More than 700 Dallas art enthusiasts gathered at the Nasher Sculpture Center to get a first look at “Sightings: Mark Grotjahn Sculpture.” The exhibition, on display through August 17, is the first presentation of his sculptures in a museum setting.
Patrons not only got a sneak peek at the works — complex hybrids of sculpture and painting — but they also got to hear from the artist himself. The Nasher combined the opening with its ongoing 360: Artists, Critics, Curators Speaker Series, so Mark Grotjahn chatted with director Jeremy Strick about Grotjahn’s work and the ever-expanding definition of sculpture.
This Nasher exhibition highlights many new, never-before-seen, three-dimensional works. Ranging in size from medium to large-scale, the sculptures derive from common cardboard boxes and tubes that have been combined and cut to roughly resemble masks or faces, then scraped, cast in bronze, and either left raw or elaborately painted.
When guests — including Nancy Nasher, Frank Dufour, Lee Cobb, Lee Dufour and Lucilo Pena — were not ogling the works on view in the upstairs galleries, they were busy socializing in the Nasher garden, enjoying music by DJ Sober, dinner by Wolfgang Puck Catering featuring a bounty of summer produce and ingredients, and popsicles served by Steel City Pops.
Bryan Green, Debbie Green, Mark Grotjahn, Eric Green
