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RONALD BLADEN
SCULPTURE OF THE 1960S & 1970S
Black Lightning, (Monumental)1981, Painted aluminum288 x 720 x 58 inchesEdition of 3Seattle Center Sculpture GardenSeattle, Washington
RONALD BLADENSCULPTURE OF THE 1960S & 1970S
MONUMENTAL & GARDEN SCALE OUTDOOR SCULPTURE
33 EAST 68TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10065212 570-2362 [email protected]
ESSAY BY IRVING SANDLER
WORKING MODELS & RELATED DRAWINGS
As a young man Ronald Bladen was a mem-
ber of a group of anarcho-pacifist artists, writers
and musicians, among them Kenneth Rexroth,
Robert Duncan and Philip Lamantia, who formed
the Liberation Circle. The radical attitudes Bladen
developed then continued to inform his life and
art. The Abstract Expressionist painter Barnett
Newman, a fellow anarchist, wrote that anarchists
are “intoxicated with the love of personal free-
dom,” embracing above all “the autonomy of the
Individual.”1 He also wrote, “Only those are free
who are free from the values of the establishment.
And that’s what anarchism is all about.”2 Bladen
rarely talked about his political beliefs, but he sub-
scribed to these axioms. An independent spirit who
refused to bow to art world powers and their de-
mands, he was the exemplary artist to a wide circle
of painters and sculptors.
Prior to becoming a sculptor in the early 1960s,
Bladen had painted lyrical Abstract Expressionist
canvases, avant-garde at the time. Composed of
heavily painted organic forms that protrude into
space, they “brought me off the wall,” as he said.
Then, in 1960, he rejected organic forms as too
commonplace and built a number of large plywood
bas-reliefs whose projecting plank-like components
were elementary “letter” forms, for example, an
inverted C or an L. His next move was to create
monumental Minimalist sculptures in the round.
His intention in the work was, as he said, “to push
abstract art a little bit further [past the prevailing
open construction-sculpture] but not lose the po-
etry.” He also added, “I desired something in the
grand manner since I’m still romantic.”
Bladen has often been linked to Donald Judd
and Robert Morris, who might be termed hard-core
Minimalists. But he was very different. He rejected
their anti-romantic attitude and what they termed
“anti-anthropomorphism,” that is, their purging
of any sign of the human body and its gestures.
Bladen’s romanticism and humanity are evident in
a work titled Three Elements (1966), composed of
a row of three free-standing, nine-foot high, rhom-
boid-like monoliths, each tilted so as to appear
precariously balanced, and painted black with the
outer diagonal side sheathed in aluminum.
Three Elements was exhibited that year in
Primary Structures, a comprehensive survey of
RONALD BLADEN by Irving Sandler
Three Elements (Garden)1966, Painted wood, aluminum 112 x 48 x 21 inchesEdition of 3 The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
2
Minimal Art, at the Jewish Museum. The exhibi-
tion was characterized by sculptor Mark di Suvero
as “the keystone show of the 1960s [which] in-
troduced a new generation of sculptors.” Three
Elements stood out; it literally made the art world
look up. Di Suvero singled out Bladen’s work as
“the one great piece in the show. It expands our
idea of scale and changes our knowledge of space.
It is radiant.”3 Di Suvero was right. Bladen’s sculp-
ture had an astonishing presence, which, as Alex
Katz quipped, “assassinated” its neighbors.
If Three Elements was Minimalist in appear-
ance, it was anything but anti-romantic and anti-
anthropomorphic in spirit. The diagonal of the gi-
ant volumes is reminiscent of a human gesture,
at once epic and grand, like the backward lean of
Rodin’s Balzac, and vulnerable, suggesting falling
or bowing. The three forms can also be viewed as
a grand procession—anthropomorphic menhirs on
the move.
Three Elements was one of a number of ma-
jestic, elemental pieces that made the art world
pay attention. In each, Bladen took a new spatial
idea—such as a unitary mass, a volume in extend-
ed space, sculpture as field, or as line—and devel-
oped it in a spectacular manner. In Black Triangle
(1966-67), he inverted a triangular volume 9 feet
four inches high, 10 feet long, and 13 feet across
the top. Poising it on its vertex, he overturned the
usual expectations of how the sculpture ought to
sit. Indeed, the form calls as much attention to
the space it activates as to its massiveness. The
22-foot high X (1967-68) almost overwhelmed
the great hall of Washington’s Corcoran Gallery
of Art in which it was installed. In Black
Lightning (1981), a 24-foot high zig-
zag line points upward—to the ineffable
sublime—like an upward index finger
in Christian art—a trajectory that is
breath-taking.
