Susan Rodgers | The Sculpture Center |NEW YORK TIMES | 2.22.85

This is one of the most distinguished groups of abstract sculptures to be shown in a New York gallery this season. Susan Rodgers's welded steel drawings in space come out of Julio Gonzalez, Alexander Calder and Anthony Caro. What she brings to that tradition is a greater dependence on two dimensions in order to create the sensation of three, a simplicity of shape and a chamber music orchestration of forms. Rodgers does not seem to bend and weld her strips of steel as much as to conduct them. The astonishingly high pitch of these works is enough to distinguish them from the macho, Formalist strains of the welded steel tradition.

Like Caro's, Rodgers's work depends upon creating and then foiling expectations in a way that elicits bodily responses. She will establish a plane, then quietly break it, in the process setting everything in the work on pins and needles. The space between two adjacent lines may become as volumetric as a taut back. By leaving two strips of steel unjoined that seem to have been meant to be joined, she can make the lines and shapes seem almost kinetic. There is an esthetic sensibility here that is very fine indeed. READ MORE

With her exhibition at the Gruenebaum Gallery (415 West Broadway, through April 4), Susan Rodgers has established herself as one of the best steel sculptors around. She works with scraps that she finds mainly in junkyards. She lengthens or shortens, twists or bends the steel, but leaves it fundamentally unaltered. Some scraps are welded together, others left unjoined: this fluent, confident, seemingly harmonious vision is filled with absence.

Sculpturally, the works are light. Rodgers is drawn to slivers rather than blocks of steel. Her works prance rather than lumber, dance through space rather than occupy it. Her line is closer to Paul Klee than to David Smith. Because her sculptures seems so light physically, she can be at ease with heavy subjects. In ''Goodbye Dad,'' the steel flower and waving gesture have a flipness and ambivalence that give this statement of farewell its conviction and poignancy.

The work is fully rooted in the history of welded steel sculpture. There are clear signs of Gonzalez and David Smith. Rodgers's growing involvement both with defying gravity and remaining firmly on the ground brings to mind the more fully three-dimensional sculpture of Anthony Caro. But, unlike her Formalist ancestors, Rodgers takes imagery not just from the landscape, but also from religion and myth. To a sculptural tradition that has been dominated by issues of technique and form, she has a chance to add an imaginative breadth. READ MORE

PRESS FEATURING INDIVIDUAL PIECES

Susan Rodgers | SCULPTURE KEY WEST | 2009

Enlightened by her past experience exhibiting in the field behind historic Ft. Zachary Taylor, artist Susan Rodgers has created an ephemeral floating, unobtainable facade of the perfect Dream House.
Rodgers works from studios in Key West and Lenox, MA and is represented in prestigious museums, galleries and private collections throughout the country

Sculpture Key West is an annual exhibition of contemporary outdoor sculpture located in Key West, Florida. The mission of Sculpture Key West is to be an important, internationally recognized platform for contemporary sculpture while educating and inspiring the community of the Florida Keys and its visitors.

In 1995, local sculptor Jim Racchi called on a handful of local sculptors to install their work on the seawall, facing the sunset at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. Over the years, the exhibition has grown to a nationally recognized exhibition, showcasing international and world-class artists. READ MORE