Art I Like - Barry Flanagan

Before he found the theme of the hare (and moon, and bell) Barry Flanagan did some "floppy stuff". I'll come to that in a minute. First, the quote that got me interested in learning more about him:

"Truly, sculpture is always going on. With proper physical circumstances and the visual invitation, one simply joins in and makes the work ... there is a never-ending stream of materials and configurations to be seen, both natural and man-made, that have visual strength and no object or function apart from this. It is as if they existed just for this physical, visual purpose - just to be seen."

This attitude led him to work, in the 1960s, with such "unsculptural" materials as rope, sand and cloth, rather than the prevailing plastic or welded steel. He felt that working with plastic and steel, and with paint, encouraged artists to evolve ideas away from the materials. Instead, he attempted to elicit sculptural qualities from the pliable and evasive - for example, by pouring sand and then moving handfuls of it, he became an interventionist rather than a prime mover, bringing out sand's sculptural potential in a manner sympathetic to its inherent potential.On reading about his 1967 work using a circle on the floor, rope, and cloth cones full of sand, a light went on for me:
"Flanagan created an elegant environmental sculpture with a limited range of materials but, depending on how the basic components are depolyed and on what kind of sand is used at a given time to fill the tall canvas bags, they are capable of infinite variation."

He went on to make a series of works with titles like Heap, Stack, Bundel, Pile - arrangements of familiar materials. (The Minimalist furore at the Tate, way back then, was about one of these, as much as the famous Bricks by Carl Andre.)

He also experimented with aspects of the exhibiting environment - light, for example, as on the heap of sacks -In 1973 he took up carving, and this eventually led to the "hare" sculptures, which are so appealing. He died earlier this year; the Guardian had a good obituary.