理查德迪肯的《男孩和女孩》

理查德迪肯的《男孩和女孩》

Richard Deacon

Boys and Girls(come out to play)

1982

Linoleum and plywood

91.5 x 183 x 152.2 cm

理查德.迪肯

男孩和女孩（出来玩）

1982

硝酸锂和胶合板

91.5 x 183 x 152.2 cm

迪肯是一位英国皇家空军飞行员的儿子，他的作品经常被比喻为机器部件或滑翔机、飞机库的框架结构，或其他与航空相关的用具。在20世纪80年代早期，他开始创作雕塑，采用胶合板、镀锌钢、波纹铁、布料和油毡创造隆起的曲线形状，这些材料都是简单易得的普通材料，突破了传统雕塑对于选材的狭隘观点。他把自己描述为一个装配工（“我关心的中心内容是材料和操作” ），他说自己并不雕刻或塑造材料，而是把材料组装构造在一起。钢质铆钉、螺栓和粗糙的表面都包含在他作品的最终形态里，强调了将材料组合构成形状的感觉。虽然这些作品的材料来源要归功于工业的进步发展，但是它们呈现出的结果却具有惊人的原始自然感，其作品包含的典型形状是旋转扭曲的波状形态，仿佛巨大的铅笔屑条或DNA双链。除了类似《男孩和女孩（出来玩耍）（Boys and Girls (come out to play)）》这样的家庭类作品之外，迪肯也承接了大量公共创作委托任务，其中很多灵感都来源于自然风景。他的大型雕塑《个人（Individual）》（2004） 的原型就来自于他从空中拍摄的苏格兰泰河的照片，这条河像绦虫一样扭曲穿过广袤的乡村。其他的作品则是从纸上的乱涂乱画开始，似乎像蒸汽痕迹一样渐渐伸展生长，艺术家努力保持它们流动变化的持续状态，充分表现它们永不固定或完结的潜力。

作为一名多产的作家，迪肯将雕塑比喻为口头语言，认为雕塑内部、外部和之间的空间与对话类似，也拥有自己的节奏、隐喻和韵律。“我认为制造事物、构建结构是一种和语言的力量很相近的活动，因为这也是一种塑造形状的方法……当然这和语言的顺序并不完全一样，但是通过这种方法，我们能让这个纷乱繁杂的世界为人所理解。” 他还利用比例获得颠覆性的效果，经常用双关语、谚语和儿歌为自己的作品命名，营造了雕塑和观者之间惊人的亲近感。迪肯经常提到西格蒙德•弗洛伊德的戏剧理论，即弗洛伊德在《超越快乐原则》（1920）中所说的：模仿性戏剧就是掌控我们周围环境的一种方法。迪肯在比例、结构和制造方面的玩耍戏谑之性充分表现在《男孩和女孩（出来玩耍）》这样的作品中，这件作品的灵感一部分来自于他女儿的出生。作品是用花纹油毡包裹着胶合板做成的，酷似一件黄色、橙色和棕色的耐用现代设计作品。整件雕塑表现了一组扔在走廊地上的破烂陀螺，显然是因为孩子找到了更有趣的玩具而被遗弃。

J.L.

Richard Deacon

Son of an RAF career pilot, Deacon’s work has often been compared to machine parts or the skeletal frames of gliders, hangars, or other paraphernalia associated with aviation. In the early 1980s, he began making sculpture which employed swelling, curvilinear forms made from laminated wood, galvanised steel, corrugated iron, cloth and linoleum: materials which were serviceable, readily to hand and not burdened with the weight of sculptural tradition or preconceptions. He has described himself as a fabricator (‘material and manipulation are core ideas in what I do’ ), explaining that he neither carves nor models his materials, but constructs them. The steel rivets, bolts and rough surfaces become part of the final form, reinforcing a sense of the material being manipulated into shape. Despite their debt to industrial processes, the results are surprisingly organic-looking, with, typically, undulating forms that snake into themselves like giant pencil shavings or a DNA double helix. In addition to works of a domestic scale, such as Boys and Girls (come out to play), Deacon has also undertaken a large number of public commissions, many of them inspired by the landscape. The large sculpture Individual (2004) began with an aerial photograph he took of the River Tay in Scotland, twisting like a tapeworm through the countryside. Other works begin as doodles on paper and appear to grow like vapour trails, the artist attempting to keep them constantly in a state of transition and flux, full of potential that is never fixed or pinned down.

A prolific writer, Deacon compares sculpture to the spoken word and considers the space in, around and between a sculpture similar to a conversation, with its rhythms, metaphors and cadences. ‘I think of making things, structuring, as being an activity not unlike the power of speech, in that it is a means of giving shape… its obviously not in the same order as language, but it’s a means whereby the world, a chaotic universe, is actually made understandable.’ He also plays a subversive game with scale, often titling his works using puns, proverbs and nursery rhymes, creating a surprising intimacy between the sculpture and the viewer. Deacon has spoken of Sigmund Freud’s theories of play, as outlined in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), in which Freud claims that imitative play is a means of mastering the environment around us. Deacon’s playfulness in scale, structure and fabrication is brought out in full in a work such as Boys and Girls (come out to play), which was partly inspired by the birth of his daughter. It is made of plywood and wrapped in functional patterned lino, featuring a durable Modernist design in yellow, orange and brown. The sculpture resembles a group of discarded and broken spinning tops on the gallery floor, abandoned for more lively pleasures.

J.L.