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Heteroclitus

The term “heteroclitus” is borrowed from Ancient Greek. It suggests the combination of terms for “different” and “to lean.” Gabriel Kohn’s sculpture, Heteroclitus, elegantly embodies both. This uncomplicated sculpture combines rectangular sheets and strips of two types of softwood: sugar pine and cedar. It stands, or more accurately leans, around two feet by two feet by two-and-a-half feet. Made in 1964 and 1965, the main portion is like a mirror image of a thick letter J teetering backward at 45 degrees. It touches the ground only on one edge at the bottom of the J’s curve. Keeping the backward J up is another, smaller portion of sculpture about half as thick. This one is anchored to the J shape about midway up its vertical stalk and leans into it at a 45-degree angle.

Round wooden dowel pins were used to connect the pieces of wood that make up the lip around the J’s curve and to hold the two leaning portions together. They lie flush with the surface of the sculpture. Kohn selected dowel pins that never precisely match the shade of the wood each pin was pushed through, always just a little lighter or a little darker.

Kohn also deftly implements the concept of “different” by juxtaposing thick, wide panels with slender pieces. Paler, uniform wood is mixed with knotty or dark-striped pieces throughout. And while undoubtedly a work of art, this piece might have an imagined second life as something utilitarian. There are two small windows that open into the stalk of the backward J, evoking a mailbox or some other container into which one might slip something small. And the curved portion at the bottom has a recessed area. It would be a great place to play a game with dice or marbles if the J shape weren’t perfectly balanced against another piece and could lie flat on its side.