Lumbering Triumph
The Washington Post

Jessica Dawson Special to The Washington Post. 
Apr 17, 2003

Minimalist Martin Puryear meets macho sculptor Richard Serra in "Bio-Morphic Forms," a remarkable sculpture by area artist Foon Sham on view at the World Bank. Like Puryear, Sham has a penchant for wood shaped into simple, elegant forms. Like Serra, he works in a monumental scale ("Bio-Morphic Forms" stands 13 feet 9 inches tall) and invites us to traverse his piece through a snaking, claustrophobic passage. From outside, the sculpture presents something of a riddle -- it looks like one continuous form, not two discrete half-circles nesting one into the other. In a poetic gesture, a small conch shell perches on one of the sculpture's outside walls, as if to remind us that small things count even in the face of imposing natural wonder. Sham is also showing four smaller-scale abstract wood sculptures that play with notions of proportion and balance, along with several acrylic and pastel works on paper.

Foon Sham at the World Bank Art Gallery, H Building Lobby, 600 19th St. NW, Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., 202-458-0333, through April 24.

Copyright The Washington Post Company Apr 17, 2003

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

Section:  STYLE

ISSN/ISBN:  01908286

Text Word Count:  173

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