Arlene Shechet (born 1951) is an American sculptor known for her inventive, gravity-defying arrangements and experimental use of diverse materials.Adamson, Glenn
"How Arlene Shechet Makes Her Recalcitrant Materials Come Alive,"
''Art in America'', May 3, 2024. Retrieved July 29, 2024.Ollman, Leah

''Los Angeles Times'', April 29, 2019. Retrieved September 26, 2023.Rapaport, Brooke Kamin
"Body-To-Body Experience,"
''Sculpture Magazine'', June 2016, p. 30–35. Retrieved September 26, 2023. Critics describe her work as both technical and intuitive, hybrid and polymorphous, freely mixing surfaces, finishes, styles and references to create visual paradoxes.Murtha, Chris
"Arlene Shechet,"
''Artforum'', October 28, 2016. Retrieved September 26, 2023.Micchelli, Thomas
"Parallel Strains: Arlene Shechet's Ceramic Abstractions,"
''Hyperallergic'', October 19, 2013. Retrieved September 26, 2023.Smith, Roberta

''The New York Times'', November 8, 2013. Retrieved September 26, 2023. Her abstract-figurative forms often function as metaphors for bodily experience and the human condition, touching upon imperfection and uncertainty with humor and pathos.Molon, Dominic. ''Arlene Shechet: Meissen Recast'', Dominic Molon, Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, Elizabeth A. Williams, Judith Tannenbaum and Arlene Shechet, New York: Gregory R. Miller & Co, 2015.Thorn, Bruce. "Arlene Shechet: In the Meantime at Corbett vs. Dempsey," ''New Art Examiner'', July 2017.Taft, Catherine
"Arlene Shechet,"
''Artforum'', June 2022. Retrieved September 26, 2023. ''New York Times'' critic

Holland Cotter Holland Cotter is an American writer and co-chief art critic with ''The New York Times''. In 2009, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Life and work Cotter was born in Connecticut and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his A.B. fr ...

wrote that her career "has encompassed both more or less traditional ceramic pots and wildly experimental abstract forms: amoebalike, intestinal, spiky, sexual, historically referential and often displayed on fantastically inventive pedestals … this is some of the most imaginative American sculpture of the past 20 years."Cotter, Holland
"Arlene Shechet Has a First Museum Retrospective in Boston."
''The New York Times'', July 19, 2015. Retrieved September 26, 2023. Shechet's work belongs to the public collections of the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

,Centre Pompidou
Arlene Shechet
Artists. Retrieved September 25, 2023.

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

,Metropolitan Museum of Art
''Seeing Is Believing'', Arlene Shechet
Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023.

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

,National Gallery of Art
Arlene Shechet, ''Twin Rockers'', 2007
Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023. and

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...

, among others.Los Angeles County Museum of Art
''Eye Level'', Arlene Shechet
Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2023. She has exhibited at the

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

,Whitney Museum of American Art
Arlene Shechet
Artists. Retrieved September 25, 2023.

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an art museum and exhibition space located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The museum was founded as the Boston Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Since then it has gone through multiple name chang ...

Frick Collection The Frick Collection (colloquially known as the Frick) is an art museum on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was established in 1935 to preserve the collection of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The collection (museum) ...

, Storm King Art Center and

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill, Minneapolis, Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in ...

, among other venues.Walker Art Center
"Dirt on Delight: Impulses That Form Clay,"
2009. Retrieved July 29, 2024. She was inducted into the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...

as a lifetime member in 2023, and received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in 2004.American Academy of Arts and Letters
"2023 Newly Elected Members,"
News, February 21, 2023. Retrieved September 25, 2023.John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Arlene Shechet
Fellows. Retrieved September 25, 2023. She lives and works in New York City and the nearby

Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley or Hudson River Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. The region stretches from the Capital District (New York), Capital District includi ...

.''Art 21''
Arlene Shechet
Artists. Retrieved September 25, 2023.

