Schneider Museum of Art
The Buck Exhibition at the
Schneider Museum
John Buck's Flying Horse 2005
with other other works
Omnibus 2004, no. 4
Emblems, Effigies, and Enigmas
The Art of John Buck
When I first encountered John Buck’s work, certain words and phrases kept coming to mind: allegory, mythology, rebus, steadfast appearance, fragile interior, complexity, facets, associations, and above all, emblematic ideas. The arresting, freestanding sculptural figures and the enormous woodblock prints, as well as the combination of sculpture and painting, are daunting—almost challenging—yet they simultaneously project a subtle vulnerability.
Tall and imposing, the life-size figures confront us—these iconic, headless forms who balance emblems, effigies, and symbols on their broad shoulders. Their proud and erect bearing suggests guardians protecting invisible territories. Distantly related to folk and tribal sculpture with their stark simplicity and forthright expressiveness, the figures are reminiscent of those ancient sentinels, the Kouroi of archaic Greek art. Their presence—simultaneously enchanting and intimidating—discourages familiarity and intimacy. Carved in wood by expert hands and practiced eyes, they owe their spirit to the artist’s ideas and imagination—materializing as generic representations of “homo sapiens.” They are kindred spirits to the grouped, seated bodies assembled for ritual ceremonies in the installations of Magdalena Abakanowitz. These highly stylized bodies—formal in stance and neutral in demeanor—flaunt the anonymity of their character. They are messengers from a realm where speech has been replaced by sign language and is intelligible only to those who know how to decipher its meaning.
John Buck’s art can be perceived as a combination of carved sculpture, painting, printmaking, and drawing. Rendering visible elements from human history, landscape, philosophy, symbolic gestures, enigmatic signs, and real or imagined archetypal forms, he creates elusive, invented poetry. Although three-dimensional sculpture and high-relief carvings have been a predominant expressive means for Buck, he has also painted directly on sculpture and combined sculpture and painting by placing three-dimensional forms in front of painted canvases.
For the last thirty-two years, Buck has used a wide variety of hard and soft woods. Recently, however, he has chosen jelutone wood as his primary material. It is easy to carve, lightweight, and resilient—ideal for the quick, direct translation of ideas into form. Buck has, at times, cast his wood sculpture into bronze to reduce or expand scale or to avoid weather-related damage when the work is to be placed outdoors.
The Art of John Buck Page 2
