Word: block
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...York Senators Charles Goodell and Jacob Javits, both Republicans, believe that Morgenthau should be allowed to complete unfinished projects. Either could block Seymour's appointment by invoking "senatorial courtesy." According to tradition, the Judiciary Committee will not consider an appointment unless both Senators from the state involved give their approval...
...first artists to look appreciatively at these molds was Alfonso Ossorio, an obsessive assemblagist who produces gaudy conglomerations out of the found objects that he squirrels away against the day when he may need them. By now he has accumulated hundreds of hat blocks at his East Hampton studio, has used scores in his sculptures. Blocks have also long fascinated Arne Ekstrom, director of the Cordier & Ekstrom gallery. When he got the notion of supplying various artists with a block of their choice to see what they could produce, he asked to use Ossorio's collection as a source...
Discovered Figure. The resulting show, called "Blocked Metaphors," is a testament to the artists' variety and ingenuity. Saul Steinberg, for instance, discovered that his own block had been made to come apart so that a finished hat could be removed without tearing. He was so taken with the beauty of the original that he decided merely to rearrange the parts. "The figure emerged spontaneously," he says, and it reminded him of Renaissance portraits of Italian patricians. In his antic fashion, Steinberg named his creation Il Duca di Mantova, after the playboy nobleman in Rigoletto. Bernard Pfriem, a New York...
...Dadaist who is still alive and well and living in Paris, transformed his hat block into a blockhead by adding dark glasses and a scholar's mortarboard. L'Imposteur reads the caption at the bottom. Martin Carey, a fine-line draftsman of frogs, insects and flowers, turned his block on its side, decorated it with butterflies and found, much to his surprise, that it reminded him of both an owl and a soldier's helmet. Jasper Johns coated his block with metallic plaster-and his dealer put a price of $9,000 on it. Andy Warhol stripped...
Today the hat-block industry relies on aluminum forms as well. But Harry Glasgall, founder of the Empire Hat Block Corp., which designed and manufactured most of the blocks in the show, confessed that he was "flabbergasted" when he saw what had been done with his product. "Everything I saw there was something I had seen, made or handled myself. It never crossed my mind that they could become art objects." He foresees no run on old hat blocks, however. Empire, in fact, has just burned a couple of thousand for lack of space...