Less is Moore

Sculpture is a hard sell.

The sort of sculpture you see in art galleries I mean, not the stuff you come across in City Square or the Town Hall Steps. We all love sculptures of lions and nymphs and kings on horseback, don’t we? Personally I think any city is vastly improved by a set of semi-naked nymphs holding gas lamps in its main square.

But the stuff you find in art galleries tends to be less appealing. In fact, if it wasn’t protected by the white walls of the gallery and a dozen ever watchful attendants, most modern sculpture left to fend for itself in the open street would probably be deemed a maintenance and cleaning problem.

I am not being facetious or anti-intellectual in saying that. That’s what sculpture often says about itself… if you can decipher the impenetrable, verbose and pompous language that tends to be used when there’s a new exhibition in town.

Take the latest exhibition that just opened at the Henry Moore. This is the way it is advertised.

Jiro Takamatsu (1936-98) is central to the development of post-war art in Japan. He expanded points into volume, brought sculptural actions into the life of the city, and made shadows and perspective tangible.

That first sentence is clear enough. I know the guy’s name and where and when he was doing his thing. But the next one? Can anybody help me out?

Why expand a point into a volume, assuming that has any meaning in the first place?

What’s a “sculptural action”? I thought sculpture just sat there in all weathers, just getting a bit muckier with odd bits crumbling away.

But it’s that third clause that really bugs me. Tangible? Really? Look the word up. It’s twaddle. You could easily replace it with equally polysyllabic words from the thesaurus (try “fungible”, “friable”, “ontological”) and what difference would it make? In fact, you could replace it with its opposite and nobody would notice the difference. He makes shadows and perspective intangible… actually I like the sound of that better.

And it only gets worse. Read it. Go on. Tell me you understand this stuff. Or that it attracts you to go and see the exhibition.

My favourite, bang my head on the desk and pour myself a tumbler of absinthe just to try and not set light to the artwork, is this gem,

Takamatsu became fascinated by the possibility of a line of string when divorced from function, describing it as an example of ‘minimal materiality’.

Which prompted me to think, just how sculptural is a piece of string?

And when are we just being strung along?

Like I said, sculpture is a hard sell.

Which is why, on opening nights, there really has to be alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. Tangible alcohol.

The Henry Moore Institute excels at opening nights. That isn’t widely known. I have been attending them for years, and written about quite a few. But more importantly, I think, brought other people along, got them to write and think about what’s going on too. That’s the whole point of an exhibition, to get people in, to show them what you got, to answer their questions, and to encourage them to invite their mates next time?

I may have got that wrong.

I’d be crap at PR.

Anyhow, I got to the Henry Moore for 6 yesterday. Grabbed a drink. Saw a friend. Said I’d be outside if she wanted to join me, waiting for a couple of other people who were going to turn up in a bit.

The thing about the Henry Moore is that it’s not an easy place to enter. The people I was meeting to show around the exhibition were hardly shy (a journo, a performer, and a younger student) but they’d all expressed trepidation about going into the building for the first time alone. They all asked if I’d meet them on the steps.

If you have been past the place you’ll probably understand why. It looks like a teen goths ideal of a bedroom, designed to keep out people, sunlight and anyone but the undead.

So, a few of us were outside, drinking wine, chatting merrily in the sunshine. Being sociable. Making the place look a bit more inviting.

We weren’t the only people outside, however.

A couple of “undesirables” were hanging around too. Not the types I’d ever consider inviting to an event in an art gallery, not by any stretch of the imagination. But the sort of people with an uncanny sense where there’s a free drink to be had.

Apparently the undesirables crossed the threshold. They discovered the copious free wine. They phoned their mates.

They also spent ages in the exhibition, and asked some good questions too I got told.

But they were not the sort of people who should be tolerated at an exhibition opening. Wine was wasted on them and it would only encourage them next time.

So the bar was shut early.

All the proper people couldn’t get a drink after 7.45 owing to the incursion of said undesirables. That was an outrage!

Personally I wanted to call the police. Or preferably a SWAT team, and clear them out. There was obviously plenty of wine left, we were just prevented from indulging in the hospitality owing to the alien presence of people who’d probably arrived by bus, normally drank in Wetherspoons, and hadn’t been in an art gallery since their last school trip. A disgrace. Why aren’t the attendants armed with tazers I’d like to know.

To be honest, if this happens in future I shall have to rethink my interest in sculpture.

Modern sculpture is hard enough to consider even without the distraction of people who just don’t belong, and it’s impossible to consider sober.