Naum Gabo: 26.01.11

Naum Gabo:
Linear Construction No. 2 1970-71, Tate Britain 2004
Plastic and nylon filament (Sa)
object 1149 x 835 x 835 mm



Linear Construction No.2' exists in over twenty versions, both standing and hanging. The light-catching nylon filament is wound around two intersecting plastic planes. The stringing gives a delicate sense of three dimensions in the complicated patterns created by the irregular lobe shapes of the transparent plastic. It was developed from Gabo's unrealised project for the lobby of the Esso Building in New York in the late 1940s. Two sculptures similar to 'Linear Construction No.2' were designed to be located on top of the two revolving lobby doors, turning slowly. It was one of Gabo's favourite works and was presented to the Tate in memory of the art historian Herbert Read.


http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=4807&searchid=12099&tabview=work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naum_Gabo

Week 4: Eadweard Muybridge: 19.10.10

Muybridge was the man who famously proved a horse can fly. Adapting the very latest technology to his ends, he proved his theory by getting a galloping horse to trigger the shutters of a bank of cameras. This experiment proved indisputably for the first time what no eye had previously seen – that a horse lifts all four hooves off the ground at one point in the action of running. Seeking a means of sharing his ground-breaking work, he invented the zoopraxiscope, a method of projecting animated versions of his photographs as short moving sequences, which anticipated subsequent developments in the history of cinema.

Week 4: Fiona Banner: 19.10.10

Fiona Banner: For Banner these objects represent the 'opposite of language', used when communication fails. In bringing body and machine into close proximity she explores the tension between the intellectual perception of the fighter plane and physical experience of the object. The suspended Sea Harrier transforms machine into captive bird, the markings tattooing its surface evoking its namesake the Harrier Hawk.