The Sculpture of Jane Cavanough

In an interview she gave with Arts Health Network New South Wales, sculptor Jane Cavanough was asked “As an artist, how do you use art for your personal health and well-being?”  She gave a very telling response,  “Art is very low on the spectrum of cultural appreciation in Australia – very different for instance in Europe.  It is difficult to make your living being an artist and I sometimes think I should describe myself as a gambler rather than an artist, because now, with every project I apply for, the client mostly asks for a concept, which not only takes ages to think about, but also requires 3d illustration, for which I pay someone….and this is expensive – I’m not sure how many professions require the answer to the question before contracting them – and this really gets me down.

I knew that if I stayed being a landscape architect I would end up depressed and unsatisfied. The fact remains, I love what I do, and it never feels like work.”

Like many people, I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with public sculpture and I’m not sure if the blame should be leveled at the artists or those who commissioned these works, or both.  The “cheese stick” looming menacingly over Melbourne’s City Link comes to mind.  Many sculptors seem to be motivated by a desire to confront or challenge the public and they forget that many of us are confronted EVERY DAY with their creations.  But at its best, public sculpture can be memorable because it engages with the public.

Touchstones, Bankstown Arts Centre, Sydney, 2011.  These copper and glass pebbles refer to the lapidary workshops located in the arts complex.

This brings me to Jane Cavanough who is based in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.  Her interest in sculpture dates back to the early 1990’s when she was working as a landscape architect in Sydney.  After studying at the Sydney College of the Arts, she instigated a couple of environmentally based sculpture events in Centennial Park and has continued to make site specific landscape based sculpture.

Endemic, Bungarribee NSW, Designed by Jane Cavanough and indigenous artist Enda Watson, a family group of corten steel kangaroos gather on the common at Bungarribee, developed by Urban Growth NSW.  Apparently, the locals dress up these sculptures every Christmas which gives Cavanough “a real buzz.”

Through her business Artlandish Art and Design, Cavanough works either solely or in collaboration with design teams for local and state governments, developers, statutory bodies and architecture firms to develop projects from concept through to completion.  The works are fabricated by artisans adept at working with glass, LED lighting, forged, stainless and mild steel, copper, bronze, brass, cast concrete, stone, timber, mist and water.

Boer War Memorial, Anzac Parade Canberra designed by Jane Cavanough and Group GSA, winner of a national design competition in 2012.

The aim is to create artworks that have a strong relationship to the site in urban, architectural and landscape settings. The relationship between people, sculpture and landscape lies at the heart of  Cavanough’s artwork. Rather than producing art that is willfully alienating or inaccessible to the public, she seeks to engage the environmental and cultural aspects of each site in her work.  She has won a number of scholarships and awards throughout her career.

You can read more of my blogs or check out my own art on www.geoffharrisonarts.com.

References;

Arts Health Network NSW

www.janecavanough.com.au

Art Through The Darkness - Bronwyn Oliver

I am making my way through Hannah Fink’s 2017 book titled “Bronwyn Oliver; Strange Things”, an expose on the life and work of the Australian sculptor Bronwyn Oliver (1959-2006).  This book brought back fond memories of a major exhibition of her work held at the Tarrawarra Museum of Art in 2016.  It was thought to be shameful that a decade after her suicide, her home state of New South Wales had not held a major retrospective of her work, and thus it was left to Tarrawarra – full credit to them.

Oliver's first exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney 1986

Oliver’s one time partner, the wine writer and critic Huon Hooke, wrote an effecting preface to Fink’s book.  “My enduring image of Bronwyn at work is like this.  She is sitting cross-legged on the floor, on a piece of foam rubber.  Her work in on a low bench constructed of timber covered with fireproof bricks…..what happened in that studio I regard as some kind of fabulous, mysterious process in which bits of dull lifeless metal were transformed into beautiful objects full of wonderment, and the agent of that process was fire, delivered by a magic wand ” 

She seemed to be happy only when working in her studio, and therein lies the problem.  Only one day into her honeymoon with fellow artist Leslie Oliver at Narooma on the New South Wales south coast, Bronwyn got bored and suggested they “get back to work.”

