R E V I E W E D
Ju rs constructs a memoir o f sorts, where
gleanings from autobiography, personal collections
o f bric-a-brac and preexisting output provide
inspirational fodder.
Nancy Jurs:
Déjà Vu
S T O R Y B Y
Thomas Pichéjr.
Everson Museum of Art
50/50: Nancyjurs
Syracuse, New York
February 7 - May 3,2009
everson.org
Nancyjurs gained recognition during the
1990s for her chunky ceramics that riffed on
functional domestic ware. At the same time,
she created a number of ambitious, large-
scale ceramic sculptures that elaborated on
the shapes and surfaces of her intimate ef-
forts, but encompassed a more complex con-
ceptual purpose. Her fired clay had the
appearance of expressive cubic forms that
might have been roughed out from blocks
of stone. Surfaces bore the metallic, irides-
cent lusters associated with long-buried
objects. The overall character had a rough-
hewn strength, organic in feel, even geolog-
ic-something shaped by nature over time.
“50/50: Nancyjurs” features several
exemplars from this period as well as a
varied array of newer sculptural installa-
tions. These range from monumental
stoneware constructions to fragile lint-based
tapestries; from arrangements of unaltered
found objects and assisted readymades
to recontextualized samplings from the
past 50 years of the artist’s work. “50/50”
is an ambitious but uneven show: Jurs has
a tendency toward overdetermination—
a literalness that leans toward platitudes
when suggestion could have produced po-
etry. Her most successful works have
an open-ended quality, where just the right
amount of allusion encourages the viewer
to consider meaning while appreciating the
visual and aesthetic physicality of the
sculptural arrangements.
“50/50” functions as a retrospective
even though most of the works have
achieved final form during the last five
years, and three of the ten displays debut
here. The retrospective nature of the ex-
hibition is defined by the inclusion of re-
worked objects drawn from across the art-
ist’s oeuvre and by the diaristic impetus
that lies behind many of the assemblages.
Through a process that she refers to as
détournement,
Jurs recycles older work in
some of her new installations, altering
the tenor of her original intent through vari-
ous formal and conceptual sleights of hand,
including mass groupings, over-painting,
and lengthy labeling. Jurs constructs a
memoir of sorts, where gleanings from
autobiography, personal collections of bric-
a-brac, and preexisting output provide in-
spirational fodder. At its best, this method-
ology results in engaging ruminations on
temps perdu
or the weighty seriousness asso-
ciated with displays of classical statuary.
Weaker outcomes resemble a homey, cot-
tage aesthetic commonly found in tasteful
shelter magazines. Where this process
yields the least rewards, the installations
require didactic expositions that limit even
as they illuminate.
A particularly recondite example of
Jurs’s process of reclamation is represented
by
Déjà Vu: Fifty Pieces, Fifty Tears (Sepa-
rate and Equal).
It is a very large installation
that features one piece from every year
of her art practice. Each object has had its
original surface covered in whitewash and
is arranged among and on similarly painted
found objects-an antique mantle, four
architectural columns and a woodsy table
and chairs. It is tempting to recall the
example of Louise Nevelson and
Dawn’s
Wedding Chapel,
but the reductive nature
of Nevelson’s monochrome seems to work
against Jurs’s retrospective goal. By muf-
fling the characteristics that could construe
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american craft
apr/may09
Photo/Dave Revette.
