Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Barry Tinsley
American; 20th-century
Normal, IL: Illinois State University
35%
Untitled. 1974. Steel
There's something to be said — barely anything, but something — for the attempt to get out from under di Suvero's steel-beam thumb with all these hefty planes, but my god is this thing a travesty of good honest massing. Look at how that big toe of a horizontal tombstone shape just utterly fails to have anything to say to the suspended vertical rectangle on the opposite side of the sculpture; look at how Tinsley got squeamish about having too much flat surface so he accented the yawning goateed form opposite the leaning beams with that useless metal banding. (It's not even worth getting into the ghastly orange that's accenting it too.) A mess of widths and weights, this sculpture isn't worth the grass it's blocking from getting enough sun. (2025)