen in Europe as
a forerunner of the Abstract Expressionist School of Sculpture
and many people such as Jean Tinguely, who met Stankiewicz in
1960, consider him to be their prime reference for making
“assemblages”, striding that bridge between pre- and
post-war generations; between Picasso and Surrealism on the one
hand and Nouveaux Realists on the other.
His work was something caught between the machine and the
anti-machine, between tradition and the new, between the poetic
and the literal.
He showed at the 1958 Venice Biennale and
then in Paris in 1960 and ’61 at his gallerist Virginia
Zabriskie, who is still active today in New York.
Stankiewicz was very much aware of the
social connotations of his work and the industrial power in
which he was living. He
deeply identified with his materials, the rusted and recycled
substances that he transformed into sculpture, of which he once
said, “Were us, made, used, and discarded.” However, he remained formally inventive, witty and
unabashedly playful, even mischievous.
He was one of the founders of the famous Hansa Gallery in
New York, a cooperative that had most of the major sculptors of
the ’50s and ’60s as members.
Richard Stankiewicz’s life as a
sculptor is summed up beautifully in a story that still
circulates in the artistic world as to how he began his career:
“The spade began hitting old hunks of metal which I
tossed against the building… I sat down to catch my breath and
my glance happened to fall on the rusted iron things… Their
sense of presence of life was almost overpowering. I knew instantly what I had to do. I bought a welding outfit, mask and gloves and a
do-it-yourself book “How to Become a Welder in Your Spare
Time” and my first sculpture was finished in a day…”
This book is a “must” reading for
anyone interested in welded sculpture or the true essence of
being a sculptor today in America.
Miracle on the Scrap Heap: The Sculpture of Richard
Stankiewicz. (1922-1983) Copyright 2003. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover,
Massachusetts. Distributed
by the University of Washington Press, P.O. Box 50096, Seattle,
WA 98145-5096. http://www.washington.edu/uwpress
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