Exhibitions 2
In need of a shake-up
Andrew Lambirth
The Royal Society of British Sculptors was founded in 1904. It's a registered chari- ty that promotes the art of sculpture, and membership by application and selection is open to all professional sculptors, students and recent graduates. It offers a wide range of technical advice as well as bursaries, and has various categories of membership, from licentiate, through associate and interna- tional member, to fellow. (Richard Serra, for instance, is an international fellow.) One of its chief aims is 'to ensure the con- tinued widespread debate on contemporary sculpture and to promote the pursuit of excellence in the artform'. Which is all very fine, so far as it goes.
The problem with the RBS, and this is also a situation faced by the Royal Acade- my (witness the RA Summer Exhibition), is the difficulty it has in attracting the right new blood. It is largely a question of profile — of how the RBS and the RA are gener- ally perceived, both by artists and the pub- lic. The danger is that they're seen as old-fashioned and irrelevant. The Academy is trying hard to woo young artists to join its ranks, and has, of recent years, managed to secure a good representation among the leading British sculptors. Cragg, Deacon, 'Fossil Flats', 1974, by Anthony Caro Kapoor, Wilding and Mach are all active members, and the president is another sculptor of international standing, Phillip King. The one noticeable absentee is Sir Anthony Caro.
This is where the RBS can play its trump card, for not only is Caro a fellow of the 'Suitcases 2' by Rosie Leventon Society, but he is currently exhibiting in their first annual show. In fact, his rusted and varnished steel sculpture, 'Fossil Flats', is on display outside the society's headquar- ters on the Old Brompton Road. Never accuse the society of hiding its light under a bushel — the Caro is the first thing you see when you front up to view the exhibition. As one might expect, it's by far the most com-
`The Wow Factor' by Bany Martin
manding sculpture in the show, even if it is rather oddly sited on a pink paved forecourt behind a savagely trimmed yew hedge.
It's heartening that Caro supports the society in this way, for very few sculptors of anything like his standing are exhibiting at the RBS. This is a pity. Any independent organisation of this sort which is on the side of good art should be encouraged and actively supported, but not everyone would appear to agree. Criticism is rife, and many established sculptors prefer not to be asso- ciated with the Society. Yet change can come only from within. lithe RBS is to survive as a viable force in contemporary art, it will have to change. And on the evi- dence of this first annual exhibition, it defi- nitely needs a shake-up.
Although there is a membership of 400 professional sculptors, this exhibition con- sists of only 69 exhibits (with one in tran- sit). It is worth seeing for the range of materials alone: Kilkenny limestone, alu- minium, dental plaster, glass, walnut, alabaster, polyester resin, coloured ceramic raku and Turkish onyx. There are casts, carvings, blades, heads, torsos and biomor- phic globs. There is a handful of works on paper, including drawings, prints and a photograph, and even a token video exhib- it. (Called 'Fire Sculpture', it appears on two screens and records a burning struc- ture with flames reflected in water, and is of such dreadful quality that I can only hope its creator intended it to look like that.) The show as a whole falls depressing- ly into categories: the usual bunch of rea- sonably skilful but resoundingly mediocre decorative abstractions; a slew of dreary 'realist' work, including a considerable number of animals; and a few attempts at rendering humanity geometric.
The rare things of real quality stand out: a slate-blue and red painted maquette called 'Angelus', in steel and aluminium, by the late Mike Kenny; an old suitcase filled with wavy sheets of lead by Rosie Leven- ton; 'Free Spirit' by Allen Jones — a witty bronze figure, all joyous line, with hat and tie patinated green as the connecting ele- ments between head and body; Bill Pye's unusual landscape sculpture `Cwm Lake', like a modified giant wing-nut; an inventive mild steel meander by Katherine Gili; a beautiful, delicate bird skull in copper by Bryan ICneale; and Hylton Stockwell's little man doing the Indian rope-trick in bronze. Brian Taylor's geometric charcoal drawing 'Interior' also has a persuasive presence. The rest is mostly disappointing.
Barry Martin contributes the only kinetic sculpture — an amusing stainless-steel piece gently revolving by the window, called 'The Wow Factor'. It carries three spokes with a perforated metal placard at the end of each. The placards spell out WOW, WHO and HO, though as they turn, the letters become MOM, OHM, and OH. The piece could provide a slogan for the show — from Wow to Oh, in one easy revolution. Let it not be the RBS's epitaph.
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