Franz Erhard Walther

Franz Erhard Walther's responsibility ends where his exhibition at the San Diego State University Art Gallery begins. You, the viewer, are in charge of completing the work, he says. You must define it. "Is it flat sculpture or dimensional painting? It has pictorial qualities and sculptural qualities when you stand in front of it, but, once you enter it, you can no longer see it. It becomes an implement, a kind of pedestal," he said, "and the body can become a work of art."

Franz Erhard Walther's responsibility ends where his exhibition at the San Diego State University Art Gallery begins. You, the viewer, are in charge of completing the work, he says. You must define it. "Is it flat sculpture or dimensional painting? It has pictorial qualities and sculptural qualities when you stand in front of it, but, once you enter it, you can no longer see it. It becomes an implement, a kind of pedestal," he said, "and the body can become a work of art."

The first American gallery showing for West German artist Franz Erhard Walther features precisely made fabric sculpture. Conceptually based cotton works could be portable staging areas for visiting firemen as they fold out from the wall to display bright industrial orange or yellow coat sleeves and leggings. Originally the clothes were intended to encourage viewers to physically a part of the sculpture.

The first American gallery showing for West German artist Franz Erhard Walther features precisely made fabric sculpture. Conceptually based cotton works could be portable staging areas for visiting firemen as they fold out from the wall to display bright industrial orange or yellow coat sleeves and leggings. Originally the clothes were intended to encourage viewers to physically a part of the sculpture.

Franz Erhard Walther's responsibility ends where his exhibition at the San Diego State University Art Gallery begins. You, the viewer, are in charge of completing the work, he says. You must define it. "Is it flat sculpture or dimensional painting? It has pictorial qualities and sculptural qualities when you stand in front of it, but, once you enter it, you can no longer see it. It becomes an implement, a kind of pedestal," he said, "and the body can become a work of art."

In 1969 and 1970, sculptor Michael Heizer displaced 240,000 tons of rock in the Nevada desert, cutting two enormous trenches, each one 50 feet deep and 30 feet wide and together spanning 1,500 feet, at the eastern edge of Mormon Mesa. In 1970, artist Robert Smithson marshaled heavy equipment to deposit rocks and rubble along a 1,500-foot-long path, starting at the shoreline of a remote section of Great Salt Lake, Utah, and spiraling out into the water. In 1977, Walter De Maria harnessed the potential energy of a distant patch of high desert in Western New Mexico by installing 400 stainless steel poles - effectively lightning rods, each one about 20 feet tall - in a grid pattern that measures one mile by one kilometer.

January may signal the beginning of a fresh, untried year--and in the present case, a new decade--but in the art world, it is a month like any other. More auspicious on the art world's calendar is September, when the new "season" of shows begins and galleries settle down to business again after the summer lull. Allegiance to an academic calendar that begins in the fall and ends with spring is steadfast among New York galleries, whose clients retreat from the sweating city during July and August.