City Lane Gallery, Dublin, Shows Contemporary Sculptor, Eva Rothschild
The Eva Rothschild exhibition, curated by Michael Dempsey, at Dublin’s Hugh Lane Gallery, is an uplifting presentation, delivering a welcome alternative from widespread social community artwork-in-context, such as that in the recent Whitney Biennial—amounting to a banquet of confused nothingness! Rothchild’s astutely constructed sculpture is commanding, though, demonstrating her continual restless experimentation and expansively wide-ranging approach to making and defining sculpture. The eminent sculptor was born in Dublin in 1971, and currently lives in London. In the past decade Rothschild’s constructions have been exhibited internationally, including a monumental, site-specific 2009 installation, Cold Corners, at Tate Britain for which she created a continuous steel structure filling the entire Duveens Gallery. This enormous sculptural piece stretched across the space, gracefully drawing notice to the immense structure’s architectural details, including its roof and floor. Her work is also included in the 2014 Sydney Biennale. xxxxxx
Rothschild ascended in the art world in the wake of England’s “Young British Artists (YBA),” who exploded on the London scene, turning it into a vibrant contemporary art center in the 1990s. Unlike other renowned YBA’s, such as Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Jake and Dinos Chapman, whose focus was on the darker side of life with their shock techniques—oft with figurative orientations—Rothschild’s work is devoid of recognizable references. Instead, her art is quiet and subtle, manifesting an engagement with 20th century Modernism and aesthetic problem solving. It centers on mixing art-historical references and the deconstruction of abstract art, often in a playful manner. The results are idiosyncratic amalgamations, in subdued colors, varying in size and scale. The artist’s minimalist language produces unrestricted pieces, whose aim is to inspire viewers to contemplate the physical space in which an object resides, and to reflect on its conceptual underpinning. This said, she is still not a conceptual artist, but rather, a hands-on studio artist who relishes creating objects and celebrating materiality.
Rothschild feels “We’re more and more remote from the material world in our contemporary culture.” Her crisp, precariously balanced, abstract sculptures are formed from a myriad of substances, including steel, concrete, Jesmonite, fiberglass, Plexiglas, leather, and metal. I am reminded of 1960’s work of Eva Hesse, the pioneering postminimal anti-form American sculptor, who employed repetitive units, echoing the programmatic minimalist serialism with her eccentric experimentations with various materials.
Rothschild is similarly drawn to process and likewise, mixing sculptural ingredients. Her work engages space, often a medley of contradictions, subsequently becoming an embodiment of peculiar forms. Hesse’s art evolved during a confusing post-war era in art history, when artists sought new methods of expression, as they expanded boundaries in the aftermath of Abstract Expressionism, as well as in reaction to critic, Clement Greenberg’s restrictive formalism. Rothschild is free to do whatever she chooses, thanks to the liberation of Post-Modernism, breaking art’s constricting canon and opening up new constructs of thinking about art and its production.
Eva Rothchild’s retrospective exhibition at Dublin’s City Galley is her first solo museum exhibition in Ireland. Throughout her oeuvre one observes the output of an artist familiar with the history of Modernism and the Zeitgeist of her time. Evident in this wide sampling of work is the artist’s connection in Constructivism and her unique analysis and dialogue with Minimalism. Historically, The Minimalists’ included geometric forms, such as seen in the work of Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and Anne Truitt. Purging the art of metaphor by using pure surfaces and industrial materials, these artists eradicated signs of authorship in order to emphasize the work, itself.
Rothschild’s concentration on the physical space occupied by an artwork was inspired early on, by Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s writings on phenomenology, The Phenomenology of Perception (1945). Her attention to a viewer’s interaction with objects in space surfaces in the 2012 video entitled, Please Don’t Touch, Boys and Sculpture. It was filmed at the Whitechapel Gallery, as part of London’s annual Children’s Commission. Its inspiration came from her pondering, “What happens when a bunch of boys are left alone in a room full of sculptures?” This video reveals the answer— annihilation/chaos! One observes in this film a slow but total destruction of her sculptural installation as the boys interact with the objects and setting—at first, careful and hesitant, but gradually engaged energetically, leaving the site destroyed. Though this is an intriguing documentary, one must question whether the boys were incited to engage in these act of destruction, 
since they, at the outset, appear tentative as they engage with the work, as opposed to afterward.
Right: People with Snakes, 2014, digital print. © Eva Rothschild. Courtesy Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London.
Prior to the opening of Rothchild’s exhibition a range of people were invited to the gallery to have their portraits taken holding snakes. Locals, visitors and staff all partook in this performance, yielding a selection of photos of individuals holding the live serpents in dissimilar manners. Their body language depicts a range of responses—from fearful, to confident, and even playful! Included in the show is an assortment of images from the series People With Snakes, comprising yet another of her interactive works. The snake is a powerfully loaded symbol, associated with religion, medicine and death. Their squeamishness and unease with the reptiles is effectively captured in the photo series.
Robert Morris’s sway is felt in the dramatic black circular floor structure titled, Do-nut (Wakefield),2011. This black, circular form commands attention, by asking the viewer to judiciously scrutinize its shimmering snakeskin surface embedded with vibrant red chips. Encounters with this work is not surprising, since Morris similarly explored the circumstances of the art object in relationship to how viewers responded to it; and significantly, he had also read Merleau-Ponty’s, Phenomenology of Perception.
The juxtaposition of Donut with the totem-like piece Klassix (2013), enhances the spatial relationship between the sculptures, calling attention to the stark white architectural setting of the gallery. Klassix’s black column, referencing a ruin from classical antiquity, inspires a Pop Art connection, as the blocky green and red elements rest on the floor beside it.
Observing Rothschild’s structures, one may also sense a kinship with the American painter Amy Sillman whose work is considered physical, as well as drawing-based. Volume and mass are integral to structure and exterior casing in Eva Rothschild’s
work, however, where ultimately the final object becomes most significant. Many of her austere, contradictory sculptures resemble ‘drawing’ in space, because of their overt linearity, meticulous surfaces and edges. Tumble Dice (2014) and Black Atom (2013), exemplify both this draftsman-like sensibility, as well as a whimsical tension between the linear elements.
Left: ‘Black Atom,’ (2013), steel, concrete, paint. © Eva Rothschild. Courtesy Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich.
Another interesting work is Dead Moon (2013), comprised of identical black eye balls, sta
cked perilously high and threatening to topple, if only momentarily. This upright, surrealist totem calls to mind the work of Louise Bourgeois, and is perhaps Rothschild’s most ambiguous piece, evoking a connection to the human body.
Right: ‘Dead Moon,’ (2013), paint, jesmonite, fibreglass, polystyrene, 316 x 21 x 21cm. © Eva Rothschild. Courtesy Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich.
Viewers are fortunate that Eva Rothschild has selected to remain a studio artist and has not fled to the land of conceptual Post-Studio social critique! Furthermore, she is a woman sculptor who has mastered technique and renders ingenious art. If one is in Dublin this summer, the City Gallery of Dublin, The Hugh Lane is a must-see destination. For more information about this exhibition and the artist, I advise one to obtain the full- illustrated catalogue, including texts by Brian Dillon and Michael Dempsey, published and distributed by Ridinghouse Publications. It will become available in late August 2014.
By Elaine King, Ph.D., Contributing Writer
Eva Rothschild
Curated by Michael Dempsey.
City Gallery of Dublin, The Hugh Lane
Charlemont House, Parnell Square North, Dublin 1 Ireland