Tonal Sculpture 1977

Editor: Standing before us is Harry Bertoia’s "Tonal Sculpture," created in 1977. It appears to be constructed from thin metal rods, arranged in a minimalist fashion. It’s striking how the simple, vertical lines create a sense of quiet tension. What are your thoughts on this work, its visual construction and underlying formal strategies? Curator: Thank you. The immediate presence of the vertical thrust certainly defines our perception. Bertoia has essentially presented us with a study in line, repetition, and interval. The visual experience privileges form and the interrelation of purely visual elements: line, plane, volume, and space. What I see most distinctly, however, is the careful attenuation, each plane slightly out of step. Editor: So the variance of each rod being 'out of step', is this simply a means to explore formal qualities or should it have any greater meaning in terms of the piece as a whole? Curator: Form, for the formalist, constitutes the complete essence. The intervals, the subtle modulations of height, provide the work with its syntax. These variations, by disrupting any possibility of absolute symmetry or order, open the piece to endless permutations within a seemingly constrained visual vocabulary. In fact, what interests me about these rods, do they change with interaction? What considerations did Bertoia make? Editor: I had not thought about interaction, perhaps in the slightest movement it could take on new sonic elements! I am starting to understand the value and appreciation from an intrinsic design point of view! Curator: Exactly, the emphasis on intrinsic elements reveals the art's inherent aesthetic value beyond context, so how might that lead you as an Editor and student of art forward in viewing works of art? Editor: With a much closer and more appreciative perspective towards individual materiality and spatial relationships!