Marisol: Sculptures and Works on Paper

As the Venezuelan artist Marisol experiences a surge of attention, this vivid, thoughtful catalogue, published in association with the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, offers a long overdue reconsideration of her considerable body of work. Although she achieved popular and critical success in the 1960s, a number of colluding factors prevented her from receiving the attention granted many of her contemporaries. These factors include her sometimes unfashionable interest in identity; her refusal to fit comfortably inside easy categorizations of genre, nationality, or material; and her alluring, but distracting social presence. The beautifully reproduced images of her surrealistically pop wood and mixed media sculptures, however, serve as a powerful reminder of her talent, the visual language both familiar and fresh. The accompanying essays (by Bill Anthes, Dore Ashton, Deborah Cullen, and Douglas Dreishpoon) clearly navigate her relation to Latin American art, the history of Pop, and other recurrent themes in her career. It's an overdue accomplishment, then, to let this work speak so clearly for itself, and to engage in a critical dialogue appropriately attuned to a body of art about which so much more could be said. 184 color illus. (Apr.)