The reopening of Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, after a two-year project of renovation and expansion costing L11.3 million, is an auspicious occasion. Kettle's Yard is part of the University of Cambridge ...and de facto the city's gallery for exhibitions of twentieth-and twenty-first-century art. The attempt to show so many different artists, some represented by a group of works and some by a single one, has in the event led to confusion. There is so much variety in terms of media, import and gravitas, that the whole is difficult to grasp let alone comprehend. The inaugural exhibition for the new galleries is Actions: The Image of the World can be Different (to May 6), which presents the work of Russian sculptor Naum Gabo and some 38 other artists, presenting prints, drawings, paintings, sculptures, found and altered objects, photography and film.
The Russian-born artist Naum Gabo (1890-1977) often employed new materials and techniques which demonstrate how his spatial conceptions developed towards a sculptural expression of lightness, balance ...and equilibrium. These principles reverberate with concepts of optimum structures, in which minimum-weight design is achieved through removal of redundant material. Not only formal aspects of his sculptures correspond to this concept, but also Gabo's shared aesthetic and structural concerns with twentieth-century architecture and engineering, in terms of transparency, spatial openness, efficiency and lightweight design are consistent with this idea. Similar notions surfaced in prevailing interests in nature's sense of order and perfection as the basis of biologically-inspired design, which Gabo encountered especially in the work of the biologist D'Arcy Thompson and the art critic Herbert Read. This paper investigates the aesthetic and structural affinities Gabo's sculptures bear with these notions, highlighting how these informed his sculptural conceptions. His oeuvre demonstrates how his constructive technique enabled Gabo to convey an aesthetic that would be appropriate for a modern, industrial society. The aim of this paper is to offer a new way of looking at Gabo's sculptural aesthetic by identifying analogies with theoretical formulations of minimum weight frame-structures, as encountered in the theory of the scientist engineer A.G.M. Michell (1904). Consistent with his historical context, this work demonstrates how Gabo's sculptures convey an aesthetic of balance, equilibrium, and lightness precisely because his sculptural language is rooted in principles of optimum structures to which he responded in visual as well as structural terms.
Russian artists Naum Gabo was fascinated with the principles of geometry. His interest led him to produce sculpture that looks as if it owes much to both engineering and nature.
Zadkine and Gabo in Rotterdam Pachner, Joan
Art journal (New York. 1960),
12/1/1994, 19941201, 1994-12-00, Volume:
53, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
On May 14, 1940, Nazi warplanes bombed Rotterdam, decimating its commercial center; 650 acres were razed, or 60 percent of the bustling port city. Holland surrendered to Germany the next day. Only ...one week later the planning to rebuild the city center began. Rebuilding began in earnest around 1949 and was essentially completed by 1957. What had been a densely populated inner city characterized by "houses ... built back to back in labyrinthine alleys" was to be reconstructed with broad avenues and open vistas.
Provider: - Institution: National Library of the Netherlands - Koninklijke Bibliotheek - Data provided by Europeana Collections- All metadata published by Europeana are available free of restriction ...under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. However, Europeana requests that you actively acknowledge and give attribution to all metadata sources including Europeana
Provider: - Institution: National Library of the Netherlands - Koninklijke Bibliotheek - Data provided by Europeana Collections- All metadata published by Europeana are available free of restriction ...under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. However, Europeana requests that you actively acknowledge and give attribution to all metadata sources including Europeana
Provider: - Institution: National Library of the Netherlands - Koninklijke Bibliotheek - Data provided by Europeana Collections- All metadata published by Europeana are available free of restriction ...under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. However, Europeana requests that you actively acknowledge and give attribution to all metadata sources including Europeana
Provider: - Institution: National Library of the Netherlands - Koninklijke Bibliotheek - Data provided by Europeana Collections- All metadata published by Europeana are available free of restriction ...under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. However, Europeana requests that you actively acknowledge and give attribution to all metadata sources including Europeana
Provider: - Institution: National Library of the Netherlands - Koninklijke Bibliotheek - Data provided by Europeana Collections- All metadata published by Europeana are available free of restriction ...under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. However, Europeana requests that you actively acknowledge and give attribution to all metadata sources including Europeana
Provider: - Institution: National Library of the Netherlands - Koninklijke Bibliotheek - Data provided by Europeana Collections- All metadata published by Europeana are available free of restriction ...under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. However, Europeana requests that you actively acknowledge and give attribution to all metadata sources including Europeana
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