Page 41 - Studio International - December1996

Above
Oscillation 1963
Brass
8 1/2 x 5 1/8 x 2 1/2 in,
Collection: Galerie Denise Rene
Above right
Tunnel in the air (second version) 1965
Brass
3 3/4 x 6 3/4 x 5 1/4 in.
Photo: John Webb
Right
Tunnels on black 1965
Brass and wood
12 1/2 in. high
Photo: John Webb
his sleep 'which way can I move to avoid these rules, this itself or as a patch of colour answers another patch of
straitjacket' his opposite, choking in his own tempera- colour in the same picture. . . .' A work is bad, Ionesco
ment, cries out 'which way can I move to avoid breathing goes on, 'When it is not itself, when it does not amount to
my own stinking breath !' Each night cry can become a something like a unique being. . . . In other words, a
waking dogma, a tantrum, a cliché. These are ways of work is organised, by which I mean that it is an organism.
describing the ebb and flow of style on the surface of the It is in this sense that a work is true and that art becomes
times, the swinging of the pendulum, the fretful searching indistinguishable from truth. . . . It is the outcome of a
for a cool place, an alternative taste. The few who press play-activity which is free from falsehood.'
q
this restlessness through to a truly creative conclusion are
BIBLIOGRAPHY
not dogmatic; their concern is too real, too practical, and
Lawrence Alloway, Nine Abstract Artists, Tiranti, 1954.
the freedom they find, whether in order or in improvisa- Andrew Forge, Notes on the Mobiles of Kenneth Martin,
tion, is the freedom of a player who at last, excelling him- Quadrum 3, 1957.
self; can say that he has found his game. This, it seems to Michael Seuphor, La Sculpture de ce Siècle, Griffon, 1959.
me, is the value to be put on the mathematical content of Eduard Trier, Figur und Raum, Verlag Gebr. Mann, 1960.
Michael Middleton, Dictionnaire de la Sculpture Moderne,
Kenneth Martin's work. His delight in solid geometry, in
Hazan, 1961
topology, his obsession with numbers, contribute after Harriet Janis and Rudi Blesh, Collage, Chilton, 1962.
all, to a technique for asking himself practical questions, J. P. Hodin, Une Fontaine en Acier Inoxydable de Kenneth Martin,
not for proving answers. He counts, measures and cal- Quadrum 12, 1962.
culates not in order to demonstrate a certain theory— Rene Hughe, Larousse Encyclopaedia of Modern Art, Hamlyn,
1965.
some philosophical position, some scientific world-view—
Denis Farr, British Sculpture since 1945, Tate Gallery, 1965.
but so that working and making can be experienced in Robertson, Russell, Snowdon, Private View, Nelson, 1965.
the clearest possible atmosphere. George Rickey, Kinesis Continued, Art in America, Dec.—Jan.,
It has been said by a writer whom Martin deeply 1965-66.
admires 'a work . . . is not a questionnaire with ques- Anton Ehrenzweig, Kenneth Martin ed il Movimento, D'Ars,
1-2, 1966.
tions and answers: the real answers in a work of art lie,
Frank Popper, Kinetic Art, Motion Books, 1966.
quite simply, in that which replies to the work itself; it is John Ernest, Construction and Content, Studio International,
the work which replies to itself; as a symphony answers to April, 1966.