The Art Tourist visits Modern Art in a town artists' loved

Whose friend was this guy?

by Terry Talty

February 2005

the Modern Museum in CeretCeret, France – The sculpture of Apel les Fenosa is big. Someone paid a lot to cast it.

The curators of this show found several someones to say great things about the sculptor: that he was trying to sculpt the exciting motion of a flower and a flea; trying to sculpt a smell. These someones talk so familiarly and affectionately about Fenosa, I want to know him, too. I look to the documentation to find who these glowing com mentors are. From their bios provided, they appear to be well-known poets or other literary heroes from their time (middle 20th C.)sculpture

So we should think Fenosa's work is good.

But, his work was normal and the figures seem like they were a commission, something he did for the money.They were trite with fou-fou decorations of drapery on an already romanticized Barbie-like figure. They had the emotionless quality of over-embellished work. He didn't succeed in sculpting a smell. They were vague lumps; from that ugly period of sculpture after Rodin and before Henry Moore . His marks in wax reproduced well in the bronze, but are pinches at the wax, stuff that became so popular when sculptors first used texture just for the sake of texture. Wax is good at taking texture, and I can see how sculptors in this time were fascinated by it. Sometimes texture did nothing for the form. These knobby pinches may be just gratuitous. With time, they hold patina well, but always look dirty.

So, there, maybe I've found their charm. Barbie made ugly.