Word: planarity
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...only building on this continent and Harvard's most exciting one. You can walk under and through the VAC three different ways without even getting inside. The only entrance is hidden from the street, under an overhang, and near the building's geometric center. Its combination of curved and planar surface screate a kind of dynamic visual movement few buildings have. Its axis is on a diagonal from Quincy St.; but the exterior has no "sides...
...forties, Smith explored this illusionary effect of two dimensionality in a new way with a small welded piece called Head as Figure. Here, Smith made three planar compositions and put them together at right angles. By visual association, the flatness of each of these three units gives the total sculpture an over-all illusion of two dimensionality. If the viewer forgets, for the moment, what he knows about the volume of the sculpture he can see it as a two dimensional composition...
Smith's late works move freely in a full three dimensional space. They rely upon visual illusions to force the viewer to see the works as if they occupy a single plane. In Zig VII, the over-all context of the piece, created by the individual parts, is planar and hence the flat discs tend to suggest two dimensional representation of perpective rather than a tangible volumetric depth...
...representation of a three dimensional object. In Cubi I, the surfaces of the forms in shadow do not appear to go back into space behind the illuminated surfaces, instead they seem to be darker forms in the same plane which suggest shadow. In Cubi XXVIII, Smith, using this planar illusion, forces the viewer to see even the cylindrical forms as flat...
...Wagons, which Smith undertook at the end of his life, have a more playful quality than most of his previous sculptures. The wheels and the lightness of the forms add a greater sensation of motion. But these pieces also attempt to maintain the planar illusion of Smith's previous sculpture. Wagon I teases the viewer with a very full three dimensional, melonlike form in the center of the composition which is made to appear flat by a combination of the planar surfaces of the wheels, the linear effect of the bar on which the forms rests, and the strong effect...