Immaterial
dal 24/3/2004 al 23/5/2004
Segnalato da
24/3/2004
Immaterial
Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton
Brancusi, Gabo, Moholy-Nagy. In their various ways these artists sought to replace mass and weight by light, space, time: Gabo and Moholy-Nagy through the use of new materials and movement; Brancusi through reflective surfaces, the sense of vertical leap and rotating bases.
We cannot measure or define space with solid masses, we can only define space with space.
Naum Gabo
I make ‘Light Compositions’ in which light is controlled as a new plastic material, like colour in painting or notes in music.
László Moholy-Nagy
But sculpture is water, just water.
Constantin Brancusi
The dematerialisation of the solid world has been a pre-occupation of artists from Impressionism, through Cubism to the present day. Immaterial explores the aspiration of three modernist artists of Eastern European origins, Constantin Brancusi, Naum Gabo and László Moholy-Nagy, to 'dematerialise' the sculptural object.
In their various ways these artists sought to replace mass and weight by light, space, time: Gabo and Moholy-Nagy through the use of new materials and movement; Brancusi through reflective surfaces, the sense of vertical leap and rotating bases.
Immaterial includes sculpture, graphic works, photographs, photograms and film. It looks in particular at the interplay between sculpture and photography, going back to the photographic portrayal of Rodin's sculptures which sometimes take on the air of 19th century 'spirit’ photography. Brancusi's own photographs, seen here in original, vintage prints, have his sculptures exploding and dissolving in light. Also included are Moholy-Nagy's photograms and film Lightplay-black-white-grey (Lichtspiel: schwarz-weiss-grau) deriving from his kinetic sculpture, the Light Space-Modulator. Gabo's previously unseen experiments with photographing moving light are strongly reminiscent of his sculptural forms.
After its successful showing in Cambridge, the exhibition, devised and selected by Sebastiano Barassi (Curator of Collections at Kettle's Yard) and Michael Harrison (Director), is now on show in Southampton. A well illustrated catalogue is available, with essays by Sebastiano Barassi, Christina Lodder and Martin Hammer, and Geraldine Johnson.
Image: Naum Gabo, Construction on space with crystalline centre, 1938-40
Southampton City Art Gallery
Southampton - Commercial Road