April 1990
Although well known as a sculptor of seemingly ephemeral forms, the retrospective of Alan Saret’s work firmly establishes him as a supreme colorist. This is evident throughout Saret’s wide-ranging concerns, but perhaps most eloquently in works like “Green Wave of Air,” from 1967, and a correlative floor piece of copper wire mesh dating from the same period, in which common, bare materials are coerced into delicate transparent forms which have a presence that seems not entirely physical. All the work is concerned in some way with location, proportion, and relation. Highlights of the show include delicate computer-assisted drawings from 1989; these mimic the traced energy produced from atomic smashes and relate back directly to Saret’s familiar “knotted-hair” sculptures. Also of note is the artist’s urban design plans for the floor mosaics of the Pittsburgh airport, which reflect an interest in molecular structures but resemble as well the floor plans for early Romanesque churches. Saret’s interest/ability with color is also exhibited in a near painting, “Sun Chart,” from 1975, and more subtly, but no less adeptly, in his hanging, wall, and floor-works made from various metals. His nickel-wire piece “Annamalaxxy” (1980) is a pile of balled and knotted wire that sits on the floor. The gray of the wire is a mass of beautiful warm-tonalities. The outside form of the piece is defined by light, but as the interior and exterior are penetrable by the selfsame light, the piece becomes directly defined by both its form and matter. Most of all, the experience of Saret’s work is not vicarious, for he provides the visual tools and information with which to create one’s own experience.