SECOND SIGHT
An Installation by Jeffrey Schiff

Second Sight is a space superimposed upon a space within yet another space. Inspired by Roman structures built upon abandoned Etruscan foundations, the sculpture represents an analogous cultural succession. Culture is not a closed system. It is molded by innumerable forces from within and without, from the past as well as the present. Second Sight suggests a past submerged in the present – a past that nonetheless persists in its new context.

I approached the gallery as if I were a settler first occupying a plot of land. The room provided specific topographic conditions – rectilinearity, a certain size and means of entry, an empty neutrality. I responded to these by defining a new space within the walls – a large rectangle demarcated by plaster posts and centered on a plaster slab and well. The cast plaster elements are archaic in their simplicity, weight, and reference to fundamental stone construction.

Over this centralized space, I built another structure which contrasts sharply with the first. This overlay is shifted off-register from the plaster space; it is elevated rather than earth-bound, axial rather than centralized, and built in the Japanese wood construction vernacular rather than that of Greco-Roman masonry building. It is both the Second Sight – a second vision of how to formulate space, and the second site – literally, a second habitable space.

THE BOSTON GLOBE, Thursday, April 21, 1983

SCHIFF’S SPACES
By Christine Temin

Jeffrey Schiff’s space within a space within a space is deceptively simple – so simple that it would be easy to glance into the room where the artist has constructed his installation and dismiss it as merely a bunch of columns and planks.

But take a longer look. Schiff’s work, which is called “Second Sight” and which is a the Danforth Museum, 123 Union Ave., Framingham, through Sunday, has layers of meaning as well as layers of material. Layering is, in fact, the theme of “Second Sight,” which is based on Schiff’s observations of European buildings constructed on top of the ruins of older architecture. Like the architectural set Schiff designed for a recent dance swork at the institute of Contemporary Art, this one is extremely spare, consisting of a dozen white plaster columns standing mutely in a large square, a plaster platform on which sits a rectangular plaster container, and a platform made of wooden planks nailed together.

Some of the ancient-looking columns poke through the modern, deck-like platform: Here is the confrontation of old and new. There is no sense of inter-generational argument, though. Schiff has arranged a balance between the floating horizontal platform and the even vertical rhythms of the columns which is as serene as the elements of a Japanese garden. There’s division of function as well. The bare wood platform is mundane, and offers a comfortable place to stand: We’re invited to climb it. The columns are just the opposite, isolated and isolating in their single-minded, spiritual thrust upward.

We can see how the platform was put together, the pieces joined with hundreds of nails. The columns, though, betray no sense of process: They are just there. Underneath the hovering wooden horizontal is a shadowy area which lends mystery: Unless you lie on the floor, you can’t see this hidden space. No debris or poetic ruin clutters the work, which is swept clean of any transient element, like monument one a windy hilltop. There is a sense that even the wood, which seems so sturdy now, will one day disappear, and that only the bone-white, immutable columns will be left.

A Courtyard, an Axis, An Ambulatory

THE BOSTON PHOENIX, January 28, 1982
By Kenneth Baker

The key to Jeffrey Schiff’s installation at the Stux Gallery, on the Newbury Street (though January 30), is a quotation from Heidegger that sits alongside the artist’s biography on the window ledge. The quotation is one of the most famous passages from his late writings; in it he asserts that the banks of a river come into being as banks only in the presence of a bridge connecting them.

Schiff apparently intends his installation to be the bridge to the gallery structure’s banks. The show has three components; they’re assembled with cast plaster blocks, and Schiff calls them “A Courtyard,” “An Axis,” and “An Ambulatory.” As physical units, the modularity and individual identity. There is a pleasing dissimilarity between the most regular of them and those that are notched to fit closely under the window ledge or against the baseboards.

The three structures that form the installation are about as similar and as different as their elementary components, at least formally. But the “Axis,” which mirrors the gallery entrance, is a weak link in the show. The two floor pieces are much more effective in their restatement of the spatial dimensions of the gallery.

