Materials:
Rope
Physical Object Description:
Rope laid out on floor
Dimensions:
118 cm
Accession Number:
17353
Credit:
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 1973
Ownership history:
Purchased from the Rowan Gallery by David Sylvester (1924-2001) for the Contemporary Art Society, 1969; presented to National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1972
Barry Flanagan is renowned for his sculptures of bronze hares, which he began making in the 1980s. However, during the 1960s, he created works out of malleable materials such as cloth, sand, rope, or canvas, making him a proponent of Soft art, in reaction to the hard and geometric forms of Minimal art. Flanagan has said: "I like to model and form, not construct." Abstraction was the dominant art form in the 1960s, and artists were exploring a variety of innovative materials. in this work, the rope is a sculpture in itself. By presenting it as an artwork without intervention, Flanagan invites us to note the sculptural properties of its textured surface, its braided composition, and its long, linear form.
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