The conceptual sculptures and installations of Michael Meyers have been
interpreted as following minimalist practice — operating on the
viewer phenomenologically, directly through the eyes and brain and
nervous system, rather than metaphorically through literary or
real-world associations. (Think of Bacon’s disingenuous insistence that
emotion be conveyed by paint only, rather than by narrative.) Meyers’
works appear equally involved with process and idea, and with our
associations with the results of those processes. His background in
theater design only adds to the ambiguity, since props and sets can
take on psychological import. Whatever your stance on artistic
“theatricality,” Meyers’ meticulously crafted works of wood, Hydrocal,
vellum, and hardware, with their eccentric or impossible megaphones,
telescopes, belts, and pulleys, are intriguing mechanisms that exude,
for all the complex engineering involved in their creation, a
paradoxical air of geniality; their curious faux nostalgia suggests
Steampunk and other tempting alternate universes.
Best Sculptor
Michael Meyers
