Page 46 - Studio International - October 1969

Roelof Louw's

sculpture

Charles Harrison

Roelof Louw's work is very much concerned and of his insight into the nature of the as the height, length and colour of each bar,
with area, and in particular with the difference material on the other. and the nature of the material used and of its
between physical area and 'mental' area. The In the painted frame sculptures Louw uses surface. In a recent sculpture, the frame
one is the space perceptibly bounded by phy- colours unmetaphorically, in much the same becomes an irregular quadrilateral with one
sical limits or perceptibly enclosing a con- way as he uses materials; not as decorative acute and one oblique angle facing the thres-
gruent set of physical elements within the elements, nor as a means of modelling or hold pole. The effect is both to increase the
immediate visual field, the other is the space modifying, but for their individual and tension within the area and to integrate the
which can be made separate or special in the distinctive characteristics. Colour has never, structure further with the space around it.
mind of the spectator by the placing of physi- in British sculpture (and rarely in British paint- In the more open, outdoor sculptures, such
cal elements whose congruity implies a definite ing,) been used more abstractly or more pun- as the iron poles placed around a hill on
relationship across or around an area larger gently.' The thin covering of vivid (often Hampstead Heath, the physical barrier
than the immediate visual field. fluorescent) paint over the sand-blasted metal becomes minimal and different aspects of
At one extreme there are the painted tubular leaves the surface slightly rough to the touch. experience are invoked. The passage of time
structures which Louw has been making over There is absolutely no physical or optical and the crossing of distance are necessary to
the last year, at the other a series of outdoor sensuousness. 2 the spectator's experience of the work and
works involving large areas. The tubular Within the space which the frames enclose, become, once the whole structure has been
frames, though constructed and painted, share experience is provoked by the recognition and crossed, an essential ingredient in his parti-
few of the other characteristics of 'New Gene- exploration of distinct elements of different cular response.3 Not only is the sculpture
ration' sculpture. (Louw, born in 1936, is of natures. The frame is the form; the area is the itself more open and variable, but the sculp-
approximately the same age as Annesley, content. The particular form of the frame tor's control over our response is sufficiently
Bolus, Witkin, King, Scott and Tucker but sculptures is designed to direct the spectator open to admit the wide differences in each
went late to St Martin's Scool of Art from into the area, kinaesthetically and/or physi- person's experience of the space bracketed
South Africa after a period of training in cally. Three sides are high enough to act as and in his memory of that experience when
architecture.) If the work of Caro and the New barriers, the fourth is low enough to be step- the further side is reached and the episode
Generation represents, among other things, a ped over so long as the action is deliberate and `closed'. (As the area surrounded is a hill, the
reaction against the modelled forms of Moore conscious. It has been one of the major preoc- entire circle can only be seen, if at all, from
and the Middle Generation sculptors, Louw's cupations of advanced sculptors recently to the summit; i.e. only after the structure has
work takes the reaction a stage further in work find means of creating particularized situa- already been entered.)
which makes theirs look modelled. He never tions (rather than particular objects) without Art manifests itself primarily through our
cuts or bends materials into shape. Different lapsing into the theatrical or the episodic. recognition of its human origin in relationship
lengths of metal bars or tubes are joined, In the frame structures the relationship to its lack of function. Maiden Castle is
always respecting the separate identity of each between physical boundary and enclosed history, archaeology, picturesque; 'fairy rings'
element, into particular configurations which space is absolutely fixed and immediate. The in the grass are natural, curious, picturesque;
carry, in the most successful sculptures, the experience evoked is concentrated and care- iron poles placed around the base of a hill on
force of the artist's intention on the one hand fully directed, particularized by such factors Hampstead Heath are sculpture and alto-