Who is Norman Hasselriis?
Remembering him.................. THE WINDHAM JOURNAL
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1991 “Neo-Dada In Oak Hill -Toward Redefining the Dada Spirit” by Carolyn Bennett.
He's a poet and a sculptor (more poet than anything else, he insists, but his definition of poetry is so broad that it's likely to encompass the world); he's a shaper and a "Trickster" - a literary Coyote in the finest word-forging fashion. He's a child of Dada and a Dada to his students. He's an Oak Hill resident, a Greene County artist, a gallery owner and former antiquarian book dealer, a photographer and businessman. A gardener. A self-defined adventurer. (I'm a Norman, after all.") A seeker. A making of things. But such fun things, you can't imagine.
Picture this: The artist creating a new vision from a variety of materials and objects such as dolls, toys, shoes, baskets, cow horns, callipers, boxes, sheers, scissors, bird cages, musical instruments, strap hinges and harness hooks, hardware, tools, fiddle heads, beads, keys and copper liquor stills.
What are his techniques? Dis-placement, condensation, free asso-ciation: the entire legacy of Freud's own interior adventures. Add to that a sense of humor and a soup-con of surprise.
