Curatorial Assistant, Samantha Small: I’m Samantha Small. I’m a Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture.
Conservator, Lynda Zycherman: And I’m Lynda Zycherman, a Conservator of Sculpture and Objects.
Samantha Small: This work gets its name, The Cock, from its source material, which is a rooster. The jagged zigzag edge has been read as a reference to the cock’s comb, and that leads down to the rooster’s beak at the bottom of the work. It’s also been read as a crowing rooster, in which case the point at the top of the work, would be the rooster’s beak as it arches up and crows. And in that case, the carving evokes the staccato crow of the rooster.
Direct carving is where the sculptor himself goes into the material and carves it directly, without the use of studio assistants. It looks back to folk traditions from Brancusi’s native Romania, so how the folk artists were directly carving into wood and into stone.
Lynda Zycherman: That narrow foot holding that top-heavy cock is an achievement. This is an example of a refined wood sculpture. So it’s got the same zigzag effect as Endless Column, but he has removed the hand chisel marks and gone for a smooth, silky, shiny, finish. This, for him, would have been quick. Cherry is a relatively soft wood. He would’ve first used smaller chisels, and then he would’ve used files to sand it down, and then he would’ve used abrasive papers, and keep going, finer and finer grits. Same way they do it today.