making do and getting by
in his ongoing series, making do and getting by, Wentworth also uses photography as a means of documenting what might be called ‘the sculpture of the everyday’: a cigarette packet jammed under a wonky table leg; a makeshift construction to reserve parking space; a bucket jammed on to the side of a dented car so that the headlight can still operate. ‘i live in a ready-made landscape’, he remarked early in his career, ‘and i want to put it to use’.
Siege
1983-4
Wentworth’s sculptures often utilise common objects and easily available materials, combined in extraordinary ways. ‘Like a gaucho’s bolas, one chair ensnares the other’, the artist has said of this work. The title relates to the French word for seat (siège) as well as the English idea of being under siege. Wentworth has explained that the sculpture stemmed from ‘a very different moment in gender politics, and it is now more common to discuss how pathetic men are. I used to think most of the time that I feel pathetic – and why shouldn’t one make work about that?’
Shower
1984
Richard Wentworth’s sculpture typically takes mundane objects and transforms their role and identity. He gives everyday items like chairs, tables and buckets a double role, to disrupt their conventional significance. Shower demonstrates Wentworth’s affection for the commonplace, combining a 1950s table and a model ship’s propeller. The propeller is fixed to the table, as if to a boat, like childhood games in which items of furniture become imaginary vehicles. The plate suggests that the table is anchored to the floor. The title refers to a memory of seeing tilted tables outside a café during a heavy shower in Spain.
No comments:
Post a Comment