New Exhibits at PU Art Museum Display Candela, Gehry, Johns to Great Effect

Dilshanie Perera

Three of the new exhibits at the Princeton University Art Museum showcase the process of making art, while highlighting a particular element of the oeuvres of Felix Candela, Frank Gehry, and Jasper Johns, respectively.

“Jasper Johns: Light Bulb” was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and explores the recurring image of the bulb in Mr. Johns’s work. His thought processes become evident within the exhibition, as the light bulb itself is an image that Mr. Johns worked with for twenty years.

Curator Stephanie Hanor noted that Mr. Johns would typically make a three-dimensional piece, and then create drawings, prints and other two-dimensional work from the sculpture, which is atypical since sculptors usually work from two-dimensional drawings.

The first light bulb sculpture was made in 1958 out of sculp-metal, a hobbyist’s medium at the time. The exhibition features work in all kinds of media, including sculpture, lithography, drawing, and lead relief, and it is the first time that all these pieces have been brought together. The “layers of representation that are present in his work” become apparent as a result of the proximity of the pieces, noted Ms. Hanor.

Many of the artworks on display are from Mr. Johns’s personal collection, though one particularly poignant sculpture is from the collection of Mr. Johns’s former assistant, Mark Lancaster. English Light Bulb was inspired in 1970 after Mr. Johns and Mr. Lancaster came upon an intact English light bulb along the coast of North Carolina.

Calling this sculpture “the most personal of all the light bulbs,” since the name “Mark” is imprinted along its base, and the piece itself is a gift from Mr. Johns to Mr. Lancaster, Ms. Hanor noted that the wire hoop that supports the sculpture of the bulb is an allusion to where the bulb was found, since such hoops are used as display devices for sea shells.

“Felix Candela: Engineer, Builder, Structural Artist” is equal parts retrospective, homage, and persuasive argument. Curators Maria Moreyra Garlock and David Billington, who are both professors of civil and environmental engineering at the University, make a strong case for bringing together design and construction in the contemporary world, which is precisely what Mr. Candela did in his work.

Trained in architecture in Spain and exiled to Mexico, Mr. Candela taught himself structural engineering and became intrigued by thin-shell forms, and the ways in which one could use hyperbolic paraboloids to create them. Some of Candela’s own favorite forms are displayed in the show.

Included among them are a cathedral, a restaurant, a rum factory, and a chapel, all of which are in or near Mexico City. The models featured in the exhibition were created by engineering students who used Mr. Candela’s methods to create replicas to scale.

The construction process (as the exhibition title suggests, Mr. Candela was the construction manager and builder for the projects as well) involved creating a wooden scaffolding and thin planks to suggest a smooth, curved surface. Once that was done, a steel mesh was overlaid and buckets of concrete were painstakingly poured onto the surface. When the concrete hardened, the scaffolding was removed, and all that remained was a monumental, sweeping shape that was — and is — free-standing, extremely resilient (Ms. Garlock noted that Mr. Candela’s structures have withstood several earthquakes without damage), and only four centimeters thick.

“This is an instance of pure engineering and pure art,” Mr. Billington remarked, adding that even seemingly decorative elements in Mr. Candela’s repertoire contribute to the strength of a given structure. But the aesthetics of his buildings were also important to Mr. Candela, who is known to have taken architectural designs and revised them until “the ugliness disappears,” quoted Ms. Garlock.

“Sustainability for Candela was just common sense,” Mr. Billington said, referring to both the conceptual and construction work engaged in by Mr. Candela, who reused the wooden scaffolding and minimized the use of materials, thereby cutting down on waste. Lamenting the separation of design from construction, Mr. Billington confided that their underlying goal in the exhibit, and also in their own teaching, is to reconnect design, engineering, and building and revive a Candela-inspired ethic of sustainability.

Frank Gehry may be known primarily for his architecture, but PU professor and curator Esther da Costa Meyer highlights another aspect of his work in “Frank Gehry: On Line,” where over 30 of Mr. Gehry’s drawings are displayed.

At times whimsical and giving no indication of what the building’s ultimate appearance, Mr. Gehry’s drawings evoke the emotional presence of the structures. “Gehry drawings are unlike anybody else’s and are unlike the finished building,” said Ms. Da Costa Meyer, adding that he “wants the building to be a way of thinking out loud.”

Additionally, Mr. Gehry’s drawings and his conceptual work are very much influenced by visual art, Ms. Da Costa Meyer noted, adding that his friendship with artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, and others influenced Mr. Gehry’s approach to architecture.

Citing Paul Klee, Ms. Da Costa Meyer joked, “to draw is to take a line out for a walk,” and indeed, Mr. Gehry’s lines scamper and glide across the page. Beyond being unconventional architectural drafts, the drawings are presented as artworks in their own right, revealing something about Mr. Gehry’s approach to the process of design.

Individuality is a guide for Gehry, according to Ms. Da Costa Meyer, who added that his work implicitly critiques that belonging to High Modernism. “He wants to bring emotion back to architecture,” she said.

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