Early life and career

Shechet was born in 1951 in New York City. She earned a BA from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

and an MFA from

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

(RISD) in 1978. After graduating, she taught at RISD from 1978 to 1985 and at the

Parsons School of Design The Parsons School of Design is a private art and design college under The New School located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhattan art ...

from 1984 to 1995.Hass, Nancy
"Arlene Shechet's 'Girl Group' Nudges Heavy Metal Men at Storm King,"
''The New York Times'', April 27, 2024. Retrieved July 29, 2024.''Ceramics Now''
"Arlene Shechet."
Retrieved September 25, 2023. In the 1990s her sculpture centered on mound-like plaster and paint forms, the shapes of which were reminiscent of seated Buddhas.Hirsch, Faye
"Buckle and Flow,"
''Art in America'', January 2012, p. 58–64. Retrieved September 26, 2023. During that time, a grant from the Dieu Donné Papermill in New York in 1995 led Shechet to initiate work in cast paper that mimicked clay and Chinese porcelain ware.Smith, Kiki. "Artists Choice: Arlene Shechet," ''Art on Paper'', November/December, 2003.Ruth, Tara. "Double or Nothing: Mimicry in Contemporary Art using Handmade Paper," ''Hand Papermaking'', No. 24, 2009.Abruzzo, James and Mina Takahashi
"Chairman and Director's Messages,"
Dieu Donné Papermill. Retrieved September 25, 2023. In the early 2000s she began receiving critical notice for sculpture and installations that built upon both bodies of work and explored Buddhist iconography and themes of flux, growth, enlightenment.Johnson, Ken

''The New York Times'', May 3, 2002, p. E40. Retrieved September 26, 2023.Temin, Christine. "Perspectives: Assorted Artists Capture 'Rapture,'" ''Boston Globe'', February 2, 2000, p. D1.''The New York Times''

June 23, 2001, p. B7. Retrieved September 26, 2023.Koplos, Janet. "Arlene Shechet at A/D," ''Art in America'', January 2002, p. 109–10.Harrison, Helen A

''The New York Times'', January 5, 2003. Retrieved September 26, 2023. Recognition came after Shechet turned to clay as her principal medium in the latter 2000s, when she began producing glazed vessel-sculptures with forms alluding to pot handles, limbs and snouts, lamps and abstracted dancers.Smith, Roberta

''The New York Times'', September 14, 2007, p. E41. Retrieved October 26, 2023.Hirsch, Faye. "Arlene Shechet at Elizabeth Harris," ''Art in America'', February 2008. In a 2007 review, ''New York Times'' critic

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times. Education and early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawre ...

wrote that these works were "full of references yet almost debt-free ... mov ngeffortlessly between art and religion and East and West, and from painting and sculpture to craft and ritual." Museum exhibitions followed, including solo shows at the Tang Museum (2009) and Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2009),Berry, Ian. ''Arlene Shechet: Blow by Blow'', Saratoga Springs, NY: Tang Museum, 2009.MacMillan, Kyle. "MCA exhibits showcase big names, big ambitions from Big Apple," ''Denver Post'', November 22, 2009. and later, the Weatherspoon Art Museum (2013) and Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2015, a twenty-year survey), among others.Smee, Sebastian
"Sculptor Arlene Shechet evokes inner life in new ICA exhibition,"
''The Boston Globe'', June 18, 2015. Retrieved October 25, 2023.

Work and reception

Critics distinguish Shechet's later sculpture by its contrasts, paradoxes of form, style and process, and unpredictable ranges of hue and texture.

