Page 27 - Studio International - June 1972

Sculpture and architecture:

an introduction to my recent work

William Tucker

Traditionally, sculpture that might well be
called architectural in this second sense has been
dense and massive, like that of Maillol and
Laurens. Their work affirms the stability,
weight, permanence and density of buildings.
By their relation to human scale they
concentrate the qualities of building at a level
that is within the immediate physical and
perceptual experience of the individual
spectator.
But just as sculptures such as these do not
necessarily relate to any single building, they
equally need not be thought about in relation
to any building. That is, the quality of
architecture may be considered as something
far more general than that of buildings —in
Composition 196o terms, for example, of a general and
18 X 24 in. perceived harmony or order in the world, of
right relation, proportion, and interval between
I think that in the past if one talked of a piece things : in the way one might speak of any work
of sculpture as 'architectural', this could be of art, a painting or a piece of music, for
taken to mean one of three things. Firstly, it instance, as 'architectural', where one senses
could mean sculpture that was executed as that the artist is deliberately and consciously
part of the conception of a particular building relating the parts of the work to each other, and
where the sculptor was acting as the direct to the whole, so that there is a continual and
agent of the architect, and sculpture was used stressed relation between the part and the
to give relief or detail to those parts of the whole, the whole and the part. The sculpture
building that the architect felt needed it. The of Matisse seems to me 'architectural' in this exclusive forms or principles. Union of Opposites
carving of the Gothic and Romanesque sense, which might show that architecture of 1963 may give some idea of what I mean,
cathedrals is of this kind, and however good goes a good deal deeper than a clean surface but one can think of many examples in the
and independently expressive it is, it could not and a calm and simple presence. history of modern sculpture, notably in the
exist without the overall form of the cathedral, (There is a particular sense in which this idea of work of Vantongerloo and Max Bill.)
which gives each element of sculpture its architecture as a local instance of a universal These three ways in which one might
character and function in the whole : indeed so order, can be applied to sculpture, but rather describe sculpture as 'architectural' could be
closely is the carving and the general structure in a conceptual than a perceptual sense: that is, applied to any sculpture, from any period or
identified that the sculpture in effect becomes sculpture which is structured on simple and culture. But about ten or twelve years ago a
the architecture; the two things cannot be profound and liberating change came over
separated. sculpture, which I want to suggest has
However, these cathedral sculptures might subsequently modified and extended the
also be called 'architectural' in a second meaning of the term for sculptors. There had
and not so literal sense: that is, in that each been remarkable hints of this change much
sculpture reflects in its own structure, its earlier, for example in Rodin's Burghers of
proportion and relations, the architecture of Calais, which was designed to be seen at ground
the whole building. Now this conception of level; and in Brancusi's use of the carved and
sculpture as architectural in itself can clearly articulated base, which related the sculpture-
be taken to mean 'architectural', not in object to the ground, thus creating an intimate
relation to a particular building, but in tension between it and the spectator.
relation to buildings in general. If architecture However, in the past few years it has become
has been and must always be concerned with the general and natural to make sculpture which
making of a shell, a shelter, a structure of an starts from the ground and is thus naturally
inside and an outside, a structure whose part of the spectator's own 'world'. This
solidity and massiveness must in the last revolution has released sculpture both from the
reckoning be illusory because of its nature as a architectural constraint, thinking in terms of
container—then sculpture, however light, large sculpture, of belonging to, of articulating
transparent, or fragile, is the opposite: a core, a particular building or site—or thinking of the
a central and irreducible solid, surrounded by development up till that point of advanced
space. sculpture, the isolated and enclosed