In looking at work like Schiff’s, it is worth remembering that the physical structure are not ends in themselves but devices intended to focus our attention on certain varieties of experience that might otherwise elude us Ð varieties of experience that might not even exist. The partial closure of the windowed end of the gallery with low plaster slabs (“A Courtyard”), for instance, enables us to feel the openness of that space in a way that is simply not possible when the gallery is as open as it can be. Similarly, the “Courtyard” makes us aware of the daylight entering the windows as a force that gives the space its character; it achieves this by forming an open container into which we can sense daylight falling. These observations naturally make us more aware of the gallery’s artificial light: we see its artificiality more clearly. Parallel observations could be made about the effects of the “Ambulatory” on the other end of the gallery, which is narrower and windowless.

Schiff’s work presupposes our interest in subtleties of experience and physical awareness. It is not oriented toward consumption but toward reflection, and for this reason many will likely dismiss it as “conceptual” or simply empty. But one reason people resort to such dismissals, apart from impatience and the habit of consumption, is to avoid the kinds of experience that works of art can provide us about ourselves, to avoid seeing and thinking beyond the crude categories we ordinarily use to orient ourselves. It is difficult to judge work like Schiff’s in terms of success or failure Ð too much depends on our willingness to exert the critical energy the artist requires. You will probably like or dislike the work less for its physical and visual character than for its affinity with your idea of what should be done with art by those who look at it.

ROSE ART MUSEUM
Brandeis University

High Mesa: a plateau atop a Cliffside, looking out over a landscape vista and down onto a spring below. As envisioned by sculptor Jeffrey Schiff, these are nature’s counterparts to the architectural elements of the museum’s topography, specifically floor, staircase, window and pool. Built into this visionary landscape he has conceived and constructed a dwell: a minimal archetypal living space with floor, bed, hearth and well. So begins our journey though Schiff’s sculptural environment where sensations are unlocked and visions inspired – quietly and slowly over time.

In the coexistent realities that are revealed and the rich overlays that emerge between nature and architecture (museum, mesa and dwelling), natural and man-made materials (branches, stone, lumber, concrete), and the interplay between pre-existing and newly created spaces forms, we discover multiple references to the complex layers of meaning and experience common to any environment we encounter during the normal course of our daily lives.

Likening the dwelling to an artist’s studio, Schiff sees this sculpture as a holistic environment dedicated to the creative process itself. He has constructed three distinct but integrated physical spaces, each designating a particular type of function or behavior. Our passage from one space to another is across an elevated wood floor, accessible via three steps made of natural stone and concrete. There we encounter these forms: a bed – a restful contemplative place belonging to the interior but visually connected to the outside; a hearth (whose charred branches are evidence of atleast a singe use) – a place where a creative process is enacted and physically realized; a well – an extension of a safe interior space to a possibly dangerous exterior one.

With High Mesa, Schiff puts us in touch with our own physical presence in known and unknown spaces and explores the complex but delicate interplay of form, space, perception and experience.

THE BOSTON HERALD, Sunday, March 23, 1986

New Works by N.E. Sculptors
Rose Museum exhibits run from the highly finished to the playful
By, Nancy Stapen

“Sculptural objects and Installations: The Lois Foster Exhibition of Boston and New England Area Artists” – the 10th annual exhibition at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University – is presenting new work by local artists.

Previous shows have concentrated on new talent, but this year, museum Director Carl Belz has created an elegant and unusual show of six sculptors with established reputations.

Works by most of these artists are rarely seen in Boston. The size, scope and ambition of such artists as Jeffrey Schiff, Jim Coates and Eric Lintala make museum and gallery exposure difficult.

Even for orthodox artists, sculpture is difficult to market. It’s expensive, often unwieldy and occupies a lot of space. That intimidates many collectors.

