Richard Deacon

Description

British Oxygen and the Hat Hill Sculpture Foundation have collaborated in the restoration of this sculpture, and before it is returned to the BOC Headquarters at Windlesham in Surrey, it will be exhibited at Sculpture at Goodwood for two years.

When the Landmasses First Appeared has two distinct elements: the zinc-coated steel frame, and the laminated wooden ribbon which snakes around and through it. The fluid, wandering line of the wood contrasts with the rigid metal enclosure, both in form and in material character. Deacon has made the wood rich in texture, with glue like honey oozing between the laminates, whilst the cool, hard steel is static and remorseless. The freely drawn ribbon is to some extent contained by the metal enclosure, even though the rhythms inherent in the wooden structure suggest a desire to escape.

A sculpture about containment, about movement, this relates in form to other contemporary pieces by Deacon, such as Blind, Deaf and Dumb 1985 and Listening to Reason 1986. In When the Landmasses First Appeared, however, the relationships between the forms, and their relationship to the ground, are much more complex. The lightness and freedom of the wood emerges from and writhes around the mineral element, metal formed originally within the earth's crust. In Richard Deacon (Phaidon 1995) the artist is quoted as saying, in conversation with Pier Luigi Tazzi, 'When I began making sculptures the procedures that I used were intended to make the act of work create the form and input structure into the material. Structure and material and form were all equally present on the surface: there was no hierarchy between those elements.' There appears to be no hierarchy within this sculpture.