近距离内射合集

SANTA FE 鈥� If you鈥檙e looking for art to see in Santa Fe this week, Will Clift鈥檚 鈥淪till Points, Turning World鈥� at Gerald Peters Contemporary is worth checking out. Feats of precarious balance, Clift鈥檚 interlocking assemblages of hand-carved wooden slats are elegantly designed and delightful. If there鈥檚 a scientist or engineer in your life who doesn鈥檛 normally go to art shows, this might be one to take them to. It鈥檚 great for children, as well, provided they understand not to touch. Clift鈥檚 pieces are mostly freestanding with no nails, screws or permanent adhesive holding them together. Bump into one, and it might collapse like a $25,000 Jenga puzzle.

By and large, Clift uses the same materials 鈥� wood and string 鈥� that our Paleolithic ancestors used for their boomerangs, bows and arrows and animal traps. He sometimes incorporates other materials, such as carbon-fiber plastic and steel wire, and there are several large outdoor pieces that are part of the show, too. But seeing Clift鈥檚 hand-carved, aerodynamic shapes jutting from the walls and hanging from the ceiling inside the gallery, I was aware that most of these pieces technically could have been made tens of thousands of years ago. There鈥檚 something amazing about that. Who knows if any prehistoric humans stacked their curved throwing sticks into teetering, cantilevered towers just for fun, but they may have.

As a kid, I used to do that sort of thing with silverware, making elaborate towers of forks and spoons, which would invariably topple, embarrassing my parents at restaurants.

Clift鈥檚 sculptures are all about the physics of weight and counterbalance. His constructions seem to defy gravity, but in fact use gravity to their advantage. The way the interconnected slats support each other鈥檚 weight recalls the choreographer Trisha Brown鈥檚 1970 piece, 鈥淟eaning Duets,鈥� in which pairs of performers hold hands while leaning away from one another, as well as more recent pieces of contact improvisation by the choreographer Wu Tsang.

Speaking of dance, Clift鈥檚 鈥淐entripetal, Centrifugal鈥� instantly reminded me of Henri Matisse鈥檚 鈥淒ance.鈥� I don鈥檛 know if he is deliberately referencing that painting, but there are five figures in 鈥淒ance鈥� and five points of contact with the pedestal in 鈥淐entripetal, Centrifugal,鈥� and Clift鈥檚 wooden slats arc upward just like the interlocked arms of Matisse鈥檚 figures. While Clift鈥檚 works are not explicitly figural, they resemble gesture drawings of human bodies in motion. It鈥檚 hard for me not to see a ring of free-spirited dancers holding hands and leaping in a circle when I look at 鈥淐entripetal, Centrifugal,鈥� just as I can鈥檛 help but see Michelangelo's 鈥淐reation of Adam鈥� fresco from the Sistine Chapel when I look at Clift鈥檚 鈥淐onvergence.鈥� In 鈥淐onvergence,鈥� an element suspended from the ceiling curves downward toward a freestanding floor piece, like the finger of God reaching down to touch the first man.

Kinetic sculptors from Alexander Calder to George Rickey to Jes煤s Rafael Soto have made art that plays with weight, balance and motion. Clift鈥檚 artworks are static, not kinetic 鈥� they don鈥檛 twirl in the wind like Calder鈥檚 mobiles 鈥� but they do suggest motion through form. The title of the show, 鈥淪till Points, Turning World,鈥� paraphrases a line from T.S. Eliot鈥檚 poem 鈥淏urnt Norton鈥�: 鈥淎t the still point of the turning world 鈥� there the dance is.鈥� To express dance through static forms is more of an accomplishment than to do it with sculptures that move, or with actual dancers鈥� bodies. Clift shows us the dance within the stillness.

As much as I admire and enjoy Clift鈥檚 work, though, I can鈥檛 call it great art.

As an art critic writing weekly reviews for a newspaper, I have multiple responsibilities. My first is to you, my readers, to inform you of shows I consider worth seeing. To that end, I say, yes, please see this show. If you think Calder鈥檚 mobiles are cool, which most people do, I bet you鈥檒l like these, too. But I also have a responsibility to the artist to provide honest feedback. And as someone whose reviews will become part of the historical record for as long as archives of newspapers are kept 鈥� digitally or otherwise 鈥� I have a responsibility to my hypothetical readers of the future to interpret the art from within my own historical context.

