Lyman Emmet Kipp — Abstract Sculpture
“Lyman Kipp’s sculptures, despite the presence of primary colors on rather thin, clean rectangular forms, remind one of ancient megaliths in their primitive organization. Several look like brightly colored, somewhat attenuated versions of Mycenaean arches, with simple lintels supported by unadorned piers — except that Kipp’s pieces lack mass, let alone any sense of monumentality, and refer most cogently to painting. Hard Edge conceptions when extended to painted sculpture lose a great deal of transmission, especially of the sculpture does not project any sense of weight, as it certainly doesn’t here. One of the central features of Hard Edge painting is its insistence on an effective distinction between interior and exterior space — the edge of the canvas contra the edge of the shape. However simple the elements may be, success requires a precise distribution of weight throughout a surface in order to prevent either extension beyond a pictures borders or incursion into the pictorial area. Lacking exact definition, a painting risks having its forms leave the surface and act as independent objects located in an indeterminate space. Kipp’s work can be faulted chiefly on these grounds. His sculptures are simple objects that do not articulate the space they occupy, and his drawings look much like architectural renderings of isolated such as a doorway or window frame.”
