July 2011
From Mary Boone to the Parrish: Mel Kendrick Sculptures Visit the Hamptons
The New York Observer
It can take years, even decades, for an artwork to move from an artist's studio to a commercial gallery to a museum, and few pieces ever make that complete trip. However, New York-based artist, Mel Kendrick has managed to accomplish that feat in under a year.June 2011
Mel Kendrick
Art in America
Mel Kendrick has native Brancusian sensibilities, but he came into artistic maturity in the 1970's, "when process was everything," as he puts it. Two opposing impulses, one to invent his own geometric forms, anther to honor the given geometries of his materials, have been informing his work ever since. Two recent exhibitions-a review of the past 16 years at David Nolan and a display of months-old monumental works at Mar Boone-showed Kendrick's path and its culmination to date.April 2011
Gallery Chronicle
New Criterion
Mel Kendrick is a sculptor of process, but his product was the big hit two years ago in Madison Square Park in Manhattan. In the center oval, the park conservancy temporarily installed five enormous new works, all of the same series called "Markers." The forms were unmistakable Kendrick, shapes he had been working on in wood for several years.2011
Mel Kendrick with Ben La Rocco
THE BROOKLYN RAIL
On the occasion of Mel Kendrick’s upcoming exhibitions Jacks (March 25 – April 30, 2011) at Mary Boone Gallery and Works from 1995 to Now at David Nolan Gallery (March 17 – April 30, 2011), Brooklyn Rail Art Editor Ben La Rocco visited the artist in his Lower East Side studio to discuss his life and work.October 2009
Gallery Chronicle
New Criterion
Several shows this month deserve far more attention than space allows, so here are the best of them, however briefly. When I last reviewed the sculptor Mel Kendrick, another David Nolan artist, I objected to the diminutive scale of the work on view. Kendrick is a constructivist who carves an abstract shape from a wood block, then places the result on top of a base made of the leftover pieces. For an artist who likes to show his hand, sometimes the process gets the better of the product. Not so for a set of monumental sculptures now on view in Madison Square Park. Derived from many of the same forms at his last Nolan show, these outdoor giants executed in poured black-and-white concrete are playful exceptions to the cloying piles that normally pass for public sculpture. To appreciate their power, just visit the park with children around. By climbing through every hole and jumping off every shape of Kendrick's work, they understand the fun of these structures without the need for further explanation.
September 2009
Inside Art: "Markers" at the Park
The New York Times
Five monumental sculptures — cast concrete poured in alternating layers of black and white — were installed this week throughout Madison Square Park, that swath of green space between Madison and Fifth Avenues from 23rd to 26th Street. The exhibition is the work of the New York sculptor Mel Kendrick, who is perhaps best known for his wood objects. These pieces are his first public art project in the city and his first experiment with cast concrete.
"It's a material I've wanted to work with for a long time," he said. "These pieces are all about slicing and reconstructing shapes, sort of like the idea of the old ship in a bottle."
The show's title, "Markers," has many meanings for Mr. Kendrick, including a nod to the black-and-white marble found in Gothic Italian cathedrals as well as a reference to the notion of marking one's place.
January 2008
Mel Kendrick at David Nolan
Art in America
An unassuming show in a small gallery, Mel Kendrick's "Red Blocks" was stealthily potent. In the main room, five sculptures stood on a row on the floor, their rectangular bottoms squared with the wall. Two more faced an adjacent wall, forming a dogleg. All were made following the kind of dismantling-and-recomposing procedure Kendrick has followed in one variation or another for 20 years. In these sculptures, from 2007, a block of wood is cut into eccentric pieces; some of the pieces are removed piecemeal, reassembled more or less faithfully, and stached on top of the original. Since the sides of the blocks are painted red before the sawing begins, it is relatively simple to visualize how the pieces could all be fit back together.
January 2008
Mel Kendrick at David Nolan
Art News
With their low center of gravity, rough-hewn chunkiness, and warm red tone, Mel Kendrick's seven "Red Blocks" are endearingly low-tech. These chiseled cubic sculptures resemble three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles or an interpretation of lawn dwarfs in the style of Picasso. Arranged in a near semicircle along the walls of the main gallery, the sculptures had an odd anthropomorphic quality, like a tribe of wooden dolls. (The back room contained a roguish leader of the pack; nearly twice as tall as its rosy brethren and painted Astroturf green, it looks like a deconstructed frog.) But despite their apparent simplicity, these mahogany building blocks are an elegant exercise in interior/exterior, positive/negative space.
November, 9 2007
Mel Kendrick at David Nolan
The New York Times
A strong show from a sculptor who pursues Postminimalism's emphasis on self-evident structure and process, while developing his own affinity for wood, hand-working, eccentric form and, well, Cubism. Each of these small red sculptures has been cut entirely from the red pedestal on which it sits, largely unaltered. The patchwork of positive and negative, mass and silhouette, red and less red makes for a lot of interesting visual guessing, but they transcend puzzling. A much larger, very green piece is especially promising.
