{"id":3163,"date":"2012-02-21T16:25:21","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T16:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jfuhrman.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=3163"},"modified":"2012-02-23T01:29:56","modified_gmt":"2012-02-23T01:29:56","slug":"reviews-and-articles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jfuhrman.com\/wordpress\/about-jf\/reviews-and-articles\/","title":{"rendered":"Reviews and Articles"},"content":{"rendered":"

<<\/span><\/a> \u00a0 I \u00a0 ><\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

James Fuhrman\u00a0<\/strong>
\n–Robin Rice, November 2007<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

James\u00a0Fuhrman\u2019s new work opens a door to the unceasing discovery of the present. Fuhrman is an artist of the Earth in its most primordial, essential, life-giving form. Many of his larger sculptures invite a response as natural objects or places. Even physically small ones, like the welded steel structures in the \u201c60 Quests\u201d suggest a perceptually grand scale. This feeling for mass and rootedness emerges from Fuhrman\u2019s strong sense of the earth as a geologic phenomenon –generating, supporting, anchoring, and continuing through deep time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brush paintings, sculpture, architecture: Fuhrman\u2019s art emerges from his discipline and choice to set aside expressions of personality or commentary in favor of a more open and embracing resonance. While he considers the newest work \u2018political\u2019 this work transcends confrontation and argumentation and chooses to address human experience as a whole.\u00a0 It does not assert itself as expressive of the artist\u2019s personality; rather, it has been permitted to subsume its maker. Overtly informal, it is a direct communication: not based on conventional or personal symbols, signs or narrative.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fuhrman\u2019s judicious placement of sculpture in an environment is often compared to minimal Zen rock gardens like Ryoan-ji<\/em> and the Japanese concept of \u2018ma\u2019 space. \u00a0\u00a0This work evokes Shinto or Taoist associations, but Fuhrman rejects codified philosophies and systems of aesthetics. \u201cI just AM<\/em> \u201d he insists. Maybe that\u2019s what\u2019s Buddhist about him. He developed a personal routine of circular sumi <\/em>drawing and later discovered that is a traditional Japanese practice called enso<\/em>.\u00a0 Fuhrman lightly describes himself as an \u201caccidental Buddhist,\u201d one who arrived where he is by simply following his natural bent. Perhaps he thus evades categories, contradictions, and catechisms.<\/span><\/p>\n

A sense of scale also flows from Fuhrman\u2019s sensitivity to the subtle details of things. Currently he is using cedar, a timber he particularly appreciates in its natural environment. \u201cEach piece of wood has within itself a little universe; it\u2019s part of the earth.\u201d He builds substantial forms and finishes them by torching the surface, a process which exaggerates the grain. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to control wood, to put my will over it, but working with<\/em> the wood and letting tell me what it wants to be.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Philadelphia Inquirer,<\/em> Victoria Donohoe<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026 Fuhrman has achieved a mood of stillness and quiet around this “Contemplative Space Installation” by giving careful consideration to placement of works in the gallery.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Ursula Ehrhard, The Daily Times<\/em>,\u00a0Salisbury, MD<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Recent abstract works by six artists from the Philadelphia region are on display at Salisbury University through April 6. The exhibition consists of large-scale paintings executed in complex techniques and unusual combinations of media, plus an extraordinary oak sculpture by Jay Fuhrman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fuhrman’s sculpture, entitled “Suffering Passes, Having Suffered Never Passes”, is a communion bench — or, to be more precise, a curved bench and four fragmentary ones — arranged concentrically in the shape of a Japanese Zen enso<\/em>, a sacred circular form that symbolizes completion, inclusion and universality, as well as emptiness and nothingness.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sculpture is both functional and commemorative. In his artist’s statement, Fuhrman writes that he wants viewers to sit on the benches and to join with others in honoring and commemorating those lost to recent acts of terrorism, political fanaticism and military conflict. The ripped and torn forms of the benches are metaphors of loss, and the empty spaces between them refer to the missing. The bench thus provides a space for both individual and communal meditation, mourning and eventual transcendence.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Philadelphia\u00a0Inquirer,<\/em> Ed Sozanski, Steel ink. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The spontaneity of ink-and-brush calligraphy would appear to be impossible to re-create in welded steel. James Fuhrman achieves it, though, using a method that is by necessity methodical and technically demand\u00ading.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sculptures that Fuhrman is showing at the Paley Design Center of Philadelphia Col\u00adlege of Textiles & Science consist of stainless-steel glyphs that resemble abstract calligra\u00adphy embedded in slabs of concrete. Fuhrman grinds down the concrete to make the shiny steel strokes flush with the surface.<\/span><\/p>\n

In doing so, he creates the illusion that the steel gestures lie on the smooth concrete like thin films of ink. That, in turn, accentuates their fluidity, as if they had been drawn in an inspirational flash with molten metal. The fig\u00adures are quickly drawn. but first with ink on paper. The ink drawings are used as templates to guide a steel-cutting torch.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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January 2007, R.B. Strauss<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, the size con\u00adstraints of this exhibition finds that all the work here is relative\u00adly small, but some pieces could well be models for outdoor mon\u00aduments, and a fine example of this idea is \u201cVitruvian Gate,\u201d by James Fuhrman. This work is all economic simplicity, which yields a deep spiritual tug.<\/span><\/p>\n

On a narrow flat base, two wafer thin slabs of jagged steel rise but a few inches. Balanced atop them are two lengths of steel like conductors\u2019 batons. The total effect is a passage to another world, as there is some\u00adthing strange about how the structure has been built asym\u00admetrically, yet still necessary and coherent.<\/span><\/p>\n

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< \u00a0 I \u00a0 > James Fuhrman\u00a0 –Robin Rice, November 2007 James\u00a0Fuhrman\u2019s new work opens a door to the unceasing discovery of the present. Fuhrman is an artist of the Earth in its most primordial, essential, life-giving form. Many of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":83,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3163","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P8x77K-P1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jfuhrman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jfuhrman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jfuhrman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jfuhrman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jfuhrman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3163"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/jfuhrman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3165,"href":"https:\/\/jfuhrman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3163\/revisions\/3165"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jfuhrman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jfuhrman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}