The sculptures by Robert Sanders continue the legacy of the art of assemblage that played such an important part in the early history on Modernism. I remember encountering Sanders human scale sculpture Fellowship of Greif, that was placed in the hallway outside of his small studio in the HBU’s University Academic Center and immediately thinking “assemblage art is still alive”.  The art of sculpture in the 20th Century found some of the more adventuresome artists abandoning their hammers and chisels for the welding torch. Carving into stone and wood was replaced by the reassembling of machine parts. Think of Joan Miro and his assemblage sculptures; Like his 1967 Woman with Jug that includes a piece of broken pottery for one arm and a metal spoon for the other arm  (this assemblage was finished as a cast bronze sculpture) or Miro’s famous pure assemblage of natural materials, L’ Objet du Couchant of 1936 that so drove the imagination of the Surrealists. Sanders’ art continues in that spirit. Sanders’ smaller works, the Future Glories,  (Transfigure Glory, Glory Devine, Haunting Glory, etc.) are playful and whimsical, and are successful in that they say just enough. They are like little sculptural poems, leaving the viewer with the possibility of coming up with their own assessments from a contemplation of their assembled parts.

Jim Edwards, is an artist, expert art writer and curator, and an authority on American art of the southwest
San Francisco, California
October 21, 2020

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