November 2007
Mel Kendrick
The Brooklyn Rail
Simplicity in a work of art can shock. It has been mistaken for crudeness as with Courbet's reductive brand of realism; for arrogance as with Duchamp's readymade; and for mere inadequacy as with Judd's early work. In each case, an artist's insight into how art could communicate more clearly caused viewers to balk. Is this sort of response still possible? In the age of Jake and Dinos Chapman it seems a little retardaire to be shocked by mere simplicity. But we need to differentiate. It is one thing to be appalled by what you're looking at--to be so affected by imagery of pain that you turn awayin horror. It is entirely something else for succinctness to jolt your mind into a heightened state of consciousness. These are very different kinds of shock. Although I do not wish to cast aspersions on the former, which has been a legitimate mode of expression since Matthias Grünewald and the Isenheim Altarpiece, it is on the latter that I wish to concentrate regarding the sculpture of Mel Kendrick.
Additional Articles and Reviews
Rothbart, Daniel, "Inside Out: An Interview with Mel Kendrick", ARTERY NYC, Jan, 2012
The Sag Harbor Express, "A Conversation with Mel Kendrick", The Sag Harbor Express, July, 2011
Hoban, Phoebe, “Mel Kendrick”, ARTnews, January 2008
Princenthal, Nancy, “Mel Kendrick at David Nolan”, Art in America, Jan. 2008
La Rocco, Ben, “Mel Kendrick”, Brooklyn Rail, November, 2007
Goodman, Jonathan, “Mel Kendrick: Extended Time”, Sculpture Magazine, January/ February, 2007
Dunham, Carroll, “Carroll Dunham on Mel Kendrick”, Bomb Magazine Fall, 2004
Goodman, Jonathan, "Mel Kendrick," Sculpture, December, 2003
Johnson, Ken, "Mel Kendrick : Drawings in Wood." The New York Times, January 17, 2003
Boyce, Robert, "Mel Kendrick," Sculpture, October, 2002
Glueck, Grace, "Youth and Experience Transforming a Town," The New York Times, August 9, 2002
Temin, Christine, "The Nature of Inspiration," The Boston Globe , July 4, 2002
Thorson, Alice, "Wood Sculptures Romanticize Art, Not Trees," Art, The Kansas City Star, Friday, Dec 13, 1996
Taplin, Robert, "Mel Kendrick at John Weber,: Art in America, Feburary 1996, p. 88-89
Campbell, Richard, "Mel Kendrick's Ten Loops Slit," Arts, The Magazine of the Members of the The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, June 1995, p. 7
Vallongo, Sally, "New artwork pop up at city's institutions," The Blade, November 10, 1994 Toledo, OH
Princenthal, Nancy, "Mel Kendrick," Art in America, Feburary 1994
Kuspit, Donald, "Mel Kendrick," Artforum, January 1994
Braff, Phyllis, "6 East End Sculptors at Midcareer," New York Times, July 26, 1992
Long, Robert, "Sculpture at Guild Hall Moves Beyond Minimalism," Southampton Press, July 16, 1992
Slivka, Rose C.S., "From the Studio, A Far Cry", The East Hampton Star, June 11, 1992
"Sag Harbour Sculptors Feature in Show," The Sag Harbour Express, June 11, 1992
"Modern and Big" The East Hampton Star, June 11, 1992
Perl, Jed, "Through a Blighted Landscape," New Criterion, September, 1992
Beller, Miles, "Interlocking Parts," Artweek, no. 13, April 9, 1992, pp. 24
Larson, Kay, "Summer Stock," New York, September 2, 1991, pp. 60
Kimmelman, Michael, "In Westchester, Sculpture Meets Nature, New York Times, Friday, July 19, 1991, c1
Boodro, Michael, "Mel Kendrick's Calculated Risks," ARTnews, May 1991, cover and p. 104-109
Morgan, Robert C., review, "Summer Group Show," New Art International, Feburary 1991, p. 82
"Portfolio: Mel Kendrick," Bomb, Spring 1990, pp. 74-79
Morgan, Anne Barclay, "Mel Kendrick at Salam-Caro Gallery," Sculpture, May/June 1990, pp. 98-99
Review, "Mel Kendrick," The Print Collector's Newsletter, May/June 1990. pp. 60-61
Nadelman, Cynthia, "Out of Wood," Sculpture, May/June 1990, pp. 95-98
Ferguson, Bruce W., "Mel Kendrick and The Well-Adjusted Object, "Art in America, February 1990, pp. 146-155
Dorsey, John, "Complex Forms," The Sun, Baltimore, January 4, 1990
Wolff, Theodore F., "Contemporary American Art on Display," Bay News, April 17, 1989
Wachunas, Tom, "Museum Show Reflects New Attention to Sculpture," The Phoenix, March 2, 1989
Kendrick, Mel, Balcon, Summer 1989, pp. 164-169
Brenson, Michael, "Sculpture Shows at Two Branches of The Whitney," New York Times, Friday, Dec 22, 1989
