Lori Bookstein Fine Art to Present Review of John Crawford Exhibit, 10/20

John Crawford, a Brooklyn-based artist whose output consists of welded steel sculptures, spent 10 years (1976-86) in Tuscany working at a blacksmith's shop after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design. Since 1995, he has been interested in the smithing works of various West African cultures. As a result of these models, his work is highly tactile, abstract, and often totemic. Abstract steel sculpture has a long, illustrious history in the U.S., but Crawford's vision is quite different. He borrows from the forms of other places to create work that openly relates to its making, as well as to the history of American creativity. Interestingly, there is a sensuality and organic quality to his forms, often made of rings and coils, somewhat at odds with their industrial construction. Such differences, however, thrive and meld in Crawford's work.

Crawford offered only one sculpture in his recent show. A(R)MOUR (2015), constructed of forged steel, consisted (in this iteration) of interlocking circles forming a kind of background curtain-the form of the work varies in each installation-with a distinctly phallus-shaped arrangement of smaller interwoven rings in front. The work hung from the ceiling, so viewers could walk around and study it. A video shows A(R)MOUR fluidly changing, protean-like, as it is lifted or brought down to the ground. The title calls out the sexual image fronting the work, while contextualizing it within a visual affinity between the steel rings and the structure of armor. Given Crawford's penchant for brute, industrial force, it is easy to see this piece as evidencing a similar rawness, but it is, in fact, based on a highly educated understanding of historical and geographical styles.

A one-work show indicates a certain confidence, and in this case, it served Crawford well. He works within a smithing tradition more in tune with Modernist sculpture than the kind of contemporary art, often deskilled and politicized, that we see today. In a way, A(R)MOUR is already a historical artifact, albeit one that embraces the present. Crawford's aesthetic is highly intriguing, because he left the U.S. for a significant period of time and because he transforms his interest in a very old craft into an art with relevance to current experience. We need not doubt the authenticity of the artifact; instead, we need to explore how it makes sense now. A(R)MOUR lingers in the mind as a bridge between the old and the new, a bridge consisting of high craft and first-rate creativity.