Lila Katzen

Lila Katzen (Brooklyn, NY, 30 December 1925 – 20 September 1998, New York, NY), born Lila Pell, was an American sculptor of fluid, large-scale metal abstractions.[1]

Education and early work

Katzen attended Cooper Union and later studied under Hans Hofmann in New York and Provincetown, MA. Her first solo exhibition was held at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1955, when she was still a painter. Later Katzen had solo exhibitions at the Montgomery Museum of Art in Alabama and the Ulrich Museum of Art in Kansas among others. In 1962, Katzen accepted a position at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, where she remained until 1980.

Lila Katzen was discouraged from continuing her study of sculpture by her professor at Cooper Union, who told her that she must be a painter because she “wanted things to happen too quickly”[2] Katzen’s paintings were abstract, semi-figurative works, in which she took certain aspects from the figure and related them to a spatial concept. As she developed her skills in painting, Katzen began to look for a challenge by experimenting with different, more sculptural kinds of painting. She progressed from collages on canvas, to staining nylon canvases. Eventually, feeling restricted by even the semi-transparent nylon, Katzen started to paint on acrylic sheets in the late 1950s.[3]

Acrylic paintings allowed Katzen to make a transition into sculpture. She experimented with fluorescent paints and backlights, using light as a medium in itself.[4] In The Pressure Light, Katzen discovered that light was more complex when it could interact with the environment. This led her to begin to explore the duality of light being confined within the boundary of the piece and simultaneously explaining beyond its boundaries and including the spectator in the art itself.[5]

Monumental sculpture

Katzen's experiments and discoveries led her to construct Light Floors, exhibited at the Architectural League in New York in 1968. Light Floors was constructed in a geometric motif and displayed across the floors of three rooms in the gallery. Both yellow and ultraviolet lights were shown in different sequences through the acrylic. A press release for the installation noted that, “Miss Katzen exercises complete control over her medium. She states that ‘light in all its aspects is employed. Reflectiveness, transparency, emission, and the transformation from spatial to temporal coordinates is situated.’ The result is that ‘arbitrariness and effect are canceled out.”[6] Katzen continued to use light as a medium in The Universe is the Environment (1969) and Liquid Tunnel, an octagonal tunnel that featured fluorescent light shown through water, which played with the variations of optics and the similarities of liquids and solids.[7]

In the early 1970s, completely immersed in and known for her sculptures, Katzen created some of her best-known works, such as Slip Edge Bliss (1973) and Trajho (1973). Both explore the flexibility of their materials. Katzen stretched and manipulated metals, such as steel and aluminum, to make them appear fluid and ribbon-like. The metal needed to be manipulated immediately and with full knowledge of what the artist wanted to accomplish. The artist explained, "No chance for mistakes. You can’t reroll it. It’ll lose its elasticity."[8] Starting with thin sheets of metal foil, Katzen would manipulate and fold the material with her fingers, transforming the cold steel with human sensuality. As Donald Kulspit noted,

"the graciousness of Katzen's supple, textured stainless steel and bronze (sometimes aluminum sculptures) curve like voluptuous ribbon, often climaxing in what can only be regarded as a kind of bow.”[9]

Many of Katzen’s sculptures are large outdoor works. All are designed to relate to their environment, which references her earlier trials and discoveries with light. Katzen also designed her sculptures to withstand and even encourage human interaction, a direct contrast to the Minimalist aesthetic that was so prevalent in the 1960s.[10] Katzen developed deep emotional connections to her work, considering them to be like her children. She has said that she “feels marvelous when her works find a home”[11]

Her work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Santa Monica, CA.

Feminism

Katzen was also an outspoken opponent of sexual discrimination and was known for her commitment to the feminist movement in the arts. Katzen recounted her own experiences with sexual discrimination. According to her, while her teacher, Hans Hofmann, was supportive of her work while in the studio, he became irritated when he discovered she was serious about her career as an artist. One incident, during a dinner party that Katzen planned for Hofmann and his friends, Hofmann gave a toast to art declaring, "Only the men have the wings."[12] Katzen was outraged and the two argued. In fact, Katzen’s art was viewed differently because of her outspoken feminisn: a New York Times review of a sculpture called Ruins and Constructions linked Katzen’s use of Mayan motifs to her "militant feminism."[13]

References

  1. ↑ "Lila Katzen, 72, Sculptor of Abstract Works. Obituary". The New York Times. 4 October 1998.
  2. ↑ Nemser, p. 205.
  3. ↑ Nemser, p. 210.
  4. ↑ Nemser, pp. 213-216.
  5. ↑ Nemser, p. 216.
  6. ↑ "Environment V: Light Floors". The Architectural League of New York. Retrieved November 28, 2014.
  7. ↑ Nemser, p. 219.
  8. ↑ Munro, p.232.
  9. ↑ "Lila Katzen". Grounds for Sculpture. Retrieved April 3, 2013.
  10. ↑ Nemser, p. 220.
  11. ↑ "Lila Katzen". Grounds for Sculpture. Retrieved April 3, 2013.
  12. ↑ Munro, p. 208
  13. ↑ Raynor, Vivien (1984). "Art: Bronze Sculptures of Renoir and Guino: Review". The New York Times.

Sources