Patrick Thibert
"Patrick Thibert" by Terrence Heath, Summer 2008, pp. 102-103
Each new exhibition by Patrick Thibert elicits another attempt to locate the work of this London, Ontario, sculptor in one or another of the categories of Western art. His work has been described as constructivist; he has been called a minimalist and a follower of David Smith; pieces in his exhibitions have been called formalistic and theatrical in the same breath.
These determined attempts to find the real Patrick Thibert seem to me to demand of the sculptor what he will not give—a signature style and a single set of concerns. He simply is determined to follow his own concerns as a person living here and now, but with the past and future always in his thoughts. The remarkable aspect of this quest to follow his passions and commitments is that he has done it in materials, on a scale and with an independence that challenge easy art-historical explanations.
The most recent exhibition of his work, shown at Olga Korper Gallery, is both stridently contemporary and a major celebration of the legacy of ancient Greece. His material of choice is hand-sanded aluminum, a medium he has worked with often since 1970 and in which he is obviously a master craftsman. The theme of the exhibition is Icarus, alluded to most explicitly in the two huge wings that lie on the gallery floor, propped up on columns. The assemblage is both a warning and a paean to the desire to fly and to the structures of belief and community represented by the columns.
The huge wings and columns seize our attention and tend to overshadow another noteworthy component of the installation. This piece sits by itself and looks like the nose or pod of a space capsule—simple and beautiful as an object, but also subtly bringing together ancient and contemporary. Here the hand-sanded aluminum is one with the nature of the object and with a new myth, the metallic flight to the stars. The sides of the bowl-like form, however, are a reminder of how enduring the desire to fly is—they are fluted like the temple columns of Greece (and Rome, and Renaissance Italy, and neoclassical Europe and America). The danger of overweening pride becomes secondary to Thibert’s exuberant celebration of contemporary technology as coupled with the imaginings of an ancient civilization.
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