This winter the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is host to a veritable feast of sculpture through the ages. Art, as in life, does not run a smooth path and this exhibition showcases the inconsistency of creativity. While some decades allow us to gorge on greatness, there are definite dry spells and the odd famine made all the more evident by the unusually traditional, roughly chronologically ordered rooms. There is an Australasian plant called the Xanthorrhoea who’s flowering is actually stimulated by bushfire, like these rather genius perennials this exhibition showcases that, while much development and refinement comes through migration of ideas, a select few rise independently from the disappointing ash surrounding it, undeterred by unpromising times.
‘The Sculpture Show’ is a mammoth twenty two rooms of rump steak; disregarded by those beef-elite lovers but perfectly flavoursome once you've chewed on it for a while. I shall not gnaw over every piece of gristle on display but instead give some time to a few tasty favorites. Lets start with that baby, it is after all rather difficult to ignore being that Ron Mueck’s A Girl, 2006, is a blood covered, follicle bearing, five meter long newborn and also the first thing you see on entering SNGMA. I rather felt that my boyfriend’s connection between this and Madame Tussaud's was missing the point of the piece; ‘How alien we all are. How did we get like this? How isolated is the human form…’ Yet I also had to concede that perhaps he was correct, this is a man using his grasp of cinematic techniques to connect with a different world. While it is, without doubt, a highly skilled work, despite its immense stature, there is surprisingly little to emotionally connect with.
I rarely read wall plaques, however on this occasion I was sidetracked away from the artworks by a few choice snippets. Degas’ sculptures were created merely as tools for his paintings, a Rodin figure had been sliced directly off a larger sculpture and cast in bronze - an unusual development away from the highly realistic 360° approach of his predecessors and contemporaries. Paolozzi turned to sculpture a little later and formulated a unique method of pressing items into wax which he then built into larger surfaces - 3D collages for a fearful new age. I enjoy unarguable facts like these, or maybe I just enjoyed these works, works that do not require too much outside interpretation to appreciate them. To some this might seem lazy but I disagree, one would be hard pushed to look at Paolozzi’s mechanical figures and not draw a connection with modernity and the effect that the machine had on civilisation; the delicate balance of desire for progression and fear for the results. What is wrong with appreciating an artist’s generosity in giving us a very strong image to connect to an extremely abstract concept?
I am not the first to say that this exhibition seems to meander off the beaten track a little as we move upstairs away from attempts to depict reality towards our present day. I’d say in fact that this occurs exactly at the point where we arrive at Bruce McLean’s ENTIRE ROOM. Four screens worth to be precise where we watch McLean buffooning around, ‘reacting to the abstract modernist sculpture of his contemporaries.’ I don’t know about you but if I had studied at St. Martins with Anthony Caro I’d want to be working with him, not reacting against him! This is a personal gripe of mine however which I think stems from being shown so many photos throughout my university career of McLean sitting on a plinth looking smug. I am trying to get over this sort of irrational annoyance for times have changed since Pose Works for Plinths in 1971 and there are many more contemporary issues in art for me to focus my anger on.
So a mixed bag all in all, hard to please everyone but difficult to leave without enjoying some of it at least. This is a Sunday afternoon show for sure only to be consumed after a leisurely breakfast and followed with a glass of wine. Some people find afternoon tea an unsatisfying idea. Neither a light lunch, nor the main evening feast, yet I have always found the idea of afternoon tea rather charming. A little nibble to everyone’s taste and a wholly digestible overall concoction.
