My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 76

l
Einsteins Edge of Winter, 2009-2011
Diptych, Acrylic on linen
90 x 144 inches

n
Ornette, 2006
Acrylic on linen
72 x 90 inches

Equally complicated — and peculiar — is
Norton’s treatment of these rough-hewn
sculptural forms. In principle, their
parts could have vectored off in multiple
directions, their shapes could have
punctuated and manipulated space
in infinite ways. Some of the loosely
figurative ones — such as Chat, 1984 —
do exactly that. But, for the most part,
Norton confined this work to grids and
the relation of one rectangular element
to another, as though the components
were slightly jumbled windows — or
canvases (Yellow Wire, 1983). Ind eed,
many of them are actually painted:
sculptures in real space daubed with
pigment, evoking paintings that, Alberti
asserted, function as windows into
virtual space (American Goat, 1983).

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And here the formal dichotomy in his
work becomes as evident as the
psychological. These sculptures, clearly
in line with the modernist heritage,
simultaneously evoke various Native
American constructs: litters, teepee
and hut, skeletons, racks for drying
or smoking (e.g., Short Horn, 1982).
This is only natural, in a sense. As the
controversial 1984 MoMA exhibition
“‘Primitivism’ in 20th Century Art”
demonstrated, borrowings from
indigenous cultures (seen as purer,
more authentic, closer to the sources
of deep inspiration) have been part
and parcel of artistic modernism at
least since Gauguin went to Tahiti and
Picasso was struck dumb by African
masks at the Trocadéro.

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

l
Pink-E, 2011
Diptych, Acrylic on linen
66 x 104 inches