Abstract Sculpture

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Participants: Garth Evans, Jock Ireland, Brandt Junceau

Jock Ireland: I suggested we read Tim Scott’s Abcrit essay on abstract sculpture: https://abcrit.org/2020/02/07/121-tim-scott-writes-on-abstract-sculpture/. I must say the discussion that resulted was NOT what I expected—but it’s a good start. There are many British sculptors on both sides of the Atlantic whose work rewards attention. Readers/listeners might want to visit the websites referred to in the discussion: Abcrit: https://abcrit.org/ Brancaster Chronicles: branchron.com

Here are some excerpts from the conversation:

I’m not really sure what’s going on, but there’s some sense that work which they call abstract has to be promoted/supported/engaged/encouraged and pushed—there’s some kind of goal that’s being pushed, some end, and Tim Scott’s essays are discussing that. –GARTH EVANS

I think we need to begin by just talking briefly about the word “abstract.” –GARTH EVANS

The thing that has sort of bothered me about Robin Greenwood for years—and I’ve been following his activity, his sculpture and the writing for a long time—everything has this label “abstract,” but when you ask him, “what does ‘abstract’ mean?” he refuses to answer. He says he doesn’t know. It can’t be defined—and that is sort of frustrating or whatever, but it’s also what has made the discussions interesting. –JOCK IRELAND

I don’t believe in abstraction. We’re people who live in an actual world in which all of this happens. There’s not more than one world. There’s not a physical plane and a non-physical plane. There’s only our physical world. –BRANDT JUNCEAU

I’m inclined to agree with you in one sense, Brandt—but on the other hand I’m inclined to disagree. –GARTH EVANS

Music is a great thing! –JOCK IRELAND

One could almost feel there’s a situation there that could provide a model for other artists around the world to support each other and each other’s work. –GARTH EVANS

Music is very physical. You’re literally touched by it. If it’s loud or bass enough you could actually feel yourself kind of strum to it. It’s apprehended and felt in a vastly allusive fashion. –GARTH EVANS

The thing is: as much as I don’t want to throw away the possibility of abstract concept, I can’t forget that it’s more than mediated by the physical world. It’s permitted and created and dependent on the physical world. Even the most weightless of mathematical conceptions reside in flesh and blood, you know, this Brie cheese of cells inside a box on top of our spine. That’s a fact. They don’t exist anywhere else. Nowhere else. –BRANDT JUNCEAU

There are elements that govern how we behave that it’s difficult to think of as other than immaterial. Values. What values do you live by? –GARTH EVANS

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Published by sculptureforum

Sculpture Forum led by sculptor Garth Evans.

9 thoughts on “Abstract Sculpture”

  2. Surely Tim Scott in comparing open form sculpture to music is refering to atonal music of the early 20th. Cent. This form of sculpture has no surface, primarily intergrating space into the composition. And without a surface light can not play its contrasting tonal dramas. Broadly speaking, in cultural terms these experiments in atonality firstly in music and later in sculpture are both long since past.

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    1. Tim Scott is still making terrific sculpture. His friend, the painter (and terrific writer) Alan Gouk wrote about the connections between atonal music and contemporary steel sculpture—though Robin Greenwood questioned those connections: Robin preferred more classical music. It’s fair to question the relevance of formalism/Greenberg/whatnot—but the sheer doggedness and the great intelligence with which Tim and a number of contemporary steel sculptors/abstract sculptors (Katherine Gili, Tony Smart, Mark Skilton, Alex Harley) approach their work makes them undismissable IMHO. I also want to note that Miranda Cuckson and Conor Hanick will be performing work by Morty Feldman at the NY Studio School on September 19: atonal music is not dead yet!

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      1. No doubt the cognescenti at the NYSS have a defibrlllator handy for Mr. Feldmans finely wrought hors d’ oeuvrres. As for St. Matinian open form sculpture as a style, like other styles it’s impossible to forecast longevity. There will always be some young turk of genius ready to revitalize and or reconfigure a moribund style. I offer the no longer young sculptor Michael Buzacott as a near example in his attempt to do so.. As for Tim Scott I have no trouble reading his abstractions and have followed his development from a distance since 1970. His plastic block works joined with forged iron first caught my eye. I consider him first rank within the confines of that school. On another issue about welding. So much is made about craft but so little of it happens in free form open welded sculpture. Its generally considered it takes 10,000 hours to master a technique. But we have practitioners of this school who have been welding for 40 years with the technique of a 15 year old boilermakers apprentice. They still consider their materials, ” just suff”. So unlike committed sculptors who self identify with their materials.

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        1. Thanks for introducing me to Michael Buzacott, Harry. Very interesting work. I’m afraid Robin Greenwood might have condemned it for not being “abstract” enough–but that just makes it kind of refreshing for me.

          Miranda Cuckson is the Studio School’s defibrillator. She’s pretty great the way she really gets inside the music she loves. Vilag is her most recent CD. And I think she’s got Aussie blood in her veins. . .

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          1. Jock, I’m glad you found some interest in Buzacotts’ sculpture. As for Robin Greenwood, poor man now deceased. He must have been remarkable in that he could actually see an abstraction. Or either he could not distinguish between an abstraction and an image. Although I did not know of him before Sculpture Forum he seems to have fought the noble fight for what he believed in, so kudos to him. Miranda Cuckson knows her stuff therefore will make the best of what comes her way. Please post more videos I’m looking forward to them.

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  3. Thanks for correcting, Maud. Have a look at Ivon Hitchens too. Seems (to me) his work’s not unconnected to yours. . .

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  4. Comments about abstract sculpture keep flowing at Abcrit.com. Brandt, Maud, a new one from Richard Ward might interest you. Here’s part of it:

    “Is music really so abstract? Isn’t it an abstraction of the human voice?

    “. . .It’s not even always a particularly distant abstraction. The sounds and rhythms of some music played on a clarinet are not further removed from the sound of a mother talking to her baby than the shapes and colours of one of Ivon Hitchens’ more figurative paintings are removed from the look of the landscape that inspired them.”

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