A large group of breezy sculptures by Jan Peter Stern are at Ankrum. Stern, although he has lately had several major public commissions, remains a marginal figure on the contemporary artistic front. He has made only superficial departures from the European sculptural tradition from which he derives. The predominant tone of the present exhibition is of clever, lightweight variations on old familiar themes—third-hand Brancusi, Pevsner, Calder.
Still these works are not without grace and elegance. His materials are stainless steel, sometimes painted black, and aluminum. Among the most pleasant are the ones, such as Windshape X and Sail (both painted black) in which arced sheets of metal are as if molded by billowing gusts of wind. There is a series of Verticals in varying sizes, composed of light strips of stainless steel curving up in airy lanceolate forms. The aluminum Windshape III is mildly engaging in profile, with delicate flat strips peeling off petal-like from the tall stem. Stern is a facile experimenter in many directions. Unfortunately, this sometimes works against him because it is felt in individual works as a dilution of concentrated effort.
—Jane Livingston
