Page 47 - Studio International - October 1967

Facing page
Marina 1967
aluminium plate and castings

Right
Cumae
brass, aluminium and
perspex
48 x 24 x 24 in.

the new equilibrium achieved by other English sculptures variably synonymous with promotion and the rigid
in which, consciously or otherwise, the radiant pure colour avoidance or suppression of any kind of viewpoint which
and sharp edges of late Matisse papiers découpés have been contradicts or departs from the promoted set position—
fused with the equal clarity of Arp's sculpture (though an and art is an immensely complex vehicle—so do I enjoy
unforced biomorphism or physical ambiguity intrudes Kneale's refusal to stay inside the confines of a limited
here into the decorative purification of Matisse). formal or technical arena. Flexibility of materials or
Kneale's own comments, roughly transcribed, are of breadth of attitude to formal approach is really only a
some relevance here: richer way of saying whatever it is one has to say in the
first place. In the long run, all artists say one thing, that
`The eye is the only exposed portion of the brain'. 'I don't see a has truth and validity for them as individuals: to restrict
cloud romantically (like Nigel Hall, for instance) but mostly as the manner of its expression can needlessly inhibit its
density in relation to space'. 'Sculpture can be used to adjust the development.
mind to a varying set of circumstances'. 'Sculpture is for me, now, What Kneale is doing now is to delineate an abstract
like constructing a new anatomy or arterial system for the narrative thread, which encompasses a set of events, like
circulation of blood: the interior, molecular existence of a form is a melodic line in music. And melody, as Marshall
more rewarding than the restricted evidence of its exterior'. `You McLuhan reminds us, is the melos modus, 'the road round',
know more about an object than you actually), see: I am trying to and in this sense is a continuous, connected and repetitive
get at more of the seen with more of the known. My earlier work structure. But harmony develops lyrically, and Kneale's
still don't preclude the ele-
was more metaphoric than it is now'.
present harmonics, in terms of materials, do odd things
ment of chance; and the whole thing only moves if other sculptures with the 'continuous and repetitive' melodic structure :
seem to be flowing, as part of the thread, from the one in hand'. so odd that it creates involvement by means of the in-
`Categories seem irrelevant and restrictive: I need maximum terval, as in the 'cool' art of the Orient, and not by the
flexibility'. connexion used in the visually organized West.

In the same way as I deplore so-called 'commitment'
in art appreciation, or art criticism, because it is in-