Al Taylor, David Zwirner Gallery

Quirky American Process Artist Al Taylor worked by the motto 'art should give you a new way of seeing’, and the David Zwirner Gallery’s exhibition of his drawings and 3D works aims, in just this way, to give you a new way of seeing sculpture. 

It’s London’s first solo exhibition of Taylor’s work. Focussing on his transition from two- to three-dimensional work in the mid-late 1980s, it’s a showcase of resultant object-assemblages which he refused to see, or describe, as sculpture.

Taylor began working as a painter and draughtsman in 1977, producing fluid, flighty drawings which have been exhibited in their own right in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne. But his work took a new direction in 1980 when he undertook a working trip to Africa, ran out of materials there and, inspired by the ingenious constructions of the street children around him, embarked on his own object-based work on his return to New York with clutter scavenged from the streets. 

This is a showcase of the two most important projects Taylor produced in this new way of working. The Latin Studies series (1984-1985) were among his first experimentations: a series of paintings, drawings and 3D assemblages of carpentry fragments which protrude from the wall space, these are the works that, quite literally, saw him emerge from the canvas and into the space around it.

A second set, spanning 1986 - 1992, comprises works mainly constructed from wooden broomstick handles. Look out for Bra (1987), in which broom-handles in quasi-conical shape protrude horizontally from the gallery wall into the viewer’s space, and  Lays on a Stick (Blue Balls) [1992] – a series of Hawaiian lays suspended from wires in crude, innuendo-ish fashion. 

Referring to these pieces as ‘drawings in space’, he said: 'This work isn’t at all about sculptural concerns; it comes from a flatter set of traditions. What I am really after is finding a way to make a group of drawings that you can look around. Like a pool player, I want to have all the angles covered.’

There’s a cheeky sexual humour here that calls to mind the French conceptual provocateur Marcel Duchamp, to whom Taylor professed admiration. All of which is couched in a thrilling exploration of the interrelationship of drawing and sculpture, and the relationship of art to the space around it.