Michael Sandle

Description

A Mighty Blow for Freedom: Fuck the Media comes towards the end of a particularly fertile period for Sandle during which he produced memorable images of St George and the Dragon, The Drummer and A Woman for Heidelberg and just before he began work on A Siege Bell for Malta. In A Mighty Blow for Freedom a powerful androgynous figure, helmeted and muscular, akin to the strong-armed man who strikes the gong in the Rank Organisation's logo, takes a cudgel to a television screen. The sculpture is full of energetic movement and fervour, the kind of zest that was found in Futurism and Vorticism earlier in the century. The influence of Boccioni in The Drummer is shown through internalised movement. By contrast, in A Mighty Blow for Freedom, Sandle expresses the full force of external motion.

Sandle's contempt for the media is well known, and is succinctly summed up in this powerful image.