Joel Perlman - 9780789208644

American abstract artist Joel Perlman has earned renown for carrying forward the great modernist tradition of welded steel sculpture established by Picasso and Julio Gonzalez, and elaborated by David Smith. Followers of contemporary sculpture may already be familiar with the examples of Perlman's work that reside in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and other leading institutions. Now, however, they will be able to survey the entire breadth of his achievement for the first time: this book, the first monograph devoted to Perlman's career, illustrates more than one hundred of his best sculptures in full-page photographs, most in color. Here are the architectonic pieces of the seventies and eighties: the monumental Starburst series, which was begun in the early nineties and includes the twenty-eight-foot-high Sky Spirit of 2004: and the curvilinear, cast-bronze sculptures from Perlman's most recent gallery shows.
The evolution of each of these sculptural forms is explored in Philip F. Palmedo's text, which relates aspects of Perlman's art to the events of his life. Drawing on extensive interviews with the sculptor and his colleagues, Palmedo describes how each episode of Perlman's career - from his student days at Cornell and Berkeley to this struggle, ultimately very successful, to establish himself in SoHo's vibrant 1970s art scene - served to strengthen his commitment to his own modernist, yet highly personal aesthetic. This narrative, which synthesizes Perlman's intimate art-world anecdotes and Palmedo's critical observations, is complemented by a forward from Andre Emmerich, whose famous New York gallery represented Perlman for twenty years.
This volume, whose design alludes to the influence of Russian Constructivism on Perlman's sculpture, includes an illustrated biographical chronology, lists of exhibitions and public collections, and a comprehensive bibliography of writings on the artist.