In this high-caliber show, the Rose offers a range of work – from highly finished to playful and transitional.

For some contemporary sculptors, the reference point remains minimalism – the austere, repetitive style that held sway in the 1960s though early 1970s. But in the late 1970s, sculpture went in many directions. The styles included object-oriented, figurative, architectural, found object and installation. All may be characterized as post-minimalist directions.

Jeffrey Schiff’s evocative installation “High Mesa” is a sophisticated, complex work. Lodged in the left corner of the top-floor gallery, it convinces on formal, architectural and psychological levels. It combines sensitivity to the airy, horseshoe-shaped upper gallery, which overlooks an interior pool and fountain, with knowledge of the woodlands surrounding the Rose.

Sprawling horizontally in the back corner, a raised platform of blond wood (Douglas fir) is divided by suggested furniture into three areas. A bleached wood “bed” is laid below the floor-to-ceiling corner window. On a sunny afternoon, the bed is flooded with light, inviting the outer world of nature into this interior space of architectural shelter. Behind it, a 48-inch concrete square pierced by charred branches suggests a hearth or kitchen.

In a brilliant manipulation of space, Schiff has cantilevered a corner of the platform over the balcony, which itself becomes an integral element o the piece. From a precipitous vantage, the viewer may gaze down though a 2-foot cut-out square, an image suggesting an exterior well.

More straightforward is Jim Coates’ “The Rose-Lean-to Installation,” in which a set of three large triangular wood-and-rope structures evoke primitive dwellings.

Eric Lintala’s “Perimetric Containment,” which turns a downstairs gallery into an imaginary, desertlike environment, is enclosed yet expansive. Lintala has divided the room into triangular vistas of sand that hug the wall, supported by waist-high wooden constructions. The beige brown painted wood and warm color of the sand softened by atmospheric lighting result in an earth, meditative ambience. Lintala’s manipulations of perspective produce an illusion of swelling and contraction.

The three object-oriented sculptors explore distinct concerns. Howard Ben Tre’s cast glass-and-copper columns have a majestic presence. Based on simple, industrial forms, these have the clearest relationship to minimalism. Still, their evocatively textured surfaces, fanciful capitals and variant bases provide a wealth of visual detail.

George Creamer’s whimsical, pastel-painted branches juxtapose a polished, highly finished surfaces with the quality of a nervous gesture. These works achieve a lank humor when placed directly on the floor. They become sensuously elegant when placed on pedestals.

Lastly, Mags Harries is Boston’s best-known public sculptor, both for her Haymarket installation and more recently Porter Square “Glove Cycle.” She shows wall reliefs that playfully take apart the objects they depict. Plastic replicas of fruit, mugs and travelogue trays are split open and titled upward in a collaged cubist pun. (Through April 13)

THE BOSTON GLOBE, JANUARY 19, 1983

AN INTRIGUING COLLABORATION AT THE ICA
by Christine Temin, Special to the Globe

Douglas Dunn, Choreographer; John Driscoll, composer: and Jeffrey Schiff, sculptor—In an untitled collaboration, with the Douglas Dunn Dancers and Richard Lerman, musician. At the Institute of Contemporary Art, yesterday, Program repeats tonight.

Two bodies lay on the stark, white, archaic looking platform in the center of the gallery, draping themselves languidly around each other. Another body lay down next to me. The first pair were dancers, the official performers at this intriguing collaboration sponsored by the Institute of Contemporary Art. The body next to me belonged to a member of an audience which, like it or not, itself became part of the event.

The audience was invited to show up any time between two and five and stay as long as we wanted, wandering through the galleries. The six dancers were spread over the ICA’s two floors, moving up and down the staircase, forming temporary duets and trios. We selected our own vantage points, and there was always the tantalizing sense that we didn’t know what we were missing on the other floor, in the other rooms.

