Page 26 - Studio International - May June 1975

(Left)
Chance and Order, 1974, ink drawing
(Above)
Blue Tangle, Collection Peter Stuyvesant
(Opposite page)
(Above left)
Chance and Order, working rough
(Above right)
Small Screw Mobile, 1953
Nickel plated brass, 26 x 11¼ in.
(Below left)
Screw Mobile 1953
Phosphor bronze and steel
36 x 12 in.
Collection Adrian Heath
(Below right)
Chance and Order 9, 1972
Oil on canvas, 36x 36 in.

Moore and Hepworth anglicized the majority are small, on a scale where they can the deliberate lack of the possibility
international style with laboured can easily be turned or handled. In the of physical participation in the static
references to English landscape and even article in One (1973) which has already pieces paradoxically force a visual
weather, Martin has drawn on the more been quoted, he wrote: participation by making the eye explore
relevant industrial traditions of south `A small size and scale seemed natural rather than the hand. Martin wrote in an
Yorkshire. He himself denies that there to me, I could work more article in Studio International
is any influence of this kind on his work, experimentally. I was interested in (January 1970) "Scale and Change" of
but it is difficult to believe that his exploring the notion of steps, that is of how he found this happening at
awareness of the small workshop activity being reduced to simple Documenta in 1968 when some of his
industries of the Sheffield master components and then the product of works had to be protected from vandals :
cutlers, still numerous in the city in the these explored. Suitable for my `If accessibility can create interest so
nineteen twenties, was not to have some purpose there were in the shops many can the inaccessible. The nature of the
effect on his methods of working with gradated sizes of brass in a small scale. arousal of interest and the
metal, even if subconsciously. Martin It could be possible to invent a kind of appreciation is different. I found out a
uses brass to make his constructions musical scale or a real mathematical little more about this when
and screw mobiles, a metal not often organization with them. And these exceedingly rough handling at an
employed by the sculptor. He began to could be manipulated and joined by exhibition necessitated the placing of
use it because when he first started the tools which I had to hand and was my works in transparent boxes.
making construction he found that brass learning to use.' Something I had never wished to do
came in convenient sizes and sections and, Although these small works remain with them produced another aspect.
being relatively soft, was easy to work objects which can be handled or The eye probes and the personality
in a small home workshop. Yet the manipulated, their scale and of the beholder can go with it, seeking
associations of this metal (with clock construction from elements make them to comprehend what is seen. This can
mechanisms and early scientific more like 'diagrams in air', drawings in be more active, more absorbing and
instruments, for instance) give Martin's space with metal, than objects. With less passive than the participation in a
work qualities which are very different the screw mobiles, the participation of happening.'
from the severe and unfriendly schemas the spectator who turns them with his Since then Martin has been occupied
of some artists working in constructive hand both links them to himself by this with the long series of two-dimensional
ways. Although he has made several tactile involvement and also works (drawings, prints, paintings) based
large commissioned three-dimensional dematerializes them as objects, creating on a combination of chance and
works, including two fountains, the `virtual' rather than real volumes. So controlled factors. The way in which this

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