Tra la la:British Sculpture In The Sixties

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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Running concurrently with Whitechapel Art Gallery's exhibition of five emerging British sculptors, this exhibition looks at the original New Generation sculptors of the 1960s, all first shown together at the Whitechapel way back in 1963.

And just as the current Whitechapel show takes its name from Sir Anthony Caro's seminal red, welded steel structure, Early One Morning, this exhibition is named after Phillip King's twisting marshmallow-coloured confection (both can be seen here), which manages to encapsulate all the confidence and optimism to be found among this display at Tate Britain.

Each emerging under Sir Anthony's tutelage at St Martin's, artists such as King, Michael Bolus, William Tucker, Tim Scott and Isaac Witkin took their teacher's lead in throwing off the modernist tenet of 'truth to materials' and painting their steel and plastic sculptures in an array of bright colours.

Taken off the plinth and spread across the floor, these monumental works certainly have presence, but there's little here that demands to be taken with a too respectful seriousness. King's Dunstable Reel, with its canary yellow and deep maroon arcs of steel, appears weightless, while his comical Genghis Khan, a plastic conical affair topped with what look like bat's wings - presumably named after the Mongol ruler's strangely-shaped helmet - has a confidence in its command of materials and in its sheer exuberance.

Placed in a delicate balancing act, Witkin's tumbling stacked boxes of steel also strive for such lightness, while Tucker's 3/4/5, a trio of upstanding, zigzagging steel planks, resembles a small chorus of dancing forms.

Until Aug 27, Tate Britain, Millbank SW1, daily 10am to 5.50pm, free.

Tel: 020 7887 8000. www.tate.org.uk Tube: Pimlico

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