ART REVIEW : HIGHSTEIN’S PRIMAL SCULPTURES

The territory of Minimalism is so sparsely populated that hairline distinctions are matters of import. Take the difference between primary and primal. Though dictionary definitions are almost identical--”first in time or development, primitive, original”--art writers use primary to describe basic geometric forms, while primal refers to less pristine elements, those that look organic or handmade and often have a stronger emotional quotient than crisply wrought cubes.

That distinction is significant in the sculpture of Jene Highstein, on view at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (through Feb. 1). In fact, it’s crucial; the imperfections and irregularities of his forms and their vulnerable surfaces are largely responsible for the appeal of his sculpture.

Simple as his spheres, mounds, stumps and bent columns may be, they do not look sterile or mechanical. The only exception is a 39-foot length of pipe that bisects one room, and it is so rusty that it looks more like a relic than plumbing.

Though Highstein follows the reductive line of modernism, he is more in league with Arp than Mondrian; among his contemporaries, he seems closer to earth workers and to sculptors such as Mark Lere and Martin Puryear than to purists such as Donald Judd.

The difference is that Highstein’s work retains connections to nature--sometimes administered with a light touch. He’s not above dubbing a blond wooden sculpture “Blondie,” likening an enormous black mound to a “Turtle” or planting the bulbous trunk of a palm tree in a gallery and calling it as it is: “Palm.”

“The content of my work is not so much nature abstracted, but form which is evolved in relation to nature and which carries with it natural associations,” he states in the exhibition catalogue authored by curator Lynda Forsha and museum director Hugh M. Davies.

Highstein, who lives in New York and has done graduate work at London’s Royal Academy, was influenced by Arte Povera’s emphasis on organic materials and began making sculpture that clung close to the ground. In the early ‘70s, he became involved with the concept of using sculpture to transform space.

“Single Pipe Piece” (1974), the earliest sculpture shown at La Jolla, comes from this era and--literally and figuratively--stands alone. The 18-inch-wide pipe, spanning the length of a 39-foot room just below the ceiling, is the only work composed of ready-made components and the only piece that conveys a sense of danger. It puts us in mind of Richard Serra’s leaning steel slabs; although its ends disappear into opposing walls, walking under this “floating” pipe is an act of faith.

Highstein’s massive mounds that rise from the centers of rooms and crowd visitors around walls can be spooky, but the one he has built at La Jolla--”Mound (Turtle),” a re-creation of a 1976 piece--doesn’t have these vectors. This temporary installation is a vaguely mysterious phenomenon that invites inspection and speculation as to how in the world it got into the museum. Highstein built it there, of course, constructing a 6 1/2- by 30- by 18-foot armature of wood and wire, and covering it with black concrete.

The result is unlike anything else you’re likely to have seen in a museum, but it’s familiar nonetheless. Deep black and roughly textured, it might be a hill of coal dust. The surface never quite settles into a hard-looking coat, and the oval shape changes as you walk around it.

Highstein has said that what interested him most about his “Pipe Piece” was its curved surface, an element that figures in all his more recent handmade art. The curves are rarely predictable, often slipping away or changing contour so that a column has a crease and a wooden lump becomes steeply angled or flattened.

In the entry and the front gallery where smaller works are displayed is a sampling of Highstein’s repertoire of colors, materials and forms. Weighty, compact sculptures that hug the floor, they are made of plaster, wood, cast iron or bronze. There’s a matte black “Egg,” some mottled green cyclindrical forms with rounded ends and a wooden “Totem” lying on its side.

These are the sort of low-key surprises that await you at Highstein’s mid-career survey. Nothing to stand your hair on end, but plenty to inspire reflections on the line between nature and art and to make you wonder why a spare body of art consciously fashioned by hand seems so far removed from the industrial sort of thing that we call “primary.”