Page 96 - Studio International - November December 1975

emphasized diagonals force our eyes across the sides of
the square that are hewn to give paired triangulated and
orthogonal readings.
The metal 'side' of the sculpture has 1 in. square and
1 x 2 in. rectangular tubing added edge to edge and
across the planes of the 5 x 1 in. and 4 x 4 in. wood
planking.These are set into an inclined T shape, preferred
in this piece. The larger diameter tubing enriches, its
surface flush with the wood. Inset and buried it drives
through to the surface and terminates with the 1 in.
tubing which subjoins its end.
Planks which establish surface and direction are butt-
jointed to merge with further wooden members and carry
our eye back into and through the inner volume of space.
The sculpture rises to support a horizontal plane of
wood 2 ft above the ground, some 20 in. long and 4 in.
wide. Neither the wood nor the steel is disguised by the
paint, which is scraped down after application to lighten
the feeling of weight that a blanket cover would produce.
This scraping down also has the effect of increasing the
permutations of movement possible within such a
concentrated nexus of thrust and parried discharged.
John Panting found freedom in these last works.
John Panting Untitled 1968/69

ability to influence the sculpture once its foundations Angelo Bozzolla
were laid.
Formal clues left by Panting read clearly enough : for
ICA New Gallery, 28 August - 14 September 1975
example, the attempts to use corners either self-created
as in Page 1, 1967 or found as in Elliptical Corner Cross,
1967/8. These reveal the artist's desire to extend the Reviewed by Mike Hazzledine
sculpture. The lessons learnt from Untitled, 1968/9
were not however used, the pieces immediately following 'Shipwreck, fire, madmen, bullfighting ...' (P. Gassier,
taking a material consideration as the reality norm. The Drawings of Goya: the complete albums. London,
Tension was made visible within these steel works and 1973)
material seen to be working. Demonstration was
envisaged as a process momentarily caught, but such Bozzolla's work occupied the two white, airy, connecting
elegance was achieved at the cost of quality. A quality rooms that make up the I CA's 'New Gallery'. On the walls
found in Untitled, 1968/9. of one room eight groups of drawings were arranged in
The 1970/2 pieces attempted to extend the square, neat blocks of sixty or so, each small drawing mounted on
triangle or rectangle by 'mirror' reflections elsewhere a sheet from a loose-leaf notebook and stuck directly on
within the work, as in Small Parallel Triangles, 1970/1 the wall : a quiet, orderly room. The other room,
where two like-sized triangles placed alongside each apparently empty, had two loudspeakers hidden under
other are similarly distorted using tension wires. This the stone benches along opposite walls. At this level, that
particular series is elegant and economic in the same of the installation, the complementary relationships
breath, but uses a spare drawing technique in such a way (visual/aural, full/empty) suggested that the two spaces
as to advance the artist's work only marginally from the were to be read as a single installation. This was reinforced
Untitled 1968/9 piece. by the pattern of oppositions and similarities on other
However, recognizable aspects of Untitled were levels.
carried through into the 1970/2 works, such as the Bozzolla's drawings were made almost automatically
dispersal of parts and latterly, towards the end of this (traced ?) and within a predetermined time (according to
period, by an apparent casualness in their placing. Steel the ICA handout) from the eight albums of drawings
strip yields to gravity, as in Untitled, 1972, shown in the executed by Goya between 1796 and 1828: between his
Royal Academy Sculpture Exhibition, 1972. Both types serious illness in the early 1790's and his death. Goya's
of curve, natural and forced, were entirely dispensed with drawings have been classified into series over the last few
in the Felicity Samuel work. Inflexible and severe, these decades by art historians using such distinguishing
pieces compare strangely to the sprung works characteristics as' ... format, medium, captions,
immediately before, the grey paint a steely feature used position of the number on the sheet, presence or absence
almost consistently from the earliest works to the last. of a black border.' The four hundred and seventy-six
The paint applied to the Samuel works however is drawings have only recently been published as eight
solely to provide a vehicle by which anonymity can be albums. Their unity of support, tinted paper, and unity of
given to the steel material. The mid-tone grey allows the medium, ink or sepia, are considered to make them an
top and side surfaces of the metal to distinguish exceptionally coherent ensemble (P. Gassier, ibid).
themselves, but at the cost of differentiating the Bozzolla's versions of these drawings more or less
qualitative differences between the roles that unit repeat this material unity. The predetermined amount of
members play in the composition. In a way the grey time he allowed himself to copy them was presumably
operates to de-activate the dynamics of the unit parts fairly short, since he has quickly indicated the main lines
where the opposite would have been preferable. This was and areas of tone in the originals. Human figures,
abandoned immediately after, when dynamic was created gestures and faces are sometimes visible, but the details
through a variety of means and hope wasn't pinned of physiognomy and the captions necessary for the
solely on form divorced from the matter that constituted reading of Goya's complex content are missing. That
it. The artist found that matter was malleable and by content is expressed by Bozzolla only to the extent that it
exposing it to his will, invention became organic in is expressed in the broad outlines of Goya's compositions
appearance — it did not have to look predictable or can be remembered by the viewer.
Untitled, 1973 is shown and is similar in look to The loudspeakers in the other part of the gallery relayed
Untitled XIII, 1973 (in the catalogue but not in the a tape recording of Bozzolla speaking one of a series of
show). The former has a flexibility not found in the 'Letters to a friend'. He speaks of the difficulty of
Samuel work. Constructed from wood and steel it pays communicating, of suicide, of starting an ambitious work
small lip-service to elegance. It stands about 2 ft from the and fearing his friend will laugh knowing it will never be
ground and fills something like a 2 ft cube. Strongly finished. These (apparently) very personal statements are
248