JANET PASSEHL

(USA)

Artist profile

The discrete object, the trust in nuance and its perception mark two works by Janet Passehl, born in 1959 in Massachusetts.  Even in this context, she, a younger ONE More participant, emphasizes delicacy and nuance. The show turns into a small high church of today’s Minimalism, when in 2004 she discreetly dyed a cotton cloth with tea, then ironed, folded and put it on a pedestal for display. 

    Barbara Hesse, Stadt Review, February 2009

Still, the result is surely on a more subtle scale than most work one thinks of done with a chisel and hammer or with modeling clay. Only with mindfulness and familiarity does it become clear that the artist's connection with her material was no less intense. The thinking behind her sculpture, in that respect, is further from a Readymade or a Carl Andre arrangement than it is from work modeled from clay, wood or stone. Yet, the irony is that conceptually, the work comes across as closer to the former category than it does to the latter. It has a foot, so to speak, set gracefully in each place, bridging the conceptual divide in its own confident way.

Even before what one might call 'quick art' – before, perhaps, a Warhol or a Lichtenstein – art that an be depended on to hurry you somewhere – a slowing down will certainly, to a degree, increase the possibilities for appreciation or assimilation. With, on the other hand, work in the nature of an Agnes Martin or an Ad Reinhardt painting, it will do so greatly. The more quiet the work, the greater the dividends from a well-tempered receptivity. Janet Passehl's work shares that gentle, calmate quality with those last mentioned and their kindred spirits in art history. The reward that is promised is nothing less than finding yourself brought gracefully, and solidly, into the moment.

Janet passehl  has since 1908 exhibited through Stalke Galleri.