Arlene Shechet

Kindly donated by the Artist and Pace Gallery

Arlene Shechet

Written by Sara Harrison for Aspen Art Museum Summer Issue 2022 

For Arlene Shechet, the process of making a sculpture is akin to a conver-sation. Discussing her practice with Merrell Hambleton for T Magazine in 2020, Shechet notes: "I don't believe in having a 'body of work,'[ ... ] I just believe in art, in showing a generous offering from the studio." 

Working with clay, wood, bronze, steel, concrete, resin and paint, Shechet creates her abstract sculptures without formula, discarding around one third as she goes. Soft, organic forms come together with harder-edged built elements; different materials combine and the pedestal itself is often integral to the work. The combinations and textures that emerge are unexpected; strong, uplifting color is a constant. 

The freedom that informs Shechet's process imbues the finished pieces with a sense of optimism and levity.  "Skirts,'' the title of her 2020 exhibition at Pace Gallery in New York, underlines the humor at the heart of her practice and encourages anthropomorphic readings. There is something unknow-able about the sculptures, though they appear benign, maybe even friendly. 

In a video accompanying her 2018-19 installation Full Steam Ahead at Madison Square Park in New York, Shechet observes: "The feeling of things being off-balance, the feeling of something possibly sliding and being precarious, but actually amazingly dependable and present-I feel like in a lot of ways that describes the human condition that we all live with; an awareness of our fragility and 

our strength." 

Born in 1951, Shechet lives and works in New York, Woodstock and Kingston. She has exhibited exten-sively throughout her career and her work is held in many significant public collections, including The Jewish Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.