Chris Radtke 

Statement

As a metaphor for the body, the Notes on Self series references Radtke’s immediate personal space. Materials that relate to the human body both by color and touch are made to the artist’s exact body dimensions.

Influenced by minimalism, the work is formally reductive and serial in format. Though pure in design, the implicit corporeality brings “content” to the pieces and within that balance, the work moves intentionally toward re-examining postminimalism. Donald Judd meets Vanessa Beecroft. A duality.

Flesh colored wood with natural flaws implying healed wounds was chosen for its physicality and used for the boxes. Some are lined with mirror causing them to reflect light. They interact with the viewer and have, on occasion, a narcissistic aspect. Recalling Robert Smithson, other boxes have shattered tempered glass spewing from them, but in this work, the glass is measured to the artist’s exact body volume.

Time is an added factor in Stand, for there is one layer of inherently sensual fabric for each year of the artist’s life on each of the twelve stands, a reference to the number of months in a year, hours in a day, and, of course, aging. It is an on-going piece: a new layer of fabric will be added to each stand every year during the artist’s lifetime. By placing her work in formations, Magdelena Abakanowicz creates a space to experience rather than an object to observe. With this in mind, amid the realm of Stand, slight movements can be perceived in reaction to air currents created when people walk by.

They seem huge, they seem insignificant.
They seem familiar, they seem disconcerting.
They seem simple, they seem complicated.
They have sexual undertones.
They are self portraits.

Some you can see through.
They are space. They are the artist’s personal space.

— 2009

Reach, 2008, 2 pieces
Lightening seared oak and tempered glass
83 1/2"" x 9" x 12 1/2", each piece