Page 39 - Studio International - December1996

other. A jump has to be made, an effort, the key to much
of the exhilaration that one feels in front of them. This
jump corresponds to an element of discovery on Martin's
part which accompanies the making of such work. As we
have seen, the structural process does not anticipate
results. What grows out of it is literally unimaginable.
The most spectacular instance of this was with the Screw
mobiles, where unpremeditated, unforeseen movements
up and down, and fantastic accelerations and rallen-
tandos appeared when the works were set turning. In the
case of the latest of the series, which have curved hori-
zontals, an extremely violent movement appeared, a
kind of lashing which bursts out as they turn and defies
one's attempts to relate it to the simple process of the
structure. The Oscillations too, produce an image as if
from nowhere—a kind of looming massiveness in which
there are flickering undulations, gaps, walls, lights. They
are like towers of smoke. And a particularly moving total
form is that which we find when we 'add up' the parts of
THE TATE'S painting 17 Lines. It has a lean, muscular
quality that evokes analogies with the figure and yet is
plainly nothing but the spontaneous product of the seven-
teen springing lines.
Of course these discoveries, these images which are
mysteriously bodied forth by the relational activity of the
parts, modify our reading of the internal structure. It is
impossible to see the rotating triangles of the Variations of
1961 just as a lot of triangles: they constitute, a tunnel, a
closed and an open vessel, and we hardly fail to relate
Screw Mobile 1965 our sensations looking down, into them, or around them,
Brass
48 x 11 x 10 in. to a more general visual experience from outside. Martin
is fascinated by this change in value: he accepts what-
ever the process throws up in the way of sensation and
finds that invariably it reveals correspondences and analo-
gies with the forms and relationships that move him so
much in the world at large. So it is that in certain works
he will use an element to which he attributes this kind of
connexion from the start. Such are the tunnel constructions
in which polished, square section tubes are the subject of
a structural process. The fact that you can look down
them is given from the outset, and it is as though an
extra dimension is present which allows one to be on the
inside of the structure as well as outside it. The visual
`path' of the work now operates on two alternative levels :
the primitive experience of the tunnel is distinct from the
more sophisticated experience of the structure, yet part
of it.
They are all practical in a special sense : the making of
them is manifest as a plastic experience. Martin's paint-
ings are built of thick opaque oil colour. Their colour is
embodied in the impasto. They are as worked as Mon-
drian's and have none of the slick, cut-off edges and the
brittle dead surfaces that go with marking tape or PVA.
They look drawn and are intensely real as objects. The
same plasticity shows in the sculpture: joins are real
joins, worked on, solid. The buttery yellow or the dull
rose of the metal seems to reflect a humane, workman-
like warmth. Practical exigencies are always active—the
need for a good joint puts a limit on the amount of twist
Screw Mobile that can be made, a hanging piece has to work on its
(second version) 1964 proper axis, a line has to be made to join certain fixed
Brass
40+ x 10 x 10 in. points and so forth. One is always aware that the material