Tom Sachs is an artist who has achieved a great deal of critical regard for a body of work that has been from the onset innovative and thought provoking in the elegance, and sometimes roughness, of its construction, modification or assemblage, and in its signification, which demands reflection on the viewer’s part. This acclaim and the artist’s own engagement with important social and culture themes has taken his work beyond the art world and into corporate, retail and public venues where it has gained a wide exposure and where its presence has intrigued, confused and sometimes offended a large public.

His show “Work” which opened last night at Sperone Westwater gallery attracted a huge audience of diverse people. Some were personal friends of the artist, some had bought his work in the past and planned on a major purchase of work exhibited that evening, some had seen his earlier shows. There were the usual suspects who might be seen at any number of openings, and then there were a good number of people who had never visited a gallery before, and asked if they could buy a ticket at the desk or if they needed to show identification before entering. I imagined Tom Sachs designing a machine that would dispense numbers, as in Fairway, but with something more: maybe a mini-generator. Or maybe he could painstakingly build a time clock so that visitors could punch in for a shift before entering.

It is a strong show of Sachs’ work, arranged along 3 floors and an outdoor balcony space. The thoughtful arrangement of his work in the gallery space invites the visitor on a journey that is certainly worth taking. Sachs is a person of great intellectual depth as much as he is a superb architect, engineer and craftsperson. His ideas and commitments meld with the varied talents and skills he brings to his work as an artist. He works in a studio with 15 assistants under conditions that seem both rigorously disciplined and yet always open to inspiration. Often he brings together contradictory elements in his work, the unexpected with the mundane.

Things and indeed people are at once revered and made ridiculous. He builds a seemingly simple object which we begin to see is not so simple after all in its recreation, while at the same time celebrating complexity through mechanical things sometimes meant to perform simple tasks. Is he praising someone or something or condemning it? The answer is perhaps between these poles, and indeed shifting, drawing on the viewer’s own experience in the world which is enlarged and perhaps also somewhat recontextualized.

The exhibition is open until December 17, and is located at Sperone Westwater, 257 Bowery

Photos by Veronica Manlow
Opening Photo – Detail of James Brown Hair Products.  2009.  Mixed media.
Dome 2011.  Synthetic polymer paint and thermal adhesive on card board, resin and carbon fiber.
Rubbermaid 2011.  Epoxy resin on mixed media.
Medical Fetish. 2009-2011.  Mixed media.
James Brown Hair Products.  2009.  Mixed media.