Page 41 - Studio International - January 1969

shown together as an entity— a kind of plug-in sculptures maintain a running dialogue with enough to be easily stepped over. The nature
sculpture with an infinite number of extens- his environment. of the difference between the area outside the
ions : you might walk out of one to be faced by In questioning both the object quality of her- structure, which is negative as far as the sculp-
an entrance to another. To dismiss sculpture of metic sculpture and the exclusiveness of its ture is concerned, and the area which it en-
this nature as architectural is to misunderstand audience in the gallery context which it closes, which is positively affected, is made very
both the specific functions of architecture and demands, the younger sculptors are in a sense clear in visual and physical terms. Once we
the general possibilities of sculpture to invest questioning the whole aesthetic basis of sculp- commit ourselves by stepping over the thresh-
the atmosphere of an environment with the ture in the sixties. 'Sculpture ... must have the old we have left the negative, unparticularized
identity of an individual. The consistency of generality of the world : the identity of the world and entered sculpture—a special state.
scale in Brener's work is partly a matter of de- object: the character of a human individual;' Once inside, we face a luminous green strip,
liberate policy—an attempt to make sculpture it is the second of Tucker's imperatives that with a luminous pink at the right and a matt
as an activity a meaningful exposition of the the younger sculptors have called in question. black at the left (the threshold pole, having
artist's development in a more than stylistic To replace his dictum, 'The object is a proposi- performed its function, remains unparticular-
sense—but also I think the result of Brener's tion—"suppose such a thing should exist" ', ized by colour). We know that the three sides
deep involvement with Stockwell Depot. It is they appear to be suggesting another: 'The are of the same substance and of equal length—
not so much that the size of his sculpture is sculpture is a proposition—"suppose such a no attempt is made to conceal the fact—but the
limited by his working space—it is merely that state should exist" '. colours painted on them give them quite dif-
while he is making sculpture he has at present Roelof Louw is another member of the group ferent weights and effects. The rough and un-
no other space in mind. working at Stockwell who belongs in age to inviting surface of the sand-blasted steel ab-
One of Brener's works which is still in pro- the New Generation but who left St Martin's sorbs and diffuses light rather than reflecting
gress as I write started as a comparatively at the same time as Brener and whose work it; the colours do not quite reach the ends of the
small piece in which open elements arranged relates more to that of the younger group. His horizontals, and thus appear to hover between
in tiers, intersect in a dense, off-centre axis. It most recent sculptures stress both the nature of the corners; the horizontal poles themselves
was made in one of the smallest rooms at the spectator's involvement and the precarious are fixed in such a way that they do not quite
Stockwell. But perhaps because it seemed too stature of the object as a constant. In one, four meet the verticals—their separate identities are
dense, Brener has decided to extend it so that sand-blasted and zinc-sprayed steel poles of respected. Although there is no deliberate
the original sculpture will become just one unit equal height stand at the four corners of a equivocation and no concealment (the cover-
in a modular structure. Its final extent and dis- square with four longer poles between them ing of paint is not even deep enough to change
position will be decided by the dimensions of making the four sides. Three sides are high the surface texture of the zinc-sprayed steel),
the largest space available at Stockwell. His enough to act as barriers; the fourth is low these various factors serve to play down the