Page 40 - Studio International - January 1969

sculpture to any other demands at all, but background, viewed the works as a series of what stays in the mind as a revelatory force
largely as a result of their efforts, sculpture now discrete pieces without sensing that the most —is the realization of the idea. For his exhibi-
has sufficient identity as an avant-garde exciting and considered contribution was con- tion, in a small, narrow, rectangular room,
medium to survive some degree of interchange tained in the sum of these parts. The sculptures Long had laid twigs, each about the size of a
with its context. had been made already; the exhibition was long pencil, end to end in almost parallel lines,
Certainly some of the younger sculptors are something else. Works like Flanagan's9 floor narrowing imperceptibly towards the far end
critical of the half measures which most of the pieces of early 1967, or his One space sand sculpture of the gallery. The effect was to make the real
New Generation sculptors have so far taken to of March/April 196711 (a room filled with sand length of the gallery impossible to measure; the
confront the problems involved in showing to a depth of three inches, which prefigures eye and the mind wavered between yielding to
more than one self-contained work in the same Walter de Maria's recent earth-filled rooms in the sense of exaggerated distance created by
exhibition—problems which are intensified if Munich), are specifically tailored to specific the illusion of perspective, and attempting by
any one sculpture has two or more separated situations without being either 'environmental' process of rational visual calculation to assess
elements (as in two shows at the Whitechapel, (the Japanese don't walk on sand if it looks like the real dimensions of the space. The intuitive
Tim Scott in 1967 and Phillip King in 1968, it was put there on purpose), 'architectural', realization that sustained illusion, or at least
and two shows in 1968 at the Waddington Gal- or 'theatrical' — three adjectives which have equivocation, acts as a means of undermining
lery, Michael Bolus and Isaac Witkin). There been widely used by the protagonists of her- the physical and emphasizing the metaphysical
is a tendency for such exhibitions to look like metic sculpture to put down the opposition. has been a galvanizing force in British sculpture
houses from which the walls have disappeared, Richard Long, who was a student at St Mar- since about 1959 (as in some American paint-
leaving the bath incongruously sharing the tin's from 1966-8, had a first one-man show at ing since a slightly earlier date). In Long's gal-
same space as the bed. the Konrad Fischer Gallery in Dusseldorf lery sculpture the mind was liberated, as it
Barry Flanagan, one of the few younger sculp- during September 1968 which showed how were, to enhance the wide-ranging experience
tors with a gallery contract, and a one-time well the exhibition environment can be used for which the gallery was made the occasion.
member of the advanced course at St Martin's, for sculpture which is anything but hermetic. It was an experience which itself embodied
now on the staff, has shown himself prepared The formative venue of Long's sculpture is particular involvement with another place. It
to confront the gallery situation as potentially landscape. Having selected a particular site or has been a characteristic of much of Long's
creative and able to use it idiosyncratically and series of sites he will impose his idea upon it, work to present the viewer with a sculptural
without compromise. I feel that his exhibition leaving the landscape changed by his activity, element and then to provide him with infor-
in April 1968 at the Rowan Gallery was partly for a certain moment or forever, depending mation from which he can mentally reassemble
misunderstood by visitors (or those I've spoken upon whether your concept of time and place the whole of which it is a part. A post-card
with) who, being aware of his St Martin's is subjective or objective. What is important- which carried notice of his exhibition showed
the Avon Gorge in Bristol with Leigh Woods,
where the twigs for the exhibition had been
collected. The crystallization of such widely
spaced references in a gallery in Dusseldorf was
justified by their astonishingly evocative reso-
lution as sculpture, and by the precise relation-
ship of what was evoked to the identity of the
sculptor and to the reality of his passage through
time and across distance.
Much of what has been achieved by sculptors
like Long and Flanagan (and others abroad)
was in part made possible by the atmosphere of
open enquiry which has been sustained at St
Martin's. Some of the younger sculptors, even
those who work much of the time in more con-
ventional materials, have shown dissatisfaction
with hermetic sculpture not, I think, because
it necessarily lacks formal quality or inventive-
ness in isolation, but because it seems to them
to explore only a limited part of the area which
was implicitly claimed for sculpture during the
late fifties and early sixties at St Martin's.
I suspect that some of the loss of excitement
since the New Generation exhibition is attri-
butable to the loss of context in transferring
from workshop-oriented to gallery-oriented
showing conditions. The sculptors at Stockwell
Depot, all ex-students from St Martin's and
some of them now teaching there, have found
a way of extending the workshop situation be-
3 yond the art school stage. There are certain
Barry Flanagan
1 ton corner piece, sand advantages in showing work where it is made :
September 1967 (Paris Biennale) scale and conception remain true to the sculp-
April 1968 (Rowan Gallery)
tor's everyday physical experience of his envir-
4
Roland Brener onment. Many of Roland Brener's recent sculp-
unit in a modular sculpture 1968 tures have been made according to a consistent
steel and aluminium, painted
height 66 in. scale which would allow them, in theory, to be
28