BILL BOLLINGER

Bill Bollinger (b. 1939, Brooklyn, New York; d. 1988, Pine Plains, New York) examined the relationships among natural forces such as gravity, pressure, and structural tension, often using only minimally altered industrial materials, imposed systems, and serial forms. After studying aeronautical engineering, Bollinger returned to New York City in 1961 to take painting classes at the Art Students League. He quickly pivoted primarily to sculpture and installation, while also expanding his exploration of the picture plane in his two-dimensional works. Between 1966 and ’77, he showed alongside a cohort of artists including Eva Hesse, Richard Serra, and Richard Tuttle. While his spare compositions often evoked the Minimalism of his peers, Bollinger embraced a spontaneity of process akin to that of the Abstract Expressionists. Early exhibitions at New York’s Bianchini and Bykert galleries featured site-responsive sculptures and installations using materials as far-ranging as aluminium piping, wire mesh, spray paint, and sweeping compound. In 1970, he filled an entire floor of Chelsea’s Starrett-Lehigh Building with sculptures composed of rubber tubing, steel barrels, wood, and—most importantly—water, among other elements. This major exhibition presented works entirely dependent on their interconnected material relationships. Bollinger’s constructions were, in his words, ‘not primarily expressive through form but declarative through state.’