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LOWELL MILLER

LOWELL MILLER’S LIFE FORMS by David Ebony

“

We must never think of forms, in their different states, as sim-

ply suspended in some remote, abstract zone, above the earth and above humankind. They mingle with life, whence they come;

”

they translate into space certain movements of the mind.

— Henri Focillon, The Life of Forms in Art

t first, Lowell Miller’s diminutive, quasi-figurative, semiabstract sculptures in bronze, plaster, ceramic, concrete, resin and stone appear as maquettes for monumental pieces. Each conveys a self-assured dignity, a command of space and an easy grace that suggests an imposing presence. One can imagine any one of them twelve feet tall, dominating some sprawling public park or urban plaza. On closer inspection, the intimate scale seems exactly right. These are personal works—private musings articulated in the sculptural language of form, material, texture, subtle color variations and spatial relationships. Everywhere the artist’s hand is evident, expertly manipulating the material and imbuing each work with an emotional resonance. Often sculpted in clay, plaster or wax, and later cast in bronze, the works retain a talismanic quality, each with an ostensible esoteric purpose and meaning. Unreachable; 2014; epoxy, proprietary cement, pigment; 15 x 12 x 21 inches edition of 6 unique variants front cover: Venus, 2012–13, painted bronze and mixed media, 15 x 15.5 x 12 inches, edition of 6 unique variants

Often comic or erotic, these undulating organic forms hint at animal shapes or the human figure, body parts, bodily functions and sometimes specific psychological states. Consider Miller’s two-foot-high bronze Venus. Here, he presents an iconic representation of the goddess of love as an anthropomorphized configuration of what appear to be mollusk shells. A rotund body with a richly textured surface recalls a large upright clam shell. Two small, partially opened clam-like forms suggest orifices—the one topping the piece implies a mouth, while the other, enfolded into the lower portion of the body, hints at female genitalia. Strange and striking, the bronze somehow conjures Botticelli’s famous Birth of Venus. Intentionally primitive in its rudimentary components, full of humor in its audacity, and raw in its earthly countenance, Miller’s work, one might argue, serves as an equally seductive homage to beauty. Speedo is a similarly imaginative tribute to the feminine ideal, albeit minus the figure. Barely a foot high, this delicately wrought bronze with a gilt patina shows a disembodied onepiece bathing suit standing upright. Holes for the legs and shoulder straps, plus the subtly nuanced torso, help represent the athletic yet absent woman who may have donned the glistening swimwear. With his highly abstracted forms and understated gestures, Miller can wrest a feeling of movement and tactile sensuality from the most inert materials. In Unreachable, he presents a gently curving shape made of hard cement that viewers can read as a soft substance, as a foam or a gel, perhaps. Even with the rigidity of cement, one can somehow sense in this work the stresses and strains deep within the body as it “reaches” for an unspoken or unarticulated goal.

Speedo, 2011, bronze, 11.5 x 4.15 x 6 inches, edition of 6 unique variants

Black Figure, 1996 bronze 13.5 x 11.25 x 7.5 inches edition of 6 unique variants

More literal renderings of the figure appear in works such as Fertile Thought and Black Figure. The latter is a boldly abstracted image of a kneeling woman posing with raised arms locked behind her head; the sculpture recalls certain works by Alberto Giacometti. Fertile Thought is a haunting image of a hybrid half-human, half-animal in a crouching position on all fours. Balanced on top of this creature is a standing female figure with a horse’s head and a long serpentine arm receiving a spermatazoic “thought” in a kind of ritual gesture. Compared with most of Miller’s work, these two pieces are clearly representational and more obvious in their sculptural conventions. They both reflect a deep reverence for art history, and underscore Miller’s complex and engaging dialogue with modernist sculpture. In its apparent correspondence with Max Ernst’s work, Fertile Thought is the closest Miller comes to employing the methodology and imagery of Surrealism, while Black

