Page 52 - Studio International - June 1965

Kenneth Armitage
Legend of Skadar version 8 1965
Brass 48½ in. high
(photo of plaster model)

Several titled The Legend of Skadar are almost
straightforward renderings of the sad story of the
woman bricked up alive in a fortress to appease evil
spirits but leaving a space for her breasts so that she
could feed her baby child while she lived. The allegory
involved is obvious-of the life-giving instinct operating
even while death approaches rapidly. an optimistic
message to be read into contemporary sculpture and
one that brings Kenneth Armitage into the larger arena
of art having world significance rather than the
rarefied approval of museums.
In the versions of The Bed. it is the buttocks rather
than the mammaries that focus our attention on the
figure lying face down on the simple bed. It is a single
figure. sex indeterminate though probably male by
deduction and the spindle legs are terminated in
flipper feet that were a characteristic of Armitage
sculpture some years back. These feet and outstretched
hands jut from the flat planes of the wall in a selection
called The Forest. Here the symbolism is obscure. Are
the projecting limbs indicative of man struggling for
survival from the swamp or head first in it and doomed?
Vacant pegs to hang ideas on. for the form is dissipated.
One of the most teasing exhibitions put on in London
for a long time suddenly appeared in a bare shop
premises in Berwick Street. Staged by Pauline Brooke
it comprised an exciting selection called 'Random
Sculpture'. Random they certainly were but Sculpture?
In fact. the objects as such were found by Pauline
Brooke on the floor of her husband's metal furniture
factory, recognised by her as having some intrinsic
merit in their design and cleaned. arranged and
mounted so that in effect they competed with the
deliberately fashioned sculptures by artists who used
scrap metal for their own ends. The question thus
arises; which is art? The object found. isolated and
presented in the atmosphere of a gallery or the object
created. completely or partly, from already worked
materials? Beauty exists we are told in the eye of the
beholder; if the beholder picks it up and presents it, is
he less of an artist than the sculptor who laboriously
goes through all the processes of construction to arrive
at a result that cannot in the nature of things be of
such a pure appearance as the original. We all know
what Picasso did with sucl;l mechanical objets trouves;
bicycle handle bars and seat became a bull's head, his
son's toy car became the mould for an ape's head. But
to work in objets trouves solely is to rely too much on
chance; if the factory closed or was converted to
plastics the future could be full of risks. However, full­
time sculptors can relax; Mrs. Brooke's is not out to
ruin the market. Some of the small sculptures sell for as
little as three guineas. others run up to 50, 60. 70 and
even 80. The one I illustrate is typical of the cut-out
patterns available.
Also working in metal and also using second-hand
materials for his constructions is Polish sculptor
Krystyn Zielinski who shows at the Grabowski Gallery.
Strips and circles of tin, taken from cans and boxes are
beaten flat. assembled and stuck flat on a support. At a
distance they obscure their origins and even close to. it
is apparent that the artist"s eye has created effective and
subtly telling arrangements regardless of the limitations
in shape and appearance. As the greatest Chinese
poems are said to be created from the most rigid and
economical line scheme. the self-imposed paucity of
resources has not prevented Zielinski from making
visual poetry of a high order.
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