Ostensibly, the Tate Britain visit was to see Richard Deacon's retrospective - following on from my previous post on him.
While we were at Tate Britain we also saw works by other sculptors I've written about in this blog, namely Tony Crag and Bill Woodrow.
In addition, we looked at work by Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and (Sir) Anthony Caro, and I came away thinking I should research all of these sculptors when I have time. My "little list" is beginning to grow!
The South Bank visit was to see the Martin Creed's exhibition, "What's The Point of It?", which I've also written about in a previous post.
Anyhow, that's the context. Now some thoughts about the retrospective of...
Richard Deacon
I really like the way a lot of his sculptures twist and turn and look rhythmic but the thing that struck me most about a lot of them was their finish - or rather, their lack of finish.
The laminated wood structures ooze glue and no attempt has been made to smooth the edges of the layers to create a single surface, let alone polish the (absent) surface. I have to admit that smoothing and polishing stuff is not something I enjoy but it's never occurred to me to not bother!
Likewise, Deacon's sheet metal structures are held together with ugly brackets and lots of self-tapping screws. Granted, the screws are laid out in strict formation but pop rivets would have looked a lot tidier - no ugly screw points sticking out.
I would have preferred the finish to be smooth and polished. I think it would have enhanced the beauty of the sculptures. But I've begun to understand Deacon's logic after reading some of the book about him (by Clarrie Wallis) that accompanies the exhibition.
A lot of Deacon's work is responding to poetry - namely "Sonnets to Opheus" by "one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets" Austrian Rainer Maria Rilke, according to the relevant Wikipedia entry. Apparently, Rilke uses basic words but weaves them together to create a cycle of 55 sonnets that are highly lyrical, philosophical and mystical.
Deacon says he's translating this into sculpture by taking every day materials like hardboard, glue, screws and galvanised sheet metal and combining them to create his swooping and diving shapes. He wants the basic nature of the materials to be evident in the same way that the basic nature of Rilke's words are evident.
Deacon is another sculptor (like Antony Gormley) that plays around with boundaries - the interface between dualities like:
- Interior and exterior
- Surface and edge
- Form and image (3D and 2D???)
- Visible and hidden
- Real and imagined
According to Wallis' book, Deacon deliberately choses titles for his sculptures to encourage a "metaphorical reading" of his work along these lines. Actually, he reminds me of Gormley in that there's a lot of references to orifices between the inside and outside of bodies - mouths, eyes, ears and so on.
Maybe if I read some more of the book I'll understand this better!
Last point (for the moment):
At what is supposedly a pivotal moment in Deacon's career he produced a set of nine drawings that have some similarities to his rhythmic sculptures. Five of them were on show at the exhibition.
Apparently he's never liked drawing sculptures before making them and these drawings do the reverse - they are a response to his early sculptures. They were made "under constraint" for want of a better word. He took an outline of a previous sculpture, anchored a piece of string to it, tied the string to a pencil and drew an arc, and so on, until a rhythmic 2D shape emerged, which he then made stronger in various ways.
These drawings appear to be very important to Deacon. They mapped out his future direction. In Wallis' book, Deacon says he "knew they were good."
To me, they look like the product of a rather unsuccessful attempt at playing with a Spirograph. They don't do anything for me.
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