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Saturday, 16 April 2011 04:54

Nailings, Dreamlike Landscapes, Brancusi, Arp: N.Y. Uptown Art

"Diagonal Division" by Guenther Uecker is part of "Guenther Uecker: The Early Years" on view at L&M Arts through April 16. "Diagonal Division" by Guenther Uecker is part of "Guenther Uecker: The Early Years" on view at L&M Arts through April 16. Source: L&M Arts via Bloomberg

There’s no tutu for the terpsichorean in Guenther Uecker’s show at Manhattan’s L&M Arts.

“New York Dancer I” wears a cape of nails and spins to the rhythm of an electric motor. By stepping on a red button, visitors make the dancer whirl in a noisy blur.

Nails are a recurrent motif in “The Early Years” exhibition, which displays work from the 1950s through the 1970s.

“The nails represent on the one hand a defense, like ruffled hair, like a hedgehog curling up into a ball, but on the other hand tenderness,” Uecker, 81, said in an interview with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist published in the exhibition catalog.

In “White Bird,” nails are arranged in the shape of a flying bird. The canvas of “Diagonal Division” is divided in half by a stripe filled with nails. With this simple, beautiful creation and its play of nail shadows, different lines appear as you change your point of view.

“Sand Mill” departs from nails for something Uecker has said is derived from agriculture: a circle of sand with a post in the center to which strings are attached. A small motor makes the strings draw and then erase trails in the sand. An accompanying video shows Uecker, dressed in white, installing the piece.

“He took sandbags all the way from Germany,” said Leila Saadai, exhibitions director of L&M Arts.

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