Wander the streets of many of the world's major cities and you’re likely to encounter the work of George Segal. Standing tall at a street corner, sitting pensively on a park bench, or strutting earnestly through a train station, the 20th-century artist’s bronze and plaster sculptures hold a profoundly familiar presence within the spaces that they occupy. Publicly installed art is nothing new or revolutionary – Rome’s St. Peter’s Square has featured the same Egyptian obelisk in its center for the past 438 years – however, brushing shoulders with one of Segal’s strikingly human works leaves a unique impression, which in acknowledgment of his worldwide acclaim, has proven to be lasting for many.
Departing from his birthplace of the Bronx, George Segal would spend his adulthood living and developing his oeuvre on a farm near New Brunswick, New Jersey – he exemplifies the dichotomy of a life spent in the Tri-State area, which for many is marked by a split existence between urban craze and rural repose. Two decades into his art career, Segal would finally receive major recognition while employed part time at Rutgers University. Working in a chicken coop-turned-art studio, Segal honed his now renowned practice of plaster casting, which he had been influenced to adopt by a student who bestowed to him several boxes of plaster-soaked bandages. He would proceed to cast the human body in its plethora of forms over the rest of his life.
Inspired by the unique variations reflected in human existence, Segal’s objective was to capture not only the physical human form but the spirit and individuality of each subject that he cast; however, despite how relatable his renderings of humans appear, their artificial nature could never completely mirror the living. The very presence of these figures, frozen in time and in positions that would otherwise be considered ephemeral, provide an abnormal intrigue that is ever so slightly uncanny and irrefutably enthralling.
In what would have been the one-hundredth year of George Segal’s life, the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University presents a magnificent celebration of the artist's career. Organized by Donna Gustafson, Chief Curator and Curator of Art of the Americas at the Zimmerli, George Segal: Themes and Variations surveys the various avenues that Segal explored throughout his career. The exhibition sheds light on his lesser-known mediums, such as his works on canvas, photography, and his mixed media still lifes. Additionally featured are a variety of captivating and intimate photographs of Segal within his studio, produced by Donald Lokuta and Arnold Newman.
Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Donna Gustafson to discuss the process of curating an exhibition surrounding someone as important to the New Brunswick area as George Segal, and – being the main catalyst behind its materialization – what George Segal: Themes and Variations means to her.
Fig. 1: Chief Curator of the Zimmerli Art Museum, Donna Gustafson, beside George Segal’s Blues of the Ruby Matrix.
What influenced you to become a curator?
I went to college as a fine arts major and it was then that I discovered art history. I decided to go to graduate school for art history and that's when I decided I wanted to be a curator – I think I've been a curator for 30 years. I always loved the arts, I loved to make things, I loved to go to museums, I loved to read about art, I loved art history, and I always had a lot of friends who were artists – there was no other thing I could have done with my life.
George Segal is a prominent 20th-century artist whom the Zimmerli has featured in the past and notably is a New Brunswick local. What is the significance of curating an exhibit surrounding someone with such local prestige in comparison to an exhibition that might not have as direct an association with the Zimmerli?
That's a particularly good question in relation to this exhibition. You know, I went to graduate school here at Rutgers, then I moved to New York where I was a curator and did many exhibitions about contemporary art. I moved back here and took a job here at the Zimmerli – I had always known that George Segal was a very prominent artist in the collection here, so as soon as I got here, I looked into George Segal and started thinking about him, but I didn't really do anything about it; however, in the back of my mind, I always thought of George Segal as being such a, as you say, New Brunswick local. He was a Rutgers grad, and there were so many reasons for him to be very tightly connected to this museum.
Then, a few years ago, Rena Segal, his daughter, said to me, “2024 will be the centennial of my father's birth”, and I thought that would be a really good reason to do an exhibition that featured George Segal and his work at the Zimmerli. Right from the beginning I wanted to focus on George Segal, rooted in New Jersey, as a New Jersey person, because it's amazing to me that he never left his farm, even as a world-famous artist who traveled around the world. His art is in Japan, Europe, and South America; he could have gone to live anywhere, but he decided to stay here on his farm.
Fig. 2: (Left) Maura Reilly, Director of the Zimmerli Art Museum, (Center) Rena Segal, artist, philanthropist, and daughter of George Segal, (Right) Donna Gustafson, Chief Curator of the Zimmerli Art Museum, at the opening premier of George Segal: Themes and Variations. Photograph by Ben Cafaro, courtesy of the Zimmerli Art Museum.
In 2015, the Zimmerli held an exhibition entitled “George Segal in Black and White: Photographs by Donald Lokuta”. How did that exhibit differ from the current Segal show?
That exhibition was a collaboration with students at Rutgers – it was the subject of a Byrne Seminar. I had known Donald's photographs – he did a wonderful series about the Mermaid Parade in Brooklyn, and I had done a little show about that years ago – but I wanted to do something about these George Segal photographs because they were so vividly reminiscent of what George Segal's working space was like. So, Donald and I planned a small show, and I had the students in my Byrne Seminar help choose the photos. Then, Rena actually let us all come to the studio and walk around.
Fig. 3: Donald Lokuta, George Segal Preparing to Cast Barbara Novak, 1992, and George Segal with “Woman on Park Bench”, 1998.
In organizing and obtaining the works for this project, you acquired not only pieces from our collection but also pieces from the George and Helen Segal Foundation and some from private collectors. When you are working with other parties, what are some challenges with curating an exhibit?