The contrast—and sometimes the lack of contrast—between us and the dancers was one of the afternoon’s most striking features. AS opposed to the conditions in a sit-down theater, we were all bathed in the same light, all moving, all inhabiting the same space, although at the beginning at least there was some reluctance on the audience’s part to invade the dancers’ turf: We cleared a path for them as reverently as if some of us got braver. Hen a dancer slowly advanced up the staircase where I was standing. I stood my ground, making him edge around me. It wasn’t any actual physical threat that made my heart pound here: It was the uncomfortable idea that I was breaking the barrier of the performer’s space.

Site-specific dance events have been a mainstay of the avant-garde for two decades now, with hundreds of dances designed for gymnasiums, galleries, rooftops, and streets. Collaboration with composers and visual artists has been another major interest of contemporary choreographers. There was nothing new about the ICA’s idea of inviting a choreographer, a composer, and a sculptor to work together, but the result is unique simply because the work was tailored to the ICA’s bizarre, nonrectilinear, two-level space.

Three-dimensionality was a major theme. The electronic sound-controlled by composer John Driscoll and musician Richard Lerman, both sitting at tables loaded with what looked like enough gadgetry to conduct a missile launch—sometimes seemed to come from distant canyons, and at other times seemed as close as someone whispering in our ears. We were enveloped by a round ocean of sound, whose origins, thanks to Driscoll’s rotating speakers, shifted unpredictably.

Jeffrey Schiff’s set often echoed the odd-angled space, with shelters in the corners, a large central platform, and a low, pier-like form which shot daringly out into the room. No matter how familiar we thought we were with the ICA space. Schiff’s architectural fragments caused us to notice it anew: Were those white pillars in the middle of his platform part of his design, or were they really holding up the building? (The latter, it turns out.).

Sometimes the dancers seemed to be performing a movement hymn to the space and the set. They slithered around columns, stretched out along the baseboards, and in an especially captivating moment three of the came together to extend Schiff’s pier: Two of them crouched, while the third stretched over their knees; their hands waved gently, like lapping waves, continuing the sea-suggestion of the pier. Great concentration was required of the dancers, who moved among us without registering any sign of recognition that we were there. Their inward focus seemed quite similar to the communion between art and viewer that takes place in a gallery when people stare at what’s hanging on the walls, oblivious of their fellow watchers. Set, sound and choreography were deliberately spare. I don’t think I’d find any one element of this work interesting for long on its own. But together, and with the richness added by the presence and behavior of the large audience which turned out despite the snowstorm, they clicked, providing a welcome highlight in a lean dance season.

O SOLE MIO
“Installation and Place” Boston Center for the Arts 1990

I conceived of O SOLE MIO (wandering) in response to the specific terms of the exhibition: an architect was to design an architecture to house 16 individual artists’ installations. This constituted a direct reversal of my customary working procedure in which I respond sculpturally to a given architecture. I felt that I could not allow myself to be connected to a larger superstructure, particularly one I knew nothing about. It was a political question regarding the relationship of individual to commune. It seemed that the only way I could participate was as an independent structure, unfixed in location and relationship to the whole – within the exhibition structure but now quite of it. My installation, rather than occupying a room, would be the room itself which would wander aimlessly around the larger space of the Cyclorama. The piece reflects the condition of the artist – the job and melancholy of being alone.

Behold the brilliant sun in all its splendor, Forgotten is the storm, the clouds now vanish, The fresh’ning breezes, heavy airs will banish, Behold the brilliant sun in all its splendor!
A sun I know of that’s brighter yet, This sun, my dearest, ’tis naught but thee, The face, so fair to see, That shall now my sun forever be.

Behold the radiant sun mid evening shadows, With golden light it covers all creation, Until it sinks below the world’s foundation. Behold the radiant sun mid evening shadows.

A sun I know that’s brighter yet, This sun, my dearest, ’tis naught but thee, Thy face, so fair to see, That shall now my sun forever be.

Eduardo Di Capua