Sebastian Smee Sebastian Smee is an Australian-born Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for ''The Washington Post'' and the author of several books on art history. Education and career Educated at St Peter's College, Adelaide, St Peter's College, Adelaide, Smee ...

of ''The Boston Globe'' wrote, "It's in the harmonies and tensions between these colors and textures, between suggestions of both order and anarchy, decay and blooming freshness, that these works cough, splutter, and sing … Shechet knows that this life is at once fugitive and monumental, characterized by strange, dreamlike changes of pace, unreasonable, asymmetrical, and ultimately unknowable." Of note is the contrast between Shechet's open-ended, intuitive method, which embraces improvisation, accidents and rule-breaking, and the technical skill and rigor that underlies it, which encompasses fabrication, carving and clay-firing experiments with innovated glaze.Benschop, Jurriaan
"Arlene Shechet, Nature Morte,"
''Artforum'', February 2013. Retrieved October 26, 2023.Kapplow, Heather. "Arlene Shechet's Unified Theory of Ceramics," ''Hyperallergic'', September 2, 2015. Retrieved October 25, 2023.Hambleton, Merrell

''The New York Times'', February 27, 2020. Retrieved September 26, 2023. In the solo exhibitions "The Sound of It" ( Jack Shainman Gallery, 2010) and "Slip" (Sikkema Jenkins & Co., 2013), Shechet presented ungainly biomorphic ceramic forms on bases made of cast concrete, kiln bricks and painted hardwood, among other materials.Rooney, Kara
"Arlene Shechet: The Sound of It,"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', November 2010. Retrieved September 26, 2023. The two components functioned as physically and formally inseparable wholes, with the podiums in many cases constituting some of the most commented upon elements of individual works. In a similar upending of formal-versus-functional boundaries, the first show included clusters of bowls, jugs and vitrines—none of practical usefulness—and inversions of the clay firing process in which the free forms were left in their original, unglazed state and the kiln-brick bases given detailed colorful attention.Ventura, Anya
"Review: Arlene Shechet: Meissen Recast,"
''Big Red and Shiny'', April 2, 2014. Retrieved October 25, 2023. ''New Yorker'' critic

Peter Schjeldahl Peter Charles Schjeldahl (; March 20, 1942 – October 21, 2022) was an American art critic, poet, and educator. He was noted for being the head art critic at ''The New Yorker'', having earlier written for ''The Village Voice'', ''ARTnews'', and ...

declared this work to be "Intimately brawny," and added, "the show lets us in on the studio eurekas of an artist with energy and second-nature mastery to burn."Schjeldahl, Peter. "Arlene Shechet," ''The New Yorker'', September 28, 2010. Both exhibitions illustrated another paradox in Shechet's work—the centrality of movement to her essentially solid and fixed sculpture.''The New Yorker''
"Arlene Shechet,"
November 4, 2013. Retrieved September 26, 2023. Her arrangements both adhere to and defy physics, deriving formal and metaphorical tension from what ''The Brooklyn Rail'' called a sense of "dialectical balance"—motion without movement—variously suggesting growth, transformation or near-collapse (e.g., ''Because of the Wind'', 2010). A related aspect reviewers have noted is her work's capacity to seemingly morph or "impart multiple identities" when viewed from different angles due to its asymmetries, surprising forms, and highly varied surfaces. Movement and balance—yielding a sense of precariousness and contingency—also convey two key aspects of Shechet's sculpture: humor and pathos. Humor also arises out of her improvised biomorphic forms, which writers have described as rough-hewn, simultaneously awkward and self-supporting, and comical in their harboring of unexpected apertures, bizarre appendages, protrusions and outcroppings, and displaced limbs and growths. The sculpture ''No Noise'' (2013) epitomizes these qualities, suggesting a large-pored, coral biomorph with a nose-like bump that seems upended, as though it had slipped on a banana peel; Roberta Smith likened it to a "flailing hot-water bottle."

Curatorial projects

Shechet's work is widely referential, often situating itself within and outside art historical contexts and broader culture, and in relation to the spaces it inhabits.Rhodes, David
"Arlene Shechet: Skirts,"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', April 2020. Retrieved October 26, 2023. In 2014, she began curating a series of playful, subversive exhibitions pairing historical works from museum collections with her own sculpture.Chan, Dawn
"Arlene Shechet,"
''Artforum'', January 15, 2014. Retrieved October 26, 2023.Dailey, Meghan

''The New York Times'', May 24, 2016. Retrieved September 26, 2023.The Phillips Collection
"Intersections: Arlene Shechet – From Here On Now."
Events, October 19, 2016. Retrieved September 25, 2023.Harvard Art Museums
"Disrupt the View: Arlene Shechet at the Harvard Art Museums,"
Exhibitions, 2022. Retrieved September 25, 2023. The exhibitions "Meissen Recast" (

RISD Museum The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum) is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877. It is the 20th-largest art m ...

