A Closer Look: De Wain Valentine and Human Scale

One of the Georgia Museum of Art’s latest exhibitions, “De Wain Valentine: Human Scale,” opened on Sept. 8, and will be on display until Jan. 27, 2013. In addition to bringing the necessary pieces together in a cohesive manner, a considerable amount of research was required for the exhibition—knowing how, when, and in what context Valentine created his work provides a greater understanding of the different artistic movements during the 1960s and 1970s. A large portion of that research was provided by Beau Ott, a collector of Valentine’s work, who also graciously provided three iconic sculptures for the exhibition: “Lavender Column” (1968), “Rose Circle” (1970) and “Gray Ring” (1974).

“As I enjoy researching the art and artists whose work I collect, I had amassed quite a bit of information about this body of Valentine’s work,” Ott said. “I have been collecting art, from mainly the 1960’s, for nearly 10 years. I became a fan of Valentine’s works, especially from this period, several years ago. I was very excited when the initial opportunity arose for me to acquire one of Valentine’s polyester resin works.”

Ott, as it turns out, became friends with Valentine through the process of obtaining his sculptures. This friendship is especially highlighted in the documentary on loan from the Getty Museum, “From Start to Finish: The Story of De Wain Valentine’s ‘Gray Column’,” which is featured alongside the exhibition.

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for the vision that De Wain had during a very special time in art history and that he had the tenacity to work with a very difficult medium in order to realize his artistic vision,” said Ott. “I said to him in a recent conversation, ‘De Wain, has anyone in your entire life ever, accused you of thinking small?’”

Indeed, the idea of the small does not seem to apply to Valentine’s work. These sculptures stand six to eight feet high and weigh hundreds, if not thousands of pounds, according to Ott.

“Valentine’s work in this exhibit offers a unique art-viewing experience,” he said. “The large, clear-colored, plastic lens-like sculptures affect the viewer’s perception and offer a unique sculpture-viewing experience as one can simultaneously observe all facets, curves and edges. This was never before possible until Valentine developed the special polyester resin material that could be used [for his work].”

Beau Ott and

De Wain Valentine's

"Lavender Column"

Ott and our docents

“Human Scale” is the first time Valentine’s work has been featured on the East Coast outside of New York, and it seems a stroke of luck that it managed to happen, according to Ott.

“Collectors are hesitant to allow their human scale polyester resin sculptures to travel,” he said. “While Valentine created approximately 50 human scale polyester resin sculptures, fewer…are extant due to the fragility of the pieces.”

There isn’t much room for error, but overall, Ott is happy with the way GMOA has presented Valentine’s work and encourages all to come have a closer look at the immense sculptures.

“The GMOA exhibition was brilliantly curated to allow each of these eight works to be seen to present the fullest effect to the exhibitions’ viewers,” he said. “[It] offers the never-before opportunity to see eight of these sculptures on display within the same exhibition.”

De Wain Valentine: Thinking Inside and Outside The Box

In grade school we learn about the basic shapes in geometry: circles, ovals, squares, triangles, rectangles, quadrangles, parallelograms, the rhombus, pentagons, hexagons, octagons—the list goes on and on. Under most circumstances, these shapes are only used as simple elements within a much larger work of art. For example, one might use a circle and a triangle in a basic sketch. With added detail, the circle can become a head and the triangle takes the shape of a nose. With more shading, a few lines and a pair of eyes, facial features come into view, and eventually we lose track of the painting’s humble beginnings.

Like any other artist, De Wain Valentine approaches his sculptures with the basic geometry of the finished product in mind. But instead of fading away through added details such as fine chiseling or added sanding and polishing, the concept of the shape serves as the most essential part of his work. That is not to say Valentine doesn’t pay attention to detail—the technical composition of his large, polyester resin sculptures requires a complex process to bring out a sheen that acts as both an opaque reflector and a filter for light to pass through. In this regard, Valentine enables his audiences to look at both themselves and at other people within the scope of his sculptures, almost literally immersing the viewer in art.

De Wain Valentine
"Lavender Column"

De Wain Valentine
"Circle Blue Smoke Flow"

Valentine has had installations shown in the Museum of Modern Art, The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu and the San Diego Museum of Art. The Georgia Museum of Art, through the efforts of chief curator and Curator of American Art Paul Manoguerra, Pierre Daura Curator of European Art Lynn Boland, Director William Underwood Eiland, the W. Newton Morris Charitable Foundation and the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art, has put together an exhibition featuring Valentine’s work in Human Scale. The exhibition will run from Sept. 8, 2012, until Jan. 27, 2013. 

Where in the World Is Bill Eiland?

Sometimes we think we could make our own globetrotting quiz show about the peregrinations of our director, Bill Eiland. The first photo here comes from the reopening of the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota. You can browse the rest of the set here.

Then, a few minutes ago, we got the following photo from Bill's phone, featuring Pierre Daura Curator of European Art Lynn Boland. Knowing that this week he's on the West Coast, we guessed but got it wrong.

It turns out that they're at the Japanese American National Museum, browsing an exhibition of works by cartoonist Stan Sakai. Lynn and Bill are out in California working on our upcoming exhibition of large-scale resin sculptures by the artist De Wain Valentine, about whom we've posted here before.

De Wain Valentine

We're sure many of you are familiar by now with De Wain Valentine's "Gray Ring" (seen above), which has a home in the overlook of GMOA's new wing. We are in the middle of planning a major show of Valentine's work, which will open late next year, but in the meantime, please enjoy the following video produced by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), which focuses on another of his sculptures, featured in its exhibition "Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface."

This longer video, also produced by MCASD, explains the exhibition in greater depth and shows some of the other works of art it includes.