Erik Levine
(American, b. 1960)
Glial Axon, 2001
Cast aluminum
62 x 68 x 80 inches
Commissioned for the Grinnell College Art Collection
Located: North side of Bucksbaum Center for the Arts
Playfully poised before the entrance to Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, Erik Levine’s Glial Axon (2001) seems, to many students, to echo the shape of a musical note. Its curved contours hold an undulating rhythm. Levine says the piece is ultimately nonrepresentational, but he enjoys the idea of audience associations with the work that attribute a certain life to the sculpture, “It dances,” he says. An ambiguous form, Glial Axon nonetheless resonates.
Commissioned by the College in conjunction with Faulconer Gallery’s Energy Inside exhibition of 2001, Glial Axon was crafted after a wooden model of the same form. Despite its direct relation to the wood piece, Levine feels Grinnell’s sculpture “certainly exists on its own.” The process by which it was made — and the corrugated “Swiss cheese” effect resulting from this corrosion of a solid metal surface — are meant to embody a sense of space and time that is at once past and future. The holes on its surface imply a continuing breakdown, but are nonetheless a fixed trace of previous corrosion. With this material, Levine notes, “Something static can represent something fluid.”
The work’s title also reflects this concept of motion. Glial Axon derives from the terms “neuroglia” and “axon” — scientific terms associated with the process of muscular movement stimulated by nerve endings. Levine says the title is not to be taken seriously, but rather as “a suggestion.” It is a humorous play with words.
As the sculpture was not specifically designed to represent its site, Associate Director of Faulconer Gallery Dan Strong says it is “serendipitous” that Glial Axon has become so tied to its location and musical references. Yet Levine does say he wanted to make a piece that could be “emblematic.” Thus, situated as it is — beside a space dedicated to the arts — Glial Axon’s lyrical form can suggest the creative process.
About the Artist
Born in Los Angeles in 1960, artist Erik Levine currently lives and works in New York. His drawings, plywood sculptures, and cast aluminum sculptures have been shown in galleries and museums in France, Germany, Denmark, and Spain, as well as across the United States. His work is part of public collections at the Des Moines Art Center, the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.).Levine has won several awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1992) and several awards from the Pollock Krasner Foundation (1999, 1990, 1996), and the National Endowment for the Arts (1989, 1987).
By: Miriam Stanton ’05, updated 2006