Page 47 - Studio International - October 1969

Steel, sand-blasted and zinc-sprayed, painted
17 x 17ft
June 1968
2
Aluminium, sand-blasted, painted
21 x 21ft
1969

gether different.4 The divergence from other factor in the revelation of the different shapes different metals for different structural func-
parallel natural or archaeological phenomena given off by a finite form. There's a nice and tions and then concealed their separate identi-
is marked, in this case, by the material used: an important irony in that piece of art history: ties beneath a unifying coat of paint), and on
iron poles are man-made, and their use identi- what really got the spectator moving so that the creation of sculptural situations in which
fies the phenomenon of their presence as being his sense of space could change was not the spectator's role is more than passive.
of human origin. The impossibility, for all mobiles or environments or kinetic toys but The potential within a particular sculptural
except the really perverse, of finding a rational one of the most basic forms conceivable. He situation is often, in Louw's work, largely
justification for their placing in this context had to move or be bored to death. dependent on context. Where emphasis is laid
will provoke the spectator, as he crosses into What was important about the spectator's on the unconcealed nature of a given material
the space enclosed, into a state of aesthetic role in this context was that it threw him back this is inevitable. Iron poles on a building site
speculation. As his experience of the work is onto the contemplative aspect of aesthetic are one thing. Iron poles placed around a hill
completed by his encounter with the further experience. Motion around the work may be in Hampstead are another. Or rather, while
side of the circle—an encounter which he must just as necessary to the understanding of a the objects themselves may be the same, the
consciously or unconsciously have felt to be sculpture by, say, Caro, hut only in order effect of their presentation is wholly different.
possible if not probable—the first phase of his better to understand its internal relationships. Attention is focused upon the material by
speculation is decisively terminated. In the The work remains hermetic and isolated locating it in a context where it carries the
second phase his speculation is retrospective : within the visual field. With the minimal cube minimum of associations. While the poles are
the space he has crossed is now enclosed by the we move in order the better to understand the presented as merely themselves—and not, say,
circle, physical and temporal, which his relationship between the thing made and as likely components for scaffolding— they are
intuition will tell him is complete. He cannot, ourselves, the object and our experience of it. open to identification as components for
by retracing his steps, re-enter the first phase. Where the hermetic work offers a particular sculpture.
Art is indelible. The whole space has been experience—which may be attractive and With certain reservations. Merely to pose a
effected physically, and the whole episode compelling enough to be decisively influential given material in an improbable context is a
mentally, by the particular will of the sculptor. — the other hints at the nature of all such experi- theatrical gesture and nothing more. The
Sculptors have always needed to be conscious ences, and by implication questions their situation needs to be ordered to some end to
of the situation of their forms in space. Many value. satisfy the demands of art. Elements need to be
of the best younger sculptors now are also If one can thus make a distinction between identifiable as elements of something parti-
articulate in situations involving duration. `visual' (Caro) and 'non-visual' (Minimal) cular. In a series of structures using scaffolding
Sculpture operates with time as well as space. sculpture,5 Louw's work would tend towards poles and clasps, which might be seen as
A sense of distances to be spanned and of the the latter category (despite his association providing a working area between the painted
time it takes to cross them is a large part of our with St Martin's). The emphasis in his work frames and the outdoor sculptures, Louw has
experience of scale and form. One of the most has generally been on simple structures or investigated the problems of maintaining open-
important aesthetic consequences of the mini- placements, on the exploitation of the quali- ness and congruity at the same time.6 Scale has
mal sculptor's cube was the emphasis placed ties of different materials (in direct contrast to much to do with it and so does congruity of
upon the spectator's actual movement as a sculptors like Caro and Annesley who have used materials. Within a given range of elements,