Her sculptures have been described as hauntingly beautiful and are admired by major collectors and critics alike.  She was a fiercely driven artist who disliked small talk and found social engagements difficult.

Curl/Schiaparelli, 1988,  80x80x25 cm copper

Oliver was always a high achiever.  She was Dux of her high school and later was determined to continue her art studies overseas.  She successfully applied for a scholarship for her master’s degree at the Chelsea Art School in London in 1982.  Whilst there, she met Mike Parr and the two of them found they had a lot in common.  Both believed that if they didn’t have their art, they would be “in deep trouble.”  At one stage, she was sharing lodgings with the now renowned sculptor Anish Kapoor.  They had long conversations together and she felt she needed to “get to know him better to understand myself as an artist”.

She also underwent counselling in London “it was mainly about Mum and me and my place in the family…and not worry about being defensive, threatened or over-sensitive” in social situations.  She was rarely the easiest to get along with.  When her husband Leslie spent 5 weeks in London with her, she expressed surprise at the strength of her dependence on him to confirm her feelings about the world, and the intense isolation she felt after he left.  But it was also whilst she was in England that her 2 year marriage ended.

Unity, 2001, 100x100x15 cm  copper

Never-the-less it was a highly successful 12 months in England for Oliver and, despite several job offers, she returned home where “I could make my own path, wherever I wanted to go.”  Much of her early work featured fibreglass, cane and paper.  Later she switched to copper and other metals.

During an interview with writer Maggie Gilchrist, Oliver was asked what her purpose was in making art.  Her response was very revealing; “I am a loner.  I’m not very sociable.  It’s really the only way I have of communicating with people.  I’m a social disaster when it comes chit chat or going to parties….This is the best way I know how to communicate my feelings about life.  I am exploring the world when I make these.  I’m putting my delight in how things are constructed, not just physically but all the unspoken structures….It’s my way of making sense of the world.”

Tarrawarra exhibition 2016

Oliver believed in the concept of space flowing through an object.  “I was intrigued by the idea of enclosing space.  If it can be enclosed and held, why not let it flow out and get away at the same time?  Having both the inside and outside simultaneously visible in a way denies the physicality of an object.  The openness is a kind of humble truth – nothing is hidden.”

Oliver strongly objected to any reference to handiwork in her art.  She thought that referring to the craft aspect trivialized her intentions.  The idea behind the work was paramount in the process of making her art.  Fink believes some people underestimated the depth of her ambition, not for fame or accolades but for art of the highest order – for transcendence.  She wanted her work to take on a life, a presence which was removed from this world. 

Ammonite, 2005, 95x90x9 cm  copper

“I am trying to create life.  Not in the sense of beings, or animals, or plants, or machines, but ‘life’ in the sense of a kind of force, a presence, an energy to my objects that a human can respond to on the level of soul or spirit.”

Judging from what I saw at Tarrawarra, Oliver succeeded.  There is an organic quality to her work, and yet an otherworldliness at the same time.  I was drawn into her work, wanting to wrap my arms around some of them.  The tactile nature of her work seemed in defiance of the materials used.

Between 1986 and her death in 2006, Oliver presented 18 solo exhibitions and from 1983 participated in numerous group exhibitions in Australia and overseas.  She also undertook many commissions where she worked closely with clients and stakeholders, and for 19 years taught art to primary school students.  In 1984 she won the Moet & Chandon Australian Art Fellowship.  Her work can be found in public and private collections both in Australia and overseas.

Two Rings, 2006,  copper

There are conflicting accounts of Oliver’s final years, but she was dogged by depression for most of her life. She once announced to a startled friend that she had divorced her family. Analysis of her hair following her suicide found extremely high concentrations of copper which may have exacerbated her mental condition. It’s thought that the breakup of her relationship with Huon Hooke (for which she blames herself) may have been the last straw. She hung herself in her studio amid newly completed works for an exhibition. She left no personal letters, only a note in a neighbour's letterbox for her former partner: "Please ask Huon to feed the cats."

