Naum Gabo, Sculptor and Artist
Naum Gabo is not famous, but I think he should be. He spent his life drifting around Europe whilst creating unique art against a backdrop of two world wars. He is probably best described at a creator of kinetic sculpture. I think his pieces are individually fascinating. Each one is an almost weightless object that seems to move of own accord, whilst remaining static. His work still looks unique and cutting edge today. More importantly he found a special way of making sculptures regenerate so we can keep his creations alive in multiple forms.
He was born in 1890 in the tiny village of Klimovichi, in what is now Belarus. His family were ethnic Russian and Jewish and relatively affluent. The family must have appreciated art, his older brother also ended up a famous sculptor, living and working in Paris for most of his life.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who spent most of their life in the west, Gabo remains least famous in Russia. Art historian and lecturer Natalia Sidlina has made it her life’s work to publicise his art and to try and let the Russians of today see his work. She collaborated with the on going project at the Tate Britain to exhibit and document the extensive archive of his notes and material. She also recently published her own illustrated book on Gabo and I heard her speak at Pushkin House in London. Her engaging enthusiasm for Gabo’s work and strange eccentricities is catching and afterwards I went to see his pieces at the Tate Modern and outside St Thomas Hospital in London. I have since realised that I have also seen the giant and impressive Monument to the Political Prisoner in Rotterdam. Gabo knew how to create a mystery, he was also ahead of his times in creating a legacy.
By all accounts the young Gabo was not overly interested in school, once even being expelled for subversive poetry. Early attempts to conform by studying medicine did not result in a great deal of success either. However, he did find a niche in 1910 in Munich when studying engineering and philosophy. He never did finish his engineering studies or work as an engineer, but the study of materials, mathematical balance and energy was to have a lasting influence on his ideas.
Being Jewish in Germany in 1914 made Gabo an alien and he found himself with his brother in exile in Norway. The fjords and the Oslo (then Christiania) cityscape seem to have agreed with him and he began to work seriously on his ideas, the most well known of these are the Constructed Head Series. No. 2 in the series is Gabo’s lasting legacy and his most well known work, often strangely referred to as the ‘Madonna of the 20th Century’. He called his method of work the stereometric method, i.e creating open planar structures which replaced traditional solid masses of stone or bronze. He used individual pieces of card, specially sized and angled, which slotted together to form a light, air filled image within a defined solid space. The original head disappeared and reappeared over time and was recreated, constructed out of different materials, sometimes paper or card, metal and even latterly plastic to different scales.
The ideas of the Bolshevik revolution captured the imagination of Gabo and his brother and they returned to Russia in 1917, settling in Moscow where the theories of Russian Constructivism were taking hold. Gabo produced several works during this period themed around the principles of Kinetic Construction. This idea explored that principle that sculpture could move and hold a rhythm of its own. Standing Wave is the most famous example of this, where Gabo used a motor to vibrate a metal rod so quickly the naked eye can only see the wave form it creates as a moving solid. During his Moscow period he also created the mysterious Column which returns to the stereometric method of interlocking separate pieces self supporting and slotted together. He recreated column many times with different materials and to different scales. The earliest version was constructed in 1920 from celluloid planes which now looks like the perfect 1970 Danish Bakelite construction. I think it’s strangely beautiful.
Berlin in the 1920s was a hive of alternative and artistic creativity. Gabo relocated there in 1922 and ran and organised many exhibitions, lectured and achieved status as an innovator in his field of non-objective art. During this period Gabo primarily used transparent glasses and plastics in stark geometric shapes, scientific in theme, typified by the Construction in Space series and Torsion. An example of kinetic torsion is visible today in the revolving fountain outside St Thomas’s Hospital in London erected in 1972 and uses water to create the movement and life to the form.
