Deborah Butterfield at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery

by Robin Dluzen

Deborah Butterfield at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery

I was completely aghast upon entering the vast, cavernous spaces of River North’s Zolla/Lieberman Gallery and beholding the monumental works of veteran sculptor, Deborah Butterfield. The show is the latest of the several dozen exhibitions of the artist’s sculptures in the gallery’s long history in Chicago. The works in the exhibition are solidly cohesive: all of the same subject and all of the same media. The presence of the monumental sculptures of horses truly transform the viewing experience, almost to the point where one feels as though one is not looking merely at art objects, but something different altogether.

The horses one sees upon entering the space appear as if they are built with found branches, like line drawings, but expressing the volumes and the interiors of the animals. They are of various sizes; the smaller horses are more abstracted due to their scale, rendered standing or lying on pedestals. The mid-sized horse is just barely larger than a true horse, and standing alone in a room of the gallery, it can be approached bodily by viewers in a manner that recalls the presence of the real animal. But the largest sculpture is by far the most baffling.

Deborah Butterfield at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery

The horse towers high over all viewers, made truly monumental through its scale. The manner with which one must view this largest sculpture is the clearest example of the departure from a simple art-object approach. Rather, the work brings to mind some sort of mammoth skeletal fossil, or a prehistoric exhibit in a natural history museum. In this light, Butterfield has created a testament to the equine species that makes it both a real, solid specimen, and a timeless creature of imagination.

From afar, and even up-close, the structure of the horses seem to be delicate frameworks of found tree branches; however, after checking the titles list and inspecting closely, one begins to realize that they are not the piles of found branches they appear to be, rather they are expertly cast bronze replicas, which does not come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the artist’s previous works in found metals.

Deborah Butterfield at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery

If these works were composed of sticks of wood, they would look precariously intertwined with one another, as if they could collapse with the slightest breeze. But the fact that the horses are actually bronze highlights the play between lightness and denseness. Upon the realization that the Butterfield’s sculptures are in reality probably monstrously heavy, the grace and liveliness of their forms becomes even more of a feat. The horses seem suspended; the bottoms of their hooves are so delicately set upon the gallery floor.

For thirty-plus years, the subject of horses has been the major player in Butterfield’s extensive oeuvre. The sculptures in this exhibition capture elegance and movement in a way that her previous found steel works do not. Through impeccably crafted detail, this current body of work exudes a sophistication that, the closer one approaches, only reveals itself to be even more remarkable.

“Deborah Butterfield: New Sculpture” is on display May 14 through August 25, 2010 at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, 325 West Huron, Chicago.