Sculpture

In the ideal world of sculptors, nothing ever appears in two dimensions. But ever since I started looking at reproductions of classical art back in the late 1950s, when Australia was very short of Parthenons, I got a tremendous amount out of looking at the flat photographs of objects that were meant to be seen in the round. You get the idea, and often you get a lot more than the idea: you get the texture, the poise, the weight, the preoccupation, sometimes even the play of light. Jacob Burckhardt, the great nineteenth century scholar of the European artistic heritage, was the first lecturer to use postcards as teaching aids, and photographs of the great sculptures were among the postcards he dealt out. It was an introduction, and so, on a smaller scale, is this sculpture hall of our airborne gallery, which also features installations. Lest my own tastes, from Donatello through to Brancusi and beyond, prove too predictable, Cécile Menon has joined me as co-curator, with a list of young sculptors who deal in concepts beyond my imagination, although I am invariably glad for the experience when my breathing is restored.

Above: Tête (detail) by Jean Duhurt