One of his more unusual projects of the Berlin period was the set of the Sergei Diaghilev Ballet, La Chatte. He covered the walls and floors in black oil cloths, the set was constructed of transparent geometric shapes in cellulose, including some of the dancers’ costumes and illuminated from both above and below. La Chatte was regarded as truly avant garde, and ran for 15 years. Unfortunately, there are very few images in circulation of the performances. I would have like to have seen it. Even today it would look futuristic.
One of his last Berlin-based undertakings, prior to the rise of the Third Reich which led to his departure, was his participation in the competition for the design of the Palace of The Soviets. The Soviets destroyed the historic Christ the Saviour’s orthodox cathedral in the centre of Moscow, believing that religion was to be destroyed and in its place would be the Palace of the Soviets, a huge monument to the revolution, communism and the new utopia. In effect the Tower of Babel of the 20th Century. Gabo had lived next door to the site and was greatly enthused by the design challenge. His design was to create a tower flanked but two huge almost velodrome-like structures on either side for gatherings, assemblies, theatre and performances. In reality there never was a Palace of the Soviets. The site was a giant outdoor swimming pool for decades and eventually, post communism, the original cathedral was reconstructed on the instruction of Boris Yeltsin, which is probably more testament to the power of Orthodox religion, rather than anything else. Gabo’s design however, is recognised as a success and achieved cult status as it was mislabelled and effectively lost in the Moscow Shchusev Museum. It was only rediscovered in the late 1960s.
The British ‘Starchitect’ of the present day, Norman Foster, was once a humble student (this itself is a fact that is hard to believe by anyone who has heard him speak) studying a post graduate masters in architecture at Yale University in America. He chose Gabo’s design for the Palace of the Soviets as the subject of his thesis. He corresponded with Gabo in the late 60s extensively and thought the work, despite the lack of detail, was of immense quality,
‘The importance of Gabo to architecture is his capacity to suggest the way in which surfaces can enclose volumes with all the intuitive awareness of the forces at work and their relationship to form….. On an architectural scale this is the quality we expect to find today in a small elite of architect engineers’
Quality but lack of detail is probably something anyone who has had to work with Foster himself would recognise, that is if one listens to gossip.
It became obvious to Gabo that by 1932 he was no longer welcome in Germany and he left for Paris where he spent a few years stifled by oppressive more traditional Parisian arts. In 1936 he moved to London and found himself revived artistically, mainly through the discovery of Plexigalss (Perspex). He also met his future wife, Miriam, who was also an artist. Soon he had created a series of Spheric Theme works and the Construction in Space works. The Construction in Space work of 1937 is still probably recognisable today. It is fully transparent, made entirely of plastic and formed into a distorted polyhedron, defined by a centrifugal curve. It appears to be almost made from string, making the piece appear almost to move and twist.
The iconic 1937 Linear Construction in Space was apparently inspired by the freedom of Leningrad. Despite being based in England, Gabo felt the war in his own country deeply and was often frustrated by his own exile and inability to force change. The piece uses actual strings made of nylon woven round a clear acrylic frame. Again it seems to twist without moving. No. 2 in the series is larger and perhaps even more asymmetric. He described it as his favourite work.
Gabo moved again, this time to America where he died in 1977. By chance he was reunited with his brother, Alexi, before his death and left behind a visual and practical legacy. He left his studio assistant, Charles Wilson, a simple sealed box with instructions that it was only to be opened after the death of himself, his wife and only daughter. In 1992 in conjunction with Nina, Gabo’s daughter, Wilson took the box to the Tate Britain, where Gabo’s archive was housed. It contained the templates for the Constructed Head and many other works thought lost. Alexi had smuggled these out of the Soviet Union some time in the 1950s. The researchers at the archive catalogued and recreated copies of the templates so the works can be both preserved and reinvented for ever.
