In this rich, dense, and compact show, Mel Kendrick focuses on his generally solid, large, puzzle-like sculptures, most in his current signature tones of yellow and black, creating a dynamic continual exchange with scribbled surface-markings playing in contradistinction to weighty, muscular structures.

Associations and ideas abound. Convoluted shapes evoke such Cubists as sculptor Raymond Duchamp Villon, who carved directly into wood, rendering abstract fragments at once rough, fluid, and dramatic; and Conrad Marca-Relli, who merged painting, collage, and construction, uniting the built and the drawn. Kendrick’s frantic energy is also reminiscent of Futurists such as Boccioni and Severini who worked in both two and three dimensions. Sculpture and drawing likewise intermingle in Kendrick’s work, continually translating the one into the other. The artist’s use of color, specifically deep yellow, calls to mind many different ideas, including warm and inviting Braque still lifes as well as industrial signposts. Triangular yellow shapes, embedded like directionals—or mis-directionals—take viewers out into surrounding spaces. The yellow geometric shapes evoke barriers, caution, borders, and “danger ahead.” It puts me in mind of the ever-engaging reflections of Marjorie Welish in her series of works on paper titled "Indecidability of the Sign: Yellow/Black" (2019–ongoing).

Contradictions entice. The visible construction of the infinitely tangled bodies of most of the works establish motion, where the bases, usually solid blocks of wood, attempt to plant the sculptures firmly in place, claiming their hold on the firmament.

Kendrick makes wood do unnatural things, like leaving it to fold ribbonlike as it drops near to the ground. All of which brings us to the question of where and/or what is the ground. Is it a big block of wood? A hunk of rusted metal? A mound of concrete? And then we think of that modernist problem: what is the function of a base? Does it interfere with our perception or reading of a sculpture the way British base-denier Anthony Caro would have had it? Or does it cubistically maintain a momentum?

Kendrick works with these problems rather than trying to solve them. He lets things happen, leaving his works to chance as he pulls out sections of the sculptures and reassembles them. He seems to be amassing all the tools of modernism today, allowing them to play themselves out, just as he uses and calls back into action the many pieces of his own work that have been rejected or discarded, using them as fragments drawn from his memory bank. Together, these random elements assemble so as to provide a history of the artist’s work mixed with a history of modern movements in the making of sculpture.

In the parlor room of the townhouse gallery, before the white-painted fireplace, there is a sociable gathering of works, very much in conversation with one another, made of similar materials and sharing the surrounding space. An oversize woodblock on Kozo paper mounted on linen hangs elegantly as backdrop here, lending a sense of surprising serenity. Titled Twin Locks (1997), the piece echoes the cluster of sculptures in black and yellow, but gives the viewer a respite from the intensity of the constructed works.

Kendrick investigates both his work and himself physically (cell by cell), showing us how he does it, exposed screw by screw. We can see the cells taking shape in such works as Cell (G) (2013), a piece in cast paper with carbon and black pigment. He is taking and retaking his own measure throughout in a rhythmic display of invention and imagination. 

“Every sculpture is only a point in time,” the American artist Mel Kendrick has said. “Every object could go further.” Kendrick, born in 1949, has dedicated his life to sculpture, which he uses to explore a fundamental dichotomy: the difference between our experience of an object and the properties of the object itself. His work is cast in bronze, rubber, resin, even paper; and visible marks, cuts, paint, and oil stains are clues to how each piece was made. Like Picasso and Braque before him, Kendrick is constantly testing the limits of geometry and perception. Presenting work from the last two years, David Nolan Gallery celebrates this adventurous artist. 

—Elena Clavarino

Mel Kendrick: Cutting Corners

Mel Kendrick doesn’t like to waste anything. When he cuts a cylindrical form out of a thick block of wood, what he removes becomes part of the sculpture. When you walk around one of his works, you see traces of decisions he made and those he changed his mind about. These markings are records of the artwork coming into being. While he may have learned from both conceptual and process-oriented artists, his connection to the previous generation of Abstract Expressionists, with no hint of nostalgia, makes him one of the best artists of his generation. We don’t see his work; we experience and viscerally engage with his creative choices. We see evidence of logic and the unexpected; everything feels both necessary and surprising. Kendrick is the kind of magician who shows you how it is done and still leaves you mystified. 

— John Yau

A staple of the New York art scene since 1987, David Nolan Gallery established itself with locations in SoHo and Chelsea before making the Upper East Side its home in 2020. In the nearly 40 years since opening, David Nolan Gallery has staged early exhibitions by artists who would go on to become some of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art, including Richard Artschwager, Albert Oehlen, Gerhard Richter, and Rosemarie Trockel. For its first spring show, the gallery is mounting “Cutting Corners,” a solo exhibition of new work by leading American sculptor Mel Kendrick that opens March 7 and runs through April 13. Working in a variety of materials, including cast bronze,wood, concrete, rubber, and resin, Kendrick’s abstract work draws inspiration from minimalist and conceptual art to push the boundaries of form and material. Greatly interested in the artistic process and how we experience sculpture, Kendrick’s works are self-referential and invite viewers to consider each piece in relation to their own bodies.