Tony Tye, Post-Gazette Ceramist Maki Funai's "Flux," chosen for the Jerry Caplan Award and on display in the PPG Wintergarden, is sensuous in line, its organic quality heightened by painstakingly applied detail. Click photo for larger image.

Two exhibitions of sculpture -- one solo and one group -- have been installed Downtown in collaboration with the Three Rivers Arts Festival. While not curated by festival staff, they contribute to the mix of what's offered and benefit from festival-drawn crowds.

Occupying the PPG Wintergarden, former home to the Arts Festival juried sculpture exhibition, is the Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors show, in its second year at this venue.

An overall more spirited exhibition than last year's, the 36 sculptures by 35 artists include several by members of the Philadelphia Sculptors group. Media range from more traditional materials such as marble and clay to fiber and video. The juror was Robert Metzger, director emeritus of and consultant to the Reading Public Museum, Berks County.

While works vary in quality, a majority are impressive. Maki Funai's remarkable ceramic "Flux," chosen for the Jerry Caplan Award, is sensuous in line, its organic quality heightened by painstakingly applied detail.

Andrew Scott's tripartite "Red Figure Bench," somewhat George Nakashima gone rustic, invites participation with chalk left in paint-slipped turned wooden bowls atop each bench. While the interactive element is contemporary, the piece could better stand aesthetically with the graffiti hosed off.

Christine McAvoy Kocevar and Jennifer Bechak frame engaging conceptual issues within confident, formally strong structures in "Threshold of Perception" and "Greenhouse From Synthetic Utopist," respectively.

The chutzpah with which these four artists approach space is characteristic of students or graduates of Indiana University of Pennsylvania's sculpture program. Rafael Reyes and Adam Welch also hail from IUP, which has been well represented at the festival for years.

Also noteworthy are Will Giannotti's 96-inch-high, thrusting wood sculpture "Verticle Yellow Line/Three Directioned Red Line (Bull)," and Steve Dolbin's "Relic of Memory (911 Memorial Series)," a loose cairn of "rocks" (actually cast sand and resin), the top one of which holds the dissolving form of a man's collar and necktie.

Judi Charlson, Jane Haskell, Adrienne Heinrich and society president James Shipman each expand upon their traditional expression resulting in accomplished works. Gary Zak's humorous "Kennywood's Open" plays off a regional double-entendre.

Richard Clarival takes risks with the personal "The Prison of My Youth" -- a pierced and charred figure in a cage surrounded by harsh admonitions -- but restrains the expression and it holds.

In other instances, artists need to push the edge a bit more. For example, Elizabeth Mackie's "Bed of Rapunzel" has commendable material and concept but loses impact by its formal presentation.

RiverCubes

	John Beale, Post-Gazette Bob Johnson turns trash into treasures in his "RiverCubes Project: Pittsburgh," on display at Point State Park near the pedestrian bridge in conjunction with the Three Rivers Arts Festival. Click photo for larger image.

There's nothing tentative about Bob Johnson's bold RiverCubes at Point State Park near the pedestrian bridge. Their name comes from their origins. Each is an industrially compacted, weighty (400 to 1,200 pounds), cube comprising discarded goods gathered during clean-ups of local rivers.

Artist/philosopher Johnson arranges this detritus of industrial consumer society in ways that suspend between happenstance and formal elegance. Wheels, shopping carts, bikes, bumpers, thick lengths of rope and farm implements are among the abandoned and rusting artifacts that, smashed and entwined, are still recognizable.

Environmental artworks, they stand as mute commentary on cultural affluence, disregard for disposal issues and the rapid obsolescence bred by technological development. The dozen cubes exhibited also illustrate the incomprehensible amount of debris that's accumulating, often demeaning waterways and wilderness areas.

The cubes are part of the RiverCubes Project: Pittsburgh, which has received help from the Tireless Project, Three Rivers Rowing Association, Friends of the Riverfront, and Image Earth and funding from the Sprout Fund.

A map shows where the material from each bundle was gathered, with titles like "Girty's Run Harvest" on the Allegheny River and "Duck Hollow Debris" from the Monongahela.

Their present location -- near the rivers and near festival public artist Steven Siegel's sculpture by the fountain -- underscores Johnson's message. While contained, they are representative of both the objects and the society that could bring this place of beauty to ruin.