Vine, 2006, copper. Hilton Hotel, Sydney

I am indebted to fellow Gippsland artist Jo Caminiti for talking me into visiting the Bronwyn Oliver exhibition at Tarrawarra.   A memorable experience.

References;

Australian Financial Review  

‘Bronwyn Oliver, Strange Things’,  Hannah Fink, Piper Press, 2017

Tarrawarra Museum Of Art

The Woman Who Conquered Marcel Duchamp

In the final 20 years of his life, Marcel Duchamp secretly carried out work on an installation piece that none of his friends were aware of at all.  Quite an achievement for one of the 20th Century’s most famous artists. He gave explicit instructions that it was not to be displayed to the public until after his death which was in 1968, and the work had puzzled and intrigued friends and art critics alike for more than 30 years since.  It had been assumed that Duchamp had given up producing art decades before – but not so.

Marcel Duchamp, ‘Etant Donnes’ (Given), 1948-68, mixed media

The personal drama that inspired this masterpiece is as fascinating as the piece itself.  Born in 1887, Duchamp was a French painter, sculptor, chess player and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, conceptualism, whatever took his fancy at the time.  Early in his career he experimented with various painting styles which he later referred to as his swimming lessons.  Having become proficient in a particular style, he got bored with it and moved on to the next.  The final painting during this restless period was the now famous Nude Descending A Staircase which was regarded by Cubists of the period as an affront to their genre.

Marcel Duchamp, ‘Nude Descending A Staircase’, 1912 oil on canvas, 147 cm x 89 cm

As a consequence, Duchamp removed himself from the Cubist coterie and never worked within a group again.  He said he was never comfortable being in a group because he always wanted to make a personal contribution.

He then decided to subvert centuries of art history with his readymades, everyday objects which he turned into art simply by adding his signature.  The most notorious being a urinal he submitted to an exhibition in 1917.   He once said he didn’t care for the word “art”, it’s been so discredited. And after being reminded that he had contributed to this discrediting himself, he agreed but also referred to the ‘unnecessary adoration’ of art today.  “But this is hard for me because I have been in it all my life and yet I want to get rid of it”.  A conflicted individual, perhaps?

One of his more perplexing works was “Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even” or “Large Glass” which was thought to reflect his inability to combine sexual and emotional involvement.  It is an etching in glass which he worked on for 8 years from 1915.

Marcel Duchamp, ‘Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even”

The top glass is thought to contain the bride whilst below her are nine bachelors seeking to be united with her but are locked in an endless cycle of frustration.  The remarkable American artist Beatrice Wood (1892 – 1998) fell in love with Duchamp in 1916, but found him perplexing and emotionally detached.  He was regarded by his friends as the king of the bachelors, but then along came Maria Martins.

Martins was the wife of the Brazilian ambassador to the United States.  They arrived in New York in 1939.  Early in her life in Brazil it was thought that she would become a professional musician, instead she became a very accomplished sculptor. After her first marriage ended she moved to France where she met and then married the diplomat Carlos Martins Pereira e Souza, and through his various postings, she learnt a variety of styles from woodcarving, ceramics to bronze carving  which would become her medium of choice.

Maria Martins, ‘The Impossible’ 1946, Bronze

Not long after arriving in New York she fell in with a group of surrealist exiles which included André Breton, Max Ernst, André Masson and inevitably Marcel Duchamp.  The surrealists had an impact on her work which became more complex, organic and plant like but still drew on Amazonian folklore.  The female figure was always central to her work.

Maria Martins, ‘However II’ 1948, Bronze

Martins began her passionate affair with Duchamp in 1946.  Her daughter, Nora Martins Lobo thought it was extraordinary that they could get involved given that they were so different – he, a cold, withdrawn intellectual and she a passionate person who loved and hated violently.  At this time her life alternated between the diplomatic circle in Washington and a more bohemian life in New York.  He was fascinated by her and she found him a challenge and according to her daughter, Maria loved challenges.

Duchamp’s biographer, Calvin Tomkins, believes this relationship opened him up emotionally in ways that had never happened before.  He was unable to maintain the emotional detachment that had characterised so much of his life.  In 1947 Duchamp produced an erotic sketch of her that confirms Maria was the model for the Etant Donnes.

