Page 42 - Studio International - October 1969
P. 42

Sculpture made visible



    Barry Flanagan
    in discussion with

    Gene Baro










    GENE BARO:  What led you to sculpture in
    particular among the visual arts?
    BARRY FLANAGAN: The convention of painting
    always bothered me. There always seemed to
    be a  way  of painting. With sculpture, you
    seemed to be working directly, with materials
    and with the physical world, inventing your
    own organizations.
    GB: But sculpture is a conventional art no less
    than painting. How do you reconcile yourself
    to the traditions and conventions of sculpture?
    BF: I  don't. There is a sculptural way of
    working that relates to the history of art -in the
    linear sense. For instance, I sometimes use
    canvas; I can put a canvas on a wall as a
    sculptural object in such a way that it will
    relate to the whole history and convention of
    painting through its rectangularity and flat
    vertical surface. But when I make a two- or
    three-space rope sculpture, it doesn't relate to
    any conventional or semantic tradition in art.
    GB: This raises the question of your choice of
    sculptural materials. There  are  traditional
    materials-stone and bronze. What was it that
    led you to use such unconventional materials
    as cloth, rope, and sand?
    BF:  Those materials-cloth, rope, and sand-
    would seem unconventional only to those who
    are bound by the notion of a tradition. What I
    like to do is to make visual and material
    inventions and propositions. I don't think
    about making sculpture, and I don't think
    whether or not what I'm making is sculpture.
    I don't like the idea of inventing a rationale to
    accompany the work. The tradition is only a
    collection of rationales.
    GB:  It seems as if your work is centred upon
    experience, is a kind of speculation upon what
    you experience visually and physically. Does
    this strike you as a just assumption? Or how
    would you differ from it?
    BF: My work isn't centred in experience. The
    making of it is itself the experience.     to be seen, both natural and man-made, that
                                                                                         Rope 3'66 1966
    Gs: How, then, do you begin a sculpture?   have visual strength but no object or function   12 x 40 x 44 in. Sisal rope
    BF: Truly, sculpture is always going on. With   apart from this. It is as if they existed for just   2
                                                                                         Rings '66 1966
    proper physical circumstances and the visual   this physical, visual purpose-to be seen.   Sand
    invitation, one simply joins in and makes the   GB: This is perhaps not so different from Henry   3
    work.                                      Moore's discovering sculpture in blocks of   Glass 1'66 1966
    GB:  Are you saying that sculpture exists in   stone or sections of wood.            Size by arrangement. Glass
    nature to be discovered ?                  BF:  Moore had to invent the shape in his   4
                                                                                         2-space rope sculpture (Gr 2 Sp 60) 1967
    BF: Not exactly. When I say that sculpture is   imagination-to put it another way, to invent   60 ft x 6 in. girth. Rope
    always going on, I mean that there is a never-  the exactness of the shape in his imagination   5
                                                                                         Al cash 4'67 1967
    ending stream of materials and configurations                                        32 x 36 x 36 in. Sand and canvas
   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47