Glimmers in the woods

Sculptures come alive in their outdoor setting on Daniel Chester French’s landscape

August 28, 2009|Cate McQuaid, Globe Correspondent

STOCKBRIDGE - A stroll through the woods at Chesterwood, the summer retreat of one of America’s towering public artists, Daniel Chester French, requires bug spray and an eye attuned to art. Every summer for more than 30 years, “Contemporary Sculpture at Chesterwood’’ has put a new spin on the old grounds (which are a National Trust for Historic Preservation site), with art up among the leaves, grounded in the soil, and twining around the branches.

French knew about placing art in situ. He sculpted Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial, and his work can be seen all around the Boston area: the angel “Casting Bread Upon the Waters’’ over a fountain in the Public Garden; the “Minute Man’’ statue in Concord; and the bronze lobby doors of the Boston Public Library. After French (1850-1931) bought the former Warner farm here in 1896, he built a sculpture studio and implemented his own landscape design, with formal gardens and woodland paths, where he placed sculptures by his artist friends.

Those artworks are gone, save for traces here and there, but they have made way for an engaging group of sculptures that take terrific advantage of their setting. Many of the pieces in this summer’s exhibition, organized by Denise Markonish, curator at Mass MoCA, would look pallid and unfulfilled in a museum or gallery, but along the sloping lawns, or even better, in the woods beyond French’s home and studio, they are catalyzed by their surroundings.

“Space Is the Place,’’ the title of jazz musician Sun Ra’s 1970s film, is the show’s theme. That sounds vague, but it plants us firmly in these bucolic environs, and invites contemplation of both details and vistas, while also embracing the concept of home.

June Ahrens built a small house out of mirror shards and set it in the forest. The piece, “Our Shrinking World,’’ is almost invisible from a distance, camouflaged by reflection, and even up close it shimmers with leaves. But despite its beauty, its construction speaks of illusion, sharp edges, and danger. Lucy Hodgson’s “Happy Landings!’’ looks broken on the manicured lawn. A winged beast made of house shingles and rusty plumbing pipes, it seems to have taken a nasty spill with the real estate market, whereas “Pyramid,’’ by Ursula Clark, a sheltering stack of hay bales humbly nodding to the monuments of Egypt, seems like a safer bet as a place to stay warm and dry.

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