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Arts Life

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Taking Cues
From Kafka

RISTORANTE ITALIANO

Sculptor Rona Pondick melds human, beast and
steel at Cranbrook, in the first major survey
exhibition of her work.

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SUZANNE CHESSLER

Special to the Jewish News

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S

ona Pondick literally
has placed herself into
e hybrid sculptures
she is showing through
Nov. 30 at the Cranbrook Art
Museum. In the mix of human,
animal and plant structures —
coming together in specific works
— are representations of her own
body parts.
"Rona Pondick: Sculpture
1992-2003" includes 15 projects
with two room-size installations
and an outdoor installation on
the museum grounds. Her surreal
approach comes across in each
piece, including Dog, which uses
stainless steel and combines a
man's head and arms with a dog's
body, and Monkeys, which uses
stainless steel and intertwines
human arms with animal visages.
ta.A*
Pondick's exhibit will be shown
at the same time as the exhibition Rona Pondick: "Dog" 1998-2001, yellow
stainless steel. The sculpture combines a man's
"Transfigurations: The Body in
20th Century Art," which is corn- head and arms with a dog's body.
prised of key works from
Cranbrook's permanent collection
unconventional media to heighten an
and regional private collections to
awareness of the body's materiality and
demonstrate translations and transfor-
vulnerability.
mations of the human subject.
The exhibit chronicles the artist's use
"I've been doing body fragments for
of raw materials, such as wax, fabric, dirt
more than 15 years and started using
and found objects. It moves on to her
my own body parts five years ago,"
interest in stainless steel and silicone to
explains Pondick, 51, whose approach
explore the new frontier of genetics.
relates to Kafka as her cultural hero.
"Each work defines itself as a piece of
"While working on Ear, I made a model art in a historical frame and in my own
from my own ear. I took a life cast from
time," the artist explains about merging
my head, scanned that into the comput-
the past with the present. "I've been
er and formed a mold."
attracted to sculpture because I am
The Cranbrook exhibit will be
three-dimensionally oriented and strong-
Pondick's first major showing in
ly relate to the sense of touch."
Michigan.
Pondick, born in Brooklyn, has been
Joe Houston, who organized the
fascinated by art since she was 5 years
exhibit, planned it to display the broad
old.
spectrum of the artist's investigations
"It's the way I played," she says. "I
into the psychology of the human form
drew as a teenager and always wanted to
to evoke primal human urges, appetites
go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
and desires.
At a very early age, I found myself con-
He also wanted to explore her use of
nected."

Cou rtesy of the So nnab eud Gall

CZoloul to wit