Point, Line, Plane: an installation in three parts
Scott Sherk & Pat Badt
“Our souls, when one succeeds in touching them, give out a hollow ring, like a beautiful vase discovered cracked in the depths of the earth.” Wassily Kandinsky
Point, Line, Plane, an installation created especially for the Grossman Gallery, was inspired by our recent reading of Wassily Kandinsky’s inspirational text On the Spiritual in Art. We found a certain resonance in Kandinsky’s critique of the art of “materialist attitude” and his suggesting an art of the spirit. We embrace Kandinsky’s critique and hope for something different— an art which doesn’t scream at you from the wall, as Dave Hickey says, but rather one that whispers. We have tried to create an art that whispers, whispers about a rendezvous with you in the space between existence and recognition.
Point, Line, Plane consists of three elements derived from Kandinsky’s elements of a visual syntax:
Point-- At the far end of the gallery sits a chair. Cut into the floor by the base of the chair is a simple circular hole. A viewer sitting in the chair becomes aware of singular drops of water falling from the ceiling above. Each drop forms, falls through the space of the gallery, and passes through the floor into a cavity below. The water drop is accompanied by the deep sound of its impact as it strikes a drum buried beneath the floor.
Line-- Crossing through the gallery at the threshold of perception are lines of monofilament. Linking the world outside the space to the world below, drawing the viewer in, these connect and penetrate. These line, although straight, suggest a curving plane in space.
Plane-- The viewer is invited to enter one of three aluminum cubes, which have been installed, on wheels in the gallery. Each cube is painted one of the primary colors—red, yellow, blue. Within each cube is a zabuton pillow. The viewer, sitting inside the colored cube, is immersed in a world of primary color. The viewer looks out at the world through a specially shaped window—circle, square, triangle. Painted on the north wall of the gallery are the primary and secondary colors. These colors interact with the colors within the cube giving the viewer an experience of color in all its complexity and subtlety.
Point, Line, Plane is the fifth collaboration between painter, Pat Badt and sculptor, Scott Sherk. Their previous collaborations have included Hutview at the Katonah Museum of Art, Horizonlines at the Kim Foster Gallery in New York City, and Range at Martial Arts in Memphis Tennessee.
Scott Sherk & Pat Badt
“Our souls, when one succeeds in touching them, give out a hollow ring, like a beautiful vase discovered cracked in the depths of the earth.” Wassily Kandinsky
Point, Line, Plane, an installation created especially for the Grossman Gallery, was inspired by our recent reading of Wassily Kandinsky’s inspirational text On the Spiritual in Art. We found a certain resonance in Kandinsky’s critique of the art of “materialist attitude” and his suggesting an art of the spirit. We embrace Kandinsky’s critique and hope for something different— an art which doesn’t scream at you from the wall, as Dave Hickey says, but rather one that whispers. We have tried to create an art that whispers, whispers about a rendezvous with you in the space between existence and recognition.
Point, Line, Plane consists of three elements derived from Kandinsky’s elements of a visual syntax:
Point-- At the far end of the gallery sits a chair. Cut into the floor by the base of the chair is a simple circular hole. A viewer sitting in the chair becomes aware of singular drops of water falling from the ceiling above. Each drop forms, falls through the space of the gallery, and passes through the floor into a cavity below. The water drop is accompanied by the deep sound of its impact as it strikes a drum buried beneath the floor.
Line-- Crossing through the gallery at the threshold of perception are lines of monofilament. Linking the world outside the space to the world below, drawing the viewer in, these connect and penetrate. These line, although straight, suggest a curving plane in space.
Plane-- The viewer is invited to enter one of three aluminum cubes, which have been installed, on wheels in the gallery. Each cube is painted one of the primary colors—red, yellow, blue. Within each cube is a zabuton pillow. The viewer, sitting inside the colored cube, is immersed in a world of primary color. The viewer looks out at the world through a specially shaped window—circle, square, triangle. Painted on the north wall of the gallery are the primary and secondary colors. These colors interact with the colors within the cube giving the viewer an experience of color in all its complexity and subtlety.
Point, Line, Plane is the fifth collaboration between painter, Pat Badt and sculptor, Scott Sherk. Their previous collaborations have included Hutview at the Katonah Museum of Art, Horizonlines at the Kim Foster Gallery in New York City, and Range at Martial Arts in Memphis Tennessee.
All images copyright The Third Barn, 2025