Page 25 - Studio International - May June 1975

elements in a continuing drama that
unfolds between artist and spectator.
In an essay 'Scale and Change'
(Studio International January 1970)
Martin wrote that he was 'not really a
sculptor.'
`If I say I construct I am by that only
stating here a method of thought and
work, and not that I am a
Constructivist, Constructionalist,
Structuralist or Structurist, which
also defines adherence to particular
schools and philosophies. Whatever
I do, in 2, 3, or 4 dimensions, is
constructed.'
Martin has talked and written often
of the importance of the process of
construction in his work and has stressed
the part kinetics plays. But it is not very
profitable, in fact it is diminishing, to
talk of Martin's art as `constructivist'
(or 'constructionist') or 'kinetic'. These
are important elements of his way of
working, but all have become limiting
terms today, although they may have had
an important function in the development
of ideas and in helping artists to group
themselves together for purposes of
exhibition or promoting their ideas.
And it would be almost equally
plausible to consider Martin as a
`minimal' or 'conceptual' artist. (His
work was, for instance, included in the
Arts Council touring exhibition 'Art as
Thought Process.') Years of indifference
to or faint praise of his work in Britain
have naturally led him to identify himself
with European artists and with the
international movement of geometric
abstraction, for his work has until
recently been better known abroad than
here. But he does not see himself as part
of a succession in which the torch of
truth is passed from Constructivism to
Kineticism, of the kind fabricated by
critics like George Rickey and Stephen
Bann. As long ago as 1966 in some notes
on 'Kinetics' published in View
(Spring 1966) he wrote that his
researches (`not really the right word for
intense, emotional curiosity') had led
him 'away from a conscious
orthodoxy, the true development of
Constructivism, the true development Linear Construction, 1964. Arts Council collection
from Mondrian and so forth.' Yet that
he was to a considerable extent working in
a tradition of constructive art is
undeniable. Some of his earlier mobiles
are clearly related to the suspended
constructions of Rodchenko, or to the
works of Gabo and Pevsner. A more
direct influence was that of Georges
Vantongerloo on Martin's small brass
constructions. In an essay in One in 1973
he wrote:
`In making these small works I was
encouraged by the powerfulness of the
scale of Vantongerloo's work. I
visited his studio several times and
while he talked I would watch and
enjoy them.'
The influence of Vantongerloo was
clearly important and fruitful for Martin.
Yet, for all its European connections
and its obvious place within an
international style of geometric
abstraction, his work has strong
English qualities.
Martin was born and spent his first
twenty-five years in Sheffield. Where Transformable, 1966 (first version) Brass, four pieces 12+ in. long. Collection Denise René

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