Page 86 - Studio International - May June 1975

Anthony Caro Crown 1970-71. Painted steel 421 x 82 x 32 in.
working process. Smith did not variations. It doesn't mean to say organization involved in has been contrasted with sheer
have to find shape he had to find that one is right and one is wrong. progression. size and the canvases'
a process, Caro has repeatedly One can play the field you know.' `There is, of course, always that extremities heightened, to
had to find a form in which to At the time of their meeting in idea of progression in sculpture. refurnish place. Cezanne reacted
house the process. 1959, Kenneth Noland was If you take a totem you have to by positively concreting over the
Caro recognizes where the `concerned with process as a walk around it. You take a Henry surface.
process of reduction is too great means of liberation from Moore sculpture your eye keeps Caro showed Prairie in 1967.
for the sculptural form and where composition and laying down of sliding round and through.' Fried: 'Indeed the ground itself
occasionally rich variables have colour at close range as a means This is a different type of is seen, not as that upon which
been ruled out. In hindsight, it of liberation from picture making'. progression, a stringing together everything else stands, and from
was a mistake for a number of By 1963, Noland had interested of related-events happens. In which everything else rises, but
sculptors during the mid-sixties Caro in 'series'. One result was Caro's linear pieces of 1964/5 the rather as the last, or lowest of
to reduce both the form and Smoulder, 1965. thinking process itself is bared. In the three levels ...' and earlier,
process of their sculpture to a `I don't mean it was one moment of time the whole ... of gravity, at different levels
minimum, since there could be no necessarily a line, but linear in the theme of the sculpture can be above the ground'.
possible follow up to the work. sense that therewas a succession of realized/absorbed, and still This raises the question of place
The outcome was to change the states; that each unit would have further, 'moved' through in the as being in opposition to the
form so completely that the a different characteristic to the more usually accepted linear sculptural function, yet it is the
process itself was affected (this next and joined together in some sense. 'Instead of having a contrast between the two that
gave rise in some cases to way, end to end and so on. But cinematographic film you hold up creates the tension. A dilemma is
abolishing form completely, hence for a certain length, a certain the filmstrip.' caused by integrating the ground
conceptualism). In 3-dimensional direction and position one state The stiffness and staccato of the sculpture sits on into the work
sculpture a broadening out of the of material would be suggested ; earlier pieces has given way, as a while the sculpture attempts to
sculptural 'field' has occurred. this would then change its formal device, to constructed deny the ground its more obvious
It is, however, Caro's dimensions but also the direction moulding. characteristics, such as the way
awareness of the figurative within the new element took emphasizing A characteristic of all Caro gravity operates.
and without the conventions of the change. sculpture is the conflict between This point is further complicated
his previous sculpture that allows `This has been a characteristic place as location and space. The in that many works' ingredients
him to be on his guard against its of all the sculpture from early on tables constructed for the table- are collected from different
appearance. These earlier but meant now in a different top pieces had to be neutral, not sources. (I don't necessarily mean
`expressionist' sculptures showed sense. Mentally, in my mind, it's just because they might interfere different places, but that each
a cutting (displacement) of space, organized. I use the word simple visually with the sculpture but part of each sculpture such as
by arm or leg. Space is in inverted commas, they seem to because they would otherwise cylinder and expanded metal,
transposed in the early sixties by open up and allow me to see the have become engaged with place originated differently. This might
the development of straight line changes taking place which the problems. be the difference of just two
focusing and latterly, curvature earlier pieces couldn't do since The problem is closely tied to machines, yards apart at any
plays a greater part in this edging they were held too close together. the degree of literalness or reality factory.) Contrasted with this is
of space. They had a complexity of forms, the sculpture has. Painting has the sculpture which uses bronze
`I have learned from Ken each part partially hiding the next found, besides the earlier freedom or a shaped material which is
Noland about work in series but even though these may be added elicited in the quest for consistent in form throughout the
then I think that there are end to end and articulated edge- Autonomy, a continuing need to work. Its manufacture suggests
different ways of working in wise. These pieces were multi- solve the question of place. Having one spot, one time.
series. Smith worked in series a dimensional, of a multi-complex stripped itself off the wall, from The disparate nature of the
great deal, so did Titian, you can typed, so in a way this series idea fresco to stretcher, it has since elements suggests phases of shifted
see that Titian painted the same is about laying open physically tried to find a substitute in the time from the outset and makes
picture about eight times, but and mentally the changes that can dealer, gallery and museum. time malleable within the work.
differently, with different take place within the linear Diffusion of the painted image (This is not the same as the time

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