“De Kooning: Sculptures 1972–1974”

As the organizers of this exhibition note, the fabled Abstract Expressionist only turned to sculpture at age 65, but took to the medium like a duck to water. De Kooning especially enjoyed modeling in clay, and spoke about how much he preferred it sometimes over painting because clay made it easier to start from scratch if he felt the work wasn’t going anywhere: He could simply ball up the material and begin all over again, whereas a complete tabula rasa was much harder to achieve with a painting. Clay also lent itself well to De Kooning’s style which relied on the presence of the artist’s hand for its impact. Indeed, the traces of molding, pulling and squeezing left within the clay are works’ most notable features.