Page 43 - Studio International - July August 1972

SHEFFIELD
Kenneth Martin

What is the function of a city sculpture ? To
appeal to and to express the multitude and/or
the individual. In this project the artist was
able to go in his own direction. There was no
public demand for his work, no event or person
to be celebrated or building to be decorated.
There were limited resources. The artist could
work from the tentative towards the concrete,
from the confused towards something
definite, to discover his own results which
would include the participation of a site and
people.
It was first necessary to find a sympathetic
site. After exploration I found this place, by
Arundel Gate and the Polytechnic, whose
attributes I gradually came to realize. While it is
within the city centre it is less crowded and less
formal than the more obvious sites, also there is
character to the movement around it. Traffic
goes along the raised motorway beside it.
Pedestrians come to and from the subway under
the motorway or walk alongside it. People sit
on the seats by the wall of the Polytechnic. A nature of the two elements used throughout. I against the various levels and movements
road and paths go down hill open to the south. tried to explain how the proportions of the around it. Its blue painted facets took on the
For this place I have designed a work of art, a plate were derived from those of the box which variety of the light and changed with it like
vertical progressive rhythm composed of a
series of identical distances and a chosen was a double cube. The alignment of the box everything around. It became a centre for the
place and acted upon its character. q
with the plate above it was always the same and
variety of directions. these formed the unit. Each unit was positioned
The work is a column built with 19
identically shaped boxes (12 X 12 x 24 ins) on the one beneath in one of three directions,
diagonal and crosswise, and it was these that had
and 19 identical horizontal plates (25½ x 42½ x 5/1 been permutated.
6)
ins). The whole is approximately 19½ feet
I went on to say that as an invention it
high. existed in its own right. It was a column
While it was being erected I was asked by an
onlooker what it was. I said painted welded constructed of rhythm thus having a
correspondence with our own character and
steel and then, prompted by his look of rhythm, and that we might appreciate the effect
dissatisfaction, began to explain the work to of its order and gain pleasure. It had been
him, to tell him that it was a permutation of an designed for the site, high enough to be seen
order of rotations. He could see the identical Work for Arundel Gate (adjoining Polytechnic),
from the road, its vertical progression set Sheffield

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