Wendy Klemperer
born 1958, Boston, MA
works in Brooklyn, NY
Chain Hounds, 2000, steel, Hydrocal, winter-stone, Four parts: 33" x 26" x 52", 45" x 40" x 73", 49" x 60" x 35", and 68" x 32" x 27"; Lent by the Artist
Since early childhood, animals and their ability to express themselves without verbal communication have fascinated Wendy Klemperer. Of her sculptures Klemperer says: "They use the body language of animals to express a feeling or a state of being. These gestures communicate to us still, despite our civilized, verbal culture, eliciting a visceral response within us." The materials chosen for Chain Hounds are meant to retain a raw, rough-edged quality to offer a tactile sensory response in the viewer, and to reveal the nature of the beast. These hounds are based on the literary Hounds of the Baskervilles, both familiar and frightening to the viewer. At first glance, the placement of the hounds in heraldic symmetry around the exterior doors of the building seems to conjure the image of guard dogs—protective figures. Further inspection, however, reveals one of the dogs turned toward the doors, acting more as a captor than a guardian.
