Judy Pfaff’s room-filling sculptural works have been described as three-dimensional expressionist paintings come to life. Her “brushstrokes” are composed of organic and fabricated objects, repurposed materials, plastics, ceramics, metal strips, foam, and lighting tubes. Hailed as a pioneer of installation art, that accolade all too neatly fixes Pfaff’s place in postwar art history but fails to encompass the remarkable scope of the artist’s decades-long career. Since the 1970s, she has continued to develop her art while constantly experimenting with new techniques, processes, materials and modes of display. Pfaff’s works typically inhabit the space in which they are shown, incorporating the room itself, from floor to ceiling and stretching off the walls. In her site-specific approach, she considers the interior architecture and the outdoors, the geographic features of the location and its history. Often inspired by landscape and natural elements, Pfaff moved to the Hudson Valley more than 25 years ago, first to Kingston, NY, living directly on the Rondout Creek, which flows into the Hudson River. She now lives and works in Tivoli, NY.
Real and Imaginary presents Pfaff’s recent sculptures, mixed-media drawings and works on paper, as well as site-specific installations created for Wave Hill, responding to its gardens and the historic architecture and former domestic interior of the building that now houses Glyndor Gallery. Rather than delineate the divide between the real and imaginary, the title suggests the presence of both, existing simultaneously. Live plants are shown alongside her sculptural ones. Representational forms based on nature are on view, along with shapes derived from the artist’s imagination—and from recollections tied to real life imagery. There are white steel vines and leaves, painted roots and stumps, pigmented expanded foam and lighting tubes that evoke light streaming through the landscape. Although Pfaff does not consider herself an environmental artist, the natural world can be felt throughout her practice, whether she is tending her own garden or making her work. Her interest lies beyond our visible surroundings. Indeed, the world that Pfaff has built within Wave Hill’s gallery extends further than the walls of the space, conjuring visions in the mind’s eye, and creating an entirely new space that is real, imaginary, and both at once.
Glyndor Gallery, Wave Hill
4900 Independence Ave, Bronx, NY
Monday: CLOSED
Tuesday - Sunday: 10 AM - 4:30 PM