One of the challenges in putting an exhibition together is always, “Will the person lend you the work?”. There is often a long negotiation, but Rena Segal and the Segal Foundation who were the major leaders were very supportive; they lent us everything that we asked for. The challenge for me is often that things always look different when they arrive in the museum, for example, these paintings (see Figure 4) are bigger than I remembered, so when they came in, I thought, oh my gosh, how can I get these large paintings in the small first gallery? – I had to expand that first section to include part of the second gallery.
Another one of the challenges of curating is that you have to imagine the space filled with the objects you've chosen. You have to have a good sense of space because once art has been lent to the museum, you have to find space for it in the show. You have to really think about how things work together, you have to have already in your head a vision of what the show is going to say, and you have to do all these things at the same time. A friend of mine once said putting together an exhibition is like putting together a film, and it's a lot like that – you need a script, you need props, you need time, you need space, and you need people to help you; it's a real production, and then you have a big party.
Fig. 4: George Segal, Partial Back of Yellow Nude, 1957, Three Figures on a Blue Background, 1958.
Looking back on your career since joining the museum in 2009, how do you think your experiences have shaped your approach to curating an exhibit such as this one?
I think my experience here has been deeply shaped by the students at Rutgers, because I really do think that, as a university art museum, this museum should be a space for students. I've done a lot of shows with students, I always have students working with me – at the moment, I have a wonderful graduate student named Raven Manygoats working with me. I also have an undergraduate student, Amber Safeer, who works with me. I like working in collaboration with students and the university community. I think that looking at art is a communal opportunity and a communal effort; talking about art and thinking about it with someone else is the way to fully understand it.
For example, I love having the student guides ask me questions because they ask me things I never would have asked. Recently, one of them asked me "Why are there only seven of the pregnancy series?" (see Figure 5), I said I did not have an answer to that. I thought, well maybe it's because during the first two months, there's not really much change in the body; of course, the series doesn't necessarily have to reflect a month-by-month progression. We were also talking about Segal's use of Old Testament scenes because, you know, this sculpture here makes reference to Masaccio's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (see Figure 6), and there are two paintings that reference the legend of Lot from the Old Testament. There's always a thousand possibilities, but one of the students said, “Well, maybe it's the seven days of creation”, and I thought, that's a very good idea. It wasn't something that ever would have occurred to me, but I like that interpretation.
Fig. 5: George Segal, The Pregnancy Series: Seven Stages, 1978.
Fig. 6: George Segal, Italian Restaurant, 1988. Featured behind the seated subject is Segal’s interpretation of 15th-century artist Masaccio’s Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
What is your favorite work in the gallery?
If you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have said that this is my favorite, that still life, the Paint Cans with Wainscotting (see Figure 7). That found object sculpture ties back to my interest in Fluxus and Segal's roots in the late 1950s. One of my first exhibitions at the Zimmerli was a show that focused on the history of Fluxus at Rutgers -I guess in 2010 or 11. Fluxus was an international band of artists in the early 60s who, I would say, reinvented art as a less exalted, more everyday kind of activity. They would do what they called "events"; they would make games, they performed in the streets and in concert halls. One of the things they hoped to do was reinvent the art market to circumvent the whole gallery system. They had a Fluxus store in Soho, New York, and they sold Fluxus objects, games, etc., for very affordable prices. There was a real emphasis on art and everyday life– along the lines of "anyone can be an artist and art is for everyone". There was a group of them here at Rutgers, a group of the originators, including Geoffrey Hendricks and Robert Watts.
Fig. 7: George Segal, Paint Cans with Wainscoting, 1983.
I did a little show which was about these people at Rutgers and some of the events that happened at George Segal's farm, which is why that 1963 video by Bud Wirtschafter is in the show – Paint Cans reminds me of that, it was part of that whole "Robert Rauschenberg idea of working in the space between art and life", that's partly why I like it so much. It also shows his working-class roots and that whole sense of "anything can be art, and art is everywhere", I like that. And then I really do like The Dancers (see Figure 8), they are beautiful.
Fig. 8: George Segal, The Dancers, 1971.
What do you hope George Segal: Themes and Variations will impart unto visitors?
I wanted to do two things. One: I really did want to celebrate George Segal, and I wanted to celebrate him here in his community, you know? One of the touching things about the opening was that there were so many people who knew him or whose parents had known him. One person told me that his grandfather was a dentist; George Segal has a sculpture called The Dentist, all the equipment belonging to this man's grandfather was used by George Segal in the sculpture. It was nice to see so many people happy that George Segal was being presented here and having these stories to tell.
But also, I hope that people who think they know George Segal, because they've seen a couple of his sculptures, see him as a much more expansive, versatile artist who did many, many things. He was very intellectually rigorous, he really thought deeply about the history of art, about his place in his own generation and in the longer survey of artists – from Matisse all the way up to the Happenings, Allan Kaprow, and himself.
One of the things that sort of surprised me, I mean, I knew about George Segal, but in doing my research, I discovered him as a part of not only this community – New Brunswick, Highland Park, South Brunswick – but also a part of the artist community that moved beyond painting to sculpture and the incorporation of everyday objects. He's not an outsider out here in the country, he was right there with all of these people who were making really interesting new art; he was there, and it happened at the farm.
As George Segal’s sculptures, paintings, and photographs occupy the Special Exhibitions gallery of the Zimmerli Art Museum, it is difficult to ignore the artist’s profound connection to the university that it represents and the town in which it resides. Equally identifiable is the befitting nature of the show’s direction by Rutgers alum Donna Gustafson, who sought to present a new perspective on the influential artist in what could not have been a more opportune moment in time. George Segal: Themes and Variations will be on exhibition throughout the spring semester at Rutgers University and will conclude on July 31, 2024.
Article edited by Donna Gustafson for clarity and accuracy.