Page 30 - Studio International - January 1969

could make clay very thin and stick it end to society that has been thrown away and is no tions. When you talk about sections this means
end, that's what Tony's doing. longer identifiable as anything but neutral that there is an implied extension at either end
SCOTT : Isn't this to do with his essential prin- matter, and can be re-identified by him as of the piece of material that he happens to
ciple, which is addition? He can never depart sculpture. Isn't that what he uses? And it can have put in a certain place. And he very rarely
from the idea of addition as a way of making, be any kind of sculpture. uses closed forms. One example I can think of
and doesn't this bring us back to that concep- SCOTT : I don't think he just picks it up. is the scissor handles, and I find they're very
tual/perceptual argument? A long time ago I Modelling, for example with clay, becomes disturbing. I think it's for this reason; that
had the same discussion with Tony as Bill had, rich because it becomes something more than they are enclosed and specific. It's as though
about whether or not he was finding objects merely clay. After the artist has intervened by every element in his sculpture is passing
and making use of found things, and I asked giving it certain planes and certain thicknesses through it from somewhere else to somewhere
him the question, 'Why didn't he just use and shapes and sections, and certain confor- else, and this just happens to be that bit of it
sheets of steel, cut out in shapes, rather than mations, it comes to life as part of the total fig- that you can actually see—that's manifest.
finding sections and so on?' I think he was ure. I think this is the thing that Tony has done ANNESLEY : He's sliced it. And that's another
oppressed by the shipyard qualities, and the with his sections. Section itself—section as such thing that everybody's doing is slicing their
cranes and the rivets, and the solution he —has given him a means of finding a richness in work in different ways. Work has become
seemed to find was in the very great variety of a particular material and in a particular piece sliced now; big slices of stuff. I think it's true of
section available to him in his chosen material, of material. That a particular section of painting too. Tony is working like a completely
which was steel. I think the point about section material has a certain facet, a certain plane, intuitive child, and yet his work has what are
is that in fact it is an added thing, it is a sheet a certain side here, a certain oblique angle, a regarded as the best qualities of mainstream
or a basic piece of material which has a quality certain shadow here, a certain light here, and art. Like those qualities which distinguish
added to it. This seemed to me to fall in very so on, is in fact the richness of his modelling. mainstream art in kind rather than qualita-
much with his essential process, and it was a There's a great deal of difference between tively from other art. And the main forum for
way out of the shipyard. being aware of those qualities and merely that argument of course is Michael Fried and
ANNESLEY : Another way of looking at it is to finding something. Clement Greenberg and Jane Harrison Cone,
call it assemblage. But the point is, if you use a ANNESLEY : Are you talking about the poten- etc. etc. and Barbara Rose on the other side
word like assemblage, everyone immediately tial in the material ? You think that he sees di da di da di da di da. But I find it quite inter-
thinks of freaky West Coast shit and Rauschen- material and then sees that as sculpture? esting that his work has all these avant-garde
berg. So it has bad connotations. That's why SCOTT : I'm talking about the process of selec- qualities as well. A lot of people in England
I suppose we use 'modelling'. But Tony is like tion of a particular material. regard Tony as some kind of eccentric sculptor
a child with stuff around, just using that to add ANNESLEY : What is this process of selection? who is there on his own as one figure, and
until he's got something he really needs. It SCOTT : Obviously it's to do with his experience people try to imitate him, but he's somehow
could be like the sun on the beach or shells and and the richness of his mind that he applies to separate. They've projected the Henry Moore
sand and water, or even what was around in a it. I don't think it's good enough to say that kind of image on to Tony and it's just totally
room. It seems like the basic thing of just he merely selects certain pieces of stuff and puts untrue because Tony is immersed in what is
moving stuff around in the world, until it looks them together, and because he's a wizard guy happening in art now, just in the way that when
the way you really like, and then you leave it he puts them together in such a way that makes we first knew him he was immersed in what was
and you've said something with it. it better and different. happening in art then. And he was very in-
TUCKER : But his achievement consists in the ANNESLEY : I said that he was a child taking trigued by what Brancusi was doing, and
kind of element in his environment that he the stuff around him in the world, and re- Gonzales- particularly Gonzales because he
quite deliberately chose to manipulate, and arranging it into configurations which were thought Gonzales had been like out of his
he deliberately put himself in this kind of meaningful to him and others. And that is time and was prophetic in a way, and being
childlike position. something that's good to do, and that is what neglected. He'd take prophetic artists from the
ANNESLEY : Yes. I used to feel when I knew most of us don't do. past and contemporaries like David Smith, and
Tony in 1961 and 1962, about that time, that Louw: I think that's being sentimental. We're was really interested in what they were doing.
he was like the little boy who wanted to be an trying to account for the fact that in quality I mean Tony would kind of bustle around
engine driver, but couldn't make it because of Tony Caro's work seems to have a richness and looking at books and magazines, seeing what
class barriers, and so kind of sneakily got in the conglomerate complexity which isn't true of other people were doing. Everyone speaks of
back door and loved all that stuff. You know, David Smith, or I suppose you could refer to him like the sort of guy who appeared out of
it was like there he was making choo-choo American sculpture, and I think this tactile nowhere, no past, no context, nothing. It's
trains and stuff. And great big steel monsters, association is important in accounting for this just not true.
all powerful and muscular. And I saw him particular richness which one senses as a TUCKER : I think he's a lot bigger than being
striding along like that Mr Guiness advertise- quality of his work. There's no austerity even a kind of exemplar of current trends. He's very
ment with a great beam on his head—that kind in his very simple works. idiosyncratic, and much better than any single
of infatuation with the whole scene. Like, 'You ANNESLEY : They're not spare. sort of mainstream interpretation.
mean to say I can play with such big things? Louw : Not spare, yes. Even in his simple ANNESLEY : Of course, but what's so fascinat-
I don't have to play with my little trains any works when he puts very rectilinear shapes and ing is that all this mainstream information was
more ?' That's how he got into it. But then how planes against very curved shapes. being fed into him from America. He'd go out
about all these light, delicate, flowing, little ANNESLEY : I think it's because of this process. of his mind having these long conversations at
sculptures that he made later? Who would He's not a spare guy, he's a rich guy. He's got a two o'clock in the morning all about art when
have thought they would ever come out of that fairly rich nature and he lets his feelings out all the other English sculptors were sitting on
infatuation with big trains and shipyards and quite a lot more than most people. So that's their arses, thinking about something else. I
junk yards, and all the rubbish that's thrown going to come out in his work—the way he's don't know what they were thinking about, but
out that nobody wants. A junk yard is great going to put them together is to get this kind they weren't thinking about that. That's one
because all this stuff there has got one category : of intensification and richness. Once he's got thing I know. Yet when it went through him
rubbish. You can go in there, you can see any- it he stops. and came out the other end, it's as if his idio-
thing, pick anything, it can become anything. TUCKER : If you think of the materials Tony syncratic nature would always take over and it
It's the matter of the world or technological uses, they're almost always part of longer sec- would come out as himself. And so whatever