, 2014) and "Porcelain, No Simple Matter" (Frick Collection, 2016) grew out of her two-year residency at the famed

Meissen porcelain Meissen porcelain or Meissen china was the first Europe, European hard-paste porcelain. Early experiments were done in 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger continued von Tschirnhaus's ...

factory in Germany in 2012–3; notably, she was the first living artist to exhibit in depth at the Frick.Camhi, Leslie
"Porcelain Comes to Life at Sculptor Arlene Shechet's New Exhibition at The Frick Collection,"
''Vogue'', May 26, 2016. Retrieved October 26, 2023.Scott, Andrea K
"Porcelain, No Simple Matter: Arlene Shechet and the Arnhold Collection,"
''The New Yorker'', June 27, 2016. Retrieved September 26, 2023. In both shows she highlighted the luxury tableware and figurines as industrial objects, juxtaposing them in highly unorthodox placements with her own new, hybrid sculptures. One pairing at the Frick featured a 1730 lotus-inspired porcelain bowl appearing to hover over a rougher object that Shechet cast from the outside of the original bowl's mold; other works were made through irreverent samplings of figurative fragments and various manufacturing by-products. Her subversions of high-low, art-functional hierarchies extended to museum display conventions, with custom walls that were cut away or echoed the factory molds, sideboards, protruding shelves and unorthodox materials and surfaces. Andrea Scott of the ''New Yorker'' described the Frick exhibition as a "balancing act between respectful and radical." Shechet revisited this approach in "Disrupt the View: Arlene Shechet at the

Harvard Art Museums The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

(2021), presenting recent work alongside historical German, Japanese, and Chinese works of porcelain and other objects. In the museum-wide exhibition "From Here On Now" (Phillips Collection, 2017), she paired her sculpture with paintings from the museum's collection by

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artwork ...

, Mondrian,

Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

Morris Louis Morris Louis Bernstein (November 28, 1912 – September 7, 1962), known professionally as Morris Louis, was an American painter. During the 1950s he became one of the earliest exponents of Color Field painting. While living in Washington, D ...

and

Walker Evans Walker Evans (November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist best known for his work for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documenting the effects of the Great ...

, among others; in one sculpture, she cast the base to echo a negative of a facing fireplace's opening.Jenkins, Mark
"For artist Arlene Shechet, the Phillips is full of inspiration"
''The Washington Post'', January 18, 2017. Retrieved October 25, 2023. ''Washington Post'' critic Mark Jenkins said of the show, "most of the links between the contemporary artist and her precursors are intriguingly tangled. That inspiration is no simple matter is one of the lessons of this multifold show." Shechet also curated shows at the Drawing Center and Pace Gallery.Smith, Roberta
"Drawing, a Cure for the January Blahs,"
''The New York Times'', January 20, 2022. Retrieved September 26, 2023.Gural, Natasha
"Arlene Shechet Creates Sculpture To Transform Hudson Valley Landscape, Curates ‘STUFF’ At Pace Gallery To Transcend Art History,"
''Forbes'', August 5, 2022. Retrieved September 25, 2023.

