Page 51 - Studio International - November 1969

Stockwell Depot has been a sculpture studio from judgement in terms of fashion and sale- Recently he has been working with festoons of
for only approximately two years. But atti- ability, than to the work itself. However, rope (army surplus stock), which traverses,
tudes and ambitions seem to have shifted immaturities were able to get away with takes possession of and changes a certain
even since last summer, when the eight artists sympathy. This year the gesture is fast becom- space—it may be an entire room—with lines
who work there showed sculpture in situ for ing fashionable and the work of Stockwell is of different tension. 'As it travels the rope
the first time. At present there is a general more likely to stand or fall on its own merits. loses its original identity and becomes to some
feeling among them (possibly only temporary) Roland Brener has always been interested in extent abstract.' Involvement is physical, but
that this could be the last time they exhibit the thin line which moves over a long dis- tactility is not important. In fact, hairy rope
together in the building. tance. He is essentially a tactile artist in- in the surroundings of the Depot can look un-
The whole thing started when Brener and volved with a very specific, unwallowing kind necessarily dramatic, and dramatic effect he
Fagin rented the first working areas from of sensuousness. Worked in steel the line moves regards as 'a hang-over from wanting to create
Lambeth Council. Others followed on and through space at different heights, different something important'.
rented other bits. Barkley and Fowler were speeds, in different thicknesses, round and flat. Roger Fagin has been using railway sleepers as
the last to arrive in the spring of '68. It can flow or stop and start again. It can re- sculptural material for the past year. They
Their grouping is fortuitous, though they are peat itself. It can be bent round corners, tied take possession of space by physically dis-
conscious of their collective background at St in knots or bow-bent into the air with weights placing and annexing large parts of it. The
Martin's School of Art, and that without new and tensile wire. There is tension in its school- way they are related is bound up with their
blood this could be a potentially dangerous ing. The monumental doesn't interest him weight and texture, tending to make structu-
situation. Their individualism is insistent. If (though a sculpture can be fifty feet long) ; the ral rather than aesthetic criteria the more im-

they protest too much about it, they do so as a transitory does. The works themselves are not portant. He wants 'the works' existence to be
safeguard. In trying not to influence or be necessarily impermanent, but they hold the direct and unequivocal in much the same way
influenced by one another, their relationships possibility within them. Perhaps it is a matter that trees and bridges exist'. Sometimes there
are aggressive, competitive, and strongly of any clearly formulated ideas having being seems to be an actual mechanical parallel as
critical. They may even conceal what they until it is changed or forgotten. This can apply when they are harnessed with chains or ban-
are doing from one another. as much to the spectator confronting or within ded together into a ramp. Involvement is one
Inevitably there are tensions. Often about the work, as to the artist. Survival of a piece of exploration, conditioning and acceptance.
space. The 17,000 sq. ft. of disused brewery isn't vital to Brener, though its finish is high One is faced with physical reality and clearly
has meant for some of them that they can gloss. He insists on the value of experiment: readable systems of structure based on
work on a much larger scale than they other- `The work is just hinting at possibilities, as far repetition and proportion. The sleeper is the
wise might; though some could probably get as I'm concerned. It is the antithesis of making initial unit, which becomes another until the
on equally satisfactorily in a garage—if masterpieces, if you like.' Physical imperma- sum of the parts is reached. But one of the
garages were available. A great deal of the nence is another thing. Work made up of things about sleepers is that no unit is pre-
work takes to pieces, existing simply as battalions, chains, cardhouses of separate cisely identical.
materials or units until actually up—rope units could be supplied by the yard, added Peter Hide uses the more static qualities of steel
coiled on the floor, poles racked up in the and subtracted according to the length of the that comes in fairly large heavy pieces. He
roof. The artists do not work in a permanent space available. doesn't so much seem to dominate the medium
state of exhibition. Roelof Louw doesn't impose upon his materials. as to have a peculiar affinity with it. One gets
In 1968 Peter Hide wrote: 'For young artists, He speculates about them in a different way. the impression that he does with it what he
exhibiting as a group ...is more meaningful He has said: 'What seems particularly specific wants, not by 'approaching material on its
and effective in terms of communication than to sculpture is its concreteness. There is also own terms' (Louw), but on a basis of co-
exhibiting in isolation.' The point had been something demanding and disconcerting operation and respect. Last year he said about
proved by the first Stockwell show, perhaps about fact as fact.' What he does not do is his work : 'I want people to be affected by my
with a mixture of blessings. More applause throw the facts in your face. You have to sculptures in the same way as they would be
went to the political gesture of exhibiting out- enter his work to discover them. There are by a wall or enclosure. . . . For this reason I
side commercial gallery auspices and away physical limits to the speed of discovery. prefer to show my works in a natural setting,