BARRY FLANAGAN - Sculpture is always going on at Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, 2024

BARRY FLANAGAN
Sculpture is always going on
Bleibtreustraße 45 & 15/16, 10623 Berlin
7 March - 13 April 2024
Galerie Max Hetzler is pleased to present Sculpture is always going on, a solo exhibition of works by Barry Flanagan in the gallery spaces at Bleibtreustraße 45 and Bleibtreustraße 15/16, in Berlin.
One of Britain's most important and innovative sculptors, Barry Flanagan worked across a variety of media over his five-decades-long career. Without establishing a hierarchy, he explored their properties, texture and elasticity. From industrial sand, rope, cloth, plaster and stone to elusive elements such as daylight, moonlight, sounds and smells, Flanagan embraced all materials for their potential to be turned into sculptural forms. This novel approach enabled a radical change in the understanding of sculpture. After exploring minimalistic practices in the 1960s and 1970s, the artist turned to figuration from 1979 onwards. During this time, he created his biomorphic bronze sculptures, which often allude to animals, human figures or mythological creatures, and constitute some of his best-known works.
In addition to Flanagan’s conceptual works, linocuts and film, mostly created in the 1960s and 1970s, the current exhibition also includes audio and visual recordings of the 1998 performance Mantra of the Awoken Powers, as well as his later bronze works. A poetic, mystical reference to nature is consistently present. The exposure of processes and methods is another central theme in Flanagan's oeuvre: ‘My work isn’t centred in experience. The making of it is itself the experience,’ he explained. ‘Truly, sculpture is always going on. With proper physical circumstances and the visual invitation, one simply joins in and makes the work.’ 1 Through this approach, Flanagan allows the materials to find their own sculptural form.
In the work 2 space rope sculpture (gr 2sp 60) 6 '67, 1967, for example, is a heavy, dyed rope winding across the floor of two exhibition rooms at Bleibtreustraße 45. With a drawing-like lightness and a flowing, autonomous character that is typical of Flanagan's sculptures, this work reflects the title of the exhibition. The recently rediscovered film the works, from 1969, shows the process of creating a ‘sand pour’ like sand pour, 1968, exhibited here. The sand seems to remain in a solid form, which is in fact highly fragile. This contrast between weight and volume, dynamics and statics can also be found in the later bronze works, such as Dragon I, 2002, where the solid metal - delicate and gracefully intertwined - appears almost breakable.
From the late 1970s onwards, Flanagan explored the depiction of various animals as bronze sculptures. The hare, with its mythological nature and its symbolism of unpredictability, resurrection and renewal, fitted particularly well into Flanagan's oeuvre. Whether boxing, as in Large Boxing Hare on Anvil, 1984, or dancing, as in Left and Right Handed Nijinski on Anvil Point, 1999, the animal is imbued with a dynamic, often whimsical character. In Thinker on Computer, 1996, a hare sits pensively on a computer, in allusion to Auguste Rodin's Le Penseur, 1904, emphasising the animals’ human-like character. Masterfully combining the fantastical with the quotidian, Flanagan’s work thus mediates between the spiritual and the human world.
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