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The eighth Sculpture in the Close exhibition was held during the summer of 2003. This year featured works by Rachel Whiteread, Eilis O’Connell, Alison Wilding, Phillip King, Keir Smith, Steven Gregory, Peter Hide, and Edward Allington, much of it new and some pieces specially constructed for the exhibition. 

The .

Artists and works

Edward Allington's work often explores fragments of the classical world, focusing on broken forms and salvaged motifs. He rejects the traditional order associated with Apollonian ideals, instead embracing a Dionysian emphasis on the body's vitality versus rational control. His piece Cochlea  reflects this by blending geometric precision with organic interiority, using a shell-like form that contrasts hard, technological exteriors with softer, biological interiors. Through this, Allington highlights the resonances between human and non-human structures, exploring contrasts between the technological and biological, and the external and internal.

Steven Gregory’s work maintains the figurative tradition in British sculpture with the vitality and acerbic wit of a satirist whose awareness and understanding of the idioms of postmodernity is both hawk eyed and indulgent.

Fish on a Bicycle is something of a signature piece, which shows Gregory alert to the self definitions of contemporary culture. He has responded to the feminist dictum ‘A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle’ with equal amounts of enthusiasm and scepticism, with a contrariness that is truly Aristophanic. His juxtaposing of elements is no mere assemblage of oddities. Gregory’s fish is no ordinary fish, but one which leaps and curves, while his bike is not any old bike but a true velocipede, making the piece vibrant and subversive.

Peter Hide, developed a distinct sculptural style marked by monolithic concentration. Plainsong exemplifies Hide’s monumental use of steel, inspired by a public commission for a theatre in Edmonton. Though abstract, it echoes the architectural elements of a theatre—stage, proscenium arch, and auditorium—within a unified framework. At the same time, the title indicates a reflection on the formal restraint of the unadorned medieval chant; a sculpture which is confidently synaesthetic.

Phillip King exhibited five works: Brake, Academy Piece, Open (red-blue) Bound, Spring-a-ling and Fire in Taurus. King is known for his versatile use of materials, with each work reflecting a distinct stage in his evolving approach to sculptural form. 

The selection on display in °µÍø½ûÇø represent different stages in the evolution of his ideas. The earliest work, Brake (1966), is a boldly minimalist construction that reflects a keen interest in ‘primary structures’. There is a similar insistence on compositional discipline in the gigantic Academy Piece of 1972, except that here, the repercussions of formal choice are magnified in repetition. Only a year separates the monumental introversion of this work from Open (red-blue) Bound, with its complete lack of repose. This sculpture, with its interrupted surface of plates and grilles, organises the space around it to draw the viewer in to a central collecting point. There is a similar kineticism in Spring-a-ling (1983), a work which seems to be about to test the relationship between sculpture and gravity. The deliberately overreaching panache of this segmented work contrasts strongly with the prudential character of the early compositions. Finally Fire in Taurus (1984) appears to consolidate the achievements of both styles, its heraldic assurance produced by a distillation of myth, the idea of a celestial sign that has taken root in the earth.

Eilis O'Connell's sculptures are notable for their wide-ranging public installations and adaptability to various contexts, from large-scale urban sites to smaller, intricate works. Her innovative approach includes scaling up manual techniques like folding and twisting to monumental sizes, and experimenting with materials like industrial steel cable in a way that challenges traditional gendered notions of artistry. 

O’Connell is forever adding to her stock of resources unlooked for ways of deploying shapes, sizes, textures, materials, and methods of modelling and fabricating. Her art communicates the thrill of experimentation and discovery of a kind that has turned her oeuvre into a treasure trove of the unexpected.

The sculptures of Keir Smith often have the appearance of remains, fragments of a structure that has either been dismembered with violence or that has never been free from the possibility of its own slow undoing. Since childhood, the artist reports, he has brooded on the aftermath of bomb damage inflicted during the Second World War, both on the city of London and on certain Italian churches where the artistic loss has haunted his creative imagination.  

Landscape is sited in the cloisters at the centre of the College. Spaces which no longer serve the purpose of providing for movement conducive to meditation, they are simply a thoroughfare. Most members of College use only those arcades that will get them from one place to another. Keir Smith’s installation has restored the itinerary of the original design, encouraging contemplation on the construction of meaning.

Rachel Whiteread exhibited two works: False Door and Black Books. 

False Door uses her famous casting technique to create a solid, impenetrable façade that blocks access to the personal and social history behind the original door. The viewer is compelled to approach it from the rear, as if from the very space into which it seems to offer but actually denies entry, emphasizing the inaccessibility of the past.

Viewed from the outside, the purpose of a door is to open; from the inside, its meaning is the opposite. Whiteread extends this conundrum to the examination of the closed book in Black Books. The function of the individual book is to be read, but a shelf of books is always sculptural. By withholding the personal information typically revealed through the arrangement of books, Whiteread highlights how shelving can obscure rather than disclose identity.

Alison Wilding's work often explores the concept of inaccessible interiors, creating spaces that challenge the viewer’s ability to gain complete understanding. Her sculptures frequently juxtapose diverse materials and structures, leading to a deliberate ambiguity and unresolved tension. This dynamic, evident in her Contract series, showcases the evolving nature of her art, where each new element revises and enriches the overall composition, reflecting a profound consistency and complexity in her artistic vision.

The choice of title Melancholia is especially apt in its immediate suggestion of a missing counterpart: the accomplishment of mourning. Mourning is posited as the stage subsequent to melancholia, implying the acceptance of loss. Melancholia is a condition whose negotiation with memory, repression, and revision is unfinished business.

Thanks and acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the sculptors in lending their work for this exhibition.

The 2003 exhibition was curated by Dr Rod Mengham, working closely with advisors Tim Marlow and Richard Humphreys. We would like to offer special thanks for generous support from the Staples Trust. In addition, our thanks for advice and the loan of works are due to: Diana Eccles, Collections Manager at the British Council, Wilfred Cass of Sculpture at Goodwood, Charles Booth-Clibborn of Paragon Press, Mr Maurice Pinto, Mr Robert Elsdale and Mr Karsten Schubert. In addition, Keir Smith’s work has been assisted with a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Board.