Page 36 - Studio International - December1996
P. 36

Some recent works by Kenneth Martin












                                Andrew Forge


       Born Sheffield 1905. First                                                 They are on an intimate scale, condensed; they don't
        kinetic works 1951.
        Associated with group                                                     have loose ends and their structure is homogeneous even
       activities of abstract,                                                    if it is open-ended; they don't proclaim a mood or a
        constructed and kinetic art                                               posture; they are neither monumental, nor eclectic, nor
        in England and abroad
        during the 50's and 60's.                                                 primititivistic; their scale is extremely concrete. One
       Exhibitions include: Artist v                                              wants to handle the sculptures, to see them from every
       Machine, Building Centre,                                                  angle. They are whole and completely themselves.
       1954. This is Tomorrow,
       Whitechapel Art Gallery,                                                    Every work proceeds from a relational idea extended in
       1956. International Movement                                               movement: this is its process. Usually it is worked out in
       Exhibitions, Amsterdam and                                                 a number of drawings on graph paper—a beautiful and
       Stockholm, 1961. British
       Constructivist Art, New                                                    virtually unknown aspect of his output which one can
        York and touring U.S.A.,                                                  only hope will one day see the light. These drawings are
       1961-2. Painting and                                                       rarely sketches of total works, nor could they be. He is
       Sculpture of a Decade,
       Tate, 1964. British Sculpture                                              not working out a final configuration, a result, but setting
       in the sixties, Tate, 1965.                                                in motion a process. A drawing is more likely to look like
       Eighth Tokyo Biennale, 1965.                                               a composer's working score than a sculptor's sketch, and
       Art and Movement, Tel Aviv,
       1965. Nova Tendencija 3,                                                   might be as unlikely to offer a direct suggestion of what
       Zagreb, 1965. Commissions                                                  the final work would be like.
       include a Fountain in                                                       The series called  Oscillation,  for example, consists of
       Stainless Steel at Brixton
       Day College, London, 1961.                                                 stacks of brass bars of identical sections and determined
       Gold Medal, President                                                      length. Their relationship is based on a process for which
       of the Council of                                                          the schema was a drawn grid, like a graph, representing
       Ministers, Italy, 1965.
                                                                                  all the relationships that the bars could possibly take up
                                                                                  in horizontal rotation. A numerical series, representing
                                                                                  the length of each 'phrase' to be built, was permutated
                                                                                  on this grid and the positions marked. Certain parts of
                                                                                  the grid became passive, others active. There are strong
                                                                                  reminiscences here of the practice of certain contempo-
                                                                                  rary composers both in the rigour of the system and its
                                                                                  open-endedness. Certain 'rules' were absolute, but there
                                                                                  was room for pauses, repeats, inversions and for a degree
                                                                                  of indeterminancy. Certain possibilities were limited by
                                                                                  the structure itself: a good join had always to be made.
                                                                                   In his most recent painting, Rotation, signs—a square, a
                                                                                  triangle, and a diamond—are derived from a grid drawn
                                                                                  on the canvas. Each sign is surrounded by zones of fram-
                                                                                  ing lines in certain fixed sequences of colour. As the
                                                                                  zones of each sign grew they encroached on the zone of its
                                                                                  neighbour, like a process of stacking or piling in reverse.
                                                                                  Time becomes visible as a forming element.
                                                                                   To be anywhere with Kenneth Martin—at a window, or
                                                                                  in a Gothic cathedral or Charing Cross station—is to be
                                                                                  aware of one's eye as a kind of probe, an organ of move-
                                                                                  ment and exploration. He is always looking for paths in
                                                                                  space, for assonances, for alternatives. He counts. Among
                                                                                  his favourite paintings are certain Dutch works, the
                                                                                  courtyards of de Hooch and the landscapes of Hob-
                                                                                  bema, where the eye is taken on a measured and in-
                                                                                  ventive journey. The invitation to travel through one's
                                                                                  eye is never absent from his work, and everything that he
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