Robert Bielat Sculpture Cast Bi-Metal Stone Wood "TRUE EAST"

About the Item

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY "Robert Bielat was an artist’s artist, a sobriquet applied to those whose work is brilliant but idiosyncratic, deeply compelling in a way that is obvious to those who can see it, but not necessarily so to the market or to the arbiters of so-called “good” taste. A Bielat exhibition typically overflowed with work, a reflection of his seemingly boundless creativity and, in no small measure, an acknowledgment of his perceived need to get as many of his ideas out into the world as possible in the brief time he had to be a sentient part of it. (Bielat’s work truly embodies the adage: “Ars longa; vita brevis.”) Be that as it may, there are certain themes running through his oeuvre worth remarking upon. The most obvious and central is the Romantic notion of the will-to-art, a self-determined, intuitive, and autopoetic approach to creative production whereby Bielat absorbed his experience of the world around him and reprocessed it into an expressive vision that was uniquely his own. Bielat possessed an advanced degree in art, but his work seemed to be completely sui generis, as if appearing out of nowhere fully formed, a result of its own conditions of being, and as if it had always been there. This brings up the notion of time in Bielat’s work, specifically, the phenomenological concept of “sedimentation”—that the past is embedded in the present and that the present is ground from which the future emerges—which is both physically and metaphorically manifest in the work. This is evident in Bielat’s use of the castoff in many works over the years. Bielat’s re-adoption of bronze manifests another important element in his work, namely, its materiality. Bielat always asserted the primacy of the thing in his production, whether it be the collection of objects, old and new, that he integrated into sculptures or the metals he used in casting. His approach to ceramics, as well, reflected an engagement with the material limits of the medium—severely distressing the clay, slathering on the glaze, leaving sections of bisqueware visible. The multifaceted ways in which Bielat worked his materials suggests one last aspect of his aesthetic: his concern for craft. Bielat completed his undergraduate studies at what is now College for Creative Studies when it was the School of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, whose “maker” aesthetic has maintained its influence throughout his work. There was always a certain way that Bielat approached his work, not just in his concern for materials, but in how he insisted on maintaining the visibility of the steps taken in its making. Bielat always worked directly, eschewing preparatory sketches or studies. He maintained an iterative dialog with his work, responding as much to its internal dictates—making adjustments along the way—as exercising control over its development. The philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty once wrote the following, which resonates in considering Bielat: “What one too deliberately seeks, one does not find; and he who on the contrary has in his meditative life known how to tap its spontaneous source never lacks for ideas and value.” Robert Bielat lived that principle, as an artist and as a human being. The work is his testament." -Vince Carducci, June 2019 Robert Bilat explains his method via the following: Bi-metal casting is a process I have been refining throughout my career. The technique of bi-metal casting is the casting of a metal with a low melting point, such as aluminum, around or into a static metal, such as steel, which melts at a higher temperature. Bi-metal casting can be done with bronze or aluminum, combined with a static metal with a higher melting point. My sculpture constructions are first created with steel and stone affixed into Styrofoam. After the sculpture is completed, it is packed tightly in a foundry box with a 10 percent bentonite and 90 percent sand mixture. The bottom is filled by “ramming”, which is the technique of pounding the bentonite/sand mixture very tightly. The sculpture is placed in the box, and sand is carefully rammed around the sculpture, layered in inches at a time like a parfait. This continues until the sand is level with the top of the box. After the foundry box is ready, the molten metal is precisely poured from the crucible into the gates, which lead to the Styrofoam portion of the sculpture. The Styrofoam turns into gas and dissipates up through the sand and clay mixture when it is hit by the molten metal. The heat from the molten metal fuses the particles of bentonite with the sand, creating a mold around the sculpture. This is Bi-Metal Casting.

Dimensions:

Height: 12 in (30.48 cm)Width: 6.5 in (16.51 cm)Depth: 12 in (30.48 cm)

Style:

Expressionist (In the Style Of)

Materials and Techniques:

Aluminum,Cast Stone,Metal,Stone,Wood,Hand-Crafted

Place of Origin:

United States

Period:

21st Century

Date of Manufacture:

2000s