Later exhibitions

Shechet's installation in Manhattan's

Madison Square Park Madison Square is a public square formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for Founding Father James Madison, the fourth president of the United St ...

broke with typical public art practices in terms of its varied materials (porcelain, cast iron and wood), custom pedestals, and alterations and additions to the park's setting and seating (e.g., sculpted "skirt seats").Loos, Ted
"Porcelain Finds Its Outside Voice,"
''The New York Times'', September 23, 2018. Retrieved September 26, 2023.Solomon, Deborah
"Review: Arlene Shechet Goes Public,"
''WNYC Public Radio'', December 21, 2018. Retrieved October 26, 2023. The show's title, ''Full Steam Ahead'', referenced a legendary quote by Admiral

David Farragut David Glasgow Farragut (; also spelled Glascoe; July 5, 1801 – August 14, 1870) was a flag officer of the United States Navy during the American Civil War. He was the first Rear admiral (United States), rear admiral, Vice admiral (United State ...

, whose

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical ...

anchored one end of the park. Farragut's statue is seen by some as a symbol of the male domination historically prevalent in both art and society, and somewhat controversially, Shechet negotiated with park officials to empty the pool of water in front of the sculpture, effectively disempowering it. Her dozen human-scaled sculptures suggested diverse personalities and creatures, as well as a family-like intimacy rare for public sculpture; they included ''Low Hanging Cloud (Lion)''—a porcelain piece weighing more than a ton—and the chunky, confident female figure ''Forward'', carved from cherry wood. Shechet also organized a series of events during the exhibition that included actress

Fiona Shaw Fiona Shaw (born Fiona Mary Wilson; 10 July 1958) is an Irish film and theatre actress. She did extensive work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, as well as in film and television. In 2020, she was listed at No. 29 o ...

performing

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

’s ''

The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important English-language poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United ...

'' and

Dianne Wiest Dianne Evelyn Wiest (; born March 28, 1948) is an American actress. She has won two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress for 1986's ''Hannah and Her Sisters'' and 1994's '' Bullets Over Broadway'' (both directed by Woody Allen), one Gold ...

performing excepts from

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

’s

Happy Days ''Happy Days'' is an American television sitcom that aired first-run on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC network from January 15, 1974, to July 19, 1984, with a total of 255 half-hour episodes spanning 11 seasons. Created by Garry Marsha ...

in sculptural costumes designed by Shechet.Small, Zachary
"Fiona Shaw Will Perform T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in Madison Square Park,"
''Hyperallergic'', April 11, 2019. Retrieved November 13, 2023. In subsequent exhibitions, Shechet continued to parse sculptural, architectural and decorative traditions and develop new dialogues of material and form.Smith, Harriet Lloyd
"Arlene Shechet brings nature into the gallery arena at Pace New York,"
''Wallpaper'', October 21, 2022. Retrieved October 26, 2023. ''Los Angeles Times'' critic Leah Ollman described her 2019 show at Vielmetter Los Angeles as "generous with tribute and wide-ranging in association," with nods to ceramic sculptors Peter Voulkos and Ken Price, Constantin Brancusi,

Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known for his public art installations, typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...

and

Brutalist architecture Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

. In the exhibition "Skirts" (Pace, 2020), she obliquely addressed gender disparities, in part through the show's title, which can serve as a verb, sculptural term and misogynistic expression.Pfaff, Judy. "It's a Verb, a Noun, But in Both Instances Rather Beautiful," ''Flaunt'', April 2020. A ''Brooklyn Rail'' review likened its synthesis of painting and sculpture in terms of color, surface and form to painters

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , ; ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan Spanish painter, sculptor and Ceramic art, ceramist. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...

and

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

; the materials included storm-felled tree trunks with knots filled in with brass, hunks of glazed ceramic, cast iron and steel (e.g., ''The Crown Jewel'', 2020). The exhibition "Best Picture" (Vielmetter, 2022) featured vibrant, human-scaled sculptures loosely suggesting Hollywood personalities; she also introduced a new format with two large mixed-material tapestries that offered soft counterpoints to her heavy sculptures.O'Brien, John David
"Arlene Shechet,"
''Artillery'', May 10, 2022. Retrieved October 26, 2023. At Frieze Masters (2023, London), Shechet exhibited eleven brilliantly colored and richly textured sculptures and cast paper vessels alongside a medieval illuminated manuscript that served as inspiration.Laster, Paul
"Celebrating 20 Years of Frieze London with 20 Frieze London and Frieze Masters Picks,"
''Whitehot Magazine'', October 19, 2023. Retrieved October 25, 2023.Loos, Ted