Fertile Thought, 2010–12 bronze 15.5 x 3 x 4.15 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Figure addresses the impact of African art—via Cubism—and other non-European sculptural traditions on the development of contemporary Western art. In formal and conceptual terms, however, Miller allies himself more closely with a group of contemporary sculptors, including Saint Clair Cemin, Tristano di Robilant and Joel Fisher, whose organic abstractions encompass an exploration of emotional or psychic states through poetic distortions of the figure. Miller’s singular approach to reductive imagery, heading in the direction of pure abstraction, often stems from Brancusi’s work. Mixed Emotions is an excellent example of Miller’s use of reductive forms to maximize emotional affect. While more modest in scale and private in scope than a work like Brancusi’s Newborn (1915), for instance, Mixed Emotions has a unique allure all its own. It consists of small, rounded head-like shape with a coppery patina, bearing a wide curving gouge at the top, like a

Businessman represents another tormented humanoid. This small ceramic work features bulbous shapes indicating a torso and head, with a strand of found-rope tied around its neck, suggesting either necktie or noose. Self Defense, 2008–13, painted bronze 10 x 9 x 7 inches, edition of 6 unique variants

Mixed Emotions, 2013, polychrome painted bronze with wood box 13 x 16 x 11 inches, edition of 6 unique variants

mouth crying out in either agony or joy. With the head attached to a blocky pedestal and the whole encased in a white-painted wood wall mount, the work exudes a carefully orchestrated theatricality. Closely related in formal terms, featuring a schematic headlike shape fixed to a blocky mount, Self Defense conveys the poignant psychological dimension characteristic of Miller’s work. The head rises just above and behind an irregular rectangular shield made of what appears to be corrugated red-tinted metal. The work seems emblematic of a defensive position in life, a natural response to physical or psychological aggression.

Looking for Louise, 2011, bronze with wood box, 13 x 16 x 11 inches edition of 6 unique variant

Looking for Louise features a cluster of erect phallic shapes, on one side of a squat bronze pedestal, communing with a sole doughnut form on the other end. The sexual symbolism is apparent, as is the composition’s title reference, alluding to the late Louise Bourgeois, an artist to whom Miller feels a special allegiance. The relationship makes sense in light of both artists’ radical experiments with the figure and similar exploration of the human condition by means of a specialized kind of metamorphosis. Businessman, 2012, ceramic and rope, 6.5 x 3.5 x 4.5 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Miller’s playful Lemon Squeeze is a wholly abstract construction made of tall metal posts painted yellow, with vice-like screws pressing at the center a concrete bubble shape that seems about to burst. This brilliant and prescient work was made just before Miller found himself nightmarishly stuck in a narrow passageway known as “Lemon Squeeze,” while rock climbing—though he conceived and named the piece Mr. Lyme, 2012, painted bronze, 8 x 4.5 x 4.25 many months before inches, edition of 6 unique variants this anxious encounter. As in this piece, there is a consistently wry sense of humor that permeates all of Miller’s works. His droll attitude toward human foibles is apparent in Mr. Lyme, a demonic-looking wall-hung bronze figure covered with black-and-white-painted stripes like those of an old prison uniform. With horns jutting from its blocky head and penis dangling between its crooked legs, this arresting object recalls a witch’s poppet or a tribal fetish. Miller created the piece in response to a battle with long-term undiagnosed Lyme disease. Lemon Squeeze, 2014 63.3 x 15 x 15 inches metal, wood, proprietary cement edition of 6 unique variants 12

Autobiographical, perhaps, or, at the very least, self-referential, Miller’s work is drawn from the artist’s emotional state, body awareness, and worldview. His life forms make us squirm, blush, smile, and sometimes wince. Above all, his sculptural vocabulary gives voice to the deep and private primal self. —David Ebony is currently a contributing editor of Art in America magazine. He is also the author of a regular column for Yale University Press online. He lives and works in New York City.

Lower Life Form, 2010–14, bronze, 5.25 x 5.25 x 5 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Rolling Away, 2010, bronze with wood pedestal, 12 x 12 x 5.75 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Source of Thought, 2011 bronze, 5.3 x 7 x 3.5 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Hall Monitor, 2011 painted bronze, 8.5 x 4.5 x 4 inches edition of 6 unique variants

page 18: Critical, 1979–2014 ceramic, 11.25 x 5 x 10 inches edition of 6 unique variants page 19: Thirsty, 2013 proprietary cement and pigment, 15.5 x 9 x 31.5 inches edition of 6 unique variants 16

Introspection, 2013, ceramic, 9.75 x 5 x 4.75 inches, edition of 6 unique variants

