Page 39 - Studio International - February 1973

(Opposite page) somehow already had its effect on the work, weight which makes the work directly accessible.
Straight Run 1972
79 x 137 x 31 in. which can spread, therefore, from part to part, The 'devices' I have mentioned give some
freed and floating irrespective of its weight. In indication of how finely Caro is tying aesthetic
Caro's work, Month of May, and Prairie are the access to the nature of sculptural materials.
(Top) finest examples of these two approaches.4 The They have, at one level, rich art-historical
Straight Flush 1972 new sculptures, being more physical, evoke far associations. The magnet-like slabs recall David
78 x 145 x 52 in.
more complicated a response. While their Smith's collage-like approach in such works as
constructional mode assists in the 'dispersal' of March Sentinel, while the angular cut-out planes
(Bottom left) mass in stressing relationships before objects, it of all the sculptures bring memories of Synthetic
Straight Up 1972 is itself no guarantee against the merely physical Cubism — memories which therefore suggest a
53 x 43 x 68 in. (as the continuing fashion for huge slabs of cubist origin for the guitar-string-like rod in
cor-ten steel in recent New York constructional Straight Up.5 Such essentially pictorialist
sculpture shows). In the end, it comes down to connotations work to modify the procedural,
(Bottom right)
Straight Left 1972 the nature of the forms and the character of their physical ones these same details also possess.
6r x 54 x 98 in. relationships : that they possess an aesthetic Both are like added bonuses, enlarging and
richening the sculpture. But all of the forms
are also pictorial on their own behalf. Their
constituting surfaces — in a way new to Caro -
assists this. In the large wall-like Straight Run,
the same wings that prop up the central plane
inflect it also. Their departure from the
frontality of the centre, necessary to balance,
enlivens the piece. The smaller affixed plates
'frame' around the larger planes, making us
especially conscious of how their surfaces end
(in a way, once more, akin to painting); and form
sub-groupings which carry the eye from one
area to the next. The central pierced hole is
framed in to join it to the triangular flat it seems
to face. This flat, in turn, is framed by plates
which carry back up to the top of the central
plane. Here, the sense of potential desirability
this section possesses - and which weakens
Straight On - is marvellously apt in just
indicating enough the particulate nature of the
whole piece.
Of all the small details I find myself wanting
to call attention to - for Caro's sculpture is so
very rich in concise incident - possibly the
most potent is the step-like form I have referred
to already. Its physical justification is tied to an

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