Bladen’s sculptures may look mini-
mal on the outside but internally they
are complex. His simple forms have an
elaborate but concealed infrastructure,
whose construction is seen in the struc-
tural model for Coltrane (1970). To my
knowledge, Bladen never explained why
he devoted so much of his time and
energy building frameworks that were
not only invisible but were in fact struc-
turally unnecessary. It may be that he
thought that his forms had to be found
in the process of artistic-making, that is
earned, a carryover from his Abstract
Expressionist upbringing.
Much as Bladen was occupied with
volume, he was also absorbed by light.
In different pieces, he used reflective
lacquers, aluminum coating, semi-gloss
blacks and metal skins. Indeed, from
1982 to 1988, the year of his death at the age of
69, light became the essential “form” of a series
of pieces. In these sculptures, elaborate painted
wood frameworks are the “substructures” for
curved, polished aluminum sheets that trap light
as they reflect it, the reflections seeming to signal
cosmic space with earthly luminescence.
At the same time that Bladen was construct-
ing his light pieces he was creating small works
that had been or might have become models for
huge pieces had he lived. But in their own right,
they are fully resolved works. Bladen invented a
rich variety of volumes and shapes. Many of these
works are based on the upward aspiring diagonal,
the heroic diagonal—a metaphor for transcen-
dence, as in Cathedral Evening (1971), Flying
Fortress (Maquette), (1974-78), Host of the Ellipse
(Garden), (1979) and Black Lightning (1981). A re-
lated work, Light Year (1979), thrusts forward as if
preparing to soar. His intention in these sculptures,
which is evident even in the small models, was, as
he said, “to reach that area of excitement belong-
ing to natural phenomena such as if a gigantic
wave poised before it makes its fall. . . . The drama
is best described as awesome or breathtaking.”4
Bladen’s humane variant of Minimalism extended
its range in fresh and dramatic directions.
1. Barnett Newman, “The True Revolution Is Anarchist,”
p. 45. The phrase is Herzen’s.
2. Barnett Newman, “The True Revolution Is Anarchist!”
Foreward to Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin, in
Barnett Newman, Selected Writings, pp. 50-51.
3. Symposium on Primary Structures at the Jewish Museum, May
2, 1966, with Kynaston McShine, Barbara Rose, Robert Morris,
Donald Judd, and Mark di Suvero.
4. Barbara Rose, “ABC Art,” Art in America, October-November
1965, p. 63.
clockwise:The Sentinels, (Model)1972, Painted wood8 x 9 x 7 inches eachEdition 2 of 3
Coltrane, (Structural Model) 1970, Wood 30 x 171/2 x 171/2 inchesUnique
Flying Fortress, (Maquette)1974-78Painted cardboard111/2 x 33 x 27/8 inchesUnique
3
Cathedral Evening, (Monumental)1971, Painted aluminum118 x 354 x 283 inchesEdition of 3As shown during the exhibition Ronald Bladen Sculpture: Works from the Marzona Collection, Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 2007
4
Black Tower, (Model)1986, Painted wood331/2 x 40 x 27 inchesEdition 1 of 3
Raiko, (Model)1973, Painted wood201/2 x 54 x 8 inchesEdition 2 of 3
6
Light Year, (Garden)1979, Painted aluminum
80 x 156 x 19 inchesEdition of 3
SELECTED PUBLIC EXHIBITIONS
1956 Paintings by Ronald Bladen, Fine
Art Gallery, University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, BC
1965 Concrete Expressionism, Loeb Student
Center, New York University,
New York, NY
1966 Primary Structures. Younger American
and British Sculptors, The Jewish
Museum, New York, NY
1966-67 Annual Exhibition 1966,
Contemporary American Sculpture
and Prints, Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York, NY
1967 Ronald Bladen: Sculpture, Emily
Lowe Gallery, Hofstra University,
Hempstead, NY
Bladen, Grosvenor, von Schlegell, Loeb
Student Center, New York University,
New York, NY
American Sculpture of the Sixties, Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, Los
Angeles, CA, traveling to Philadelphia
Museum of Art, Philadelphia PA
Structural Art, American Federation of
Art, New York, NY, traveling
Rejective Art, University of Omaha,
Fine Arts Festival, Omaha, NE
Guggenheim International Exhibition,