Primitive Man, 2012 polychrome bronze, 6 x 6 x 3.75 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Time, 1977–2014 ceramic, 10.3 x 4.3 x 2 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Fuck Me, 2010–12 painted bronze, 10 x 6 x 4.15 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Yellow Goddess, 2010 bronze, 14 x 6.5 x 5.75 inches edition of 6 unique variants

page 22: Buddha Walking in a Field of Eggs, 1982–2014 ceramic, 17 x 7.3 x 6.3 inches edition of 6 unique variants page 23: Seated Figure, 1988 painted bronze, 11 x 6 x 4.3 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Beach Scene; 2011–14; polychrome bronze, sand, wood; 5.25 x 20 x 24 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Extension, 2010, polychrome bronze, 7.5 x 15 x 4.25 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Conversing, 2013–14 ceramic, wood, fabric; 18 x 24 x 6.5 inches; edition of 6 unique variants Invisible Objects, 2014, ceramic and epoxy 20 x 24 x 4.3 inches, edition of 6 unique variants

Trophy, 2012 bronze with wood wall mount, 15 x 11.25 inches, edition of 6 unique variants 26

Number Nine, 2011–14 bronze, 9 x 6 x 1.5 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Simple Shaman, 2013 ceramic, wood, rope; 18 x 18 x 1.75 inches edition of 6 unique variants 27

Bad News from the Doctor, 2006 bronze, 11 x 5.5 x 10 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Bloom, 2010 bronze, 14.5 x 9 x 4.5 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Burger King, 2010–14 polychrome bronze, 5.5 x 4 x 3.25 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Sharp Thought, 2010 bronze, 18 x 4 x 4.5 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Couple at Home, 1992–2012 polychrome, painted bronze with wood frame 31 x 36 x 2.15 inches, edition of 6 unique variants

opposite: Couple at Home, detail

Neck Support, 2012 bronze with wood box 15.75 x 15.15 x 3.5 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Couple, 2010–14 bronze with wood box, 31 x 36 x 2.15 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Vegetarian Shark, 2009–14 bronze, 5 x 15 x 5 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Skirt, 2003–14, bronze 12.75 x 8 x 7 inches edition of 6 unique variants

All Excited, 2009, ceramic and wax 10 x 11.75 x 19.75 inches edition of 6 unique variants

opposite: Birth of Venus, 2006–12, ceramic and wax 10 x 9 x 8.5 inches edition of 6 unique variants

Ready for Fun, 2010–14 polychrome bronze, 9 x 30.5 x 8 inches, edition of 6 unique variants

Infrastructure, 2010 bronze, 9.5 x 7 x 9 inches, edition of 6 unique variants

ARTIST STATEMENT

n the early 1970s Lowell Miller experienced a near-total transformation as a result of Reichian and Bioenergetic practices, and almost immediately began showing sculpture in New York and publishing poetry in Rolling Stone magazine. Disenchanted with the art world scene, he moved to the Hudson Valley, continuing his exploration of sculpture and text while at the same time pursuing a successful career in business (taking heart from Andy Warhol’s comment that “being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art”). Mentored for many years by Wade Saunders (sculptor, director of Sculpture at R.I.S.D. and long-time sculpture critic for Art in America), Miller has pushed to capture the somatic side of emotion and aesthetic feeling, seeking a vocabulary of object and gesture that provides a “body” for the inarticulable. He seeks to infuse an object with primal experience of the sort that’s common to all of us but often obscured by our civilized concerns and attentions. We’ve come far from our aboriginal ancestors, and yet we retain much of their consciousness and unconsciousness. Reaching for contact with that elemental part of us is the subject of Miller’s work. Winged Victory, 2013 proprietary cement, epoxy and mixed media 28 x 30 x 10.5 inches, edition of 6 unique variants

August 2001, 2011–13, aluminum and wood, 11.25 x 24.75 x11.5 inches edition of 6 unique variants

My Death, 2014, bronze, 10 x 13 x 4 inches, edition of 6 unique variants

opposite: Sailing, 2011–14, painted polychrome bronze 9.75 x 9.25 x 7 inches edition of 6 unique variants back cover: Angel, 1988–2014, polychrome bronze, 8 x 7.25 x 2.25 inches edition of 6 unique variants 42