Tools As Art: The Hechinger Collection--Instruments of Change

January 1, 2004 - February 9, 2004

"The art tells us something about who we are and where we come from. It even suggests, with a smile or a whisper, where we might be going,"
-Pete Hamill, Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection (Abrams, 1995)

Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection - Instruments of Change crowns the thematic series from the acclaimed Collection of John Hechinger, Sr. Building on his gift to the Museum of David Stromeyer's outdoor sculpture Tool de Force (a three-ton, steel ode to gigantism now on the West Lawn), Instruments of Change traces the use of tools as a hallmark of civilization and a source of artistic creativity through more than sixty sculptures, paintings, photographs, crafts, prints, and drawings.

Many of the works present dazzling feats of material and action, challenging our expectations of everyday tools. In Spinning Wrench, a revolutionary photographic experiment with multiple exposures, Berenice Abbott creates a dynamic serpentine abstraction. Arman also suggests motion in School of Fishes by magically transforming hundreds of visegrips into swimming fish, whereas in Kouros, John Van Alstine seems to balance two large blocks of solid granite, improbably with a vise.

Other works blur the distinction between high and low art by identifying art and art making with labor and tools. Both Jacob Lawrence's Builders series and Howard Finster's painted saws honor the historic role of tools as symbols of order and aspiration. A related strategy is incorporating found objects to give new life and meaning to the detritus of society, like Mr. Imagination's Paintbrush Portraits. In the case of an African Nkisi, driving nails into the figure's torso is meant to appeal to the spirit within.

Still other pieces address the change in production from hand to industrial to computer. Works like Charlie Brouwer's He Always Carried His Own Ladder to the Job, where a tool has morphed into its owner's body, and Jonathan Borofsky's Hammering Man, a monumental depiction of the underpaid worker at the dawn of the technological age, mark the passing of hand labor with bittersweet nostalgia. By contrast, Stephen Hansen's tableau of a man seemingly unaware that he is sawing himself off a limb presents a humorous vision of the hapless worker.

Tools have been a fundamental part of our history and prehistory. "When you go to the caves in France and look at the drawings of the cave men and women, you see their tools along with the bison," notes Mr. Hechinger.

The Hechinger Collection was born in 1978, when the hardware industry pioneer found his new company headquarters efficient, but sterile. He started collecting works that underscored his family business and mounted them throughout the building to inspire his associates. In 1998, the Collection left its original setting for public display. At present, it exceeds 375 works by 250 leading modern and contemporary masters as well as emerging artists, and is still growing. Spanning a wide range of media, styles, and themes, the Collection celebrates the dignity of common tools and the intrinsic beauty of their design, where form and function are often inextricably linked.

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Credits

Sarah Tanguy, Guest Curator
Alisa Goetz, Coordinating Curator