The Barn Project presents "Levintating Pentagon," a solo exhibition by sculptor John Powers based in upstate New York.

Powers creates a tension between order and improvisation, stacking together hundreds of geometric or interlocking shapes to comprise one sculpture or site-specific installation. Playing with the architectural model through gridded forms like towers, fields, or prisms, Powers’ process shifts between the seriousness of Minimalist sculpture and the ephemeral delight of a child stacking blocks. He applies a similar approach to his cut paper compositions and 3D printed objects, modes that each generate more efficient forms for experimentation and iteration. Across the works he presents a Utopian re-imagining, and a reverence and wonder for the history of sculpture, holding at once the intellect of Sol LeWitt and the mystery of ancient pyramids.

Powers often begins a sculpture with a building, motif or story to which he’s conceptually drawn. In the case of this show, "Levitating Pentagon," the phrase brings to mind a five-sided shape, but precisely cites the military institution and location of a legendary 1967 political protest. Devised by the Yippies led by Abbie Hoffman, the aim of this political theater was to levitate the Pentagon off the ground, to turn it orange and vibrational, and force evil emissions to flee. Powers was struck by this mythology, its woo-woo magical thinking fueled by anti-war conviction and psychedelics, and the cathartic absurdity of their resistance strategy. Taking the Yippies’ conceit one step further, he started sketching the Pentagon’s subterranean layout, envisioning its underground footprint which is famously larger than what we see at its surface.  

Following this creative thread –perhaps as an antidote to our national mood, Powers developed these drawings into a shape that recurs in his practice: the dodecahedron, a 12-sided and 30-cornered object He composes these using wooden rectangles that stack, rotate, and lay on top of one another. It’s a highly intricate shape made slowly by hand, in his lap, using a drill and dowel to accumulate depth and dimension. As seen in a corresponding animation, Powers cuts into the form to provide an “exploded” view– prioritizing an impulse to dismantle rather than striving for perfection. And, through various tests recreating these sculptures using a 3D printer, Powers has played with scale, color, and material, as though pushing his speculative design to a final, realized phase.

In another new body of work, Powers presents 10 framed works from a series of assembled cut paper compositions. These are white-on-white, low relief constructions that convey light and shadows while following a procedure and ethic parallel to the stacked geometry sculptures. Each work is composed of many white paper squares that vary in size–reduced elements that serve to animate proposed concepts for sculpture. In one, a vertical, latticed arrangement branches out and up or a field of squares cluster or tessellate to alternately conjure chaos or conformity. Some of these, remarkably cogent despite their lack of color, texture or dimension, exist as places to experiment and play while others invite potential forms waiting to be built.

https://www.thebarnproject.art/levitating-pentagon-exhibition