Norman Carlberg
Encyclopedia
Norman Carlberg (born 1928) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 sculptor and printmaker. He is noted as an exemplar of the modular constructivist
Modular constructivism
Modular constructivism is a style of sculpture that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s and was associated especially with Erwin Hauer and Norman Carlberg...

 style.

Norman Carlberg was born in Roseau
Roseau, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 2,756 people, 1,157 households, and 713 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,153.6 people per square mile . There were 1,229 housing units at an average density of 514.4 per square mile...

, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Art and at the University of Illinois
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

 before going on to study under Josef Albers
Josef Albers
Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....

 at Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...

. "Recent Sculpture USA", a 1959 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

 in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, featured Carlberg's work. Afterwards, Carlberg taught briefly (1960-1961) in Santiago, Chile
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...

. In 1961 Carlberg became director of the Rinehart
William Henry Rinehart
William Henry Rinehart was a noted American sculptor. He is considered "the last important American sculptor to work in the classical style."-Biography:...

 School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art
Maryland Institute College of Art
Maryland Institute College of Art is an art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the first and oldest art colleges in the United States. In 2008, MICA was ranked #2 in the nation...

 (MICA) in Baltimore. He taught at MICA until 1996. According to marylandartsource.com, Carlberg's sculptures are in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...

 in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, the Art and Architecture Gallery at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in New Haven, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...

 and the Baltimore Museum of Art
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...

.

Carlberg has also collaborated with important architects on major public projects, such as the Riverside Centre http://www.seidler.net.au/projects/023Frameset.html, designed by Harry Seidler
Harry Seidler
Harry Seidler, AC OBE was an Austrian-born Australian architect who is considered to be one of the leading exponents of Modernism's methodology in Australia and the first architect to fully express the principles of the Bauhaus in Australia.Harry Seidler designed more than 180 buildings and he...

 and Associates in Brisbane, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. According to the description of Riverside Centre at the firm's website, the main lobby is fifteen meters in height and "the surrounding floors become mezzanines overlooking this space which has a large centrally placed sculpture by Carlberg and tapestries by Calder
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...

." For images, see the "External links" section.

Style: Modular constructivism, minimalism

It is not difficult to see a connection between the rigorous, disciplined compositions of Carlberg and those of his teacher Josef Albers
Josef Albers
Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....

. Carlberg has written: "My style of sculpture represents the movement known as Modular Constructivism
Modular constructivism
Modular constructivism is a style of sculpture that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s and was associated especially with Erwin Hauer and Norman Carlberg...

, which grew into its maturity and popularity in the 50's and 60's." http://g11.org.uk/jncarlberg/ Marylandartsource.com also lists minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...

 as a style category for this artist.

The "modular" aspect of Carlberg's constructions is often readily apparent to the eye. Wiktionary defines a module as "a self-contained component of a system, often interchangeable, which has a well-defined interface to the other components." Carlberg's sculptures often consist of repetitions of such a unit, a basic shape capable of combining with other such elements in various ways - somewhat in the way a composer such as Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

 or Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...

 might compose a piece of music by exploring the combinatorial possibilities of a single motivic cell, working within implicit constraints. At Yale, Erwin Hauer
Erwin Hauer
Erwin Hauer is an Austrian-born American sculptor who studied first at Vienna's Academy of Applied Arts and later under Josef Albers at Yale. Hauer was an early proponent of Modular Constructivism and an associate of Norman Carlberg...

 was an important influence who prodded Carlberg in this stylistic direction. While both sculptors often employ curvilinear forms as modules, Carlberg more often than Hauer has also used relatively geometric, hard-edged design units, often combining curves with straight edges (or flat planes) in the same module. His prints, mostly dating after 1970, show a similar preoccupation with precision, simplicity, and modularity. Some of these print works are actually groups of prints, placed contiguously together on a wall, with each print conceived as a module. One is invited to rotate or reposition them, allowing the modules to form new composite images. These works position Carlberg as among the earliest practitioners of ModulArt
ModulArt
Modular art is art created by joining together standardized units to form larger, more complex compositions. In some works the units can be subsequently moved, removed and added to – that is, modulated – to create a new work of art, different from the original or ensuing configurations.- Origins...

, a co-creative branch of modular art in which the work of art can be physically manipulated to form new configurations.

Occasionally Carlberg combines his minimalistic, modular constructivism with external references, as in one piece, apparently a grim antiwar
Protest art
Protest art is a broad term that refers to creative works that concern or are produced by activists and social movements. There are also contemporary and historical works and currents of thought that can be characterized in this way....

 statement, featuring a flag-draped coffin as the generating 'module', surrounded by mirrors which multiply it indefinitely, as far as the light can penetrate.

See also

  • Constructivism (art)
    Constructivism (art)
    Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...

  • Erwin Hauer
    Erwin Hauer
    Erwin Hauer is an Austrian-born American sculptor who studied first at Vienna's Academy of Applied Arts and later under Josef Albers at Yale. Hauer was an early proponent of Modular Constructivism and an associate of Norman Carlberg...

     (sculptor and colleague who influenced Carlberg)
  • Minimalism
    Minimalism
    Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...

  • Modular constructivism
    Modular constructivism
    Modular constructivism is a style of sculpture that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s and was associated especially with Erwin Hauer and Norman Carlberg...

  • Maryland Institute College of Art
    Maryland Institute College of Art
    Maryland Institute College of Art is an art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the first and oldest art colleges in the United States. In 2008, MICA was ranked #2 in the nation...

  • Josef Albers
    Josef Albers
    Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....

     (painter; teacher of Carlberg at Yale
    YALE
    RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...

    )
  • Formalism (art)
    Formalism (art)
    In art theory, formalism is the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content...

  • Harry Seidler
    Harry Seidler
    Harry Seidler, AC OBE was an Austrian-born Australian architect who is considered to be one of the leading exponents of Modernism's methodology in Australia and the first architect to fully express the principles of the Bauhaus in Australia.Harry Seidler designed more than 180 buildings and he...

     (architect; collaborated with Carlberg)
  • Riverside Centre (one of Carlberg's collaborative projects)
  • Jane Frank
    Jane Frank
    Jane Schenthal Frank was an American artist. She studied with Hans Hofmann and Norman Carlberg and is known as a painter, sculptor, mixed media artist, and textile artist...

     (noted student of Carlberg)
  • Earl Hofmann
    Earl Hofmann
    Earl Hofmann was one of Baltimore's realist artists who studied with and assisted Jacques Maroger at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He was a major part of the Baltimore art scene of the mid-twentieth century...

     (MICA art teacher)
  • ModulArt
    ModulArt
    Modular art is art created by joining together standardized units to form larger, more complex compositions. In some works the units can be subsequently moved, removed and added to – that is, modulated – to create a new work of art, different from the original or ensuing configurations.- Origins...


External links

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