Page 27 - Studio International - December 1974

and historical context. I want you to think of moment in which this discussion is taking place. devalue wholly the total context in which such
a sculpture and mentally confront this sculpture That is, the degree to which we are all here manifestations are accepted without comment,
for the rest of these discussions. I don't want attuned to the subject, the nature of our interest let alone taken seriously.
to limit your choice — the whole point of a in it. There is an obvious difference between But this acceptance and elevation of the
discussion of this kind is that the point of individuals here, of course, and between wholly trivial, although personally utterly
origin of every contributor should be separate yourselves and myself. But I'm assuming for depressing, and surely more so for those much
and distinctive — but it is important that the the moment that you are all sculptors, and that older than my generation who have had to
sculpture you think of should be one you know you have started to make sculpture and to think stand by and watch helplessly while the language
well, physically, not just from reproduction, seriously about sculpture in the last three or they are still learning to use is abused and
and care about. Not care for necessarily, but a four years. This isn't necessarily true for each degraded by self-important novices — yet the
sculpture that moves and disturbs you enough of you, but it will suffice to indicate what I take whole business may have had an important and
to keep thinking about it, one which does not to be common ground between you. But equally cleansing effect where it matters most: that is
give itself up completely on first looking, one it establishes a bond between myself and you, in your eyes, in the eyes of artists just setting
strong enough to use as a springboard over a because I have this sense of my own direction out on their careers; who can see clearly enough
prolonged period of argument and reflection. too: that although I may have been making the emptiness of the posturing of their immediate
It might be a sculpture of your own, or by a sculpture for a good deal longer, it is only in the predecessors, but who possess, beyond and apart
friend or contemporary: by an artist of the last four years that my thinking about sculpture from that cold view of the recent past, a
modern era, or of the Renaissance: or by an has'come together with the making of it. So strangely unprejudiced and objective view of
anonymous sculptor of medieval or classic simply by virtue of having been in art longer in earlier art, as though Donatello, say, or Rodin,
times; from Egypt or India; or from a primitive a professional way, I am in a position to initiate or David Smith, or Indian, Egyptian or
or prehistoric culture. It can be figurative or this discussion — indeed, it would seem in view Polynesian sculpture were somehow equidistant.
non-figurative, made or constructed from any of the situation, an obligation on me to do so. That is to say, nearness in historical time, the
material. It doesn't matter, provided only that But I think the relative shortness of your time notion of succession, confers no privilege. It is
it was made as sculpture — for whatever in sculpture — given only an initial talent, which only the immediate character of the work as
immediate purpose is irrelevant — that the is the reason why you are here at all, and an sculpture that renders it present to you now.
intention which I am for the moment taking for adequate technical competence, which is much There is no string of causality, no historical
granted we have some common understanding more to do with a readiness of mind rather pressure to take more notice of this rather than
of, this intention is implicit in the object. than skill, in the old sense — this relative that.
I don't want to get involved in discussions of inexperience of sculpture gives you the This is the way it seems to me you naturally
intention, or of aesthetic, or of taste, the 'before' advantage over me. I can see it, but often I'm look at sculpture: as though the stripping away
and 'after' of the sculpture. I want to talk not free to do it. You can do it, but perhaps not only of the skin and fat, but of the bones
about this sculpture present to us now. I am you can't see it. The purpose of this discussion and sinew of sculpture, had made the simple
speaking as a sculptor thinking about sculpture; is for me to put what I conceive to be the and evident fact of its physicality, of its
I am not talking about an empty space, and problem in front of you, for you to examine; necessary physicality, its dimensional existence
proposing definitions that would help bring and for you to use your fresh view of things, in the world, quite clear and obvious to you;
about an ideal sculpture in that space. your independence of the past, to apply a kind and that all sculpture that strongly maintains
Sculpture is not ideal. It is contaminated by of leverage on the problem as I present it. this quality appears to you equally worthy of
reality. It is real, it exists, it is. What is it then that is so peculiar, so regard, whatever its historical or cultural
From the viewpoint of traditional philosophy, propitious about the present situation? Well, derivation.
these may seem large assumptions indeed. But I think something is becoming more and more Yet the freshness of this perception will not
that is not our viewpoint; and the existence of apparent to serious observers about the general be sustained without thought. And when you
sculpture, as physical object and as an art — context in which art is being made. That is, the look for intellectual support you find art
that is to say, as a word which carries a evolutionary concept of modern art, which has criticism, art theory, aesthetics, all imbedded in
continuing significance in the minds of successive been active for almost a century, and history and prejudice, constructions of pasts
generations of artists — this is where we start. increasingly dominant in the years since 1950, and futures for art, never of the unqualified
Now this does not mean to say we are not is now, I believe, finally dead as a stimulus to present.
going to discuss the word 'sculpture' and any the making of original and substantial art. I use Consideration of the nature of sculpture
other terms that are essential if we are to the word evolutionary — rather than say enforces its peculiar and unconditional present-
articulate the experience of sculpture verbally; advanced, avant-garde, progressive — deliberately, ness (presence) and I think we can go some way
or that we are going to leave untouched the because the idea of the survival of the fittest, of in reflection to examine and uncover this
physical and perceptual conditions of sculpture's one species or movement in art actually presence.
existence. Because this is what we are going to displacing its predecessor, then being itself
do. It is exactly what this series of discussions displaced, and so on, in a simple linear 2.
is aimed at. But it will be in the context of an progression, this certainly suggests a biological I want to consider the word 'Sculpture', the
ahistoric, unqualified confrontation with model: a closed system in which success, term by which we describe what we spend most
sculpture, now at this moment. Not 'why' the dominance, is of one element in art over others, of our lives doing, or thinking about. Has it ever
sculpture is there: but, taken that it is there, in and nature, the world, the context in which art occurred to you how totally unrelated to what
the world, 'what' it is, 'how' it is there, what is physically takes a place is used only as fuel to we actually do in the studio or workshop is the
the world, in the sense we are now using it; power the aspirations of one competing ideology word 'Sculpture'? It has often disturbed me
over another. Moreover the accelerating pace
what is sculpture's relation to the world, and to that the actual character of the activity bears so
at which movements have displaced each other
the other arts; what is sculpture's relation to little relation to the term by which we are
in recent years, and the degree to which the
ourselves, individually; and to others, and to obliged to describe it. Yet, if you consider
more obvious and accessible resources of
other objects. taking another public name for your work, and
So much for the general programme, the sculpture and painting have been mined out, disavow 'Sculpture', and call it for example
direction I want this course to take. But before depleted, has resulted in the elevation of kinds 'Construction', then you are no further on.
starting on the meat of the problem, I would of art in the last few years so trivial, so Within art you are identified as a member of a
like to spend a little time talking about the insubstantial in relation to its pretensions, as to particular sect with a particular ideology.
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