Page 39 - Studio International - May June 1975

visibility and so its freedom. When we The reverse is true, they are totally enormous throughout the modern
speak of sculpture as 'active' we do so inimical. Modernism, born and nurtured period, whether the ground of relief has
metaphorically: at most it resists our gaze, in painting, generates its deepest energy been the wall or the floor, or recently the
receives light, withstands gravity. from the idea of the plane. From such a surface of landscape itself. In each case
The 'free-standing' of sculpture must view, the free-standing of sculpture is an the condition of gravity is ignored, and
be understood in the light of these intolerable anomaly. Thus Worringer, in sculpture is reduced to a more available,
primary conditions. `Free', as wholly the classic statement of early modernist more 'present', but in fact hollow and
exposed to our perception, in light; criticism, Abstraction and Empathy: 'It is perverse surrogate-painting. (Only David
`standing', as withstanding the pull of the relatively simple to wrest the things of the Smith of the great modern sculptors
earth. We perhaps, take the free-standing outer world from the flux of happening accepted painting's planar directive and
of sculpture too much for granted, not and to render them perceptible per se in turned it to sculpture's profound
realizing how recently it was regained for their material individuality and closed advantage, giving sculpture a new order
us (by Rodin and Degas), how unity by projecting them on to a plane of depth and transparency.)
infrequently it has obtained within the surface; but the means of sculpture in the Sculpture's 'free-standing' is thus more
European tradition, and how it is a round are ill-adapted to this aim, for in than a neutral description : it is an
quality that has to be recovered in each truth a free-sculptural representation aspiration. To stand free, for sculpture,
sculpture as it is made even, or especially, occupies just as lost and arbitrary a demands a positive acceptance and
now. position in the world-picture as its natural understanding of its condition; and it
Because they coincide in time, the rise model, which the artist had simply tried follows that a free sculpture will remain
cf modernism in the visual arts, and the to eternalize in stone.' inconvenient, obtrusive — a challenge to
idea of the free-standing in sculpture The pressure on sculpture to adopt the facile and conventional views of history
might be thought to run a,common path. painting-directed role of relief has been and aesthetic. •
Julian Hawkes
Kam, 1973
Leather, wood, steel
0.61 x 3.05 x 3.05 m
2. Isaac Witkin
Everglades 1975
Mild steel
1.08 x 3.05 x 2.92 m
3. Loren Madsey
Untitled, redwood,
cable, eyebolts
13 ft dia. X 2 ft high
4. Katherine Gili
Kinchin 1974
Mild steel, painted
1.69 x 0.97 x 1.01 m
5. David van de Kop
Untitled 1974
Steel, sand
6. A. Fauteux
North West 1974
63 x 144 x 51 in
7. Jacqueline Winsor
Four Corners 1972
Wood, hemp
o.68 X 1.22 X 1.22
8. James Wolfe
rhrice 1974
18 x 85 x to in

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