But should they be? Should we reduce the works to a collection of templates slotted together in various materials. I think we should, it is a way of making it live for ever, constantly regenerating as we invent new things to make it with. I am going to attempt to remake Column, as it’s my favourite. I’ll use drinking straws in fluorescent green for the circles and cut pieces of over-head-projector sheets for the structure, but I will enhance them with glitter. I think Gabo would approve, he had a sense of humour.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/naum-gabo-1137
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Naum-Gabo-Natalia-Sidlina/dp/1849760667
He was born in 1890 in the tiny village of Klimovichi, in what is now Belarus. His family were ethnic Russian and Jewish and relatively affluent. The family must have appreciated art, his older brother also ended up a famous sculptor, living and working in Paris for most of his life.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who spent most of their life in the west, Gabo remains least famous in Russia. Art historian and lecturer Natalia Sidlina has made it her life’s work to publicise his art and to try and let the Russians of today see his work. She collaborated with the on going project at the Tate Britain to exhibit and document the extensive archive of his notes and material. She also recently published her own illustrated book on Gabo and I heard her speak at Pushkin House in London. Her engaging enthusiasm for Gabo’s work and strange eccentricities is catching and afterwards I went to see his pieces at the Tate Modern and outside St Thomas Hospital in London. I have since realised that I have also seen the giant and impressive Monument to the Political Prisoner in Rotterdam. Gabo knew how to create a mystery, he was also ahead of his times in creating a legacy.
By all accounts the young Gabo was not overly interested in school, once even being expelled for subversive poetry. Early attempts to conform by studying medicine did not result in a great deal of success either. However, he did find a niche in 1910 in Munich when studying engineering and philosophy. He never did finish his engineering studies or work as an engineer, but the study of materials, mathematical balance and energy was to have a lasting influence on his ideas.
Being Jewish in Germany in 1914 made Gabo an alien and he found himself with his brother in exile in Norway. The fjords and the Oslo (then Christiania) cityscape seem to have agreed with him and he began to work seriously on his ideas, the most well known of these are the Constructed Head Series. No. 2 in the series is Gabo’s lasting legacy and his most well known work, often strangely referred to as the ‘Madonna of the 20th Century’. He called his method of work the stereometric method, i.e creating open planar structures which replaced traditional solid masses of stone or bronze. He used individual pieces of card, specially sized and angled, which slotted together to form a light, air filled image within a defined solid space. The original head disappeared and reappeared over time and was recreated, constructed out of different materials, sometimes paper or card, metal and even latterly plastic to different scales.
The ideas of the Bolshevik revolution captured the imagination of Gabo and his brother and they returned to Russia in 1917, settling in Moscow where the theories of Russian Constructivism were taking hold. Gabo produced several works during this period themed around the principles of Kinetic Construction. This idea explored that principle that sculpture could move and hold a rhythm of its own. Standing Wave is the most famous example of this, where Gabo used a motor to vibrate a metal rod so quickly the naked eye can only see the wave form it creates as a moving solid. During his Moscow period he also created the mysterious Column which returns to the stereometric method of interlocking separate pieces self supporting and slotted together. He recreated column many times with different materials and to different scales. The earliest version was constructed in 1920 from celluloid planes which now looks like the perfect 1970 Danish Bakelite construction. I think it’s strangely beautiful.
Berlin in the 1920s was a hive of alternative and artistic creativity. Gabo relocated there in 1922 and ran and organised many exhibitions, lectured and achieved status as an innovator in his field of non-objective art. During this period Gabo primarily used transparent glasses and plastics in stark geometric shapes, scientific in theme, typified by the Construction in Space series and Torsion. An example of kinetic torsion is visible today in the revolving fountain outside St Thomas’s Hospital in London erected in 1972 and uses water to create the movement and life to the form.
One of his more unusual projects of the Berlin period was the set of the Sergei Diaghilev Ballet, La Chatte. He covered the walls and floors in black oil cloths, the set was constructed of transparent geometric shapes in cellulose, including some of the dancers’ costumes and illuminated from both above and below. La Chatte was regarded as truly avant garde, and ran for 15 years. Unfortunately, there are very few images in circulation of the performances. I would have like to have seen it. Even today it would look futuristic.