During their 2 year affair Duchamp encouraged Maria’s development as a sculptor, spending many hours in her studio and helping to organise exhibitions of her work.  But in 1948, her husband was posted overseas – and off she went.  This left Duchamp devastated and he wrote a series of despairing letters begging her to return whilst working on the Etant Donnes.

In an interview, Nora Martins Lobo draws attention to the sculpture ‘However II’ (above) and how the figure has her feet firmly on the ground – and that was her mother.  She knew she had to stop flying and come back to earth.  Maria and Duchamp met briefly in 1951 and he resigned himself to the fact that it was over.  “I feel happy when I think of you”, he wrote.

Duchamp was briefly married in 1927, but in 1954 he married Alexina Matisse (Teeny), daughter in-law of Henri.  They had a happy marriage and she helped him construct the Etant Donnes.  Late in the development, he changed the colour of the hair in the model to match Teeny’s, not Maria’s. In accordance with his wishes, the Etant Donnes was installed in a room next to the Large Glass at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Initially the public is confronted by a large wooden door that Duchamp found in Spain and had transported back to New York.  Through 2 peep holes, the viewer can see a body moulded in plaster and pig skin sprawled out on grass and twigs (first image).

When it was revealed to the public, the work came as a shock to those who thought they knew him as it seemed a denial and contradiction of everything he stood for.

In 1966 a major retrospective of Duchamp’s work was being installed in London by artist Richard Hamilton.  Shortly before the exhibition opened a mysterious package arrived from Brazil which contained the picture below.  The sender was Maria Martins.  Hamilton spoke of taking Duchamp on an inspection of the show just before the opening and when they came to this picture, Duchamp seemed initially shocked and then clammed up, not wanting to talk about it.

Maria Martins died in 1973 at the age of 78 and spent her last few years holding occasional exhibitions before turning to writing essays on poetry.

Maria Martins, ‘Night Chant’ 1968, (her last sculpture), gold bronze

References;

The Secret of Marcel Duchamp – BBC/RM Arts, 1997

www.awarewomenartists.com

Public Sculpture; Inclusive & Exclusive Of The Public

In comparing the works of Richard Serra and Anish Kapoor (now Sir Anish Kapoor CBE RA), it strikes me that in terms of motivations they could have come from different planets.  I was thinking of this the other day whilst travelling on Melbourne’s City Link towards the Bolte Bridge, with that hideous yellow chopper leaning menacingly over the road.  As far as I’m concerned, this sculpture serves the cause of art in this country no favours at all.

There’s a long tradition in this kind of alienating sculpture.  For decades the American, Richard Serra has specialized in huge sculptures of steel which, should they collapse, would squash you like a bug.  But so what?  In her book “The Re-enchantment Of Art”, Suzi Gablik argues “we no longer need old authoritarian ideologies which demand that art be difficult, willfully inaccessible and disturbing to the audience.”  Modernism’s general themes seem to be alienation and displeasure with society, and the heroic and belligerent ego cut off from the social world.

The genesis of this displeasure may be the general horror felt by artists at the carnage of the First World War.  But that was a century ago and it’s time we moved on.  Gablik writes of modernism “loudly proclaiming the self sufficiency of art, the untrammeled self, the avant garde proceeding to scorn notions of responsibility towards the audience.”

Richard Serra TIlted Arc Manhattan, 1981

She cites the example of Richard Serra’s ‘Tilted Arc’ installed at the Federal Plaza in Manhattan in 1981.  The 120 ft long, 73 ton leaning curve of steel could be considered the “epitome of uncompromising, modernist art.” GABLICK.  Some critics thought its willingness to confront the audience gave the work its moral dimension.  But the public hated it.  One employee at the plaza said it dampened our spirits every day….a hulk of rusty steel…and has no appeal.  A petition signed by 1300 employees in 1985 asked for its removal.