''The New York Times'', October 6, 2023. Retrieved September 26, 2023.Cole, Alison. "Artists and Their Studios, Interview with Sheena Wagstaff," ''The Art Newspaper'', October 13, 2023. In 2024, the Storm King Art Center mounted Shechet's exhibition "Girl Group," which included six giant outdoor works welded in steel and aluminum as well as torso-sized, ceramic indoor sculptures that were the generative sources of the outdoor works.Storm King Art Center
"Arlene Shechet: Girl Group,"
Collections. Retrieved July 29, 2024.Smith, Rebecca
"Arlene Shechet by Rebecca Smith,"
''Bomb Magazine'', June 14, 2024. Retrieved July 29, 2024.Stoilas, Helen
"Arlene Shechet's sculptures are animated through dance at Storm King sculpture park,"
''The Art Newspaper'', July 28, 2024. Retrieved July 29, 2024. The exhibition's title evoked a chorus of works, referenced women rock bands, and commented on the historic dominance of male minimalist artists within public sculpture and at the venue.Martin-Gachot, Ella
"'So Many Things Happen Outside': Artist Arlene Shechet Takes on the Elements and the Minimalist Boys' Club of Storm King,"
''Cultured'', May 23, 2024. Retrieved July 29, 2024. Working at her largest scale yet (up to 28 feet tall and 30 feet long), Shechet created individual pieces that combined dozens of intricately welded shapes suggesting fabric unfurling in the wind, vivid hand-mixed shades, and an amalgamation of material and finish that juxtaposed matte, glossy, and occasionally, natural aluminum surfaces. ''New York Times'' critic Nancy Hass wrote that the show's works "share a language—swooping curves, unexpected apertures and slits, right angles, tunnels, cones, shieldlike expanses—but each has its own personality, creating a sort of universe of mythical creatures."

Recognition

Shechet has received a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship (2004), awards from Anonymous Was A Woman (2010), the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2011) and

College Art Association The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understan ...

(2016),Anonymous Was A Woman Award
Recipients
Retrieved September 25, 2023.American Academy of Arts and Letters
"2011 Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts,"
Exhibition. Retrieved September 25, 2023.Greenberger, Alex
"Carmen Herrera, Rosalind Krauss, Arlene Shechet Among Winners of 2016 CAA Awards,"
''ARTnews'', January 5, 2016. Retrieved September 26, 2023. and grants from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

, Dieu Donné Papermill, Joan Mitchell Foundation and VIA Art Fund, among others.Joan Mitchell Foundation
Arlene Shechet
Fellows. Retrieved September 25, 2023.VIA Art Fund. "VIA Art Fund Awards $1 Million in Grants in 2021," News, 2021. She was inducted into the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

in 2016 and into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2023.Reizman, Renée
"Arlene Shechet's Gestures and Jesters,"
''NAD Journal'', May 1, 2019. Retrieved September 26, 2023.

Public collections

Shechet's work belongs to the public collections of the following institutions, among others:

References

External links

Arlene Shechet official websiteArlene Shechet on Art21Interview by Rebecca Smith
''Bomb Magazine'', 2024
Arlene Shechet Interview
''Cultured'', 2024
"Arlene Shechet: All at Once"
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2015
Arlene Shechet
Pace Gallery
Arlene Shechet
Vielmetter Los Angeles
Arlene Shechet
Almine Rech {{DEFAULTSORT:Shechet, Arlene 1951 births Living people 20th-century American women sculptors 20th-century American sculptors Sculptors from New York (state) American contemporary artists New York University alumni Rhode Island School of Design alumni 20th-century American ceramists Jewish American artists 21st-century American women sculptors 21st-century American sculptors 21st-century American ceramists American women ceramists 21st-century American Jews 20th-century American Jews American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent