NUDE NATURE

La MaMa La Galleria, NYC, June 17 - 27, 1999

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Marianne Lévai

(from the press release)

For her sculptural work Marianne Lévai uses clay and iron, two of the most ancient materials known to mankind. Yet she fashions her art in a manner that defies any historical or cultural classification and pushes the traditional boundaries of ceramic sculpture.

Some of her objects are derived from vessels, others have completely transcended that primitive starting point. Their abstract shapes may allude to natural objects, or even human forms, but sometimes they are closer to artifacts such as tools or weapons. In encompassing the martial and the vulnerable she reflects on a fundamental duality, often made salient by elements of phallic and mammarian/vaginal imagery.

Marianne Lévai's objects become full-fledged sculptures only in combination with iron or steel or occasionally wood. Typically, the metal elements are scrap or other found objects, but recently she has used industrial tubing, which she integrates with the fired clay. By combining these dissimilar materials the objects express an acute tension between brittle fragility and ductile malleability. In tall columns, ceramic sections are put under palpable strain by the weight of the steel. Yet at first glance, the risky duality between the breakable and the unbreakable is easily missed, because the respective surfaces of the materials render it invisible. The artist applies metal oxides to her clay, which, when fired, assume similar textures and hues as the raw iron.

Among Lévai's smaller sculptures a few are shaped in incredibly delicate petal-like forms, resembling carnivorous plants. In her floral installations the artist brings those fossilized flowers to life. On the theoretical foundation of the Sogetsu school of Japanese Ikebana, she expands the art of flower arrangement into free-style room installations. Often oversized, her floral sculptures refer to their location and the context in which they are created. Additionally, they reflect time: after a few days live flowers wither and die, whereas the clay flowers «live» on.   Martin Suter