Serra sued the government who wanted to remove the sculpture claiming the government had “deliberately induced” public hostility to it.  The notion of artistic freedom is raised here.  But freedom in this issue could be interpreted as the power of having one’s way, pushing things around and being invulnerable.  Serra lost the case and in March 1989 the sculpture was finally removed from the plaza and taken off to storage in Brooklyn.  It hasn’t been publicly displayed since, in deference to the artist’s wishes.  Gablik asks whether the aesthetic value of an artwork can be sustained without responsibility to the social feedback it receives.

Anish Kapoor has different ideals.  In 2006, Kapoor installed “Cloud Gate” at the Millennium Park in Chicago to general acclaim.  It’s approximately 20 metres long and finished in seamless polished chrome.  The city didn’t know how to budget for it.  They initially set aside $9 million, but it cost $23 million – but hey, this is Chicago we are talking about.  A budget has also been set aside for daily cleaning.  The public adore it, they have found the work engaging, beguiling and it has become a popular meeting place.

Anish Kapoor Cloud Gate Chicago, 2006

Kapoor believes the idea that one is involved is fundamental to sculpture. He likes to take the viewer on a journey into a sculpture. His work engages the eyes, the nerves, the emotions.  You seem to be on the edge of being outside and inside the work. His breakthrough was being Britain’s representative at the Venice Biennale in 1990.

Critics argue that Kapoor’s work is very accessible to the general public because it’s not based on a script that’s not evident in the work.  Kapoor says “I don’t have anything particular to say as an artist, I don’t have some grand message to give to the public.”  His exhibitions are all about experience - “It’s about not having too much to say to allow space for the viewer.”

Anish Kapoor Dismemberment - Site 1 Gibbs Farm, New Zealand, 2009

Minor Sculpture - Major Impact

“She looks like a monkey, an aborted foetus.  If she were smaller one would be tempted to pickle her in a jar with alcohol.”  This is a sample of the vitriol that was hurled at Edgar Degas’ sculpture called “The Little Dancer, Aged 14” that was included in the French Impressionist Exhibition of 1881.

By this time, Degas’ reputation as a fine painter was well established.  His depictions of ballet dancers were revolutionary in style and composition.  After studying the works of the old masters Degas declared he wanted to be the portrayer of modern life.  That is exactly what he had in mind with “The Little Dancer”.

When one considers his background – wealthy, rather buttoned up, even lonely, it’s remarkable that he should produce a sculpture such as this.

So why the hostility?  Sculpture at that time was meant to be an uplifting art form, with figures cast in marble or bronze.  And yet here we have a figure cast in wax, about 2/3 life size with real hair and wearing a real tutu, and displayed in a glass cabinet which made her look like a scientific specimen.  Then there was that pouting expression on her face, it seemed to challenge every assumption the audience made about art; ie, she was not seeking to be admired.

Her facial features were thought to be based on “studies” being carried out by anthropologists into where humans stood on the evolutionary scale.  People with low, sloping foreheads and jutting jaws were regarded as being more primitive, like monkeys.  The model for The Little Dancer came from a poor family and Degas was known to be a misogynist.  He never married and had no children.

More importantly, this sculpture reminded Parisians of something they didn’t want to know - the goings on behind the scenes at the Paris Opera which contained the ballet school.  Certain rooms were set aside at the rear of the school that were frequented by wealthy male patrons and the young ballet students for extra-curricular activities.  Some of Degas’ ballet paintings are haunted by men in top hats – the wealthy season ticket holders.  Art and prostitution side by side.

It’s curious that The Little Dancer has been immortalised by dance students around the world when one considers what happened to Marie Van Goethem, the model for Degas’ sculpture.  The Van Goethems were among the poorest families in Paris, the mother took in laundry and the father was a tailor.  She was the middle of 3 daughters, all of whom attended the ballet school. 

Her older sister Antoinette fell into prostitution (aided by her mother) and was arrested and jailed for robbery, and about a year after Degas completed The Little Dancer, Marie’s life also began to unravel.  Rumours that she was seen in a bar frequented by artists, dancers and prostitutes were circulating and she began to miss her classes.  In 1882 she was sacked. 

What became of her after then, no one knows but it’s thought she ended up on the streets.

The younger sister Charlotte was a success story and was involved in the Paris Opera for 50 years, becoming a teacher.