Kachur, Lewis, review, Art International, Autumn 1989, p. 58
Amann, Gloria, "Mel Kendrick at John Weber," Cover, Summer 1989, p. 14
Brenson, Michael, "Going Beyond Slickness: Sculptors Get Back to Basics," New York Times, Fri, Mar 3, 1989
FitzGerald, Michael, "Mel Kendrick: Essays," Trinity Reporter, Winter 1989
Princenthal, Nancy, "Pilgrim's, Process," New York Times, March 13 1987, pp. 76-77
Raynor, Vivien, "Photos and Sculptures at the Aldrich," New York Times, Sunday November 27, 1988
Hugo, Joan, "Witty Art - Historical Quotations," Artweek, March 12, 1988
Berman, Ann, "Sculptors-In-Process," Town and Country, September 1987, pp. 269-272
Zimmer, William, "At Newberger Sculptor Rediscovers Wood in Exotic Ways," New York Times, Sun, Aug 6, 1987, p. 28
Raynor, Vivien, "7 Artists in the New Britain Show," New York Times, Sunday, April 12, 1987. p. 26
Damsker, Matt, "New Britain Exhibit Wisely Avoids Theme and Displays The Hartford Courant, March 22, 1987
Degener, Patricia, "Up with Color and Craft," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sunday, March 8, 1987, p. 4c
Tuchman, Phyllis, "Kendrick: Process and Experimentation," Newsday, New York, Friday, Feb 20, 1987, p. 29
Kaplan, Steven, "Head, Heart, and Hands," Artfinder, Spring 1987, pp. 96-102
Frick, Thomas, "Mel Kendrick at Barbara Krakow Gallery," Art New England, May 1986
Bonnetti, David, "On and Off the Street," The Boston Phoenix, Section Three, April 15, 1986
Temin, Christine, The Boston Globe, Thursday, March 27, 1986
Stapen, Nancy, "Sculptor's Wonderful Way with Wood," The Boston Herald, March 28, 1986
Tuchman, Phyllis, "The Road Now Taken," Art Criticism, vol. 2, 1986
Muchnic, Suzanne, "Le Cienge Area," Los Angeles Times, November 29, 1985, Part V, p. 16
Stephens, Susanne, House & Garden, November 1985 photo of work only
Bomb Magazine, Fall 1985, No. XIII, p. 67, photo of work only
McElvilley, Thomas, "Review," Artforum, May 1985, pp. 112-113
Dabrowski, Magdalena, "Contrasts in Form: Geometric Abstract Art, 1910-1980, from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art Including the Riklis Collection of McCrory Corporation,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Muchnic, Suzanne, "Vitality Emerges from Geometric Abstraction," L.A. Times, February 1985
Raynor, Vivien, "Concepts in Construction: 1910-1980," a traveling exhibition, New York Times, Sun, Feb 10, 1985
Saunders, Wade, "Sculptors Interviews," Art in America, November 1985, pp. 110-111, 122-123
Tuchman, Phyllis, "The Whitney Biennial: The MTV of Art," Newsday, March 29, 1985
Brenson, Michael, review, New York Times, February 22, 1985
Raynor, Vivien, "A Decade of New Art," New York Times, June 8, 1984
Glueck, Grace, "A Collection That Breathes The Spirit of Modernism”, New York Times, April 8, 1984
Hedberg, Gregory, The Tremaine Collection: 20th Century Masters, Wadsworth Antheneum, CT 1984
Wilson, William, Los Angeles Times, Friday, December 9, 1983
Linker, Kate, Artforum, September 1983
Wolfe, Theodore, Christian Science Monitor, May 31, 1983
Saunders, Wade, Art in America, Summer 1983
Eiseman, Stephen, Arts Magazine, June 1983
Raynor, Vivien, "Sculpture: Mel Kendrick," New York Times, April 15, 1983
Krantz, Claire Wolf, "James Biederman, Don Gummer, Mel Kendrick, New Art Examiner, Chicago, March 1982
Haydon, Harold, Review of the Artis Club of Chicago Show, Chicago Sun Times, February 12, 1982
Pincus-Witten, Robert, "Entries: Sheer Grunge," Art in America, May 1981
Knafo, Bob, "Mel Kendrick at Weber," Art in America, February 1981
Sundell, Nina, "New Talent/New York," Dialogue, January/February 1981
Klein, Michael, Arts, January 1981
Olander, William, "What's Done in New York," Live, January 1981
Dobbs, Lillian, "John Weber Artists Reject Traditional Mold," The Miami News, January 23, 1981
Lawson, Thomas, Artforum, December 1980
Zimmer, William, review, Soho News, October 15, 1980
Stevens, Elizabeth, review, Baltimore Sun, June 6, 1980
Lewis, Jo Ann, review, Washington Post, June 8 1980
Perlberg, Deborah, review, Artforum, May 1979
Seine, Harriet, review, New York Post, March 10, 1979
Kramer, Hilton, review, New York Times, August 5, 1977
Heinemann, Susan, review, Artforum, April 1974