Kirsten Hassenfeld

Smack on 10th Avenue, across from an empty lot, Bellwether’s plate-glass window is often drenched in strong, hard sunlight. Basking in this warm glow could be found Kirsten Hassenfeld’s beautiful free-form sculptural collage Suite (Version II) (all works 2004) for her show ‘Objects of Virtue’. Constructed from opaque vellum, pipe-cleaners, cardboard and other paper-based materials, the sculpture is an evolving web of crystalline forms whose recursive geometry winds across the space. Gems cluster in corners like softly mounting snow-drifts, polygons are strung into garlands and gently draped, and a delicate chain-link strand weaves in and out. Amid this world of stars, petals, curls and fans, cameos suspended from thin strings are the silent inhabitants of this distinctly feminine landscape.
The sculpture is as much air and light as it is paper, and none of its three-dimensional elements conveys a sense of solidity or mass. This aspect of weightlessness held true throughout ‘Objects of Virtue’, even as Hassenfeld moved between installation works and discrete objects. If Suite (closest in spirit to her previous projects) stands as the gateway to a magical fairytale world, the rest of the exhibition explored and identified some of the places and things that make that land unique. Pearl, for instance, could be the home of a sugarplum fairy. Resembling a compact multi-sided building, its roof is a filigreed dome made