The Human Condition: The Stephen and Pamela Hootkin Collection Sept. 2014 | Page 39

The best known of these works is in the stairwell of the

The Roloff pieces are important works in the collection

Whitney Musuem of Art (one hopes that the Metropolitan

and show the collectors’ early presience. Roloff has

Musuem will leave this in situ when they take over the

not developed the market presence that others in this

building). Titled Dwellings (1981), it is actually a triptych.

collection have enjoyed, but that has never been a

The other two pieces can barely be seen on buildings

yardstick for the Hootkins. When they feel confidence

across the street.

in the art itself, they collect. Values change, but the
power of art remains. And that is where they invest.

Acquiring Growing Towers required a long search. I recall
that it took the Hootkins over three years, seeing work at

Not only are the early works by Roloff some of

group shows, with private dealers, and at auction before

the most masterful examples of the late twentieth

making this choice. Stephen first saw this piece in The

century, but the artist went on to present a series of

Eloquent Object 3 and sought it out. He discovered that

firings of massive custom kilns, work that is among

it was owned by Leo Castelli. Castelli brought it in from

the most sophsticated process/performance art the

storage where it had been for some time and a deal

field has seen. Time is coming for his rediscovery.

was made. Growing Towers is many things at once, the

Lee Stoliar’s figures spend their lives trying to escape

Stonehenge of the desert; thrusting, urgent ceremonial

black boxes that either frame or imprison them. The

brick towers; or a transgressive desert plant morphing

momentum in her work, as we see in Completer

from manmade structure to organic, flowering peaks. It

(1988), is always reaching out, escaping confinement,

is as though at some point man ubruptly departed and

and becomes even more exaggerated in recent

nature took it upon herself to complete the project.

work. It is as though a relief sculpture is wresting itself

John Roloff uses the presence of man not through

from the wall, desperate to find a pedestal where it

direct representation, but by leaving behind a record

can live in full, rounded, three-dimensionality.

of man’s enterprise and handiwork: a shipwreck.

Stoliar’s work conjures several associations, some of

Much as with Simonds’ work, the vessel has been

which may only be in the mind of this writer, but they

abandoned by its makers. We wonder who they might

help us view her work in an expanded form. First,

be, from whence they came, and what resulted in

the dominant connection for me has always been

the loss of the ship. The use of material is powerful.

relief sculpture in Aztec temples. Those too have a

Black timbers appear scarred by fire and fused silca

sense of fervor, urgency and power. In her stylisation

creates the sense of being covered in ice or crystals.

one sees traces of William Hart Benton’s elongation

3 See Marcia Manhart and Tom Manhart, eds., The Eloquent Object: The
Evolution of American Art in Craft Media Since 1945 (Tulsa: The Philbrook
Museum, 1987).

and distortion. Formally they remind me of Robert
Mapplethorpe’s elegant male nudes posed within large

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