1967: Sculpture from Twenty Nations,
The Solomon R Guggenheim
Museum, New York, NY
1967-68 Scale as Content: Ronald Bladen,
Barnett Newman, Tony Smith, The
Corcoran Gallery of Art,
Washington DC
1968 documenta 4, Kassel, Germany
Minimal Art (Andre, Bladen,
Flavin, Grosvenor, Judd, LeWitt,
Morris, Smith, Smithson, Steiner)
Gmeentemuseum, The Hague, The
Netherlands, traveling to: Städtische
Kunsthalle und Kunstverein für
die Rheinlande und Westfalen,
Düsseldorf; Akademie der Künste,
Berlin
Annual Exhibition 1968, Contemporary
American Sculpture, Whitney Museum
of American Art, New York, NY
1969 14 Sculptors: The Industrial Edge, The
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
1970 American Sculpture, Sheldon
Memorial Art Gallery, The University
of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
1972 Ronald Bladen and Allan d’Arcangelo,
Elvehjem Art Center, University of
Wisconsin, Madison, WI
1973 Biennial Exhibition: Contemporary
American Art, Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York, NY
Art in Space: Some Turning Points, The
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
1974 Less is More: The Influence of the
Bauhaus on American Art, Lowe Art
Museum, University of Miami, Coral
Gables, FL, traveling to the New York
Cultural Center, New York, NY
1975 The Martha Jackson Collection at the
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Albright-
Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
1976 200 Years of American Sculpture,
Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York, NY
The Golden Door: Artist-Immigrants
of America 1876-1976, Hirshhorn
Museum and Sculpture Garden,
Washington, DC
1977 Project: New Urban Monuments,
Akron Art Institute, Akron, OH
1979 The Minimal Tradition, Aldrich
Museum of Contemporary Art,
Ridgefield, CT
Contemporary Sculpture: Selections
from the Museum of Modern Art,
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
1986 Sculpture on the Wall, The Aldrich
Museum of Contemporary Art,
Ridgefield, CT
1991 Ronald Bladen: Early and Late, San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San
Francisco, CA, traveling to Vancouver
Art Museum, Vancouver, BC
1995 Ronald Bladen: Drawings and
Sculptural Models, Weatherspoon
Art Gallery, The University of North
Carolina, Greensboro, NC, traveling to
Sculpture Center, New York, NY
Beat Culture and the New America:
1950–1965, Whitney Museum
of American Art, New York, NY,
traveling to: The Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis, MN; MH deYoung
Memorial Museum, Fine Arts
Museum of San Francisco, San
Francisco, CA
1996 The San Francisco School of Abstract
Expressionism, Laguna Art Museum,
Los Angeles, CA, traveling to San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
San Francisco, CA
1998 Ronald Bladen Sculpture, Kunsthalle
Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
1999 Ronald Bladen: Selected Works, PS1/
MoMA Contemporary Art Center,
Long Island City, NY
2000 „Kontrapunkt“, Werke von Nam June
Paik and Ronald Bladen, RWE-Turm,
Essen, Germany
2004 A Minimal Future? Art as Object.
1958-1968, The Museum of
Contemporary Art Los Angeles,
Los Angeles, CA
2007 Ronald Bladen-Skulptur. Werke der
Sammlung Marzona, Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin, Neue National-
galerie, Berlin, Germany
front cover: X, (Monumental) 1967–1968, Painted aluminum, 264 x 288 x 168 inches, Edition of 3. As shown during the exhibition Scale as Content at The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1967. Corcoran Gallery of Art Archives.
This catalogue published on the
occasion of the exhibition
RONALD BLADEN
Sculpture of the 1960s & 1970s
Monumental & Garden Outdoor Sculpture
Working Models & Related Drawings
October 16 to November 26, 2008
Jacobson Howard Gallery
33 East 68th Street
New York, NY 10065
212-570-2362
page 1: Ronald Bladen at The Walker
Center, Minneapolis, MN, 1969
page 9: photo by Ellen Page Wilson
Catalogue designed by ADT
back cover: Ronald Bladen beside museum staff during the construction of X, 1967. Scale as Content, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1967.
8
Host of the Ellipse, (Monumental)1981, Painted aluminum
Edition of 3420 x 756 x 96 inches
Baltimore