The Green Monster, Yaz and the Babe in Art
Unique Assemblages Preserve Moments
By: Susan Hall - May 30, 2011
Bases Loaded
Steuben Gallery
New York City
www.goinggoinggonesports.com
Artists have over the years assembled elements from life and created a world in which the sum of the parts has an emotional and esthetic impact which could never have been achieved by any individual part. Robert Rauschenberg put together elements for collage. A charming sculpture, Rauschenberg’s biggest, looks to me like a lifeguard stand.
Neil Scherer, an erstwhile attorney who worked for Carvel (ice cream), put together visual elements including a ticket stub from the fateful conclusion of the American League Championship Series in 2004, the outcome of which does not need description for a Red Sox fan. He sent the framed image to a friend’s father who collected fine art. The gentleman wrote back, half in jest, “Don’t tell my wife, but if it was up to me, I’d toss out all the art work and hang this in the place it deserves.”
Neil thought: there are other moments like this in all sport, and especially baseball. If I can put together key elements of the moment, I will not only have a moment remembered, but I will capture a feeling that gives pleasure whenever it is contemplated.
A collage artist, Scherer now brings together in the frame photographs, tickets that gave entrance to the moment, baseball cards, autographs. Taken together these elements make an indelible moment palpable.
Mantle’s home run record, Roger Maris’ single season triumph, Bobby Thomson’s homer “The Shot Heard Round the World,” and some samples from basketball are among the collages assembled.
Treasured assemblages are “Green Monster Hero’s” which includes a piece of the green monster and “Thanks, Yaz” a riveting tribute to Carl Yastrzemski.
As the eye takes in each of the details of the moment, memory’s moments accumulate. When you pull back to view the whole, 'Pow', like the crack of the bat as Ralph Branca’s pitch hits the homerun bat, you are swept into the place, the time, the instant when monumentality was achieved in sport.
These pieces are on display at the Steuben Gallery in New York, where you can also view glass sculptures of bats and balls created by Steuben’s artists. It is a special treat for those of us who deeply understand Cal Ripken’s disciplined record for consecutive times at bat and a team finally breaking the curse of the Bambino!