In this installation of the Foundations series, the Nasher presents works from its permanent collection to provide context for understanding the works of Harry Bertoia. A key figure in mid-century American art, his work expanded on important modernist movements in Europe, played a significant role in the development of modernism in the United States, and has served as a touchstone for artists in the generations that followed.
Bertoia encountered Constructivism and abstraction through friends and colleagues while at Cranbrook Academy of Art. These artistic vocabularies fed his career-long exploration of both geometric and biomorphic structures. Bertoia sought to model his artistic practice on the example of nature as a creative force, developing work intuitively. This experimental approach led to fluid and organic forms akin to those of Jean (Hans) Arp, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, and Isamu Noguchi. Bertoia’s practice also yielded geometric compositions that drew on the examples of artists fundamental to Constructivism, including Naum Gabo, Antoine Pevsner, and Ivan Puni, who also supported the utopian concept that art could improve people’s lives.
Contemporaries of Bertoia paralleled his practice in various ways. David Smith, Richard Stankiewicz, and John Chamberlain also experimented with the expressive potential of welded metal constructions. Bertoia’s in-depth investigations of a subject through subtle variations in material, scale, or form are similarly found in series by Giacometti. While the interaction of modular units in Bertoia’s sounding sculptures expanded on the parameters explored by Minimalist artists such as Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt. These artists, and others included in Foundations: Harry Bertoia are united in the use of similar techniques for different expressive purposes. This installation highlights the facets of influence that shaped, and radiated out from, Harry Bertoia’s work.
Giorgia Mastrolorenzo
Curatorial Intern