Unimportant Materials
When looking at my work the question of "Why cardboard?" is not the first thing you feel. Cardboard is the foundation of its intellectual space and the starting place for understanding the work, but it is not what you see at first glance.
I have used cardboard as my primary material since about 1986. My earliest use of cardboard was a reaction against an even earlier body of work that used a wide range of materials. I wanted to simplify my pallet. I wanted to be able to know that the representations I accomplished were not made by the materials that I used. An example of this was my depictions of water. Early on I would use tin foil and wax to depict water. The glistening and translucence of the wax on tin foil made for a surface that seemed water-like. When I stripped down to just cardboard, I was assured that the depictions were my own and not that of the material.
Deriving value in artwork from the materials used has troubled me. Value can come from both the cost of the material or the materials' intellectual relationship to art-making. I love that with cardboard, the audience has to give to the work value without either of these intellectual or societal crutches. We live in a world enveloped in thoughts of value. My use of cardboard, a valueless material, releases me from the heart of this cultural confine. I believe that we see things while calculating worth.
That on occasion the past life of the material is visible is a good thing. A bit of printing helps the work reference back to its origins. I have not embraced readable amounts of text on the surface of the cardboard. I have no interest in adding a written dialogue into the work. I believe if the viewer were to become a reader of the work then they would have the right to judge the work as a kind of poem. The other pitfall of text on the surface of the work is that the original use of the material as a box can cloud the viewer's ability to see the present use of the material. This edge between the past and the present is very sharp. If the piece is too much an old cardboard box then it cannot be seen as a transformed object. From 2007 to 2010, I made a series of pieces mounted on stiff wooden frames that hold the piece off the wall by 2 inches. These frames do two important things. One, they give the work a formal integrity. I like to think of these works as children that I have made to sit up straight in their chairs, paying close attention to the viewer — and expecting that attention back in return. The second attribute that the frames bring to the work is a floating distance from the wall. They shimmer on top of the wall. I particularly enjoy the transparent edge on some of the early circles, where the structure of the cardboard allows light through and a slight glimpse of the wall behind.
In August of 2010, I made an installation that covered a window. Rings of cardboard formed into orbs that created a diffused light. The structures remind me of the insides of beehives. The process of building my work is reminiscent of the work of insects, bees, ants, termites. I start with a small form and then proceed across the piece, producing a pattern that can hold the eye. Early in 2011, I found a new form: the spiral. It produces a lattice across space and a visual vibration. It also allows for an active dialogue with the wall behind the piece. Because the work is semitransparent, the shadows that are cast on the wall become a secondary drawing after the foreground object.
I have been making a group of freestanding sculptures after the works of Constantin Brancusi. To make work in the round has been quite fun, and almost completely unknown to me as a sculptor. Most of my sculptural work hangs on a wall and is not freestanding. I am fascinated with forms that imply a figure but have no figuration. The other captivating thing about these sculptures is their ability to react to one another. I place them on the floor, one on top of another, and they work together. I move them around and they still work together. I think this has to do with their familiarity to one another. Since they are made from the same material with the same hand, they readily talk to one another. The sculptural constellation is a deep idea that Brancusi has helped me see.
I have made a number of very large installations since 2010. The first two were disks suspended from the ceiling. These pieces hang at an angle; their emotional weight looms over the viewer. I was inspired by my remembrances of large wooden crucifixes hanging above the altars of Italian churches. Those crucifixes use the same angle to confront the parishioner/viewer. A connection like this across time is important. It informs my art and it continues a tradition and a method practiced in the medieval mind. I like that I am reusing an idea just as I am reusing cardboard.
- Henry Klimowicz
Late summer 2013 at the Morrison Gallery featured Taking Over, an exhibition of work by cardboard sculptor Henry Klimowicz. The show, which opened on July 20 and ran through September 1 with selected works on view through October 6, featured many recent large scale works arrayed throughout the 7,000 square foot gallery.
Klimowicz’s inventiveness combined with the adaptable nature of his work creates a sculpture exhibition unprecedented at the gallery. Included are several large pieces that climb 17 feet high, accentuating the vaulted ceiling of the gallery. And, in a small room Klimowicz has created an extension of his studio, adapting larger pieces to a small space and covering the walls and ceilings with his organic and abstract forms.
The Morrison Gallery exhibit follows previous shows of Klimowicz sculptures at the Tremaine Gallery of Hotchkiss School, The Berkshire Museum, The Wassaic Project, the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, the Re Institute, Pop Up in Chelsea and the OpenStudio.
“Cardboard is simple and straightforward,” says Klimowicz. “It is also a severely limited material. It has an ever-present cultural bias related to its past uses as a container or its present use as waste. I love it when the material transcends its cultural confines. If I can make something beautiful from cardboard, I have then said that anything can be made valuable, fruitful, or hopeful. I see this work as very positive because of the lengths that have been traveled by the material from trash to beauty. It is a statement about the possible—that all things can be redeemed, often for more than what was deposited. Creativity can be that redeemer.”
The artist has used cardboard as the primary material for his art since about 1986.
