Concrete Sculpture

The next phase from Georgesco's Wood Sculptures was to use one of his Wood Floor Pieces from 1973 and stand it upright on a 12' x 12' x 3' thick piece of Steel Plate with holes drilled into it to accommodate steel re-bars, which were latter welded in place. The wood floor piece had become the first mold for what was to be Georgesco's first Concrete Column. The wooden floor piece which was now standing vertical on the steel plate was siliconed in place to prevent the now to be mold from leaking. The steel re-bars were carefully fitted inside the now first half of the wooden mold. After the the re-bar was fitted a second half of the mold was constructed from 3/4" inch plywood and fitted and silconed in place, the mold was held together with bar clamps.

The ceilings in Georgesco's Venice, California Studio were 10' tall so the pieces which stood 119" tall were set under a recessed skylight to allow room for the concrete to be poured into the top of the mold. The finished Columns were only 1" shy of touching the ceilings when completed. A custom formula of concrete was prepared with pea gravel to accommodate the tight fitting tolerances between the re-bar and the mold. A minimum of 1.5" of concrete is the minimum tolerance for reinforced concrete. Of course Acrylic additives were used with the Portland Cement Formula for added strength an flexibility. Latter pieces used Formica which was laminated to the concrete molds to produce a glass like finish similar to marble and vibrated with a special concrete vibrator to eliminate any air pockets.

This was beginning of a new series of sculptures in concrete which evolved from their first relatives "The Wooden Floor Piece Series". This is how a artist can become prolific in his work. The artist must simply allow the work to speak and with a Vocabulary of Shapes in place the works begin to evolve on a journey of their own. This Series of Concrete Columns and Tripods was the catalyst to catapult Georgesco into the Top Collections in Los Angeles and New York. The first exhibition of these Modern Contemporary Sculptures was at Newspace Gallery, in Los Angeles 1976. The exhibition was deemed as a overnight success in 1976, and in 1977 William Wilson, critic from the Los Angeles Times wrote, " Georgesco's work looks so solved, almost smugly knowledgeable about its own ability to push the Art Worlds Masterpiece button." These works as similar to their counter part the "Wooden Floor Pieces Series" standing vertically on end is a great example of how a vocabulary can evolve without being starched into its own formula.

Wood Sculpture

Wood Sculpture was a natural progression from painting for artist Christopher Georgesco. The materials used for his painting stretcher bars in 1968 were recycled into a series of sculpture studies tittled "Balance Beams" in 1969. These were the first Modern Contemporary Sculptures the artist created. The next move were a group of pieces tittled "Wood and Canvas Series" 1970-1971 and were also recycled from materials used in his painting for stretcher bars. This series used the tension of the canvas stretched on wood jigs through vertical placed wood dowels to hold the works together. The next series of wood sculptures Georgesco did were made from larger dimensions of the same square lengths of wood, this time expanded from 2" x 2" to 4' x 4'. They were to be his first investigation of divisions of a rectangle, a kindred relative of the square, in 1973-1974. These 4' x 4" x 10' pieces of Douglas Fir were divided and split in various configurations which would become the core of the artist Vocabulary and were simply places on the floor. This was the beginning of the first body of work that was commercially recognized and were exhibited at Jack Glen Gallery in Corona Del Mar in 1973. One of these wood floor pieces would serve as part of the first mold for the next series of sculptures that would graduate into reinforced concrete sculptures from 1975-1978. The humble material wood once hidden behind the stretched canvas of this artists early paintings eventually became the beginning of sculptures that would step by step metamorphosis's into 10" Concrete and Steel columns and Tripods that would catapult the artist into the public eye. This is a excellent example how the artist evolves a natural progression, almost as if by magic.

When Enough is Enough in Modern Contemporary Sculpture.

In a Artists quest for growth, he must decide when he has expired a idea or path of conception in Modern Contemporary Sculpture. Some Artist never veer from their original concept and do ever so slight variations on the same concept for their whole carriers. This sometimes may make sense in such mature works of Pollock or Mondrian. But as a whole most artist stick to one idea or a single concept throughout their carriers in a struggle for recognition. The plan being if I do the same style and materials for so many years than this will become a recognizable venture into a identity, thus crating a recognizable object. Such artists as John M Miller (who happens to be a painter) has practiced this formula for creating a recognizable object. His patterns of diagonal lines shifted ever so slightly in color or placement on the raw canvas becomes a search for the subtle. Maybe in fact this is a way to to become recognized for a style. Some sculptors such as Richard Sera a Leader in Modern Contemporary Sculpture has worked with extremely large plates of steel for decades. His work changes in subtle and not so subtle ways. One piece may be vertical another horizontal and yet another curved and horizontal etc. In the hands of a true Modern Contemporary Sculptor, the serial approach can be overwhelmingly insightful even when the core concept remains the same.

Christopher Georgesco Welcomes You to Modern Contemporary Sculpture

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