Contemporary Sculpture In Santa Fe: Welcome the Revolution!

Challenging contemporary sculpture abounds in this once conservative bastion

BY REBECCA CLAY

SOUTHWEST PROFILE

         In the global art world, Santa Fe has long been known as a traditional town, thriving on the sales of traditional art. In the realm of sculpture, this has been especially true. Bronze horses running in the wind, patina green children skipping puddles and alabaster Indians gazing mournfully at the moon. Often brilliantly executed, these images still fetch high prices and important clientele.

            But over the years, quietly at first, an entirely different breed of sculptor has begun to show up on the Santa Fe scene artists who would not or could not succumb to regional market expectations and have carved aesthetic presences of their own.

            Santa Fe's best-known home for wayward sculptors is Shidoni Gallery in Tesuque. Without the gallery's ongoing presence and support (it opened in 1971) many nonrepresentational artists might have had to button their idiosyncratic lips and head out of town.

            As fate had it, Shidoni became a sensation, especially with its annual June opening in the eight-acre sculpture garden. And then with time, ironically, Shidoni's early summer sculptural feast got too big. In 1986, over 4,000 people showed up for the event. So that was the last year Shidoni tried to exhibit 25 sculptors at once. The annual June mega-opening, with its uncontrollable popularity, disappeared. But the work that Shidoni has…and continues to champion is here to stay.

            As prime example of the "new" in Santa Fe sculpture, we've chosen six artists who stand out as rebels in a still conservative neighborhood. A few grew up right next door, most brought their irreverent ideas from the outside. Some are more accessible than others, some challenge the intellect and still others tickle the funny bone. And they work in a variety of media, from the most common painted or rusted steel iconoclastic but malleable adobe.

            Ed Haddaway, whose work has been a staple at Shidoni for years, grew up in Fort Worth and now lives in Albuquerque. His bright, basic colors and simple shapes resist the stark monotony of the gallery's white cinder-block walls. One piece in particular, Your Way In Is My Way Out, looks like a series of spontaneous doodles peeled off the gallery wall and left suspended in air. It features a pink spiral, a yellow loop, a jagged set of red teeth, a three-pronged black leaf, and a gate to let you walk under and through it all.

            It's a fantasy trip of abstract forms. The eye traces the shapes and a childlike heart giggles. It seems to tell a story. But to say it's fun is an understatement. To say it's serious might be an overstatement. To analyze it is to render it meaningless. Haddaway's work is for the daydreamer in all of us.

            In sharp contrast are the elegant lines of Beverly Pepper's steel sculptures at the Gerald Peters Gallery………

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