To the artist, I say, keep challenging yourself. As much as I like the new pieces, they鈥檙e indistinguishable from what you have been making for the past two decades. The 2025 piece, 鈥淭hree Pieces Reaching / The Tensions Within,鈥� is a thing of wonder. Standing with only a tiny point of contact with the pedestal, it cantilevers far into space like a wildly asymmetrical Japanese floral arrangement. Unfortunately, it has essentially the same form as 鈥淭hree Pieces Reaching鈥� from 2006. That piece was the lead image for a nice feature Dottie Indyke wrote in the 近距离内射合集 at that time. Indyke praised the ingenious engineering and calligraphic gracefulness of Clift鈥檚 work, and she wasn鈥檛 wrong. The problem is, we could have reprinted the same review this week, changing only the exhibition title and dates. To be fair, the new 鈥淭hree Pieces Reaching鈥� demonstrates a slight technical improvement: it leans one or two inches closer to the pedestal. The artist has also applied a layer of clay slip to the surface to make a crackling texture, which emphasizes the physical tension in the bent wood. But that鈥檚 like republishing the same novel 20 years later, changing only one or two paragraphs, and calling it a sequel. I鈥檓 not against artists making multiples or doing variations on a theme, but when artists stop challenging themselves, they stagnate.

If you go onto Clift鈥檚 website, you鈥檒l see that he鈥檚 made many versions of the same sculptures, including larger versions in steel for public commissions. If he called himself a designer, perhaps it wouldn鈥檛 matter. After all, good design is always good design. Who cares how many copies of Marcel Breuer鈥檚 Wassily chair get mass-produced if even the cheap knockoffs are just as beautiful as the first one Breuer made a century ago and they still look great in interior design magazines? Alvar Aalto鈥檚 bentwood furniture from the 1930s, which Clift鈥檚 work somewhat resembles, remain iconic and well-loved, too. But for those of us who think art should be more than elegant home d茅cor 鈥� that it should actively reflect the consciousness of the artist 鈥� we expect the art to change and evolve as the artist鈥檚 own thoughts and feelings change over the course of their lifetime. If it doesn鈥檛, there鈥檚 something wrong.

My other problem 鈥� and this one鈥檚 more subjective 鈥� is that Clift鈥檚 work is too elegant. His curves are just a little too graceful for my taste, too pleasing to look at. This may seem like a strange criticism if you鈥檙e one of the many people who think beauty is the be-all and end-all of art. But if the real world is not beautiful and harmonious all the time, why should art be?

Marcel Duchamp visited an aircraft exposition in 1912 with his good friend and fellow artist Constantin Brancusi. Gazing at a propeller, Duchamp said, 鈥淧ainting is over. Who could do better than this propeller? Could you do that?鈥� Well, it took him 11 years, but Brancusi finally managed to carve his famous marble sculpture, 鈥淏ird in Space,鈥� which does resemble a propeller blade, only slightly more beautiful.

For Brancusi, beauty was the goal of art, whereas for Duchamp, art was about ideas. 鈥淎esthetic delectation is the danger to be avoided,鈥� Duchamp said. So, who won the propeller challenge 鈥� Brancusi or Duchamp? It depends on how you look at it. Brancusi succeeded in making something similar to, but more beautiful than, an airplane propeller. Great. But Duchamp鈥檚 larger point still stands. By recognizing that commercial products can be just as beautiful as works of art, he challenged himself and his fellow artists to move beyond beauty as their end goal. If they didn鈥檛, what was to distinguish their work from everyday commercial engineering or product design?

In practice, Brancusi operated as much more of a commercial designer than Duchamp ever did. After making 鈥淏ird in Space,鈥� he reproduced it many times in both marble and bronze.

Calder, for his part, was trained as a mechanical engineer and worked as a toy maker before becoming an artist. During his lifetime, there were always critics who thought of him more as a very talented engineer or toy designer than an artist with a capital A. It was a fair criticism, I think, and the same could be leveled against Clift. Does it matter? Well, it matters only to the extent that maintaining separate categories for art and design matters. That may not matter to you, but it matters to me. At a time when governments and corporations around the world pump billions of dollars into technology and invest very little into art, I think it is important to stand up for art as an autonomous enterprise and not conflate the two.

Having said that, my grandpa was an engineer, and whenever Grandpa Beitmen visited me in Florida when I was growing up, we would make paper airplanes together. Once, he and my dad鈥檚 friend 鈥� also an engineer 鈥� designed a tubular airplane that looked like a pope鈥檚 hat. It glided slowly but traveled farther than anything else we designed. Not understanding the science, I found it absolutely magical 鈥� and I felt the same way seeing one of Calder鈥檚 mobiles for the first time at the local art museum.

Are paper airplanes, propellers, mobiles and elegantly balanced slats of wood great art? No. But if they can inspire wonder, there鈥檚 certainly value in that. Clift鈥檚 work is objectively impressive and requires no explanatory text to understand or enjoy, so it鈥檚 a great starting point for anyone, young or old, who鈥檚 just getting into art. Moreover, the things that interest Clift 鈥� gravity, balance and so on 鈥� are so fundamental to most sculptors and installation artists that spending time with his work and thinking about what鈥檚 keeping it from falling over is a great way to train yourself for looking at three-dimensional art in general. Accessible art like Clift鈥檚, or Calder鈥檚, is necessary and good, just as long as it doesn鈥檛 take the place, culturally, of more challenging work. It鈥檚 the doorway to art, not the room, but definitely worth a visit.