Page 51 - Studio International - October 1966
P. 51
sists of units cut from an extruded section at 120°, that is K.F. You call yourself a plastician in preference to anything else,
two squares joined at a 120-degree angle and which in all working exclusively in industrial materials, and the ideas that
cases have one face parallel to the base plane. A further interest you range from art thought to pure thought. You produce
effect has been the deflection of the spectator from a a kind of structure-orientated art which others would call
nominal frontal view and his engagement in lateral formalist; aside from this I see you as someone pursuing a rather
movement, as well as the exploitation of direct reflection specialized phenomenological approach to aesthetic matters, while
into the back plane. also having this strong compulsion to investigate certain kinds of
mathematical structures, which are neutral and which you
K.F. I believe that your meeting with the French architect Yona regard as things in themselves. Are these activities seen as a basis
Friedman caused you to modify your views on certain issues and I for a unified approach to your work?
have always been curious as to the changes that this encounter A.H. I can't say that this aspect worries me too much at
may have affected in your overall attitude as an artist. After all, the moment. I suppose that I am attempting to see how
you have always taken a somewhat ambiguous, not to say to realize a humanist-rationalist art, while at the same time
sceptical, attitude towards the synthesis of art and architecture all one can do, finally, is to make one's personal contribu-
and Friedman's own scepticism in this area could hardly have tion to this. q
brought about a radical change in your position. I cannot help
feeling that his thought must have influenced you primarily on an 1 'Nine Abstract Artists', introduction Lawrence Alloway, Alec
abstract or general theoretical level. Tiranti, London, 1954.
A.H. My meeting with Friedman had the effect of 2 See article Structural Syndrome in Constructive Art in 'Module, Propor-
tion, Symmetry, Rhythm', Vision and Value series, edited by Gyorgy
entirely disengaging me from the question of the syn- Kepes, Braziller and Co. N.Y. 1966.
thesis of art and architecture. Apart from the immediate 3 On the number of crossings in a complete graph, Frank Harary and
appeal of his visionary urbanistic thought I later found Anthony Hill. Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society,
that our common interest lay in pure structure. Vol. 13, 1963.
On certain polyhedra, A. F. Hawkins, A. C. Hill, J. E. Reeve, J. A. Ty-
rell. Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 60, 1966.
K.F. What form did this take?
A.H. My interest in structure embraces a great many
ideas that do not turn up in the things that I make, nor
are the objects I make conceived as having very much
to do with either the conventional synthesis concept or
any large-scale urbanistic conceptions such as Friedman's.
Our common ground was in combinatorics and topo-
logical investigations, where I have done work, some
results of which have been published.3 I first encountered
his work at an exhibition of Architecture Mobile held in
Amsterdam in 1962. A year later we met at your flat, if
I remember rightly.
Relief Construction (C.2)
1962-4
One of a series of works Right
using the theme of a parti- I.U.A. Screen 1961
tion (partition of integers) 7 x 48 ft.
and one of the earliest to The Headquarters Building,
employ the 120-degree angle designed by Theo Crosby,
element. South Bank, 1961.
Left
Relief Construction (F.2)
1965
The perspex used is neutral
coloured. Since 1964 Hill has
used transparent perspex
in various shades of neutral
(smoked).