One of his last Berlin-based undertakings, prior to the rise of the Third Reich which led to his departure, was his participation in the competition for the design of the Palace of The Soviets. The Soviets destroyed the historic Christ the Saviour’s orthodox cathedral in the centre of Moscow, believing that religion was to be destroyed and in its place would be the Palace of the Soviets, a huge monument to the revolution, communism and the new utopia. In effect the Tower of Babel of the 20th Century. Gabo had lived next door to the site and was greatly enthused by the design challenge. His design was to create a tower flanked but two huge almost velodrome-like structures on either side for gatherings, assemblies, theatre and performances. In reality there never was a Palace of the Soviets. The site was a giant outdoor swimming pool for decades and eventually, post communism, the original cathedral was reconstructed on the instruction of Boris Yeltsin, which is probably more testament to the power of Orthodox religion, rather than anything else. Gabo’s design however, is recognised as a success and achieved cult status as it was mislabelled and effectively lost in the Moscow Shchusev Museum. It was only rediscovered in the late 1960s.
The British ‘Starchitect’ of the present day, Norman Foster, was once a humble student (this itself is a fact that is hard to believe by anyone who has heard him speak) studying a post graduate masters in architecture at Yale University in America. He chose Gabo’s design for the Palace of the Soviets as the subject of his thesis. He corresponded with Gabo in the late 60s extensively and thought the work, despite the lack of detail, was of immense quality,
‘The importance of Gabo to architecture is his capacity to suggest the way in which surfaces can enclose volumes with all the intuitive awareness of the forces at work and their relationship to form….. On an architectural scale this is the quality we expect to find today in a small elite of architect engineers’
Quality but lack of detail is probably something anyone who has had to work with Foster himself would recognise, that is if one listens to gossip.
It became obvious to Gabo that by 1932 he was no longer welcome in Germany and he left for Paris where he spent a few years stifled by oppressive more traditional Parisian arts. In 1936 he moved to London and found himself revived artistically, mainly through the discovery of Plexigalss (Perspex). He also met his future wife, Miriam, who was also an artist. Soon he had created a series of Spheric Theme works and the Construction in Space works. The Construction in Space work of 1937 is still probably recognisable today. It is fully transparent, made entirely of plastic and formed into a distorted polyhedron, defined by a centrifugal curve. It appears to be almost made from string, making the piece appear almost to move and twist.
The iconic 1937 Linear Construction in Space was apparently inspired by the freedom of Leningrad. Despite being based in England, Gabo felt the war in his own country deeply and was often frustrated by his own exile and inability to force change. The piece uses actual strings made of nylon woven round a clear acrylic frame. Again it seems to twist without moving. No. 2 in the series is larger and perhaps even more asymmetric. He described it as his favourite work.
Gabo moved again, this time to America where he died in 1977. By chance he was reunited with his brother, Alexi, before his death and left behind a visual and practical legacy. He left his studio assistant, Charles Wilson, a simple sealed box with instructions that it was only to be opened after the death of himself, his wife and only daughter. In 1992 in conjunction with Nina, Gabo’s daughter, Wilson took the box to the Tate Britain, where Gabo’s archive was housed. It contained the templates for the Constructed Head and many other works thought lost. Alexi had smuggled these out of the Soviet Union some time in the 1950s. The researchers at the archive catalogued and recreated copies of the templates so the works can be both preserved and reinvented for ever.
But should they be? Should we reduce the works to a collection of templates slotted together in various materials. I think we should, it is a way of making it live for ever, constantly regenerating as we invent new things to make it with. I am going to attempt to remake Column, as it’s my favourite. I’ll use drinking straws in fluorescent green for the circles and cut pieces of over-head-projector sheets for the structure, but I will enhance them with glitter. I think Gabo would approve, he had a sense of humour.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/naum-gabo-1137
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Naum-Gabo-Natalia-Sidlina/dp/1849760667
