Page 19 - Studio International - January 1972

Notes on House and the open spaces in towns and cities If the work is there, and the places for it, how
again being filled with the rhetorical and empty can the two be brought together ?
sculpture, garbage that came near to destroying sculpture country should send slides of available sculp-
I suggest that all sculptors living in this
in the nineteenth century. The autonomy of
public sculpture sculpture is at stake; though the dangers are ture, as it is completed, to a central registry,
new, the problem is familiar, and seems to be maintained, say, by the Arts Council, and that
and patronage inherent in the medium, in its physicality, the any local authority, architect, business or what-
time, space and money needed by the sculptor ever wanting to acquire sculpture could consult
to stay free. It is plainly absurd that sculptors this registry, and then choose from work in the
William Tucker
today should have to re-enact those postures of artists' studios, or try the sculpture on the site.
self-justification taken up by Rodin and Epstein; Civic pride would be satisfied by the freedom of
the real battle for sculpture was fought and choice; but the artist would no longer be subject
won by Brancusi and others of his generation; to the humiliation of a 'competition', or the
not by declamatory public gestures, but by his pretence that the site is more important than
insistence on the equal aesthetic stature of the the sculpture. Of course there is a value in a
sculpture-object with painting and poetry, in concerted effort such as the Stuyvesant project:
his own work and in his attitude to it—that the but there is a corresponding danger, the tempta-
making and appreciation of sculpture is a funda- tion for the sculptor to do something for the
mentally private activity: and if, as in the case event, rather than using the event as an
of the Endless Column and the ensemble at opportunity to move into new territory, to
Turgiu Djiu, it re-enters the public world, it stretch himself.
does so in its own terms, to transform and take Parallel with such a scheme, or quite apart
possession of that world: the public opportunity from it, there seems to me to be a strong need
extends, gives breadth and air, to the private for an annual or biennial sculpture Salon to bring
vision. (That much of the best, certainly the together as a regular event the latest work of
most liberated from tradition, the most daring, artists of different ages and tendencies, from
the clearest-headed, sculpture of the last 100 different parts of the country; and the Academy,
years has been made either by painters, or by with its central position, and ample and continu-
sculptors stimulated by advances in painting, is ous interior space, would be an excellent home
evidence of sculpture's continued need to for such an exhibition. Indeed the only justifica-
preserve its independence from the dead hand tion for the partial selection of the present show
of conventional public patronage.) (and the reason why I and one or two others
The present sculpture exhibition at the ROYAL In the last ten years or so a great deal of agreed to take part in it at all) can be that it will
ACADEMY and the Stuyvesant 'City Sculpture' sculpture has been made which is ambitious, be only the first of a series of such exhibitions
project must both be seen as attempts to bring abstract and relatively large. It has become the of a genuinely open and varied character (in
advanced sculpture to the 'public', to gain norm for sculptors to work directly on the which no sculptor need be too proud to take
interest and patronage for sculpture from the ground, making objects that physically or part, and everyone, whatever their 'standing'
direction it has traditionally come, but which visually demand a substantial amount of space would be treated as an equal).
has increasingly been in abeyance. The and an ideally neutral environment. The size of These suggestions are offered frankly from
independence of contemporary sculpture has this work was the result of an aesthetic intention the view of a sculptor, for what I believe to be
been hard-won, and in practical terms is a fragile internal to it, and now seems simply the most the health of sculpture. I am concerned about
and precarious state: but whether the possible natural and direct scale in which to work. Far education, which includes the education of per-
security of public acceptance and patronage from being public in the old sense, size was ception, and with the urban environment, but
is an incontestable good seems to me open to used to enhance the intimacy of the object with it seems to me unduly optimistic to hope that
question. the single spectator. The nature of the sculpture, the envisaged confrontation with sculpture can
I am not trying to belittle the achievement its essential privateness, was to be misinter- alter people's minds or their attitude to their
either of the authors of the Burlington House preted both by those genuinely eager to gain surroundings, except in the most marginal way,
exhibition in persuading the Academy to turn acceptance for it and by some artists themselves, and I am certain that this is not sculpture's
over their galleries for a show of contemporary as signalling a return to a bland, heroic and central function. Nor do I think that by making
art, for which the Academy itself can claim no monumental public art : and naturally public advanced sculpture more available to the
credit, or the manifest good intentions of the patronage has focused on this misconceived generality of people that the essential conflict
Stuyvesant Foundation in giving badly-needed and regressive tendency. There is consequently between public and private modes described
patronage and encouragement to sculptors, and no place for the sculpture that has been and is earlier will be eliminated. The best work will
bringing art to the people. I am taking part in still being made in the spirit of the original continue to be 'difficult' —not for the sake of it,
both ventures and by that token must take a conception, save for a handful of pieces in but from the continuing need to extend and re-
degree of responsibility for the eventual results. museums and private collections. There must define the terms of the medium—and its effect
But it seems to me essential to define now, what, be quantities of good sculpture in studios or will be to disturb, confuse and disorientate.
from the view of the development of sculpture warehouses collecting dust or impatiently The publicness of sculpture in fact subsists in
in this country (that is, not the conversion of destroyed to make room for new work. its physical existence, that it is in the world, that
the Academy or of the general public, both Places could be found for this sculpture, in it is made of real material, is an 'object', in a
worthy if Utopian causes), can and should be towns and cities throughout the country, places way not shared by other arts. Only when this is
the benefit of such enterprises : and if they are to where it could be seen and thought about, recognized as the condition of sculpture as a
be repeated, as I hope they will be, then future preferably in withdrawn, enclosed situations free art will the role, and the opportunity, of
attempts can be shaped with this major object in where its identity and intention could work, patronage for sculpture in our time be
mind. The life and growth of sculpture must come rather than being used as the seal of aesthetic appreciated. q
first: without this priority, all the patronage status for an undistinguished architectural 1 Credit must be given to the pioneer patronage of the
in the world will only result in Burlington conception.' Leicestershire Education Authority in this direction.
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