clockwise from the door:
Dean Piacentini, “All At Once”, 2021, 60x50cm
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Dean Piacentini, “Buffer Shuffler”, 2021, 90x75cm
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John Pollard, “Pseudo-Obstruction”, 2019, 80x120cm
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John Pollard, ”What Is This?”, 2021, 50x60cm
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John Pollard, “After Reactivity”, 2021, 50x60cm
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EC. “The Task of Reuniting”, 2019-21, 51x41cm
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EC, “Onda (Wave)”, 2019-21, 50x40cm
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EC, “I woke up and God said unto me ‘why dost thou fret about builders and packing, my child? Rise and go forth and paint.’ So I did. Towards splitting.” 2019-21, 50x40cm
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EC, “I woke up and God said unto me ‘why dost thou fret about builders and packing, my child? Rise and go forth and paint. Don’t be scared if it’s ugly. Didst I not make some nightmare insects?’ So I went and painted.” 2019-21, 41x51cm
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John Bunker, “Kythera”, 2020, 49x100cm
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John Bunker, “Rite”, 2021, 37x65cm
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John Bunker, “Kardaki”, 2020, 66x86cm
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Dean Piacentini, “Inharmonicity”, 2021, 101x101cm
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EC, “Planner Man. The Often Ruthless and Measured Translation of Ideas (aka Mister Motives’ Mess).”, 2015-20, 35x25cm
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John Bunker, “Wild American Prairie”, 86x50cm
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Sculpture in the center of the room:
John Panting, untitled, 1973, H.56cm
Copies of “John Panting; Sculpture”, written by Sam Cornish, and published by Sansom & Co. and Poussin Gallery in 2012, are available for purchase at abcrit.org (£10) or by post (£25).
This book is a compendium of photographs of the work and career of John Panting.
Panting was born in New Zealand in 1940 and emigrated to Britain in 1963. In 1973 he became head of sculpture at Central School of Art. He died in a motorbike accident in 1974.
In 1975 the Serpentine Gallery showed work from his career. Very few of his works now survive.
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More information about this exhibition and how to visit is in the previous post.
The last day to visit is 4th July 2021.
Abcrit 
Looking forward to seeing it in the flesh this Sunday Robin, looks great. Dean
Sent from my iPad
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I was able to visit the show last Friday .I spent several hours utterley absorbed by the fascinating work on show.I have to admit the collage basis of a lot of the work ,isnt my preoccuption at present in Painting.See Poons at Almine Rech,Frankenthaler at Gagosian ,Frank Bowling at Hauser and Wirth,John Walker at Messums.Robin Greenwoods Sculpture and his own Painting blew me away.Many Thanks for a fantastic visual experience,and some truly exciting work.A must-see.
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This text is from a discussion from Brancaster Chronicles from a few years back, when I made this comment. It is about sculpture, but applies just as much, perhaps, to “constructed painting”.
We were “… talking about the expressive content in the individual parts of a particular sculpture, to which I responded that such content is entirely speculative until the moment that it can contribute to a total, “whole-work” expressivity. In other words, one cannot make parts expressive in themselves, from the beginning (expressive of what?), no matter what is done to the material at an early stage. All one can do is make stuff that “does” things. As to what they do exactly, I think that has to be left indeterminate for abstract sculpture when it is no longer tied to physical or structural objecthood. Maybe “doing-ness” is all one can describe, and even that cannot be prescribed. I think this is an interesting topic, and in the end perhaps Mark and I are saying something similar from different directions, since he is of the opinion that the parts in the sculpture that began this bit of the discussion are over-expressive and get in the way of what the whole sculpture wants to say.
There is an example, which I wish I’d made more of at the time, … where there is a “barley-sugar” twist element, to all intents and purposes made in exactly the same manner as a number of other pieces of metal that we can see in other works by Tony, both this year and last. They are made by taking a strip of metal and twisting it into a long, spiraling, corkscrew shape. I can’t say I have ever liked this element much in previous work, but in this piece the spiraling is further bent into something between a “U” curve and a “V”, and forms the most delicate transition of space, pressurized but resistant (just enough) and entirely, unselfconsciously, effective and particular in its activity within this singular sculpture’s whole action… and thus, and only then, does it become expressive. Of what, though? Not “of” anything…
Of course, it is true to say that you could never have discovered an integrated place for such a specific bit of metal had you not made it in the first place; but that is not the same as saying you made it to “express” something specific in the beginning. I think there is real advantage in making a variety of “content” in what amounts to a quite disinterested manner to start with. To think that one is, from the beginning, imbuing the material with some kind of expression is both a pretension and a cliché. In fact, to go further, perhaps contentiously, I no longer believe very clearly at all in the idea of the artist deliberately expressing anything in abstract art, a concept which seems more and more like a figurative hangover. I think in abstract art it has to be more along the lines of creating possibilities for the viewer to find their own meaning and expression for themselves, out of the artist’s dispassionate creation of manifold opportunity. This by no means excludes the artist “feeling” their way through the complexities of this new way of working. And Tony makes a really good point on Abcrit recently about working on beyond the literalness of the initial bending and twisting of the metal, to a point where things become properly abstract.
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Then, of course, we come to Helga’s lovely definitions of “form” and “shape”! And Tony doesn’t want to make “forms” (which might also be called three-dimensional “shapes”!), which I quite understand, since in one sense a “form” is often thought of as a representation of something, and in abstract art, tends towards separation rather than unity. I recall years ago Glynn Williams going on about making “clear parts”, as if that was the answer to sculpture. And it’s hard not to be put in mind of the horribly inflated and rather gratuitous three-dimensionality of “forms” in Cubist-type Lipchitz sculptures (and Glynn Williams, come to that).
However, I’d quite like to reclaim the word “form” when it refers to the whole work, its total overall “shape” (!) rather than to individual parts.
And I like this definition:
From “An A-Z of the Piano: Alfred Brendel’s Notes from the Concert Hall”:
“According to Hugo Riemann, form is unity in diversity. Aestheticians shortly before 1800 had applied the same formula to musical character. To me, form and character (feeling, psychology, atmosphere, “expression”, “impulse”) are non-identical twins. The form and structure of a piece are visible and verifiable in the composer’s text. The other twin has to be experienced. The visibility of form leads some to see the invisible twin as its subordinate. It is relatively simple to analyse a composition with the help of the written text, more difficult to feel the form, and even more demanding to enter into the psychology of a work.”
It’s that “unity in diversity” that gets me every time!!!
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Saw this exhibition yesterday and it looks fantastic, it is beautiful, gutsy and full of complex and engaging images. I really like EC’s ‘Onda’ and ‘I woke up and God said unto me ……………’. I enjoy the colour choices and assured wildness of her work.
Each artist has used constructed material in a particular way to create work that expresses their individual visions, fabulous!
The gallery space is sublime in the way it has been constructed by Robin, fully using the potential of natural illumination to the best advantage. This space really enhances the gallery experience, I know it’s all about the work, but there is intimacy and tremendous light here!
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Thank you Noela!
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