Coil

In the mid-1990s, Chicago-based artist Richard Rezac told an interviewer, “I would like my works to have a rightness that seems indisputable.” This statement captures the sensibility of his sculptures, for they all seem generated out of some internal system—perhaps a natural process, perhaps an analytic construct—that results in perfectly pared-down works with no extraneous elements. Rezac has followed a fairly consistent method over almost the past two decades: he first works out ideas through drawings and then created sculptures that combine stripped-down forms and simple materials into impeccably crafted, quietly poetic sculptures. This work is spare and geometrically precise, yet dense in its composition and displayed on floor or pedestal rather than hung high on a wall. Coil recalls past sculptural traditions, including minimalist works of the 1960s, but evokes a more intimate scale and more personal sensibility.